1991-03-05

[Stage Direction]
A message from His Excellency the Governor General transmitting Supplementary Estimates (C) for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1991, was presented by the President of the Treasury Board and Minister of State for Finance and read by Mr. Speaker to the House.

Hon. Gilles Loiselle (President of the TVeasury Board and Minister of State (Finance)):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to move, pursuant to the provisions of Standing Order 81(5) and Standing Order 81(6):
That the Supplementary Estimates (C) for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1991, laid upon the table this day, be referred to the several standing committees of the House as follows:

Since the list is long and detained, I would ask that it be printed in Hansard at this point without being read.


Mr. Speaker:: Is that agreed?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.
[Editor's Note: List referred to above is as follows:]
To the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs
Indian Affairs and Northern Development, Votes lc and 15c To the Standing Committee on Agriculture
Agriculture, Votes lc, 5, 15, 20c and 40c To the Standing Committee on Communications and Culture Communications, Votes lc, 10c, 30c, 46c, 47c, 67c and 72c Secretary of State, Votes lc, 5c and 35c
lb the Standing Committee on Consumer and Corporate Affairs and Government Operations
Consumer and Corporate Affairs, Votes lc and 35c
Parliament, Votes lc and 2c
Privy Council, Votes lc and 5c
Public Works, Votes 5c, 10c, 16c and L17c
Secretary of State, Votes 25c and 26c
Supply and Services, Votes 5c and 10c
Treasury Board Vote 15c
To the Standing Committee on Energy, Mines and Resources Energy, Mines and Resources, Vote L15c To the Standing Committee on Environment Environment, Vote 15c
To the Standing Committee on External Affairs and International Trade
External Affairs, Votes lc, 10c, L13c, 20c, 35c and 65c lb the Standing Committee on Finance Finance, Votes lc, 13c, 20c and 25c National Revenue, Votes lc, 5c and 10c To the Standing Committee on Forestry and Fisheries Fisheries and Oceans, Votes lc and 10c Forestry, Votes lc and 10c
To the Standing Committee on Human Rights and Status of Disabled Persons
Justice, Vote 10c
lb the Standing Committee on Justice and Solicitor General Justice, Votes 5c, 15c, 20c and 40c Solicitor General, Votes 10c and 25c
To the Standing Committee on Labour, Employment and Immigration
Employment and Immigration, Votes lc, 6c, 10c, 17c and 20c Labour, Vote 15c
To the Standing Committee on National Defence and Veterans Affairs
National Defence, Votes lc, 10c, Lllc and 20c

Routine Proceedings
Veterans Affairs, Vote lc
To the Standing Committee on Health and Welfare, Social Affairs,
Seniors and the Status of Women Employment and Immigration Vote 35c National Health and Welfare, Votes lc, 5c, 15c, 30c and 35c
To the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology,
Regional and Northern Development
Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, Votes lc and 5c
Indian Affairs and Northern Development, Votes 30c, 35c, 40c, 45c and 50c
Industry, Science and Technology, Votes 40c, 70c, 75c and 80c
To the Standing Committee on Transport Transport, Votes lc, 2c, 18c, 20c, 25c, 40c and 45c
That the Privy Council Vote 20c be referred to the Standing Joint
Committee on Official Languages; and
That a message be sent to the Senate to acquaint Their Honours
thereof.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

Mr. Albert Cooper (Parliamentary Secretary to Leader of the Government in the House of Commons):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8), I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government's response to 49 petitions.
[Editor's Note: See today's Votes and Proceedings.]


Mr. Nelson A. Riis (Kamloops):: Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to present a petition, pursuant to Standing Order 36, on behalf of a number of constituents from Kamloops, British Columbia.
They are very hopeful and optimistic people because they are calling upon the government to withdraw the goods and services tax. I guess they never give up, and I applaud them. They can hang in there, Mr. Speaker, and one day, who knows?
On behalf of those constituents, they are asking the government to reconsider the implementation of this tax.


Mr. Stan Keyes (Hamilton West):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour and duty, pursuant to Standing Order 36, to present the following petition signed by constituents in Hamilton, Stoney Creek, and Burlington.
They believe that a great woman, Marie Sklodowska-Curie, be honoured for her scientific contributions to humanity. They believe that the gift of the discovery of radium to heal the sick of the world deserves to be recognized by Canada.
The petitioners humbly pray and call upon Parliament to honour Marie Sklodowska-Curie by issuing a commemorative stamp on the occasion of the 125th anniversary of her birth, November 7, 1992.


Mr. Jesse Flis (Parkdale-High Park):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, I too have similar petitions to that of my colleague from Hamilton. These are signed by petitioners from Toronto and the Ontario region. They too call upon Parliament to urge this government to strike a stamp in honour of Marie Sklodowska-Curie.
Many countries around the world have already issued stamps to honour Madam Curie's scientific contribution to humanity. It is time that Canada gave like recognition. If present guidelines do not allow the selection committee to recommend such a stamp, then the government should change the guidelines.
It is an honour for me to present them today in the week when we will be celebrating International Women's Day on Friday.


Mr. Rex Crawford (Kent):: Mr. Speaker, once again, I am honoured to rise in the House, pursuant to Standing Order 36, with a petition from constituents of my riding who are still fighting the GST.
They state that this will hit them not only with higher taxes, but with higher inflation, higher interest rates and higher unemployment, which has been proven out in the last few months.


Mr. Guy Saint-Julien (Abitibi):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36,1 wish to table a petition from the people of Sainte-Gertrude, in the Abitibi, who demand that the government of Canada abandons its plans to
March 5, 1991

build a parking garage and a shopping concourse under the Parliament of Canada, recognizing that the environment as well as the historical character of the Hill and its buildings must be preserved.


Mr. Lyle Kristiansen (Kootenay West-Revelstoke):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise, pursuant to Standing Order 36, with eight petitions from my constituency of Kootenay West-Revelstoke. The petitions have been certified correct as to form and content.
The petitioners are asking Parliament either to defeat or repeal Bill C-84, an act respecting the privatization of the national petroleum company of Canada, and to keep Petro-Canada as a Crown corporation acting in the best interests of all Canadians.
The petitioners come from a wide variety of communities throughout the West Kootenays: the cities of Castle-gar, Nelson, Rossland, Trail; the villages of Fruitvale, Caswell, Montrose, New Denver, Salmo, Slocan and Silverton; and the communities of Blueberry, Robson, Slocan Park, Winlaw and Argenta.
There is also a small number from Penticton, British Columbia, Toronto and Ottawa.


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, Question No. 446 will be answered today.


Mr. Rodriguez: How many Treasury Bills were purchased by banks and financial institutions in Canada between 1980 and 1990?


Hon. Michael Holcombe Wilson (Minister of Finance):: Approximately $33.6 billion, on a net basis, in Government of Canada Treasury bills were purchased between the first quarter of 1980 and the third quarter of 1990
Routine Proceedings
(data for the fourth quarter of 1990 are not yet available).
Financial Institution Inflows of Treasury Bills
1980: Q1 to 1990: Q3
($ millions)	
Sector	Amount
Chartered Banks	6331
Quebec Savings Bank	-1
Credit Unions & Caisses Populaires	2460
Thist Companies	6240
Mortgage Loan Companies	1146
Life Insurance Companies	1063
Life Insurance Segregated Funds	652
Trusteed Pension Plans	6847
Investment Dealers	2202
Mutual Funds	3054
Property & Casualty Insurance	907
Consumer Loan Companies	268
Accident & Sickness Insurance	230
Other (not elsewhere included)	603
Federal Crowns (Finance)	32
Provincial Crowns (Finance)	1596
(Source: Statistics Canada, Financial Flows Accounts)


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: The questions as enumerated by the parliamentary secretary have been answered.


Albert Glen Cooper: I ask, Mr. Speaker, that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Shall the remaining questions stand?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.
Government Orders



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


Hon. Barbara McDougall (for the Minister of Finance) moved: that Bill C-97, an act to provide borrowing authority, be read the second time and referred to a legislative committee.
She said: Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to open this debate today on Bill C-97, an act to provide borrowing authority. I should say as a member of the cabinet that it was the borrowing authority bill which was one of my first duties in this House in 1985. I am delighted to be able to introduce this legislation again today, a very important part of government operations.
To begin, it is important to set this bill in the right context, and that is in the context of the economic policies of the government as they were set out last week in the budget speech of the Minister of Finance.

That Budget Speech set out a plan for economic recovery that will lead this country to further growth and renewed prosperity. The key to that recovery is lower interest rates, interest rates which will encourage economic activity.

We are going to bring about those lower rates by doing three things that were identified last week in the House by the Minister of Finance: first, we are going to set clear, achievable inflation targets; second, we will move government finances along the way towards a balanced budget; and, third, we will severely restrain government operations.
Together, these proposed measures are a commitment to effective government management and control, something which will serve Canada well for years to come and which we have followed since we were in office, following many years of neglect.
These measures will tightly control spending. Program spending will be limited to 3 per cent growth per year after 1991-92. They will hold the deficit to $30.5 billion this year and next and, in 1992-93, reduce it to below $25
billion for the first time in a decade. The measures will enable the government to eliminate new federal borrowing in financial markets in 1993-94.
In other words, as we look at the bill before us, we should keep in mind that the measures in this budget will substantially reduce the amount of borrowing authority which the government will need in the future.
The subject of government borrowing, a veiy important one, naturally brings to mind two things which we should consider: the public debt and the deficit. In past periods of recession, governments have typically resorted to additional spending, and suspended their concern about the government's fiscal position. Members opposite who would have us do the same thing today ignore the fact that, in those earlier times, the government was not carrying the burden it does today, a burden of 20 years of persistently high deficits and accumulating debt because Liberal governments increased spending not only in difficult times, to meet emergencies and to promote economic growth, but also in good times instead of cutting back.
I am reminded of the biblical story of the seven years of famine and the seven years of feast when one has to save for the bad times. It is worth remembering that an increase in spending above that proposed in the budget would be directly reflected in the amount of borrowing authority requested in this bill.


An hon. member:: I remember the good old days.


Barbara Jean McDougall: Oh, yes. The good old days that led us into the trouble that we are in today.
Our public debt is forecast to reach $400 billion by mid-year. The interest cost alone will amount to more than $43 billion next year, more than is spent on old age security, unemployment insurance, and family allowances combined.

Our government has been responsible in its approach to this problem. Since coming to office in 1984, we have waged a difficult battle to reduce the deficit and increase our control over the debt. Progress has been made. We have substantially reduced the growth of the debt, and we have halved the deficit as a proportion of national income.
March 5, 1991

In 1989, the Minister of Finance set out a medium-term fiscal goal of bringing new government borrowing in financial markets to an end by 1994-95. This would be achieved by sharply reducing the deficit. This goal was reaffirmed in the 1990 Budget, which included new measures to ensure that it could be reached.
The Budget presented last week proposes further action to ensure that we reach this goal, despite the reduced revenues and higher expenditures resulting from the weak economy, and despite higher debt charges resulting from higher interest rates.

We are extending the existing expenditure control plan, because discipline and sustained restraint of program spending is the key to deficit reduction and debt control. The two-year program announced last year will be extended to a total of five years. Programs subject to this plan will grow at an average annual rate of 1.7 per cent.
There are, of course, some important programs that are exempted, as there should be, and those are the income support programs for seniors, for families and for veterans, unemployment insurance, and equalization. Other exemptions are Canada Assistance Plan payments to lower income provinces and Indian and Inuit programs. These exempt programs, accounting for 60 per cent of all program, spending will grow by an average annual rate of 3.9 per cent over the life of the plan.
Furthermore, we are reforming government management. We are intensifying the restraint that has been in place since 1984, which was so essential at that time and remains essential today, and which has reduced operating costs in real terms over the intervening period.
Salaries of MPs and ministers will be restrained, as will Public Service salaries, including those of executives, deputy ministers and heads of Crown corporations.
Layers of management, built up through inertia over the years, will be removed. The number of senior managers in the Public Service will be reduced by 10 per cent. Capital spending and non-wage operating budgets will be frozen at 1990-91 levels.
Government Orders
Moreover, Mr. Speaker, the government will be taking new steps that will compliment these restraint measures. Spending limits will be legislated to ensure that the budget's spending track will be met.
We will establish a special fund, a Debt Servicing and Reduction Fund, to ensure that all revenues from the GST are directed to reducing the deficit.


An hon. member:: What happened to revenue neutral?


Barbara Jean McDougall: Of course you'd say "revenue neutral".


Mr. Milliken:: A lot of malarkey.


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, this is definitely not malarkey, this is a significant step forward. Canadians from all walks of life know that we cannot continue to mortgage our future, and they want to make sure that the money we spend will go to reducing the debt that was built up through all those profligate years that came before.


Some hon. members:: Right on.


Barbara Jean McDougall: I am sure these measures will, of course, have the support of all members of this House and it will bring us on schedule to the point at which new borrowing will not be required. That will be a great day for all Canadians, Mr. Speaker.
These are serious measures and I am really sorry that the members opposite do not regard our fiscal situation as a serious one. They require serious attention if they are to be understood. Nowhere is this more true than in considering their impact on the programs that are offered through my department, through employment and immigration. I want to spend a few minutes talking about those programs now.
There have been a variety of claims made by hon. members opposite about the impact of this plan on unemployed Canadians. Well, I want to assure this House that we have made serious commitments to unemployed Canadians from the beginning and we continue to meet those concerns.
Members have particularly seized on one decision, and that was the reduction of $100 million in the Canadian Jobs Strategy budget. They argued, falsely of course, that the government was leaving the unemployed out in the cold. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Government Orders

After the election of 1984, this government reviewed the hodge-podge of job creation and training programs left by the Liberals. The result of this review was the introduction of the Canadian Jobs Strategy in 1985.
With CJS we streamlined training and employment programs. We moved away from the kind of make-work program which had left participants with no more skills and no more ability to break the unemployment cycle than they had had before.
As members on both sides of this House will know from the experience of their own constituents, CJS programs have improved on those that existed previously-
Programs such as Community Futures have enabled people to create stronger local economies. Job development programming has strongly emphasized the skills trainees can use in the private sector.
Innovative approaches to basic skill training have been developed. To meet the challenges of changing technology, we introduced the Skill Shortages and Skill Investment Programs. These programs have helped young people and women re-entering the labour force.
Two years ago, we had to review our support for training and adjustment programs.

We were not alone, of course, in recognizing this need to restructure the hurly-burly of programs that had grown up over the years: the Macdonald Royal commission, the Forget report, the de Grandpre report, as well as the committee report of this House from the Standing Committee on Labour, Employment and Immigration in the last Parliament, all pointed in the same direction, that our facilities for the unemployed needed changing.
Canada needed an active labour market policy, and while there might have been some disagreement among all those groups on what the policy should be, there was certainly agreement that the government should lead the way in developing an active labour market policy and that, indeed, is what we have done. We have developed a program that helps workers adapt to changing demands,
not one that assumed that those changes would never happen, which is what existed before.
The result of this review process was the Labour Force Development Strategy which I introduced in this House on April 11, 1989, a program which I think is a major achievement for this government and for the people of Canada. The LFDS has been designed to deal with two problems which have existed for a long time. First, Canadian workers all too often lack the skills to get and keep good jobs, that not only would make them better participants in the labour market, but also give them a more satisfying sense of participation and of looking after their families and their families' futures.
The second is Canadian employers who have jobs but who lack the skilled workers that they need in order to fill those jobs. We find consistently that there are areas where there is a mismatch between the jobs available and the skills of those available to fill them.
Our strategy is based on the idea of partnerships; partnerships with employers, with labour, with education and with provinces and territories in a way that we have not seen before. The federal government cannot shoulder the responsibility of training Canada's workers all by itself. What we can do, however, is work with others to increase the amount and quality of training that does take place to ensure that it is relevant for workers and for employers.
The latest step in developing this partnership was the announcement on January 14 of this year of the Canadian Labour Force Development Board. This body will bring together, for the first time ever in Canada, representatives of labour, business and social action groups to help us improve, among other things, not solely, the training of Canadian workers. What a breakthrough for Canada to be able to build the kind of partnership that is going to be needed in the decade ahead and that had been ignored for so long.
Clearly, a key part of the implementation of the LFDS was improving the unemployment insurance program. We wanted to see UI continue to give income to unemployed workers, but at the same time do more, and to provide active in addition to passive help. We wanted UI to be part of this active labour market program that Canadians need and want so much.
March 5, 1991

To achieve this, of course, under current circumstances, we faced a familiar choice. We could raise taxes to pay for these new programs. We could borrow the money, thereby boosting the sums authorized in bills like the one we are discussing today, Bill C-97, or we could find a better way. As usual, we chose the fiscally sound way. We expanded the active side of UI programming and we asked that employers and workers, those who benefit from unemployment insurance, should carry its cost.
Bill C-21 was finally passed into law last fall, after a year's delay by the Liberals in the other place and it provided for this expanded role in spite, of the usual opposition urgings that less was more. As a result, this year the UI program is contributing $1.4 billion for training, training allowances, and employment assistance for UI recipients, money that will be used to train 45,000 more UI recipients than were trained last year.

So what, then, is the real significance of the reduction in funds for the Canadian Jobs Strategy which the budget calls for?
If we examine expenditures on training, training allowances and employment assistance, we find that this year more, not less, will be spent on these programs.
It is important for members to realize that, as important as CJS is, it is not the only element of the federal government's training and employment programming. As can be seen in the Estimates, the government has seen to it that this year over $3 billion will be spend on training, training allowances and employment assistance; that's $500 million more than was spend last year, and $900 million more than the year before. That's more, not less, help for Canadian workers.

In the case of our decision to raise unemployment insurance premiums, we were faced with another difficult choice. As the Minister of Finance noted in the budget, labour market conditions have produced a greater demand for benefits than we could possibly have anticipated.
The expected deficit in the UI account, therefore, would have required large premium increases in 1993
Government Orders
and beyond to eliminate the accumulated deficit and to pay the interest which would be also accumulating inside the fund on that debt.
The more immediate impact of that deficit would be to increase the current cash flow requirements of the government. Without new premium revenues to offset the deficit, the need to borrow would once again increase, and interest on that borrowing would compound the debt problem that we already face.
This is not a time to postpone difficult decisions. UI premiums should rise now, not later. There will still be a deficit in the UI account, and I want to make it clear that the government will finance that deficit. At the end of the day after all, the government represents the taxpayers and those who pay premiums. While the government will finance that deficit, it will be nowhere near as great as it would have been had we not acted now.
In this, as always, the government has acted prudently. We recognize the many needs that government is called on to serve, but we also recognize that it is a delusion, the notion that we can forever expect future generations to be able to pay for our decisions.
The plan for economic recovery, then, makes choices that will help us to return to prosperous conditions and, at the same time, give back to government the financial health that it needs to do its job properly.


An hon. member:: You are making babies cry.


Barbara Jean McDougall: I can assure you, Mr. Speaker, that when that young child grows up, Canada will be a much better place as a result of the policies which this government has introduced.
It is important that we give back to government the financial health that it needs to do its job properly. We do take that responsibility very seriously.
In the meantime, of course, significant borrowing continues to be necessary, and that is why we are here today.
The provisions of this bill are clear and straightforward. First, there is a provision for authority to cover our anticipated requirement for borrowing to meet the net financial requirements, as stated in the budget in a perfectly straight-forward manner.

Government Orders
The amount requested includes provisions to cover the estimated exchange account earnings and a $3 billion reserve to manage foreign exchange transactions. Together, these amount to a request for authority to borrow $26.4 billion.
I should explain, of course, to members opposite one technical point. The request for authority to cover exchange fund earnings, as in previous years, reflects the fact that these earnings reported in the Public Accounts as budgetary revenues give rise to additional Canadian dollar requirements. That is because they are retained on the account and they are not available to finance government operations.
The $3 billion reserve is the same amount as that requested in borrowing authority bills in the last four years. There is nothing unusual about it.

This bill provides, as usual, that at the end of the fiscal year, in this case March 31, 1992, any unused borrowing authority under this bill in excess of $3 billion will be cancelled. This provision preserves the government's non-lapsing reserve into the next year to accommodate the possibility that new borrowing authority may not be provided before the start of the next fiscal year.
As well, the bill cancels the similar $3 billion reserve granted in last year's borrowing authority, the cancellation being effective on the latter of March 31,1991 or the date this bill comes into force.
I want to remind hon. members that this bill provides a borrowing authority which the government needs to meet its requirement for 1991-92. It is important that it be considered in a timely manner.

Sometimes time is of the essence when borrowing authority is involved. For example, the Government of Canada bond issue to be offered for sale March 12 will use up virtually all of the borrowing authority granted for 1990-91. Day-to-day cash flows are volatile, but we expect it will be necessary to use section 47 of the Financial Administration Act for Treasury bills to be sold in the last half of March.

Until Bill C-97 is in place to deal with the next fiscal year, only short-term debt instruments can be sold, and the government cannot maintain the desired balance of short and long-term debt. This balance is carefully designed to reduce the government's exposure to increases in debt service charges resulting from short-term changes in interest rates.

Mr. Speaker, this bill contains no unusual provision, and the information required to understand it is set out fully in the budget documents and in the Main Estimates. I would, therefore, urge the House to proceed with it as quickly as possible so that new borrowing authority will be in place at the beginning of the new fiscal year, and so the government's regular borrowing program can proceed.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Ms. Sheila Copps (Hamilton East):: Mr. Speaker, it is time for a change, real change. This morning's performance of the President of the Treasury Board was one good example of how we desperately need a change. Yesterday, he promised us answers on the spending of the Spicer commission; yesterday he said: " Wait until tomorrow and we will give you the facts".


Jesse Philip Flis: We are waiting.


Sheila Maureen Copps: In fact, Mr. Speaker, the Supplementary Estimates that he has tabled today shows that almost $18 million will have been spent by this commission up to the fiscal year March 31.
It is likely that at the end of this process this will go down in history as the most expensive royal commission ever to have sat. Given the nature of the work of the commission, one would not argue that it is worth spending money to try and save this country; but when you have a president who, by his own admission, last night refused to call himself a federalist, you have to ask yourself whether, in fact, the money that the federal taxpayers are spending on the Spicer commission is not simply going down a black hole.
I would like to quote what he said because I think Canadians were shocked and horrified to hear his response when asked the simple question: "Are you-well, let me ask it anyway-are you a federalist?"
March 5, 1991

"I am a Canadian and I don't really care what the plumbing is; I really don't care. I am totally indifferent to whether we have a federal or a con-federal or a sovereignty association regime, as long as the great civilizations of this country have managed to consolidate a sensible creative alliance".


Jesse Philip Flis: What great nations did he call?


Sheila Maureen Copps: The president of the commission appointed by this Prime Minister, the very Prime Minister who, day after day refuses to answer our questions on this issue in the House of Commons, is not even prepared to call himself a federalist.

The President of the Treasury Board came to the House and promised us some figures on the Spicer Commission's expenditures, but he is still Mr. See no Evil. We have hear no evil, see no evil and speak no evil. Speak no evil, Mr. Speaker, is the Prime Minister who never rises from his seat and is even afraid to answer our questions about Confederation. Even worse, Mr. Speaker, the chairman of the commission established by the Prime Minister to find a formula to save Canada is not even willing to call himself a federalist. He referred to the government's policy as "plumbing". Mr. Speaker, plumbing is one of those important things that make a house work. I would like to know whether he is prepared to live in a house without plumbing.
Mr. Speaker, I think that finding a formula for power sharing is important where Canada's revenues are concerned.

That is why I say that it is time for real change. Close to 1,500,000 Canadians will be on the unemployment lines as a result of the economic policies of this government. We have a Minister of Employment and Immigration who was just bragging about their wonderful record in the House of Commons-1,500,000 Canadians without hope.


An hon. member:: Some record.


Sheila Maureen Copps: One in six Canadian children goes to bed hungry every night. Bankruptcies skyrocketed last month, 55,000 last year alone.


An hon. member:: What a record.
Government Orders


Sheila Maureen Copps: When confronted with these sorts of facts, what do the Minister of Finance and the President of the Treasury Board do? They slash and cut. They slash $100 million from the Canadian Jobs Strategy. If that Minister of Employment had any concern for the people she is supposed to be representing, she would have done the honourable thing and resigned after her Minister of Finance gutted the proposals for the Canadian Jobs Strategy.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear!


Sheila Maureen Copps: They slashed almost a billion dollars from programs to help Canada's poor and increased unemployment insurance premiums for the salaried people of this country by a whopping 24 per cent.

Mr. Speaker, in his budget, the Minister of Finance announced that he was going to cut $525 million in funding for non-profit organizations over the next five years. In 1991-92, $75 million will be cut. In the Estimates tabled last Thursday by the President of the Treasury Board, it is impossible to find out which organizations will be affected. Will it be the groups that take care of women in distress?

Are they going to try and cut the women's organizations as they did in a sneaky way in the last budget?

Will it be the organizations that run food banks? [English]
Are they going to cut funding to food banks? [Translation]
The government is attacking Canadians on two fronts. It creates poverty through a recession and cutbacks in social services, and then it cuts funding to the organizations that try to help the victims of government policy. This is a total abdication of responsibility, Mr. Speaker.

R. B. Bennett gave us the dirty thirties. This Minister of Finance is giving Canadians the nasty nineties. Worst of all, it is clear that the minister and his cabinet are no longer content with merely putting medicare in intensive care. The budget makes it clear that this government wants to kill off our once proud health care system. The minister's cutbacks will reduce transfers to the provinces by $338 million next year and over the next five years provinces will have to make do with $2.3 billion less,

March 5, 1991
Government Orders
specifically in relation to the minister's budget. These cuts signal the end of medicare and our post-secondary education system, which is also put in grave jeopardy.
In the estimates alone, the minister's own figures tell the tale of over a billion dollar cut this year alone in the insured health services program.

On page 19-8 of the Estimates, we see a cut of over $1 billion in the Insured Health Services Program. Altogether, Mr. Speaker, this means $2.3 billion worth of cutbacks in transfer payments, in addition to a total of nearly $5 billion representing cutbacks in health services, education, subsidized housing and welfare services. This Budget and this government have launched a premeditated attack on the weakest members of our society.
We find that this billion dollar cut which is part of a $2.3 billion cut specifically in relation to transfer payments and a total of $5 billion in social spending is a direct attack on those people in our society who cannot afford to help themselves
Is the Minister of Finance telling the senior citizen who is waiting to get into a hospital bed that she is going to have to pay the price?
In 1985 this minister was forced to back off a vicious attack on senior citizens' pensions. He was forced to back off when a rather sprightly woman by the name of Mme Solange Denis got her way into Parliament and confronted the Prime Minister with those telling words: "Good-bye, Charlie Brown". Well, Mr. Speaker, it is about time we tell the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance that Canadians are going to say to those who would viciously destroy our medicare system: "Goodbye, Charlie Brown".
Not only has our medicare system long been the envy of the world, it is ironic, cruelly ironic, that at a time when the United States is moving ever closer to the establishment of a national health care system, our own government, this minister, and his cabinet colleagues are pushing us, kicking and screaming, toward an American health care system. For the sick, for the elderly, for the
disabled, health care is often the difference between life and death.
What does the minister have to say to those Canadians who depend on our health care system? What does he say in his budget? I quote:
I recognize that limiting the growth of transfers under Established
Programs Financing raises concerns about the ability of the federal
government to continue enforcing national medicare principles under
the Canada Health Act.
These are not words of the opposition, they are not the words of the Canadian Medical Association. They are the words of the Minister of Finance who states in his own budget that national medicare principles may no longer be enforceable under the Canada Health Act. He recognizes that Canadians are concerned, but he will not do anything about it.
Thatcherism may be dead and buried in Great Britain, thank God, but it is clear that Margaret Thatcher is alive and well, and living in Canada, and she is writing the Minister of Finance's speeches.
The EPF program was established in 1982 to replace existing federal funding arrangements. We recognize that EPF is not working as well as it should. Our leader, the hon. member for Beausejour, has made this point again, again and again. Many provinces have been diverting EPF transfers into general revenue funds. We need to ensure that federal dollars transferred for education and health are spent on education and health. Restricting Canada Assistance Plan benefits is not the answer. The poor living in Edmonton, Vancouver, Montreal or Chicoutimi are every bit as deserving as the poor in Winnipeg or Halifax.
Liberals believe the way to improve the system is to ensure that money diverted for health and for education is spent for health and education. Liberals also believe that the national government has a national responsibility to continue funding health care and education so that Canadians can have a guarantee of national standards from coast to coast to coast.
Tories believe the best way to help the system is by cutting off funds for medicare and students. Liberals believe the way to save the system is to spend the money where it is most needed. Why are the minister and his government turning their backs on the sick, the elderly, the disabled and Canada's youth? I will tell you why, Mr. Speaker. They do not give a damn about the sick and the
March 5, 1991

elderly because they, their Prime Minister, their Minister of Finance, and the rest of their tired government are not listening to Canadians. In January and February of this year, while the government was busily dismantling anything that makes us unique as Canadians, members of the Liberal caucus were crossing the country listening to what Canadians have to say. Thirty-five hearings were conducted with more than 300 submissions. We heard from business associations, labour unions, working men and women, social action groups, municipal and provincial representatives, cultural organizations, and ordinary Canadians.
Liberals listened to what Canadians had to say, and what they had to say is this. This government has lost the trust and confidence of the Canadian people. The economic policies of this government are hurting single mothers, children, students, workers, small businesses, and the shut-ins and sick.
As our economic task force travelled the country Canadians told us that they are being hurt and hurt badly by the economic policies of this minister and his government.
This is what the New Brunswick Chamber of Commerce told Liberals: "Over the past five years federal taxes have increased by 57 per cent for individuals and 25 per cent for businesses. This, along with the new GST, continues to place an increasing burden on the backs of Canadian businesses".
This is what the London Unemployment Help Centre told Liberals: "Most distressing to many of our unemployed clients in this recession is the fact that they cannot get their old jobs back when times get better. In fact, most of these people are permanently displaced".

This is what the Confederation of National Trade Unions had to say to the Liberals:
Continental economic restructuring is taking place at the expense
of Canada's economic sovereignty and is having a serious impact on
Canadian workers-
-and Canadian women in the labour force.
Government Orders

Here is what the vice-president of Hamilton Civic Hospital told us: "The cut in transfer payments from the federal government is having an impact on provincial transfers. The provincial government has had to restrict transfers to hospitals to the point where we feel the amount of money is less than the requirements to keep things going. With these cutbacks it becomes a rationing of services".
This is what the Manitoba Anti-Poverty Organization told the Liberals: "When Canadians lose their jobs they are forced to turn to unemployment insurance, but with the time limits on this benefit and the reductions in the job market, these people find themselves selling all their assets, overdrawn at the bank, and knocking on the doors of the welfare offices".
These are just some of the stories we heard directly from Canadians, and I think those stories say it all. With this budget, and with these estimates, the ministers are merely passing the buck to the provinces. The provinces will pass the buck to the municipalities, and the municipalities will pass the buck to the taxpayers.
For the minister who has introduced 33 tax increases since 1984 to say that his budget has no tax increases is nothing but black magic. When the minister cuts back on transfer payments, does he really expect us to believe that Canadians will not end up paying for this? Of course they will.
This government has rolled the dice once again with Canada's future, this time with Canada's economic future, and all Canadians are the losers.
Economists do not always agree on many things but most agree on this. This recession was made in Canada by this government, deliberately in a vicious attempt to pay off-


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Sheila Maureen Copps: -the government's debt, which has doubled since this government has come to power, on the backs of the poor, the unemployed, the sick, and those who can least help themselves.
We on this side of the House say that what we need now is more than a new budget. We, like the vast

March 5, 1991
Government Orders
majority of Canadians, want a new economic plan to lead us out of the recession as soon as possible, and we want a new government.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Thke a look at the polls. Canadians are saying in record numbers that they want more than a new economic plan. They want a new government.
So when this minister says that the budget is what Canadians need, I say prove it. Call an election and Canadians will tell you exactly what they think of the economic policies of this government. What Canadians want is not one single day more of Conservative government.
Mr. Speaker, Canada is a country built by the will of its citizens, both men and women. It is a complicated country; characterized by its great diversity, it extends over a vast geography, its people speak several languages, including two official ones, and live within cultural communities scattered over many regions.
This very diversity is our strength because it allows for the expression of an open society. But it is also its weakness, because its unity is difficult to maintain. Canadian men and women have succeeded in building a great country by sharing common values, by establishing such common institutions as Medicare, by setting up a unifying infrastructure, a country with its own distinctive voice on this continent.
However, ever since they came to power in 1984, Mr. Speaker, the Tories have made every effort to destroy what unites us as Canadians.
In his very first budget, the Minister of Finance was already striking at the root of our common values. Who does not remember the battle fought in this House by our colleague, the late Jean-Claude Malepart, who, together with Mrs. Solange Denis, forced the government to back down in its attack against the least affluent people in our society. The values expressed here by the former member for Laurier-Sainte-Marie are those which hold us all together as Canadians, such values as universal access to medicare which this government is in the process of trying to jeopardize.
The minister, in 1985, withdrew his proposals under the pressure of public opinion. Now, Mr. Speaker, the minister will have to withdraw as he did in 1985, failing which he would implement his program to destroy Canada in a sneaky way.
Over the years following 1984-85, the government dismantled VIA Rail, the main physical link holding together eastern and western Canada. The government silenced Canada's distinctive voice on this continent by developing its international policy on the model of Presidents Reagan and Bush. As far as our foreign policy is concerned, Canada is no longer an independent state, for it upholds the line set in Washington. This has been another devastation since 1984.
The government has committed our country to a Free Trade Agreement which is currently threatening our social programs, including our unemployment insurance plan. The government has sold out our interests to foreign investors without any control. It has weakened the vitality of our culture by denying Radio-Canada and the CBC the resources they need.
Mr. Speaker, perhaps the Tories do not understand how important it is for the CBC to maintain its presence everywhere in Canada. Perhaps they do not understand the very specific role regional stations have played in holding Canada together from sea to sea.
As members of the Liberal Party, we certainly do. We are ready not only to speak out, but to support financially, morally and spiritually the institutions which keep this country together, for without them, we would be faced with economic and constitutional chaos due to this government's policy.
To mend matters following the failure of the Meech Lake Accord the Conservative government has set up the citizen's forum chaired by Mr. Keith Spicer for the purpose supposedly of consulting Canadian men and women. We learn now that this is a blank cheque which was given to Mr. Spicer and the members of his great committee who are not even willing to state that they are federalists.


Mr. Prud'homme:: A bathtub without a stopper!


Sheila Maureen Copps: A bathtub without a stopper, as my colleague the hon. member for Saint-Denis puts it.
Just when we and all other Canadians desperately need realistic new solutions, just when we need rational

discussions, and just when we need to regain confidence in our national institutions, the Prime Minister and his creation are deceiving us once again.
When will the Prime Minister stop his amateurish game of playing Russian roulette with the future of our country?

The Prime Minister, as usual, is rolling the dice with the lives of Canadians as he has done so many times before. This time he is rolling the dice with the president of a commission who refuses even to state that he is a federalist. Just when Canadians desperately need realistic new solutions, just when they need rational discussions, just when they need to regain confidence in their institutions, the Prime Minister and his creation are deceiving them once more.
When will the Prime Minister stop his amateurish game of playing Russian roulette with the future of our country? When will he bring forward real constitutional reform that will give Canadians hope and belief once again in a federal and a national system that many of us want to protect, cherish and build upon?

This government, by shamelessly abusing the privileges of democracy, is responsible for the fact that Canadians have lost all confidence in our political institutions. This government, by deliberately engineering a recession, has pushed millions of our fellow citizens closer to poverty. This government's economic policies have undermined our industrial base and destroyed the source of our collective wealth. And now, Mr. Speaker, it is going after one of the jewels which is the pride of Canadians in Montreal, Vancouver and Halifax-our universal health insurance program.
Let us not kid ourselves, Mr. Speaker: by gradually withdrawing from this program funding the central government will lose our capacity to set national standards for medicare.

The transfer payment cuts have wielded a vicious attack on our capacity to have a health care system which is portable, which is universally accessible, and which gives Canadians good health care whether they live in Montreal, in Vancouver, in Hamilton, or in St. John's.
Government Orders

The government reduces health care funds, slashes appropriations for education, and cuts back financial support for the environment. It may be a bizarre and ridiculous coincidence but the amount taken out of the environmental budget is exactly the same as projected defence expenditures after March 31. Everybody knows the war is over but it so happens that the government has set $600 million aside-the very amount taken from environment-claiming the money will be for war costs after March 31.
These cut-backs can only create a larger long-term deficit, a social and environmental deficit. Mr. Speaker, health, education, and environment are our assets for the future. Funds earmarked for them are investments. They are not losses, as the government sees them, they are investments.
Mr. Speaker, the deficit is a fact which confronts millions of Canadians day in and day out. One million children live below the poverty level. One and a half million Canadians are out of work. In our supposedly developed country, 25 per cent of our fellow Canadians live in poverty. That is Canada's real deficit.
The Minister of Finance justifies his budget on the basis of personal forecasts; if they prove to be accurate, he says, the country will be just fine. How are we to believe the Minister of Finance when he assures us that inflation will be down to 2 per cent next year and that the deficit will be reduced to $6.1 billion in 1995-96? How can we believe members opposite when they talk about the figures of the Conservative government?
This same Minister of Finance predicted in 1985 that this year's deficit would amount to $18 billion. Mr. Speaker, we Liberals did not double the debt over the past six years. That was done by this government. We did not say in 1985-during a mandate of the Conservative government-that this year's deficit would be $18 billion, the Minister of Finance did. His predictions have ended in failure, just where he is now headed as he is confronted with the aspirations of Canadians. Are we expected to believe the government, remembering as we do the day they told us that administering the GST would cost $325 million, yet we found out in the Estimates tabled this week that about $700 million will be more like it, including salaries?

Government Orders
How can we believe the predictions of this government which a mere three months ago predicted that the administration of the GST would cost us $325 million. We learned, again hidden behind the pages of chaos of the minister, that in fact the GST administration alone is going to cost Canadians more than double the original prediction. It is going to cost them $700 million; two-thirds of $1 billion, the cost for collecting.
Canadians and Liberals have been calling loud and long for a new economic plan. We want a plan based on lower interest rates and a lower dollar. We want adjustment programs.
I think we should cast ourselves back to the promise by this Prime Minister who, upon introducing the free trade agreement, guaranteed that there would be specific programs for those workers who lost their jobs as a result of the free trade displacement.
What has he produced? Not one single program to help those 1.5 million Canadians who he is predicting will be on the unemployment lines next year, and not a single program for those hundreds of thousands of people in my city, in my province, in the manufacturing heartland, in the province of Quebec and across the country who have lost their jobs as a direct result of his government's trade deal.
The Minister of National Revenue could not even convince his own brother to stay in Canada. He is moving his company down to the United States to take advantage of the marvellous deal that this government signed away with Americans. He promised the programs but he never delivered.
We have been calling for policies which would help Canada restructure and modernize its work place, and retrain its most precious resource: its workers. Liberals have been calling for a government that will not only base its policies on survival of the fittest, but rather on the survival of all Canadians, concern for the sick, for the elderly and for our young people.
We on this side want to see policies which create jobs, which bring back economic growth, and which will end the Conservative government's destruction of our competitiveness and industrial base.
Last week we heard one of the persons who is oft-quoted by the Minister of Finance, Jeffrey Simpson, say in a column that John A. Macdonald would not recognize this Conservative government's agenda, because John A. Macdonald believed that the government had to have an agenda for people, and that this government's agenda was made in one department and one department only: the Ministry of Finance. In fact, it has been on the backs of those who should be defending the poor and the defenceless.
One does not have to be a political scientist to realize that the last six years have been a race for the survival of the fittest, and that this government is run by Darwinians who believe that those of us who cannot help ourselves can take a back seat and see our medicare system destroyed, our social welfare benefits cut and our unemployment insurance pulled out from underneath us.
It has given us a made-in-Canada recession which the Prime Minister himself has admitted the government induced. It has given us record high levels of inflation vis-a-vis the inflation in the United States, and specifically the spread which is important to those who are looking at long-term small business investment. Now it has rendered a death sentence on medicare. Post-secondary education is already in jeopardy.
Canadians are fed up with the heartless policies of this government. They do not want the GST. They do not want cutbacks to medicare and post-secondary education. They do not want the gutting of VIA Rail. They do not want rural post offices to be shut down. They do not want local television programming eliminated by the CBC. They do not want rural newspapers to have their line of communication cut off specifically as a result of the policies of this minister and this government.
Canadians want our Canada back again. We want back the institutions which helped create us, which shape us, which make us different from our neighbours to the south. We want back the programs that protected our sick and our elderly. We want medicare. We want post-secondary education and we want a government with a heart.
Canadians want this government to go and they want it to go now. They want real change.
March 5, 1991

This budget is not a financial statement. It is a political indictment of six and a half years of a government that is killing Canada piece by piece by piece by piece. It is tearing us apart limb by limb, and now it is going to take the heart out of us, the heart of medicare. This budget by the Minister of Finance and these estimates are the last straw. It shows the true face of this government and this cabinet.
We are now looking across the floor at the mothers and fathers of de-Confederation, as my colleague the hon. member for Windsor West called it. The Canadian people find this government and this finance minister guilty: guilty of killing VIA Rail, guilty of killing CBC, guilty of killing post offices in rural areas, guilty of killing medicare, and now guilty of killing off the very capacity of Canada to survive as a nation.
The verdict is clear. It is time for real change and, if the Prime Minister had any real courage, he would call an election and put the question to the people.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Hon. Audrey McLaughlin (Yukon):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak on Bill C-97, which is asking for the House to approve funding for the deficit, but I want to remind the House and Canadians who are watching that of course what the government is asking for today is another cheque to fund its failed economic policies, because it is this government that has increased the debt to this nation by twice as much since it came into power in 1984.
I listened with great care last week to the budget speech of the Minister of Finance and I, like all Canadians, looked for some new ideas, some innovative thinking, a new plan to get Canadians back working and to get Canadians out of what is now a deepening recession. Sadly I did not see this.
I think it is important to remind ourselves that a budget is not just simply an economic tool, but a budget also defines the priorities of a government. It defines the kind of political ideology the government has. It also defines whose side the government is on. Clearly this budget is not on the side of working Canadians, of middle class and low income Canadians. There is only one side for this government and it is the corporate side, and all the rest of Canadians are forgotten and left out of this budget.
Government Orders
Rather than fighting this recession, this budget simply reinforces it. Rather than creating greater equality in our country, this government is widening the gap between the regions and between the rich and the poor. Rather than building strong national programs, the government is dismantling our nation by its economic policies, and that is unacceptable to Canadians and is not the way that Canadians want to see this country go.
Canadians want a government that is going to build the country, not sell it.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: Canadians deserve a government that can build this country. Sadly, this budget like those before it has simply shown, once again, that this government has no new ideas, it has no agenda to get Canada moving, to get Canada working. While words like "competitiveness" are used, what is actually done in this budget makes Canada less competitive, less able to move into the 21st century, and less able to compete in the world economy.
A budget, any budget, of course, is always predicated on the predictions and assumptions about what will happen within the economic sphere. But I want to remind this House that if we look at the government's economic record of last year and its predictions, and the inaccuracy of the predictions that were made in previous budgets as we approached this year's forecasts, we all must have a very healthy skepticism.
I want to just remind this House that last year the finance minister predicted that inflation would fall. Instead, in January, primarily related to the goods and services tax, the inflation rate was at an unprecedented 6.8 per cent, the highest since the Liberal recession of the 1980s.
The finance minister last year predicted that we would have a deficit of about $28.5 billion; instead it will be over $30 billion. Last year he predicted that short-term interest rates for 1990 would be slightly over 11 per cent; in fact they were 13 per cent and higher. And he predicted that growth would rebound strongly in 1990.
Well, the unemployed do not need to read this budget. The children in the lines of food banks do not need to read this budget. They know the reality, they know it every day.

March 5, 1991
Government Orders

Mr. Speaker, the current recession brings back painful memories of the recession the Liberals brought about in the early 1980s. We are now faced with record numbers of banckruptcies and farming businesses being garnished, a 10 percent rate of unemployment, a growing gap between the rich and the rest of the Canadian people as well as people queuing up at food banks and soup kitchens.
All this government managed to do, as the Liberals did, was to maintain high interest rates and impose wage controls coupled with cuts in social programs. Why are we in a recession, Mr. Speaker?
The Minister of Finance suggested it was because Canadians have been living beyond their means. Try and tell that to the mothers waiting in line at the soup kitchens or unable to go and look for a job for lack of day care.

The finance minister says our wage demands have been excessive. Tell that to the construction worker, to the nurse, to the cook, to the bank teller, to the government worker and to the millions of Canadian families who have less money in their pockets each year this government is in power.
It is the first generation where it appears that our children will have less of an opportunity to improve their economic circumstance than we did as young people. Something is very, very wrong.
This government seems intent on blaming the victim: It is the workers' fault, it is the unemployed's fault, it is the poor's fault. But let us set the record straight. Let us put an end to the myths perpetuated by this government. We are not in a recession because of Canadian families; we are not in a recession because of Canadian workers or senior citizens; we are in a recession because of a high interest rate, an over-valued dollar, the goods and services tax, the Canada-U.S. trade deal and the destruction of national programs. That is what has brought on this recession.
This has been called a made-in-Canada recession. That suggests that Canadians from coast to coast helped to make it. I want to say that this is a made-in-Ottawa recession. It is a recession made in the office of the finance minister and that is the place it should be dealt with.
The budget presented last week represents the government's response to this recession. The finance minister announced proudly that he would stay the course. Well that is a little bit like saying, as the canoe heads towards the falls, the person who is paddling the canoe says: "We are going to stay the course." Despite the reality, it is clearly an illusion of expectation over reality. So what does the steady course mean for Canadians? Well, it means more cuts to health care and post-secondary education.
In the supplementary estimates tabled this morning at 11 o'clock, we saw that $728 million less will be available in health care as we learned in the budget last week. So, in fact, it is not a $1.1 billion cut to transfers to provinces for health care, it is $1.8 billion.
Just today at 11 o'clock we learned in the Supplementary estimates that for post-secondary education there will be $301.8 million less for the training of our young people. However, at the same time we see the government's priorities; the government is going to spend $154 million more to administer the collection of the goods and services tax. Somehow this government seems to want to just keep repeating the same old mistakes.
Today a report was released about the $1.1 million spent last year to send out a flyer to tell Canadians about the goods and services tax. All the Prime Minister had to do was talk to the Canadian people about what they thought about the goods and services tax. But, no, this government wanted to spend $1.1 million to tell every Canadian what every Canadian already knew: that this tax was a regressive tax, an inflationary tax and an unfair tax for all Canadians.
The government says it is going to stay the course. Stay the course on the GST, stay the course on cutting health and education, social housing, job training, cuts to culture and cuts to the environment.
The finance minister asks Canadians for patience. A senior citizen who has worked all of his life, a veteran who has fought for this country and has the right to spend his final years with dignity and respect, every day sees the results of what is happening in this country.
How shocking it was for many of us to see the headline last year in one of Canada's major newspapers of 700 senior citizens standing in line at a food bank at 7.30 in the morning, waiting for it to open. This is the future we have given our senior citizens. Surely, young people must
March 5, 1991

be asking today what their future is to be as this government stays the course.
A child who has only seen substandard housing, who only knows want and poverty, cannot wait ten years for things to get better. In fact, he or she cannot even wait for interest rates to come down. We are letting a generation of young people know only want, when many others in our society can live very well. Surely our responsibility as a country and the responsibility of a government is to say yes, we want a strong economy, a strong business community. That is important. As well, a government's role is to take care of those people who, for whatever circumstance, do not have a reasonable standard of living.
The finance minister asks for more restraint. But we already see many people in an economic straitjacket. He asks for more sacrifices, but who is asked to make the sacrifices? Well, to begin with, it is middle income Canadians. Two-income families will be paying out almost $400 more now for their unemployment insurance alone.
The increasing of those premiums also affects the small business community and the community which provides the majority of jobs in Canada. The small business community is the heart and soul of many of our communities, particularly smaller communities throughout Canada. Small businesses, many of them family run, and all families, are being hit for the first time with the goods and services tax that is costing them hundreds of extra dollars a year.
This government cannot say there are no more taxes in this budget-well, perhaps not specifically in this budget, but the economic policies out of which this budget flows clearly have made it less and less possible for average Canadian working families to own a house, to simply make ends meet from week to week.
Who else is the finance minister asking to make sacrifices? Clearly the sick-I have already noted the cutbacks to health care; to students; to the poor, to the homeless, we have cut back social housing once again by 15 per cent-to the unemployed.
I remind the House, Mr. Speaker, that during the time of the trade debates this government said that it would implement its adjustment program for workers, particu-
Govemment Orders
larly for older workers. I have been from coast to coast in this country, and virtually nowhere is this program in place in any real way to meet that promise.
The government said that public sector workers will make sacrifices, that the provinces, the territories, and of course the municipalities will make sacrifices. But from that list-and it is a long one-there is one group that is not mentioned at all or asked to make a sacrifice, and that is the corporate sector. It is the corporate sector that is making a profit. Once again, we see that not one tax loophole has been closed, that there is not one new corporate measure to address those profit-making corporations who now still do not pay one cent in taxes. Nothing. Silence.
What about the tax loopholes such as the interest deductibility that corporations have, the business entertainment tax deduction, the $100,000 capital gains exemption, tax breaks for real estate developers? Why does the government not seriously look at bringing back some balance in the tax system by imposing a minimum corporate tax for profit-making companies? We know it used to be that individuals and corporations paid roughly the same amount in income tax, and now it is the individual taxpayer who carries by far the largest share of the burden.
If this government were really serious about sharing the burden, it would be reflected in this budget. It would close those tax loopholes. It would say that everyone was going to pay their fair share and that it is time that the rich and the powerful paid their fair share.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: One myth is that this government is asking everyone to make sacrifices. Another myth that prevails among Tory economic policies is that to have economic growth, we must have inequality. For the economy to be in good shape, we not only have to cut programs that benefit the most vulnerable Canadians in this country but we also must have a 10 per cent unemployment rate.
One of the most shocking aspects of this budget is that the government thinks it is necessary and beneficial to economic growth to have nearly 1.5 million Canadians out of work.

March 5, 1991
Government Orders
The Minister of Finance maintains that he understands the concerns of unemployed Canadians. He understands them so well that he will do nothing to prevent the loss of thousand of jobs as a result of free trade and has promised a free trade agreement with Mexico, an agreement that will lead to the loss of thousands more jobs.
He understands those concerns so well that he decided to cut funding for occupational training programs by $100 million next year.

The finance minister talks about hearing the anguish of Canadians. He has talked in the past about understanding that because he had to take a pay cut during the last recession when he was on Bay Street. Well, you do not have to go very far from Bay Street these days to see the real tragedy of the increasing gap between the rich and the poor, and two blocks from Bay Street you can see Canadians-young men, young women, older men, older women-sleeping in the streets. Millions of Canadians know the real thing; friends, neighbours, and family members looking for work.
It seems in this budget there is an implication that maybe Canadians do not want to work. But those of us who have worked in this field, who have worked in this area, know the devastation to the human mind and the human soul of not being wanted by your society, of in fact being rejected by your society. Day after day as you look for a job, you hear the same answer, the same response. You cope with feelings of worthlessness; you try to meet rent payments, mortgage payments, try to put meals on the table.
The effect of unemployment goes far beyond economic hardship. An unemployed person is not just another statistic. Every one of us in the community is affected when our neighbours, our families, are suffering from unemployment. It is not just the problem of the individual who is unemployed. All of the statistics indicate that unemployment contributes to a higher rate of family break-up, a higher rate of family violence, of substance abuse, and other social crises. There is a real human cost. There is a real human deficit.
Perhaps 1.5 million unemployed Canadians is acceptable to the Conservative government, but I say that it is not acceptable to the New Democratic Party-


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: It is not acceptable to Canadians.
The finance minister would have us believe that there are no alternatives. He has no margin in which to manoeuvre. He has no choice but to pursue policies that would punish Canadians.
I want to challenge that view because the government is not powerless. There are choices, there are different ways to do things. As I said at the beginning of my remarks, a budget is not just an economic tool, it is a reflection of the ideology of a government and a political party.
Instead of giving the Senate $5.6 million-but, no, it is not $5.6 million, after the supplementary estimates it is now $8 million-instead of giving $8 million more to the Senate, instead of investing in a relic of the past, why not invest in the youth and their future.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: Instead of giving $24 million more to CSIS to spy on Canadians, why not invest in aboriginal language programs and cultural programs. Listen to Canadians. There are choices; tough choices it is true, but on the one hand you have Canada's spy agency, CSIS, getting $24 million more, and you have other programs, human services, that are being cut.
I mentioned earlier that the government has now cut about $1.8 billion from medicare. It could have cut out the business lunch tax deduction and saved Canada $1 billion. That is a choice. So there are choices. Instead of cutting medicare, cut business lunches. That is where the priorities lie. It is shameful that this government has chosen to turn its back on those Canadians who are the most affected by this recession and to take the choice against those Canadians and not for the future.
If this government is interested, as it professes, in economic growth and international competitiveness and in reducing the deficit, it should be lowering interest rates, lowering the dollar and introducing fair taxes.
March 5, 1991

Government Orders
We know that bankruptcies have increased tremendously in the last year, but again, bankruptcies are not just a statistic. They are that small business down the street that no longer is operating, that family that has worked so hard to build something because they believed in their community, and their country that has been destroyed by one economic policy of this government, keep the interest rates high. What it has done is it has kept the bankruptcies high too, and that is not good enough for Canadians.
Any budget, any economic policy, should surely look to investing, not just in today, but in the future. Every analyst that looks at the Canadian economy makes two points, virtually without exception, that we are a country which no longer can simply live off our natural resources; that we must in order to be competitive globally develop our research and development so that we can be ahead of the game in that area. We must ensure that we have a skilled work force, a well trained work force, if we are in fact to have a modem economy to develop the kind of leadership in technology that we know Canadians can do, because it has been done by Canadians in the past. That means investing in education, not cutting education; investing in research and development, not cutting research and development; and investing in job training, not cutting out jobs.
This is not idle rhetoric. This is simply a fact. If we want to have a modem country, if we want to move forward, we must have a highly skilled work force and we must get people working. We hear a lot about productivity statistics in Canada, but what about the loss of productivity of a person who is not working? That is one of the greatest drains on our economy because after all, people who are working can pay taxes, can contribute their fair share and can assist in getting this country back on its feet.

A few weeks ago, the Prime Minister said in Toronto he had no intention of dismantling Canada. This is the same Prime Minister who privatized 20 Crown corporations, destroyed VIA Rail, eliminated rural post offices, destroyed communications programs for native people, dismantled the CBC and, in last week's budget, continued his attack on national social programs, especially health insurance.

Why this contradiction, Mr. Speaker, between saying two weeks before that this is a Prime Minister that stands for a united Canada, that the Prime Minister does not want to dismantle Canada. On the other hand, we see the facts that speak for themselves. I think the reason is simply that the Conservative vision of Canada is nothing more than a vision of Canada as a marketplace. The government's only role is to help the private sector flourish. If that requires that some people are poor, that some regions are poor, if that means the destruction of national programs based on fairness and equality, well that is just the way it has to be, in the political ideology of this government.
Canada has been more than that. It has not been that Conservative vision that really is just simply a corporate vision, and it is not the New Democratic Party's vision. We see a Canada with national values, with national institutions that reflect those values, and national goals that go beyond economic growth that include justice, equality and humanity. We see a federal government that works in the interest of all Canadians, a government that says, through its programs, through its financial planning, that we care about those Canadians from coast to coast to coast who cannot find a job, who need to have a better standard of housing and a better standard of living.
The New Democrats say that Canada is not just a collection of 26 million producers and consumers, we are people bound by history, by friendship, by values, and bound by the wish for a better future for our children.
The national health care system is a good example of what that is about, because it is about providing health care for our citizens, yes, but it is about equality. It says if you live in an outport in Newfoundland, in a community in the eastern Arctic, on the west coast, in central Canada, as a Canadian, we want to ensure that health care is a responsibility of the government to provide. It is not what you can afford, it is something that we will provide as a government, as a country because it is part of what makes us a country.
We say that whatever income you are entitled to or you have, you are still entitled to that kind of health care, to an education. Surely Canadians should at least feel that as a Canadian they will be able to have adequate shelter, but in many major cities this is not a reality and many of

Government Orders
those people who do not have any shelter, the homeless, are children.
These are the kinds of quality achievements, of our national health care system, that we point to with pride. In fact, that other countries look to us and appreciate the kind of political decision it took to implement such a program.
So, when the government systematically continues to undermine and destroy the medicare system in this country, it not only threatens the poor in all regions of this country, it threatens an achievement that unites our country.
The same thing can be said about development assistance. We recognize in this country that whether you are in the maritime region, in the north, central Canada, or the west, we, as a people together, have a responsibility for each other. That is a value that unites us. It is a value that is the hallmark of the kind of compassion that, as a country, we have been able to express and, so sadly, is being quickly eroded by the corporate agenda of this government.
It defines the kind of responsibility that each individual has, but also it is what we have together that defines us as Canadians and, indeed, as world citizens.
I want to just mention that in this budget the government has not only made it far more difficult for those in this country, the middle and the lower income people, but it has found almost a billion dollars to fight a war in the Persian Gulf, and once again cut development assistance by $1.6 billion. Can we really continue in 1991 to believe that if we want to see security in the world, if we want to see peace in the world, we must assume our responsibility and ensure that people throughout the world have their basic needs of food and shelter met. We have a responsibility to do that.
It seems that we can always find money to fight a war.
If there is to be any change as we move to the 21st century, there must be money to feed people, both here and abroad.
If we are to have a strong and united Canada we need to have a government that gives us reason to be proud, that gives us something to believe in, and that gives us achievements to share. We must have a government and an economic policy that gives hope to those who are presently suffering. How can we talk about national unity if there are hundreds of thousands of Canadians who feel they have no hope?
Right now, in cities like Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver there are tens of thousands of homeless. There are poor neighbourhoods where the birth weight of newborn babies is lower than in some parts of Latin America. Fifty per cent of aboriginal children in this country live in poverty. Throughout this country, there are 3.3 million Canadians living in poverty.
There is no hope for these Canadians in this budget. Surely the hallmark of our nation, of any nation, should be the ability to feed, to house, to educate and care for each and every one of our citizens.
To those who would suggest it is naive to think that we can afford to do that, I say it is naive to think that we cannot afford to, and continue to call ourselves a civilized society. To those who say that social cuts, greater inequalities, a less caring society are requirements for international growth and international competitiveness, I suggest they look at the eight strongest economies in the world. If you look at that, what you will see is that the gap between the rich and the poor is the highest in the United States. Canada comes about fourth out of eight countries. It is the lowest-that is the gap between the rich and the poor-in Japan. Japan is a country we often cite as being a successful economy.
We might do well in our society, when we talk about the economy and analyse economic policies, to remember that that gap between the rich and the poor represents how successful an economic policy has been. This economy in Canada fails that test. If we are looking at how successful economic policies have been, look at the absolutely incredible increase in food banks and shelters for the homeless. The economic policies of this government have failed on that count.
It is time to destroy the myths. You can have growth and equity. You can be caring and competitive. There is a different way. There are choices. There are alternatives
March 5, 1991

This government has simply not shown the political will to take them.
Finally, I want to say that I hope Canadians will see that we are only as strong as each of us is strong. There is tremendous work being done in this country by volunteers, by those who work in the community, by those associations that often work at a much lesser wage than other organizations, just simply to make the community better.
One of the things I find veiy distressing in this budget is the proposed cuts of grants to organizations, some $75 million. They are not named, but what that means is silencing the voices, as it did last year. In last year's budget it was silencing the voices of aboriginal people and of women. It was cutting out the essential services in our community that are provided by those people who do it out of compassion and out of caring.
If through cutting back on those organizations that provide much of the infrastructure in our country, that this government says it wants to see everyone share the burden, well, I would suggest to this government that it can make real choices, that there are real alternatives and that if it cares about the Canadian people and indeed if it cares about the future of Canada, the choices that are reflected in this budget and the estimates that have gone after it, and the Supplementary Estimates, must be changed. They must be changed now.
We need a government that stands for national unity, that says: "We care about equality for all Canadians and we are going to pursue that". If this government cannot do it, then I suggest it step down and allow the Canadian people to make a decision.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Mr. Arnold Malone (Crowfoot):: Mr. Speaker, I have just gone through a pretty tough hour.
I listened to the hon. member for Hamilton East and to the hon. member for Yukon. Both would have had Canadians believe that Canada does not have a debt problem and both took the view that what this country needs is to spend more and more.
What they set before this House and before Canadians was a long list of programs that they would advocate ought to grow and expand. Thken in isolation, viewed as
Government Orders
programs in and out of their own merit, in many cases most Canadians and most members of the government would not disagree that those are programs of merit.
Totally lacking and utterly failing in the analysis is the question of affordability and what cost will go back to the Canadian taxpayer.
For every dollar that a Canadian today sends to Ottawa in the way of taxes, almost 40 cents goes to pay for the interest on our accumulated debt. Yet in spite of this debt that grows because the debt was there, there is a calling from the Liberals and the NDP for more spending, more growth, more ideas, and more creation of new programs and expansion of old ones without any single consideration for the utter chaos that this nation would ultimately end up in if we do not bring its debt situation under control.
Take a look at the debt of the federal government, and then add on that the debt of 10 provinces added together, the debt of all of the municipalities of Canada, and the debt of private persons across the country for mortgages for homes, businesses, cars, Visa and MasterCard.
Coupled with that is the recognition that what debt is is having today for a commitment to pay tomorrow. Those two opposition parties that express so much concern for education, the youth, the children, the sick, the poor and the elderly have, in effect, said: "Let's have today and to heck with the next generation."
That I believe Canadians everywhere will reject as an inappropriate policy that would put Canada into the same position as many Latin American countries and that would sink us in terms of a nation that is unable and unaffordable because they have talked about the capacity to add program upon program without consideration for the fact that we are in a debt situation.
I see that the Sergeant-at-Arms has approached the Mace. It is one o'clock. Perhaps I may continue after Question Period.


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.

March 5, 1991


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 2 p.m.

Mrs. Pauline Browes (Scarborough Centre):: Mr. Speaker, on Sunday, March 3, the peoples of Latvia and Estonia voted overwhelmingly in favour of independence from the Soviet Union.
The tremendous response of the Latvians and Estonians to the polls on independence is indeed notable since both of those countries include a significant ethnic Russian population.
These results and the results of the poll held in Lithuania last month are proof positive of the Baltic peoples' solidarity and their strong desire for independence from the U.S.S.R.
We support the Baltic peoples in achieving their legitimate goals and call on the Soviet Union to take notice of the unequivocal message in these poll results and begin negotiations with the Baltic states immediately* * *


THE CONSTITUTION
Mr. Douglas Young (Acadie-Bathurst):: Mr. Speaker, the legislation recognizing the equality of the two official language communities in New Brunswick must be entrenched in the Canadian Constitution. This is how the rights of the Acadians of New Brunswick will be best guaranteed. Otherwise, they will be vulnerable to any political change either in Canada or in the Atlantic provinces.
In the present circumstances, it is essential that the rights of the Acadians be recognized formally by entrenching Bill 88 in our Constitution.
In this time of uncertainty, when we expect dramatic and radical changes to change the face of our country forever, the entrenchment of Bill 88 would be a positive gesture toward the most dynamic francophone minority in Canada: the Acadian community of New Brunswick.
The day when Canada will be redefined is drawing nearer and nearer, Mr. Speaker, and unless the constitutional guaranties essential to the survival of Acadia are in place, it could mark the beginning of the end for us.


THE BUDGET
Mr. Steven W. Langdon (Essex-Windsor):: Mr. Speaker, this Conservative government claims its budget will cut the deficit. This will reduce interest rates and thereby get economic activity moving ahead again.
This is the exact strategy followed by Margaret Thatcher in Britain. Thatcher and her Conservatives cut back the public sector and raised taxes heavily on average people in Britain.
The result did eliminate the deficit. They reached a budget surplus of over 25 billion pounds in the last three years, but instead of interest rates going down, they went up to 13.5 per cent in February. Inflation went up too, to an average rate of 9 per cent as of January, so the connection our government assumes between no deficit and lower interest rates just does not exist.
It has taken the British 11 hard years to learn that Margaret Thatcher was wrong. I hope it will take Canadians far less time to see that this government is wrong too.


GORDON TOWERS
Mr. Doug Fee (Red Deer):: Mr. Speaker, it would be a challenge for anyone to follow Her Honour, the Lieutenant-Governor of Alberta, but an individual has been chosen who will maintain the high standards established for that office.
I am very pleased that a friend of mine, a friend of Alberta, a friend of this House, and a friend of all Canada has accepted the prestigious appointment as the Queen's representative in Alberta.
Our new Lieutenant-Governor is a former rancher, a farmer, a community worker and parliamentarian. After 16 years in this House, he chose to retire prior to the last election.
March 5, 1991

He and his wife, Doris, were honoured in December when in an outpouring of community love and respect hundreds of friends gathered to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary.
His neighbours and his many friends applaud this selection. We all extend our sincere wishes for good health and congratulations on a well deserved and fitting appointment as Lieutenant-Governor of the province of Alberta to a former member of this House, Mr. Gordon Towers.


IMMIGRATION
Mr. Tom Wappel (Scarborough West):: Mr. Speaker, in communities all across the country, there are Canadians waiting for their spouses to be reunited with them. Their spouses are in countries all around the world and are caught in a web of bureaucracy and inefficiency. In not just a few, but in thousands of cases husband and wife have been separated by one or even two years, waiting for immigration authorities to approve their applications.
This government has paid lip service to the objective of family reunification but, in practice, the system is inefficient and bogged down.
Last year, a group of those waiting Canadian spouses came to Ottawa to beg the minister of immigration to help reunite them with their loved ones. The minister promised to help but now, heading into the third month of 1991, no change is evident.
I call on the minister, in the name of compassion, to ensure immediately that applications to unite husband and wife are accelerated. Families are at stake. Now is the time for action, not words.


SEXIST ADVERTISING
Mrs. Pierrette Venne (Saint-Hubert):: Mr. Speaker, for 10 years now, February is the month when Sports Illustrated and Inside Sports publish their special "swimsuit" issues. Every year, these magazines register record sales, produce enormous profits and make male "readers" very happy.
Mr. Speaker, such publications are disparaging to men because they appeal to their animal instincts. On the
pretence of showing bathing suits, more often than not barely visible, they provide men who are too shy to buy a downright pornographic magazine a modest alternative that will make them forget their sexist attitude. Most men who buy these magazines will argue vigourously that these are sports magazines. They will probably also tell you that they buy Playboy for the articles!
Mr. Speaker, while several women groups oppose these special "swimsuit" issues because of how women are portrayed in them, I think it is also important to point out how badly they portray men.


IMMIGRATION
Ms. Margaret Mitchell (Vancouver East):: Mr. Speaker, I call on the Minister of Employment and Immigration to consider the rights of the child as humanitarian and compassionate grounds for landing families in the refugee backlog.
Canada supports the UN convention on the rights of the child which applies to refugee children. The Prime Minister, as chair of the World Summit on Children, last year appealed to all countries to give children a better future with opportunities for healthy development.
I have carefully documented eight families of refugee claimants who have been in Canada two to four years. Their children have been though stress and deprivation and will suffer considerable hardship if they are deported.
A humanitarian amnesty for such children makes budgetary as well as humanitarian sense. The savings in staff can help reduce the new backlog.


NATIONAL NUTRITION MONTH
Mr. Charles-Eugene Marin (Gaspe):: Mr. Speaker, March is the National Nutrition Month in Canada. Every year, the Canadian Dietetic Association organizes a national public awareness campaign on the importance of nutrition and its determining impact on health and quality of life. The 1991 campaign will encourage Canadians to buy healthy food. Throughout the month of March dieteticians will encourage Canadian consumers

March 5, 1991
to check the labels to determine the nutritive value of various food items.
This public awareness campaign will encourage consumers to read labels and adopt eating habits more consistent with the recommendations aimed at enhancing the health of Canadian men and women. I support this initiative of the Canadian Dietetic Association and join with all my hon. colleagues in the House in extending to members our best wishes for a successful 1991 campaign.


THE BUDGET
Mrs. Edna Anderson (Simcoe Centre):: Mr. Speaker, the budget introduced on Tuesday, February 26, has been called among other things heartless by the opposition, and yet the business community feels that we have not gone far enough in cutting government spending, although it does support the major thrust of the budget.
I believe that this budget is a well balanced plan that continues to attack the deficit and yet remains sensitive to native communities, senior citizens, veterans, low income Canadians and the disadvantaged by exempting these groups from fiscal cuts or restraints to their programs.
The key to helping people on fixed incomes is to lower inflation so that the value of their dollars will not be eroded. By remaining committed to fighting inflation and reducing the deficit, this government proves it is realistic in its approach while remaining sensitive.


MULTICULTURALISM
Mrs. Shirley Maheu (Saint-Laurent-Cartierville):: Mr. Speaker, unfortunately the Minister of State for Multiculturalism and Citizenship has missed the opportunity to bring back last year's cuts to heritage language education.
This minister has even failed to have the new Department of Multiculturalism and Citizenship Act proclaimed, leaving the law in limbo.

The government has also cut the funds available on average to organizations involved in race relations and intercultural understanding. Although Canadian men and women are looking forward to the new citizenship legislation, it seems rather clear that the government will not introduce it during this session.
At a time when Canadians need to be proud of their citizenship, the minister seems to sheer his responsibility.


COMMUNICATIONS
Mrs. Sheila Finestone (Mount Royal):: Mr. Speaker, Emperor Marcel Masse arrives as Minister of Communications with great expectations and new clothes. With his new office furniture and renovations costing in excess of $100,000, he devised great communications schemes.
When he was not accepting Oscars in Hollywood he was traipsing off to Paris and Europe instead of defending the CBC, the cultural tie that binds Canadians.
He made grandiose announcements of concert halls for Edmonton and Montreal, what appears to be a phantom ballet opera house for Toronto and an ill placed cultural institute for Montreal. But, alas, with a slash of Michael Wilson's knife, they were gone.
In the beginning there was great excitement and anticipation with the new minister who initiated in excess of $9 million worth of task forces in the cultural arena. Unfortunately most have gone virtually ignored.
Minister Masse, with pomp and circumstance, made promises of new telecommunications policy and legislation, copyright reform, cultural industries development bank, cultural products distribution policies for books, film and sound recordings, a global arts polity, and tax measures to improve the socio-economic status of Canada's artists. But, alas, still promises, no action.
It would surely seem that the Emperor has lost his clothes and in the process learned that if all the world's a stage, in the cabinet he is only a stand-in.
March 5, 1991

How sad for the development of the vitally important cultural role in Canada today.


THE BUDGET
Mr. Jean-Guy Guilbault (Drummond):: Mr. Speaker, the measures contained in the Minister of Finance's budget will make it possible for Canada to leave recession behind and start on the way to economic growth.
In addition to reducing the deficit, the budget will contribute to a reduction of interest rates and a renewal of confidence, two essential ingredients to economic recovery.
The budget's main purpose is to bring inflation down. To achieve it, we must control salaries and expenditures.
With the Minister of Finance's budget, the government is clearly demonstrating that it is perfectly aware just how serious Canada's economic and financial situations are and has decided to remedy it once and for all.
To achieve this new growth, however, provinces, municipalities and Crown corporations will have to follow the lead. The message is clear: federal civil servants and organizations cannot be expected to be the only ones to tighten their belts.
Mr. Speaker, we must work together within an extended national partnership.


MANUFACTURERS' SALES TAX
Mr. John R. Rodriguez (Nickel Belt):: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance stated that the 5 per cent tax subsidy for manufacturing and processing is being maintained to offset a U.S. export tax subsidy.
Well, the Minister of Finance did not tell the whole story. The fact is that the U.S. government repealed its tax in 1986, and at that time Canadian manufacturers and processors argued that Canada should keep the tax credit to offset the manufacturers' sales tax.
Oral Questions
This unfair, dastardly manufacturers' sales tax is no longer in existence and it has been replaced by the GST, but yet the manufacturing and processing sectors continue to receive this tax break.
This subsidy costs $1 billion a year. In a spirit of tax fairness, should the finance minister not have repealed this tax boondoggle?


VICTORIA CROSS
Mr. Peter L. McCreath (South Shore):: Mr. Speaker, recently the Monarchist League of Canada and others have discovered that when the Government of Canada, two decades ago, decided to Canadianize awards, honours, and decorations it also made Canadians ineligible for British awards and honours, thus excluding Canadians from awards for which they had been eligible for centuries.
With the outbreak of the war in the gulf which, thank goodness, has apparently ended without Canadian casualties, the attention of some focused on awards for valour in battle that could be won by Canadians and discovered that the legendary and prestigious Victoria Cross no longer was among those available to Canadians, as Canadians. Indeed, it has been gone for nearly 20 years, but they did not notice.
Now we are told that a proposal is before cabinet to establish a new cross of Canada to replace the Victoria Cross. This change, we are told, is part of the evolution of Canada as a nation. But surely so also is the VC a part of Canada's history and Canada's heritage, and not just the heritage of Canadians of British ancestral origin. For example, the first Nova Scotian to win the VC traced his origins to Africa, for he was a black man called William Hall.
Why not establish a Canadian award that respects and recognizes our history and heritage? Why not the Victoria Cross of Canada?



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister, and I hope he

March 5, 1991
Oral Questions
will have the courage to answer. Yesterday, during an interview on the CBC English network, a reporter asked Citizen's Forum Chairman Keith Spicer if he was a federalist. I quote Mr. Spicer's answer:
I am a Canadian and I don't care what the plumbing is. I am totally indifferent as to whether we have a federal, a confederal, or sovereignty association regime.
I ask the Prime Minister: Does he agree that the difference between federalism and sovereignty association is mere plumbing?


Right Hon. Brian Mulroney (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, I can understand why the Bloc Quebecois has been seeking to undermine the Citizens' Forum on Canada's Future, which is designed to bring Canadians together. But I will be darned if I can figure out why the Liberals and the NDP have been attacking the Citizens' Forum on Canada's Future, which is designed to bring Canada together.
The implication that Keith Spicer or any of his distinguished colleagues are not 100 per cent committed to Canada is extremely unfortunate and misleading, coming from the Acting Leader of the Opposition. In difficult circumstances, they have been doing a very important job for Canada. The jury is still out, but oftentimes when the jury comes in the results are different from those anticipated by the press.
I believe that the Spicer commission will make a major contribution to the unity of Canada.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, I can understand why the Prime Minister would want to avoid answering the question, and he has avoided it.
I would like to ask him again, very directly: Yesterday in an interview the chairman of the citizens' forum, when asked if he was a federalist, stated:
I'm a Canadian and I don't care what the plumbing is. I really don't care. I'm totally indifferent as to whether we have a federal or confederal or sovereignty association regime-
I ask the Prime Minister: Does he agree that the difference between federalism and sovereignty association is mere plumbing and, if he does not agree, what specific action does he intend to take?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, it is astonishing that the Acting Leader of Her
Majesty's Loyal Opposition would not accept from the chairman, Keith Spicer, a very distinguished if somewhat controversial Canadian, in response to the question: "I am a Canadian." That is what Mr. Spicer said. That is what I am.
And why, by indirection, would the Acting Leader of the Opposition be impugning the integrity of Mr. Spicer's commitment to Canada is beyond me.
The unity of Canada is under challenge. I can understand my friend from Granby who is heckling from the backbench. I can understand why the Bloc Quebecois is seeking to undermine an instrument which is designed to preserve and protect the unity of Canada, but why the Liberals and the NDP are doing it is beyond me.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, the issue is not the chairman of the commission. The issue is the Prime Minister, who has appointed and continues to keep in his place a president of a commission designed to guarantee the unity of Canada, a president who does not understand the difference between federalism and sovereignty association. This Prime Minister is the person who named Keith Spicer and this Prime Minister is the one who bears the responsibility for a commission that is costing the taxpayers $5,000 an hour, $18 a minute, $118,000 a week and we have a president who does not understand what Canada means.
I would like to ask the Prime Minister what specific action he intends to take to remove the cloud of controversy which has fallen over this commission by his decision to appoint a president who does not understand the difference between federalism and sovereignty association?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I see that the Acting Leader of the Opposition has figured out somehow that the commission is costing $18 a minute. Well, I can tell her that if this commission-


Sheila Maureen Copps: And $14 a second.


Martin Brian Mulroney: $14 a second, she now says. Well, Canada in my judgment is worth at least $14 a second.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.
March 5, 1991


Martin Brian Mulroney: Distinguished people like Rick Cashin, one of Newfoundland's most distinguished union leaders; Carol Corcoran, an aboriginal attorney from British Columbia; Fil Fraser, Thomas Kierans, Robert Tasse, Susan Van de Velde, Elsie Wayne, the mayor of Saint John, New Brunswick; Helena Zukowski, Raymond Sirois, Jim Matkin from British Columbia-these are all very able and accomplished Canadians who have made sacrifices to serve Canada in trying to bring the country together. None of these people was looking for a job. None of them is seeking to profit from the public trough and the suggestion from the Leader of the Opposition that this is the case is unseemly and unworthy and should be repudiated in the interests, both of a united Canada and any fundamental order of decency.


Mr. Paul Martin (LaSalle-Emard):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister.
This nation desperately needs a sense of purpose, not in six months, but now. Canadians are disengaging themselves from this, the most important national unity debate since Confederation. This nation cries for direction.
The question is, why has the Prime Minister not provided it? Why has his only response been to set up a royal commission, divided among itself and a chief commissioner who sees no wrong in sovereignty association. The Prime Minister is right. Do not defend Spicer, defend yourself, defend your own record.


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, it is very interesting that my hon. friend from LaSalle-Emard says a sense of purpose is lacking and that the problem is that no leadership is being provided. This is exactly what he said, and the member for Hamilton East said, about the new Leader of the Opposition, when both of them were supporting Meech Lake and he scuttled it.


Paul Edgar Philippe Martin: I will tell you what I said, Mr. Speaker. What I said was that as a-


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for LaSalle-Emard.


Paul Edgar Philippe Martin: I will tell you what I said a month ago. I said that I resented, as a Quebecer, that the Prime Minister for the first time in six years pronounced the word "Canada" in Quebec.
The problems of the Spicer commission are simply a reflection of the lack of direction of this government. It
Oral Questions
is not just the Constitution, it is everything this government touches. This Prime Minister is ripping the country apart. His high interest rates continue to set region against region.
Mr. Speaker, he has abandoned economic policy to the Americans, and social policy to the provinces. The question is, what happens to national purpose when the federal government becomes a eunuch?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I am surprised that a distinguished Canadian and an excellent parliamentarian would make a statement that is so demonstrably misleading, where he says that for the first time a few weeks ago, the first time in six years, that I, as Prime Minister of Canada, pronounced the word "Canada" in Quebec. That statement is profoundly false. I know my hon. friend, whom I have known for a long time, will want to rise and correct it at the earliest possible opportunity.
Where he says the question of leadership, I remember well-I cannot give it to him chapter and verse but I can paraphrase-where he said not six weeks ago but six months ago, he said the greatest problem facing the Liberal party is that "we cannot get Jean Chretien to say where he stands on anything". "Jean", you said, "come out of the high grass and for once, if you say you are going to be a leader, tell us where you stand". That is what he said then.


NATIONAL UNITY
Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister. People everywhere are wondering about our country's future. Figures given in the budget and the estimates reveal that the government spends money on that issue: almost $18 million for the Spicer commission; over $8 million for the Thsk Force on National Unity; close to $7 million for the Federal-Provincial Relations Office, and almost $1 million for the parliamentary committee on the amending formula. Obviously the Prime Minister has a plan in mind. My question is this: To what will all this lead-a weekend at Meech Lake, a First Ministers' conference, or simply a position to negotiate with the provinces? Where is he going? Canadians have the right to know.


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, my friend asks where will this lead. We will

March 5, 1991
Oral Questions
have to wait for the findings of the various commissions of inquiry, the Spicer commission, the Beaudoin-Ed-wards commission and the various commissions appointed by Premier Rae, Premier Filmon, Premier Bourassa and others. We will have to wait. One of the complaints and one of the criticisms directed to the federal government and to all the First Ministers the last time was that the process which in 1987 gave birth to the Meech Lake Accord led to the exclusion of the ordinary Canadian-inadvertently, perhaps. So we decided we would listen to the ordinary Canadian. That is what the Spicer commission is doing. That is what the Beaudoin-Edwards commission is doing. I am surprised to see that now that the provinces and the federal government have set up a series of mechanisms to listen to the people, to ordinary Canadians, the NDP is against it.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker, for the Prime Minister. My question to the Prime Minister was simply that the budget and the estimates indicate that the Prime Minister has a plan. He has funding in the budget for the commission, for a national force on unity. We are not objecting to that, we are simply saying to the Prime Minister that Canadians want to know what is happening and what the Prime Minister's plan is.
What Canadians do see, as well, are the cutbacks which the Prime Minister and his government have made to the national programs that have built a base for this country, and been important to this country.
In addition to the various commissions that have been established by the federal government, there are also in this budget indications that the government wants to negotiate new fiscal arrangements with the provinces.
My question to the Prime Minister is simply this. Canadians have a right to know what is on the table, and we would like the Prime Minister to simply answer that question.


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend cannot have it both ways. On the one hand the implication of criticism is there, that the government is spending public funds on commissions of inquiry such as the Spicer commission, and the Beaudoin-Edwards commission in respect of the amending formula. On the other hand there was the earlier
criticism that the government did not listen to people. Now we have commissions that are going out to listen to tens of thousands of Canadians, to get their opinions on how this position can be devised, and we are being reproached for this by the NDP.
What we are trying to do is involve the greatest number of Canadians possible, both in the process and the ultimate decision. The general belief is that if we are able to do that successfully, without carping and cheap criticism, Canadians will come forward and provide their own dimension of leadership, which will be very beneficial to the finding of an ultimate result.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker. The Prime Minister refuses simply to say what his plan is for Canadian unity. It is not a question. I was simply pointing out that in the government's own budget there obviously is a plan, a financial plan for the future of this country. I was asking the Prime Minister to explain that. However, he does not choose to do that.
On February 12 the Prime Minister said that it was his values, the values that brought Canadians the goods and services tax, the trade agreement with the United States, and privatization, that he was going to apply those values to the Constitution. In short, the Prime Minister obviously favours a corporate constitution.
If the Spicer commission comes back and reports that the Canadian people do not want his corporate vision of Canada, will the Prime Minister listen to the people of Canada, abandon his Dow Jones version of federalism and start reflecting what Canadians want?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I really did not hear much of a question there, the premise of the question, of course, being inaccurate and misleading. I said no such thing.
The Spicer commission is being sent out without any government direction to seek opinions.
The NDP says: "Name a royal commission and let it be free to do its work with the people." When we do that, it says that we should rein them in, berate the chief commissioner, impugn his integrity and tell them what to do.
We will not do that. The independence of this royal commission is designed to serve Canada by getting the opinions of ordinary Canadians. Putting that in a mix, we think that is a contribution to Canadian unity.
March 5, 1991


CITIZENS' FORUM ON CANADA'S FUTURE
Mr. Brian Tobin (Humber-St. Barbe -Baie Verte):: Mr. Speaker, the supplementary estimates tabled this morning make clear that the Spicer commission is costing the country $119,000 per day or $14 per second. The chairman of that commission said last night, when asked if he was a federalist, that he was totally indifferent as to whether we have a federal, confederal or sovereignty association regime.
The Acting Leader of the Opposition has asked the Prime Minister whether he thinks it is important that the chairman of a commission on national unity distinguish between a federal or sovereignty association regime. The Prime Minister has refused to answer.
As the author of this commission, the one who named it and of course the one who picked the chairman, does the Prime Minister not think it is important that the chairman of a national unity task force distinguish between federalism and sovereignty association?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I think my hon. friend is the new whip, or whatever he is, of the party opposite.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Martin Brian Mulroney: My apologies to the whip in waiting. My hon. friend raises questions about an answer that was given. I have not seen the full exchange between the journalist and the chairman of the commission. I would have to examine the context, but they are members of a body that from time to time claims it would rather the construction be placed perfectly on its words to avoid any misinterpretation. I think, in fairness, that same privilege should be granted to the chairman of the forum on Canadian unity. Surely there can be no doubt whatsoever about the commitment of Keith Spicer to the unity and well-being of this country. The sinister questions impugning his integrity by the Liberals is unworthy of their role as the Official Opposition.


Brian Vincent Tobin: Mr. Speaker, we want to make it perfectly clear it is not Mr. Spicer's integrity we are interested in, it is his opinion of Canada and whether or not he is able to
Oral Questions
distinguish between sovereignty association and federalism that we are interested in.
Canadians who are paying $3,592,000 a month or almost $18 million over five months for this commission are entitled to know on what basis the Prime Minister selected this chairman to chair this commission. Did the Prime Minister assure himself that the chairman had a view of Canada and the renewal of Canada consistent with that which has been traditionally espoused by members of all the national parties in this House?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, in French we would call this "un proces detention", with Mr. Spicer on the receiving end.
The hon. member asked why and on what basis we selected Mr. Spicer as chairman of this important commission on Canada's future.

In response to my hon. friend, I can tell him that when we considered various candidates for this difficult and exacting job, and we knew it was going to be tough and we knew as well that there would probably be more criticism than displays of gratitude along the way, we were looking for someone who recognized that and, notwithstanding that, was ready to leave a very important job as chairman of the CRTC and its security to accept this particular job.
Why, because we looked at his background. He had experience as a professor and as a journalist. He had lived in western Canada in British Columbia and in Ontario. He had made himself impeccably bilingual, which is a fundamental characteristic of this nation, and he had performed in an exceptional manner as commissioner of official languages for Canada. He had become editor of one of the most distinguished newspapers in this country. He had all of the qualities to serve Canada well in the future as he did in the past.
If my hon. friend is not satisfied with those credentials, he should look at his own.


THE ECONOMY
Hon. Herb Gray (Windsor West):: Mr. Speaker, I also have a question for the Prime Minister in the absence of

March 5, 1991
Oral Questions
the Minister of Finance about something else that is fundamental to keeping this country together.
The finance minister keeps saying there is going to be an economic recovery in the spring. Just yesterday, Philip Cross, an analyst with Statistics Canada, the government's own statistical agency said, speaking about the eleventh straight drop in economic indicators: "There is no sign of a turnaround".
Why is the government persisting with a budget that is so out of touch with reality? Why will the government not make changes to that budget and bring in programs that will create jobs and get the economy moving forward right now? Why the delay?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend, who has had some experience in the financial field, knows full well that most independent forecasters agree with the assessment of the Minister of Finance, including most of the leading chartered banks in Canada, that the economic turnaround will begin in the summer, will be well under way in the autumn and will produce economic growth of 3.5 per cent next year and 4 per cent in successive years. This would cause Canada to rank again behind Japan as the second most substantial leader in terms of economic growth of the G-7 and the OECD countries. My hon. friend knows that. He also knows that our recovery must be predicated on driving interest rates down so as to encourage investor confidence. We are seeing that in abundance because of the strength of the dollar, which is attracting international support on a regular and daily basis.
No one can foresee the future perfectly, but I think there is general agreement that to the extent that anybody can predict months ahead, the Minister of Finance has accurately laid out a very sound game plan that will bring about prosperity and growth and jobs for Canadians.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has just contradicted the Minister of Finance, admitting that it is his view that the recovery will not come until this summer when the Minister of Finance assured us in his budget it was going to come as early as this spring.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: It is too bad the Prime Minister did not say what he said today about interest rates last spring. We would be in a much better situation right now.
The Prime Minister is interested in outside experts. Why will he not listen to Marie Quinn, vice-president of the national employment agency, Manpower Temporary Services. Speaking of Toronto where, if the Minister of Finance is right, we should be seeing some signs of economic recovery right now, she said, and I quote: "We are not seeing anything out there suggesting things are picking up".
I ask the Prime Minister: Why has the government introduced a budget based on economic recovery this spring, when that is just not happening? Why is the government so blindly obstinate? Why is the government refusing to respond when it comes to the real needs of Canadians for jobs and growth right now?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I cannot allow my hon. friend to open that kind of a breach between the Minister of Finance and myself. I meant early summer and the minister meant late spring.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend knows that interest rates have come down some 408 basis points since their high of last spring; all indications are now, after 14 or 15 consecutive weeks, that the bank rate will continue to drop. All signs cause us to believe that the recovery will be sound and solid, and it will indeed be predicated upon non-inflationary growth based on lower interest rates.
My hon. friend knows, because he was involved in 1980 in an exchange with someone on a television program, Morty Shulman, who asked him: "What happens if the Liberals get back in in this election in February and interest rates go up, because you have guaranteed they go down," and the member for Windsor West said: "If interest rates go up, I will resign on the spot". They went up 15 points almost over that period of time and he is still here.


Mr. Jim Karpoff (Surrey North):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Prime Minister. National medicare was originally a 50-50 partnership between the federal gov-
March 5, 1991

emment and the provinces. This partnership was broken by the Liberals with the introduction of block funding and unilateral cuts.
In August 1983 in Nova Scotia, the Prime Minister personally pledged to restore the 50-50 partnership. I quote: "A pumped up federal contribution is a priority item for us".
My question for the Prime Minister is: Why has his government not honoured this pledge for a 50-50 partnership and why has the federal share dropped below 37 per cent with this budget?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, indeed the federal commitment to these programs continues to grow on a regular basis, as the minister of health pointed out yesterday.
Some $14 billion is transferred from the federal government every year to the provinces. There is in the neighbourhood of $28 billion to $30 billion that is being transferred on an over-all basis, second only to the payments we make on the size of the debt.
While some provinces such as British Columbia have debt servicing charges of 5 or 6 cents on the dollar, and even a have-not province like New Brunswick has some 16 cents, the federal government inherited a situation where 35 cents on every dollar must go to pay the interest on the debt. What we must do to maintain the integrity of the programs, and make sure that the federal government can continue to do this, is get back eventually to a situation that prevailed when the Liberals first came to power in 1968 when they were only spending 12 cents per dollar on debt servicing.


James Capsey (Jim) Karpoff: Mr. Speaker, my second question is also for the Prime Minister.
In 1983, the Prime Minister stated that federal medicare shares in certain cases will have to reach even higher than 50 per cent in such areas as northern B.C., New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.
The reality today is that these provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and B.C. are being forced to cut medical services and consider user fees because of the cuts by the federal government.
What happened to the commitment for at least 50 per cent funding on medicare? In particular, what happened to it in this budget in 1991?
Oral Questions


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, the Government of Canada has consistently honoured its commitments to the provinces by granting increased amounts of money every year.
For example, in the forthcoming year, our contributions to the provinces will increase in the neighbourhood of 3.7 per cent, while we will be keeping our own expenditures in the neighbourhood of 3.2 or 3.3 per cent.
We are giving more to the provinces than we are spending on other government programs. One of the problems that has taken place in regard to the question raised by my hon. friend is the manner in which some provinces have treated the moneys that they have received.
The provinces are in a healthier fiscal situation than the federal government. It is up to them as well to make sure that Canadians are provided with first class services. The Government of Canada contributes more than its share to this kind of program.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


OGILVY RENAULT
Mr. David Kilgour (Edmonton Southeast):: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Prime Minister.
Will the Prime Minister tell the House why his old law firm in Montreal has received the right to act for his government on the privatization of Petro-Canada, based in Calgary? Is that not, in reality, a fresh application of the abuse of office principles at work in his government's awarding of the CF-18 contract as well?


Hon. Kim Campbell (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada):: Mr. Speaker, the kindest interpretation that can be put on the hon. member's question is that it reflects the complete ignorance of the structure of complex commercial transactions.
The hon. member's question is not only insulting, but it is false and misleading. Perhaps I could enlighten him by advising him that first of all Petro-Canada based in Calgary has its own counsel. It has always had its own counsel.
The Minister of State for Privatization, in drafting the legislation to allow the privatization of Petro-Canada, retained the firm of Ogilvy Renault to advise the government. That firm has been retained to advise the

March 5, 1991
Oral Questions
Government of Canada on the ongoing process of privatization.
The hon. member should be aware that that legal work is far from a major part of legal work involved in the privatization of Petro-Canada.
The major part of the work will relate to the public offering of shares of Petro-Canada. That work will be contracted by the consortium which will offer the shares of Petro-Canada. This government urges that consortium to retain Alberta legal counsel in performing that work.


David Kilgour: Mr. Speaker, having worked in the minister's Department of Justice previously, I know how her department awards counsel. I would remind her that there have been 50 privatizations in British Columbia alone from her own seatmates, and so there are lawyers in Vancouver that know something about privatization. There are 12,000 practising lawyers in western Canada, many of whom know a lot about privatization in oil and gas.
My supplementary is to the Prime Minister. Oil and gas is one of the few industries based in western Canada. Will the Prime Minister or his agent reconsider this act of blatant patronage? Why does it have to go to Montreal? Why does it have to go to the Prime Minister's old law firm?


A. Kim Campbell: Mr. Speaker, politics certainly does make strange bedfellows.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


A. Kim Campbell: Mr. Speaker, it is always a wondrous sight to see any Liberal rise in this House to raise a question with respect to the energy industry in Alberta. It is particularly remarkable to see that member who appears to have adopted his party's position with the zeal of a convert.
I would remind the hon. member that we on this side of the House are very aware of the fact that the energy industry is centred in Alberta.


An hon. member:: It has been for a long time.


A. Kim Campbell: We are not the
party of the National Energy Program-


An hon. member:: Certainly not.


A. Kim Campbell: -the program which not only devastated the energy industry in Alberta, but dealt a body blow to the legal profession in Alberta which supports that industry. It is this government, in fact, in recognition of the fact that the energy industry is centred in Alberta that has made the decision to move the National Energy Board to Alberta.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE
Mr. Mark Assad (Gatineau-La Lievre):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of State (Employment and Immigration).
Socio-economic agencies in eastern Quebec have sounded the alarm in a manner unprecedented since the Depression in the thirties. We have a disastrous economic situation, unemployment and now, sections 28 and 30 of the present Unemployment Insurance Act, which are unrealistic and penalize the unemployed.
Does the minister not realize that changes in the Unemployment Insurance Act are badly needed?


Hon. Monique Vezina (Minister of State (Employment and Immigration) and Minister of State (Seniors)):: Mr. Speaker, need I remind the House that the purpose of unemployment insurance reform was to deal with the high levels of unemployment that exist in the regions to which the hon. member referred?
We changed the system of economic regions, something which had not been done for 12 years, so that the legislation would better reflect community needs. Speaking for the government, I repeat that we are firmly resolved to continue to work with the communities. Our budgets have been maintained, and the answer is to make things work and bring together our budgets and the initiatives of our communities.


Mark Joseph Assad: Mr. Speaker, does the minister not realize these agencies represent the people of that area? My Quebec colleagues and I spoke to these agencies who are begging the government to amend sections 28 and 30.
March 5, 1991

Considering the needs and fears that exist in this particular group, does the minister think it is time to at least consider the possibility of changing measures that are damaging the social fabric of our society?


Monique Vézina: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member referred to a region I know very well, and to past social conditions with which I was also very familiar, even before 1984, when I was trying to help restore the economy of eastern Quebec and peripheral regions.
I am convinced that our present CJS and the programs that draw on community resources, are a success. That is the approach we must continue to take, and this applies to all communities and to municipal, provincial and federal governments as well.


OGILVY RENAULT
Mr. Ross Harvey (Edmonton East):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Justice.
In avoiding the questions of the hon. member for Edmonton Southeast, the minister said that the hon. member displayed-and I believe I have this, Mr. Speaker-"complete ignorance of the complex structure of financial relations".
I understand that the minister, who is deemed to have a very high IQ, has doubtless a very fine grasp of these matters. I wonder if she can explain, other than its ties with the PMO, what arcane and wonderful qualifications Ogilvy Renault enjoys that cannot be found among the major law firms of Alberta?


A. Kim Campbell: I believe what I said was "ignorance of the structure of complex commercial transactions". Perhaps the hon. member wants to correct that.
The retention of Ogilvy Renault as one of many firms which will be working in this area is not to cast aspersions on other firms. It has experience. It has advised the Government of Canada on the drafting of the legislation, and its expertise on securities, intellectual property, real estate, labour and pension law, are very appropriate
Oral Questions
to the Government of Canada's interests in this particular transaction.
I wish to assure the hon. member that in fact there will be enormous quantities of work for the law firms in Alberta as this process unfolds. I would also point out that there is a very important principle in the practise of law of conflict where a firm may only act for one party or transaction. Since most of the purchasers of interest in Petro-Canada will be in Alberta, many of the Alberta law firms will also be retained to act for those parties.


Ross Harvey: Mr. Speaker, building on the minister's enthusiasm for Alberta firms, might I ask the Prime Minister if he would be so kind as to direct the Minister of State for Privatization and Regulatory Affairs to direct Dominion Securities to include any available and competent Alberta brokers in its sales effort and to list the issue on the Alberta Stock Exchange for the duration of the privatization?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, as the minister pointed out, the question and the newspaper story that was leaked last night by my hon. friend for Edmonton Southeast is completely, totally, wrong and misleading. I point out to my hon. friend that the only thing wrong with his question is that inasmuch as the Government of Canada has already instructed the consortium that will be selling the shares to use Alberta counsel, we have also instructed the consortium to use Alberta brokers.


HOUSING
Mr. Mac Harb (Ottawa Centre):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of State for Housing.
Recently, we learned that the NDP government in Ontario will not keep its promise to deliver 20,000 affordable housing units in the province. With close to
250,000	homeless Canadians, over-crowded shelters, and thousands of people on the waiting lists for housing, can the minister tell Canadians how he can justify a 15 per cent cut to the new housing initiative budget and what plans he has in mind to reverse his government's decision and give some help to the homeless of Canada?


Hon. Alan Redway (Minister of State (Housing)):: Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member is aware, the thrust of the

March 5, 1991
Government Orders
budget is to get interest rates down, to get Canadians back to work, and to get the housing industry moving again so that we can provide housing for all of those people who need it so desperately. Also, as the hon. member I am sure is aware, because of the economies that the federal housing department has been able to accomplish, we will be able to produce exactly the same number of housing units as we did last year in the coming year, notwithstanding the fact that we will have less money.


Mac Harb: Mr. Speaker, I hope that the minister is not suggesting that they have in fact accommodated the housing sector's demands.

As the minister is no doubt aware, the establishment of a federal housing department reflects some federal responsibility in that area. How does the minister hope to fulfill this responsibility with a 15 per cent cut in the budget of his new housing initiative? Did he urge the government not to renege on its commitment to the poor in Canada or does he think it is better not to raise the issue claiming that no one will listen anyway?


Alan Redway: Mr. Speaker, certainly we will be fulfilling our commitment to the poor of Canada this year. As the hon. member is aware, right now we support some 640,000 homes across the country and we spend close to $2 billion of federal taxpayers' money to carry out that support.
This year we will be able to assist an additional 40,000 homes. All of that will be done, even though we are spending less money, because Canadians want their govemment to do things better, to do it more efficiently, and to be able to produce more or the same amount with less money. That is exactly what we are going to be doing this year in housing.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Wilson (Etobicoke Centre) that Bill C-97, an act to provide borrowing authority, be read the second time and referred to a legislative committee.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: At the adjournment of the House at 1 p.m., the hon. member for Crowfoot had the floor. He has 16 minutes left.


Arnold John Malone: Mr. Speaker, when I concluded at one o'clock, prior to lunch, I had just undergone two speeches in this House, which in the name of lowering interest rates gave a litany of things they would like to spend money on. I want to summarize that part of my comments very quickly and then move on to another subject.
Surely every Canadian everywhere has to ask the question: If the debt is to grow without end, is health care more secure? Is education more likely? Is housing more probable? Is job training more certain? Surely, the more the provinces, the municipalities, the federal government and citizens themselves extend what we have today into tomorrow by borrowing and borrowing so that some future generation has to pay, clearly the weaker becomes our social safety net; not stronger but weaker.
While the aspirations of those of the Liberal and the NDP are laudable aspirations to be commended and congratulated, surely they must come face to face at some point with the reality that we cannot just wish for these aspects of life; we have to earn our way to be able to afford them.
I believe that a former member of this House, who represented a Toronto riding and then became the leader of the New Democratic Party for the province of Ontario, is going right through that exercise at this very moment. He went into an election campaign for the province of Ontario, promising that there would be no increase in university tuition fees. He went through an election campaign in which he said that he would offer, as was revealed today in Question Period, 20,000 new housing units.
March 5, 1991

The only reason he is changing his mind is not because these aspects of life have become negative. It is because the new premier of Ontario came face to face with reality. He came face to face with the recognition that we cannot just wish for things, but rather have to put in place the building blocks that will allow the economy to be able to afford.
What separates the government party from those of the two opposition parties? It is not the recognition of what might be good for citizens. It really comes down to the simple difference that what the NDP in particular would like us to do is to wish for a greater redistribution of wealth, without ever putting in place at all any capacity for the creation of wealth. If we cannot create wealth in this nation, we cannot have the aspirations satisfied that so many citizens want.
I would like for a few moments to turn to a very different subject-one that showed up in the budgetdealing with the use of tobacco and the taxes that apply to it, and to give my reflections on why I believe the government has approached this issue in the right way.
The use of tobacco in this country, in all countries, in every country, among every person of every age group, is something that brings harm to our health, that costs us in lost time on the job and that costs us severely in terms of our medical costs. It is the only product on the Canadian market today that is harmful to a person's health when used according to the manufacturer's intentions. It is a product for which there is no safe level of use. Many people point to other products and say these are also harmful. Those other products usually are harmful if abused, but for the tobacco product there is no safe level of use.
Therefore, I think it was appropriate when the Minister of Finance was drawing up a budget that he would add three cents tax per cigarette.
I want to extract from that what else he might have done that he did not do. Because of the involvement of Canadians in defending freedom in the gulf region, because of the involvement of Canadians to ensure that the citizens of Kuwait would be able to retain and to have their homeland, this budget was one that had to find enough capacity to pay for that expense.
It would have been possible for a six cent per litre increase in gasoline to raise the same amount of revenue
Government Orders
without increasing income tax. Clearly such a move would have been inflationary and it would have hit hard on trains, boats and airplanes: all modes of transportation. In a country like Canada, so large in its geography, such an impact would have been very serious.
We could have raised the same amount of money, had we added a two-cent per cigarette tax and a two-cent per litre tax on gasoline. But what is important is that a one-cent tax on cigarettes is equal to two cents of tax on a litre of gasoline, in terms of its net to the Government of Canada, and that even includes the projections for those Canadians who will quit smoking as a result of the higher price.
One approach would have been inflationary, whereas the other one has an impact on a habit that is harmful, that is damaging, and that is threatening to the health of Canadians everywhere.
When we take a look at what is happening in our country in terms of tobacco use, one observation that can be made is this: very few Canadians older than 22 or 23 years of age begin to smoke. If they have got to that point in their life without smoking, in all probability they will remain non-smokers for the rest of their lives.
What happens from the early twenties throughout the rest of one's life is that education is increasingly having an impact on the smoking habit. However, between approximately 10 years of age and 17, 18 or 19 years of age, but particularly in the early teen years, price is very much related to whether or not young people will start the habit of smoking.
To put a tax of three cents per cigarette on manufactured tobacco products and tobacco has a very positive impact on keeping young people from smoking.
I think it is very much a case that we have to put in place the kinds of policies which tend to decrease the amount of use of tobacco in this country for all of the harmful reasons we all know are there in terms of health costs.
This can be said of a tobacco company: A tobacco company is nobody's friend and it is everybody's enemy. After making that comment, I also want to take a moment to say that I recognize and I am fully aware and very cognizant of the fact that there are persons who make their living from the tobacco industry. In particu-

March 5, 1991
Government Orders
lar, I address my comments to those producers who grow tobacco and make their money from that product.
While it is the case we are in a society that is becoming increasingly more sensitized to good health and good environment, one cannot debate this issue and not have compassion for and even bear the obligation of having to go further to put in place the kinds of research that will seek out alternative crops, to seek out alternative opportunities and to put in place safety nets, because these persons are now having their incomes jeopardized for reasons not of their own causing.
While on the one hand I am very strongly committed that the more we can do to reduce tobacco use in this country, the better off our whole nation will be. We are able to generate tax revenues for our country without inflationary pressures. At the same time we bear a burden to those who earn their income from such ways where they need other options in order to maintain good family life on what is good agricultural lands and they need to have some kind of protection.
The dangers of tobacco are not confined to direct users of cigarettes. While 35,000 Canadians every year, year after year, each year will die from the use of tobacco, an additional 3,500 die from side-stream smoke or from being in the environment of heavy smoking. Persons who work in certain bars or in certain confined areas where smoking is a heavy, habitual habit, just by their presence in those rooms are obtaining lung diseases and heart diseases that are causing them to suffer the pangs of what happens from the tobacco industry, which has grown on the basis of providing poor health for citizens everywhere.
What I find sinister about the tobacco industry is that prior to the 1940s and 1950s the major users of tobacco were males. Somewhere about that time we were becoming as a North American society more cognizant of good physical fitness. Men throughout North America began to reduce tobacco consumption, and advertising was put in place to direct and to influence more females to take on the use of tobacco. The product Virginia Slims and the insulting slogan of "You've come a long way, baby" were used in advertisement to try to attract women to the habit of smoking.
As that stabilized, what then became the next market of the tobacco industry was to focus on young people, up until such time as governments put in place the restrictions on advertising that disallowed not only the use of tight jeans and the kind of lifestyle advertising that made young people think that smoking was a chic thing to do, but banned it altogether so it was not even an influence within the Canadian market at all.
What the tobacco industry is doing today by going into the Third World nations, selling high tar tobacco, not even processed or refined to what we think of as an acceptable standard in North America, and trying to perpetuate the use of tobacco among these relatively uninformed, unsuspecting Third World citizens is a fact of business policy that simply cannot be tolerated or accepted.
They somehow need to diversify and get out of their industry not only for the sake of the health of Canadians, not only for the sake of the fact that they have been involved in a product that is morally wrong because it kills so many people. They have also to bear a burden that they as a company, not just government, owe something to the farmers who produce their product and that they as major tobacco companies need to get involved in the rediversification and the ability of these producers to be able to raise new products without having to have their livelihoods stripped away.
This product, which is as addictive as cocaine and heroin and has been established and researched in some 50 nations by more than 3,000 creditable studies has been proven time in and time out to be harmful to one's health, dangerous to those who are in the presence of smokers. It is highly addictive. It is causing one of the major costs of our society in terms of lost time and health damage. I think the time has come when clearly we as Canadians everywhere have to send the signal that the habit of smoking is unacceptable. It is intolerable but, most of all, we should commend those in the budget process who used that process to stop at least another
10,000	to 15,000 young people from developing the habit.
Hopefully next year there will be another increase in the tax on tobacco. I hope the companies will bear a major burden in helping provincial governments and the federal government to re-establish new possibilities for those in the tobacco growing regions, because they bear the burden of doing something humanitarian rather than

simply going from men, to women, to children, to the Third World, perpetually trying to sell a product that should not be on the market in the first place.


Thomas (Tom) William Wappel: Mr. Speaker, I listened very carefully to the comments and the speech of the hon. member. I was amazed that he went on for 20 minutes about the budget and in fact about one particular aspect of the budget: the evils of tobacco.
I want to ask him a very simple question. If what the hon. member says is true, and if there was the commitment of the Minister of Finance to the points that the hon. member raised, surely the way to effect that change would have been to put perhaps a 10 or 15 cents per cigarette tax on cigarettes. Surely this is all just window dressing to try to dress up a disaster of a budget.


Mr. Bill Blaikie (Winnipeg TVanscona):: Mr. Speaker, generally the member who made the speech takes the opportunity to respond to a question or comment. This was not done in this case.
I think it is not just a question of getting into a bidding war as to who could demonstrate the sincerity of their opposition to the evils of tobacco by the severity of the tax, whether it be three cents a cigarette or fifteen cents a cigarette. I think that the hon. member who spoke for the government is undoubtedly sincere in his concern about the effects of smoking and about the extent to which nicotine addiction is every bit as strong as that of cocaine or heroin.
On the other hand, although I do not oppose the tax in the budget, no one has every suggested that the solution to heroin addiction is to up the price of heroin, or to up the price of cocaine, because many of these problems are much more deep rooted than simply the price of the particular product. I would caution the hon. member against any sort of simplistic correlation between price and the ability to break oneself of the habit. In fact, if anything, trying to solve these problems through taxation tends to punish poorer addicts over wealthy addicts. If you are one of those people who unfortunately cannot break the habit of smoking, if you happen to be affluent, you are going to continue to pay the price. If you are poor and you cannot pay that price, but you must continue to pay it because you cannot find your way out
Government Orders
of the addiction, then other things are going to suffer-it might be the kids, it might be other things.
I would certainly encourage the government, if it is serious about trying to break Canadians of nicotine addiction to look not only to the tax system, but to look for other ways to help people shake what admittedly is a very difficult habit to break completely and utterly, as I know from my own experience and from the experience of so many other people.


Arnold John Malone: Mr. Speaker, I never responded to the first member because I was waiting for a question and there was none. Since the hon. member for Winnipeg Strathcona wants me to-


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Transcona not Strathcona.


Arnold John Malone: Yes, and I could appreciate why you would want that distinction.
What the hon. member raises is certainly a legitimate question. Why are we treating cocaine and heroin differently from tobacco? The answer, I think, is fairly straightforward and it is that we have gone through several generations where tobacco was, and is today, legal.
If tobacco use were discovered today, if Sir Walter Raleigh popped up today and said: "Guess what I have found, this stuff that you can chew, put in your nose, and smoke in paper," and if we knew the research that we know today about it, I virtually would guarantee that this product would be illegal. Its addiction is equal to that of heroin and cocaine, and its health hazards are such that no matter how you use it, it is harmful, even being in its presence.
But cocaine and heroin came on the scene when we knew their damage and they were illegal and they are illegal at the present time.
Then the hon. member says: "Well, what about this question of price?" I thought I had answered that in my formal comments. Persons above the age of 20 who have not yet smoked do not develop the habit. With very rare exception they do not develop the habit. What research has established is that in those years from age 10 through to the end of the teens, the single most impacting factor to decrease tobacco use is price.

March 5, 1991
Government Orders
We could make it illegal, but then we come face to face with the question of what purpose would it be to make a product illegal with a portion of our society so strongly addicted. They would find it virtually impossible to quit. They would perform all kinds of inappropriate social behaviour to try and put in place the continuation of a habit to satisfy an addiction.
By implication, though, I think that that inference might have been made. The hon. member for Winnipeg Transcona says that he did not intend that, and I take him at his word.
I think that price has been established to be effective in keeping young people from smoking. When we look at the other options that a government might have had for raising the funds-very clearly one it might have gone to is a tax on fuel-there would have been an inflationary impact. I think this is a commendable way to go to raise funds without being inflationary and, at the same time, put a real, significant damper on a bad habit around the world wherever it may be used.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, I also want, in the context of the budget, to suggest to the member that the government is willing to consider punitive taxes in order to eradicate bad habits, which is what we have here in the form of the tobacco tax and the argument being made by the hon. member. I wish it would have considered suggestions made by members of my party and members of the environmental community, about looking at what we might call "green taxes" or "eco taxes" or "environmental taxes", that is, taxes which would discourage the use of products which are harmful, not just to the individual environment of a smoker's lungs, but to the global or shared environment of the planet earth.
There was a lot of talk, for instance, about a carbon tax. In the same way that smoke pollutes the human body, the greenhouse effect and various other things which go into the atmosphere are having a long-term deleterious effect on the global environment. It seems to me that at some point governments are going to have to come to the view that they ought to use the tax system, among other things, because I would go back to my other argument that the tax system itself is not the only way to deal with this, but to see the tax system as one weapon in the arsenal, so to speak-forgive the military analogies- that the government has to deal with environmental
problems. Therefore, you could look to taxes which would discourage the use of certain kinds of products.
I wonder if the member has given any thought to that kind of strategy when it comes to the environment, given the premise he has already accepted with respect to the tax and the pollution that tobacco represents.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: In one minute, the hon. member for Crowfoot.


Arnold John Malone: Mr. Speaker, with only one minute, I want to be very clear and very short. I would never accept a carbon tax. I would accept an energy tax, if that were the wisdom of a government at some future date. It would have to be on all energy, because I think pointing a finger at the petrochemical industry and talking about carbons, we fail to see what the hydro industry and methane gas does to our environment. To single out a region and an area of the country and place a tax upon it would be unfair, first of all.
When it comes to the question of taxing bad habits, that might be appropriate. It was not a thought I had considered. But if we do go that distance, then we would also in Question Period want to find a system of taxing preambles, argumentative questions and those that are repetitive, such as today's Question Period was, where we had the same question being asked many times over. Clearly, according to the rules of the House, those are very bad habits and ought to be subject to taxation.


Mr. Ronald J. Duhamel (St. Boniface):: Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to stand in the House today to discuss with members Bill C-97, which will borrow in excess of $26 billion and which members know is part of the government's budget.

What I intend to do is to ask four questions. First, what are this budget and this bill doing for the economy, the economic development of Canada and this government-made recession we have in Canada? Second, what will this budget and this bill do for national unity? Will they make things better or worse? Third, how will this Budget affect education? I raised that question in this House last Wednesday. Finally, once those facts are established, I would like to ask a last question: how much hope and confidence should we, Canadians, put in this government, based on the decisions made in this budget and this bill?
March 5, 1991

Members know we are working within an ideological framework that goes something like this. There is a high dollar, high interest approach to economic development. Basically what is supposed to happen is that inflation should be controlled. Supposedly that should fuel the economy and create jobs.
We need to admit-and I believe this is quite true- that what we have received this year is not terribly different from what was presented in previous years. It may vary somewhat in degree, but for all intents and purposes it is extremely similar. What have been the government's successes to date? Let us review those quickly.
Many members will recall the victims of the government's policies. I am referring to VIA Rail, with 2,700 Canadians no longer working. I am referring to CN, where there has been an announcement to the effect that 2,900 Canadians will lose their jobs. I am referring to the Air Canada privatization, where another 2,900 Canadians are without jobs, many of them extremely skilled people. There are pilots who have devoted much of their lives to gaining the skills required, and many others in a number of other professions.
Some members will recall the Route Canada fiasco where this company was sold and where 1,900 Canadians paid and continue to pay because some of them have not received wages or pension benefits or severance benefits. I could go on.
What about the CBC cuts? This year alone they are over 1,100. Last year there were 500-odd. These are the kinds of situations in which Canadians have been placed. They are the victims of this made-in-Canada recession, of these government decisions, including this latest budget.
What else has occurred? We have been told and it has been documented that bankruptcies are at a record high. The poor in this country, which is a relatively rich one, total nearly five million, most of whom are women and over one million of whom are children. In Canada this year almost two million people will go to food banks. I am informed that perhaps as many as 40 per cent will be children and that is roughly 500,000 people per month.
Government Orders
There are in this country today five million to seven million functionally illiterate Canadians, which costs the Canadian economy in excess of $10 billion. There are over 1.3 million unemployed, and that could be going up to 1.5 million. There have been cutbacks to health, to education, to social assistance programs, to regions, to various groups-some have been mentioned today-and 33 tax increases including the goods and services tax.
What happens as a result of all of this? Quite apart from the difficulties that Canadians are suffering, the ones I have mentioned and many, many others, well, the deficit is in excess of $30 billion, $30.5 billion. And the debt will be over $400 billion.
I know that my colleagues across the way love to say that is the Liberals' fault. But I have from the Minister of Finance a signed document which says that at the end of fiscal year 1984, the debt was $168 billion. When the interest rates from that day up until now are factored in one finds, interestingly enough, that the debt should have been much less than what it is today. So it really does not add up.
We have to look at that within the global context because do hon. members know what revenues were in 1984? They were around $70 billion. Do you know what they are going to be at the end of the fiscal year? They will be almost $130 billion. That is very close to twice as much. That is a pretty good increase in revenue. So the question is, what has happened to your money and to mine?
Mr. Speaker, there has been little success. The model that is being used by the government is based on a number of assumptions and those assumptions are false. They are not working. Not deliberately so. It just so happens that the model is not operating appropriately.
Let's look at some of those assumptions. The interest rate was predicted to be 11 per cent in 1990-91. But we all know that it averaged 13 per cent. Inflation was predicted to be, I think, in the neighbourhood of 4 per cent, or a little lower. Of course, that is not so; the most recent figure of 6.8 per cent really throws the figures out. The deficit was predicted to be $28.5 billion this year; as I mentioned, it will be $30.5 billion. As you know, in 1985 the same Minister of Finance predicted that the deficit

March 5, 1991
Government Orders
would be $18 billion. That is a far cry from the $30.5 billion that it is.
What about taxes? Personal income taxes were supposed to increase by 9 per cent. But lo and behold, your taxes and mine happened to increase by 15 per cent. What about corporate taxes? They were supposed to decrease by 2 per cent. But what happened? Lo and behold, they were reduced by 10 per cent. And the 1988 corporate tax rate of 34 per cent is now down to 28 per cent.
Economic growth was predicted to be 1.3 per cent in 1990. Well, it is going to be a little more than one-half of that, .8 per cent, apparently. And for 1991 the prediction was 3 per cent in growth, and we expect the economy to shrink by 1 per cent this year.
What were the predictions for employment? It was predicted for 1990-91 that there would be 1.2 per cent growth. But what has really happened is that it will shrink by roughly 1.5 per cent.
Perhaps they have done better with unemployment. The prediction for 1991 was 8.5 per cent unemployment, and now we expect it to be, according to the most recent budget, 10 per cent, or perhaps even slightly more.
With all due respect to the finance minister, his forecasts cannot be trusted and, I hasten to add, not because he is deliberately trying to be misleading but I think simply because he is unable to predict accurately what is happening in this country, and to deal with it appropriately.
The second question that I want to address is: What does this budget and Bill C-97 do for national unity? You know, I know, we all know that the institutions which bind this country together are being systematically destroyed one by one. I have mentioned the CBC, the CBC that spoke to the nation from one coast to the other; and VIA Rail, where we could travel at an affordable price; what about the privatization of Air Canada? What about the cuts to health, education, and social assistance programs? I could go on and identify even more reductions to programs that held this nation together, that gave it a sense of purpose, that gave it direction. But they are being dismantled, and they are being dismantled in such a way that people are losing faith in government. They are losing faith in government, and they are starting to believe that this country can no longer stay together.
This budget has been defined as a separatist dream and a federalist nightmare. Why is that? We know that the federal government has been unable to respond in a sensible and sensitive way to the needs of the regions, to the needs of the people in the provinces and in the territories. What is happening is that gradually, bit by bit, they feel as if they are being blocked out. They feel as if they do not matter any more. They feel that it does not matter what they say or do; they do not count. And when that happens, the country suffers and national unity suffers.
A federal government, it seems to me and to many colleagues, ought to be able to ensure that the essential services, such as health, education, social assistance, transportation, and communications are in fact available to all Canadians, no matter where they come from, no matter what their status in life. It should be there. That is our main and most essential purpose. And that is where this government has failed miserably.
It is unfortunate because, as I mentioned before, Canadians throughout the land are feeling as if it is not working together. The great fear that I have, and that many other Canadians have, is that once you start thinking that way, it may become a fait accompli.

My third question regards education. What impact does this budget have on education? The government made more cuts in this field. After promising there would be no changes, in 1986, it brought in a 2 per cent cut. Again in 1989-1990, it cut a further 1 per cent. In 1990-1991, it imposed a freeze. Now, it has extended the freeze. The figures involved here are astronomical.
Between 1986 and 1995, the health and education enveloppes will have shrunk by approximately $33 billion. So, there will be about a third less money for education, that is to say $11 billion. That is a lot of money, an enormous amount of money!
What was done in terms of training and retraining? Where are the outstanding programs we were promised? In previous years, the amounts allocated were more or less the same without taking inflation into account though. This year, there is a $100 million cut. What was done in terms of student assistance? Nothing. While the

eligibility criteria were not changed since 1984 in spite of the fact that the cost of living increased tremendously, nothing was done.
For litteracy, $4.50 a year is granted for each of the five to seven million Canadians who need help. You cannot even buy a hamburger and a glass of milk for that price nowadays. As for research and development, a ceiling was put on that too, as you know. Research and development are most important to ensure that we remain at the leading edge of things on the economic, technological, social, cultural, and political front. So, what do we do? We set a ceiling.
What does all this lead to? As you no doubt are aware, the student debt is skyrocketing. I have here-I could quote, but I think my colleagues will take my word for it-information to the effect that it increased quite substantially over the past ten years. This means that there are more students today who, on a scale from $0 to $5,000, $5,000 to $10,000, $10,000 to $15,000 and $15,000 to $20,000, are getting $15,000 to $20,000 deeper into debt every year than there were in the past. So, what do they do? They are afraid, they quit school, and fewer and fewer of them will get a post-secondary education. We will be the big loosers.
On admission fees, did you know, Mr. Speaker, that they increased by 300 per cent in some provinces and by 200 per cent in others? One hundred per cent increases are not uncommon for admission fees. What will that do? I can assure you that if we add up the 2 per cent ceiling on student job creation, the impending closure of employment centers in colleges and universities, the impact of the GST and the 3 per cent administrative fee added on to student loans, it is no wonder that Canadian students feel crushed. This at a stage of this country's development when we are realizing that our most important resource is the Canadian men and women, educated men and women who are truly committed to the economic, social and cultural development of the country.

I have a quote here, and it is a bit embarrassing because it says: "Conservative revolution takes big leap forward." It shows that while the government continues to talk about the need for competitiveness on the world
Government Orders
markets and globalization, it ceaselessly strangles the nation's colleges and universities. We are all people who believe in the importance of education, but we must go beyond believing in its importance. We need to ensure that it has the support that it requires to do the job that needs to be done.
Let me just quote a few passages very quickly about the importance of education:
Education is about far more than the exercise of federal spending powers; it goes to the heart of the factors that bind Canada together as a country. In a country as vast and diverse as ours nationhood is often a tenuous proposition. What better place to start nation building than in our schools, our universities and colleges, and educational programs which take place outside of our institutions.
The challenges that face Canada are very real and immediate. We must begin to equip our nation with the human resources it needs to confront economic globalization and domestic economic restructuring-
Increasingly, major industrialized countries are recognizing the importance of improving labour productivity through training as a means of ensuring competitiveness.
This is from the Ontario Report of the Premier's Council Industrial Policy Studies, volume III, 1986. I could go on. The Canada Royal Commission on the Arts, Letters, and Sciences stated:
The universities also serve the national cause in so many ways, direct and indirect, that theirs must regarded as the finest of contributions to national strength and unity.

Mr. Speaker, there are several other quotes, but I must launch upon the last point now.

What kind of trust, what kind of confidence can we have in government as a result of this analysis that I have done? We know that the promises have not been kept and I would not be nearly as upset as I am if they had returned and told us why. But they kept on going without even the simple courtesy of explaining.
I pointed out that the assumptions of inflation, interest rates, et cetera, are wrong, absolutely wrong. What upsets me is the minister last week would not admit that he had cut health and education, and he has almost-$1 billion, and half a billion in education. When is a cut a cut? We know that the government's policies have had very, very little success, that the revenues increased from $70 billion to $130 billion with a deficit that is in excess of $30 billion, a debt that will go over $400 billion. Yet it

Government Orders
continues: the unemployed almost $1.5 billion; the food banks, almost 2 million people will go there this year.
We know that there has been unfair taxation where the poor get poorer and the middle class is getting hammered and hammered and they are becoming poor.
I am pleased that my party has put a task force on taxation together and they it will look at progressive taxation. It will look at proposals from my colleague, the hon. member for Broadview-Greenwood, as well as Professor Brooks from the University of Toronto. It wants to ensure that this country's taxation is as sensitive and sensible as it could be.
This budget has attacked the regions and its people. The government was wrong in 1984-85. It was wrong in 1985-86, 1987-88, 1989-90 and it is wrong this year as well. The Minister of Finance wants us to believe him. We really tried. We found that we could not. We cannot and we will not.


Mr. Denis Pronovost (Saint-Maurice):: Mr. Speaker, I listened closely to the clearly expressed views of my colleague the hon. member for St. Boniface, and I commend him for that. Still in his remarks he raised a number of issues which have me wondering. I know he is an expert in the education field and that he held senior positions in his province. Elowever, Mr. Speaker, I was surprised a few times when the hon. member for St. Boniface referred to the money spent on education throughout Canada and told us that in a few weeks or months we will be witnessing the complete collapse of our national education system in the ten provinces and the two territories.
Sure enough, Mr. Speaker, the Canadian government can no longer afford to invest as much money as we would like in education, research and development. But most people know that money does not solve everything. Back home, in my city of Shawinigan, we have a general and vocational college which this year has the best budget ever. But in concrete terms, for instance, last weekend the local newspapers reported that 70 per cent of the students at the Shawinigan CEGEP cannot pass a quality elementary test in French. Yet the government spends a fortune on that institution of learning.
Unless I am mistaken, Mr. Speaker, the member for St. Boniface is convinced that we will solve our problems by spending more money for education and more money for the health care system in Canada. I do not share his views. I would suggest that the provinces have a significant role to play when it comes to allocating the funds they have for educational purposes.
If we examine what is going on in Quebec-and I imagine it is the same thing in other provinces-we see that, owing to labour agreements, a physical education teacher will teach mathematics next year and religion or ethics four years down the road before returning to physical education, without the benefit of a refresher course. We have reason to believe that a lot of money has been spent, but because of a major flaw in the collective agreements between the province and the teachers, it would seem that all that money has been badly expended.
Oftentimes we hear about a man who stands accused of neglecting his children, so he will attempt to buy the love of his children with money. He does not solve his problems.
Here is my question to the hon. member for St. Boniface: Does he really believe that we will solve our problem in Canada by investing billions of extra dollars-as he suggests-in research and development, in literacy, new funds to increase our annual budget which already totals $157 billion?


Ron J. Duhamel: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my hon. friend's comments and his question. I do not think I said that it would be the end of the world if no new funds were injected but I did say, and I quote:

The present government made an election commitment in 1984 to
double the percentage of national income for research and
development.

The Prime Minister made that commitment. The fact that he did not return to explain why he did not honour this commitment saddens me.
Here is another quote:



Canada has fallen behind its competitors on most measures of
research and development activity and leads in none.

As you can see, that is there too. It really saddens me to see that they refuse to face reality.
As to what I said, may I reply with an analogy. Let us imagine that the gentleman and I share a brick house. In 1986, although he promised that he would not, he started removing a few bricks here and there in an hap hazard fashion. In 1989-90, he removes a few bricks. In 1990-91, he removes some more, and again in 1992 until 1995. What will happen? My friend, the house will collapse. That is what is happening. When some harm is done to an institution, whether a college or university, it does not show right away, but only later on. The harm gradually increases and, finally, it is too late. That was my message.
Another message just as important is that money does not solve every problem. I wish we could have looked at what could be done to make us more competitive, when the government decided it was necessary to cut back every year in payments for education, and especially this year in the training and retraining of workers. I find this extremely sad.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the hon. member for St. Boniface, a neighbouring riding.
I have two matters. He is obviously concerned about cutbacks in education and rightly so, but I wonder if he would comment on a good example of what I think are inappropriate cutbacks in education that have occurred in Winnipeg in the last week or so where a great many English as a second language teachers have had their jobs threatened as a result of cutbacks in education. This is a good example of the short-sightedness of cutbacks in education, whereby new Canadians, for whom it is an advantage to learn English-an advantage not only to them but to everyone else, to society as a whole-are being deprived of this opportunity as a result of cutbacks in education funding. It seems to me that we need to see education funding, not just as spending, in the negative sense of what we mean by spending, but as the building
Government Orders
up of infrastructure, whether that is human infrastructure through the development of skills and research, et cetera, or other forms of infrastructure.
It seems to me that this is the insight that is lacking in the generalized attack on things like education.
We may want to debate with each other about what is the best investment in terms of infrastructure-in this case human resources-but I think this insight is generally lacking on the government side.
Second, I wonder why it is-although the member made a fleeting reference to the need for fair taxation- that in Liberal speech after Liberal speech after Liberal speech we find so little attention paid to the money that could have been raised by this government if it did not want to cut back on spending or if it wanted to raise revenue, by closing many of the tax loopholes that now exist. I wonder if the reason for that is that most of the tax loopholes which should have been closed in this budget were loopholes that were put there in the first place by Liberal governments. Perhaps that explains the silence of the Liberal Party when it comes to closing those tax loopholes.


Ron J. Duhamel: When he got up, my colleague said that he was from a neighbouring constituency and I thought he was going to treat me like a neighbour. He started that way, and then, I do not know, some force grabbed him and made him deviate.
With respect to the latter, I suspect that my hon. colleague has not been here all of the time-none of us can be-but my colleagues have, in fact, mentioned that that could have been changed and should have been changed. There is no party in the world-not my party nor his-let me finish-


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Name a loophole that should have been changed.


Ron J. Duhamel: -that could not go back in its history and change some of the things it has done.
Name a loophole? I think the "meals loophole" is one good one. You thought that perhaps I did not know.
The second point that I want to make-and I would like him to continue to treat me like a neighbour-is this: if he wants to look at sins, let us look at the NDP government in Ontario. In their manifesto they say "no

March 5, 1991
Government Orders
tuition fees". Now, what do they do? They "stick it" to the students and add 8 per cent this year.
With respect to the question of English as a second language, he is quite right. That was the best point he made; there is a national problem. The government has increased the number of immigrants and it has not increased the language training program. On that one issue my friend and I stand side by side. On the others, we are going to have some other discussions.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Before recognizing the hon. member for Rosedale, it is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: The hon. member for Winnipeg Transco-na-Lithuania; the hon. member for Winnipeg St. James-Justice;	the hon. member for
Drummond-Housing.


Hon. David MacDonald (Rosedale):: Mr. Speaker, like other hon. members, I rise to take part in the debate on the borrowing bill, Bill C-97, which of course goes to the heart of the recent budget and goes to the heart of the present economic problems that are being faced by this country.
I listened with some interest to both the recent debates that have taken place and the discussions that have occurred over the past several weeks. It strikes me that only occasionally do people speak to what surely are the essential issues in the matters that are presently before us.
Surely we are addressing the economic health of the country and the degree to which the federal government, in the way that it can control the expenditures and revenues of the country, can contribute to the improvement of that economic health.
As we think about matters related to the debt and the deficit, I think there is a danger of looking only at the narrow economic issues, whether it is the regular growth of the debt, which is in many ways overwhelming, if not suffocating, or looking at the annual deficit charges which are still enormous. In fact, if one looks at the amount that will have to be paid on the interest alone on the debt that currently exists, it is such a monumental
figure of some $43 billion that it almost overwhelms almost the totality of all our annual social expenditures.
This is not an easy issue to resolve. If it was, we would certainly not be debating it here and we would not have had a succession of budgets and economic measures seeking to contain it.
I would like to begin by looking beyond the immediate problems that affect the debt and the deficit. Those of high interest rates, high dollar, perhaps less than adequate productivity, threatening inflation and, of course, at the moment veiy large and unacceptably high unemployment. I want to look at the context of the country itself and what we are faced with.
In Question Period today and in many Question Periods, there was debate about how we are resolving our constitutional difficulties. Again, the danger is that we look at these in the context of the kind of legalisms or to extend it a bit, the packages of rights and privileges that extend to various jurisdictions: the provinces, the federal jurisdiction, or beyond the provinces to the municipalities.
It would be important for just a moment to think about the totality of all of this, of the very country of which we are a part. It is a fascinating if not, at times, a frustrating country to understand.
I had the opportunity last year to serve on the special committee of the House of Commons, the Charest committee, which attempted to break the logjam with respect to the Meech Lake agreement. I do not want to regurgitate all of the arguments that went pro and con around that issue. But I want to look at the perceptions that affected that consideration and the perceptions that I suspect very much affect both the Spicer commission and the joint committee of the House of Commons and Senate. Here is where I think we engage ourselves in considerable difficulty.
What strikes me, as someone who has been in and out of public life now for a quarter of a century, is that there seems to be greater and greater difficulty for Canadians generally to see the country in its totality. It has become much easier, one might almost say seductive, to look at the country through a particular microscope, in a particular locality and with an almost singular set of characteristics. While it is true that each one of us makes our home in a specific community, accompanied by specific family, neighbours and friends, the sustenance of that
March 5, 1991

local community is a much larger reality. One that is even larger than Canada itself and Canada is, to say the least, uncomfortably large.
The old saw of an earlier Prime Minister, Mackenzie King, that most countries have too much history and this country has too much geography seems to be particularly true in the experiences of the last decade.
In the debate affecting the borrowing bill, a certain amount of attention has been focused, certainly from this side, about the degree to which in the final years of the Trudeau government expenditures far outran revenues, something like 30 per cent or more and there was a rapid accumulation and an augmentation of the debt.
That same period of the early 1980s also saw an attempt to resolve the national sense in the elaboration of the Constitution in 1982 and 1983.1 believe that in a sense by attempting to resolve something, that may have been much more difficult to resolve than we realized, we opened a kind of Pandora's box and created a kind of expectation, if not a desire, for people to try and satisfy and resolve all their local anxieties within some kind of new national context and not really being sure of what that might be.
Those questions are still out there. In some ways they may have been further enlarged upon or touched upon in terms of our renegotiated economic understanding at least with the United States through the free trade agreement. If there are two things that affect the character of Canada and Canadians it is our sense of what it means to be united as a country and in relationship to the United States.
All of this could be cast, and has been cast by some, as a kind of negative experience but I want to suggest here today that it also has the seeds within it of a positive opportunity. While Canada is very big and its problems for those of us who are Canadians may seem very large, the world of which we are increasingly aware is even larger, tougher, and more difficult. We only have to reflect on the experiences of the last few months and in particular the experience with the gulf crisis to realize how abundantly true that is.
I was not that closely involved with all of the detailed aspects of either the gulf crisis or the gulf war, but just before hostilities occurred in mid-January, along with colleagues from both sides of this House, I visited two countries that certainly were heavily impacted by the effect of the gulf crisis.
Government Orders
Even today as I stand here the people of the Sudan who have unfortunately been bled by a government that chose in a rash moment to support the actions of Iraq have paid a rather heavy price in terms of finding limited access to desperately needed foreign assistance at a time of a major internal famine threat and crisis.
Many of us are deeply troubled by the fact that as many as perhaps seven million to nine million people at the moment are suffering the risk of famine in a situation which far too few people know anything about but which, all too sadly I suspect, as the news and interest related to the gulf subsides they will become painfully aware.
This is only one example of the world which Canada is a part of. A few months ago I attended an international meeting concerned with matters of security, not security in the way we have traditionally thought of it in terms of military expertise and systems of national defence. This is security of a kind that raises fundamental questions about the health of the planet to survive the rapidly deteriorating situation and ecological breakdown that is occurring in hot spots of the world, such as parts of Africa, but is already showing signs of threatening even the protected parts of North America.
I see my colleague here from Saskatchewan. He could speak feelingly about the recurrence of very threatening drought in the 1980s in the province of Saskatchewan and in parts of the United States.
We have major environmental challenges. When we talk of security in the 1990s and beyond, I believe we will be spending much more time thinking about ecological security and resources in the same kind of mind set, the same kind of magnitude as countries have been prepared to devote to systems of national military defence.
These are a few examples of the world in which Canada exists, and here I want to raise a very strange problem.
When I travel with others to parts of Africa or Asia to discuss with them their particular needs, how Canadian volunteer organizations, institutions, churches, universities, labour unions, businesses and others can be helpful, there is an automatic willingness to engage in conversations with Canadians because we have a record of being helpful in a disinterested way that does not carry with it

Government Orders
a great hidden agenda of some kind of exploitation or unfair advantage.
We do hope for improved and beneficial relations, but in a way that is acceptable to both partners. I can still recall a few months ago being with a number of friends in Ethiopia discussing with them some of the acute challenges and problems that are faced by one of the poorest countries of the world, with a population twice the size of Canada.
During the conversation, as we had spent much time discussing this project or that, it suddenly turned to Canada and I was asked to give an indication of what was important that was going on in Canada.
As I began to describe some of the matters which seem to preoccupy so much of our time and attention, I saw people's eyes glaze over because they could not understand how these problems, which from their point of view seem so infinitesimally small, could so dominate our national agenda and our national attention.
There is a strange paradox or contradiction in this. I think that Canadians, our political parties and our institutions have to rediscover what are the real priorities for this country in the world of the 1990s.
A starting point has to be where we live, and that is the purpose of the bill that is before us today. That we get our own economic house in order. There can be no satisfactory health to us in any other kind of terms if the management of our own resources and economic wellbeing is not being responsibly looked after.
A great Canadian, a man who had tremendous insight into the fundamental differences between Americans and Canadians, once said: "The real difference in business terms between Americans and Canadians is that Americans like to make money and Canadians like to count it". That was Northrop Frye.
I think it says a lot about a certain sense of responsibility that we have. I believe there is a good deal of discomfort among members of all parties in the fact that we have not been as effective as we should be in restoring the economic health that we need for this country.
While I have heard a fair bit of criticism about this particular program activity, expenditure, reduction or
another, I have heard very little about how we can in a sense take the direction that the Minister of Finance, the President of the Treasury Board and others have outlined by way of suggesting a safe, sure and secure path out of the economic strangulation that exists with spending still far too much of our revenue resources to meet an unacceptably high deficit and a national debt. Surely the challenge to all of us is to work together on that proposition.
The other day I was at a meeting with the president of the Economic Council who raised a problem that I had never thought of in economic terms. She said that one of the fundamental weaknesses in the Canadian economy is that we may be too affected by an adversarial situation.
Of course it goes without saying that the parliamentary tradition that we are all a part of is based on a certain level of adversarial activities. It is the constant testing of governments that ensures that they are doing what is responsible and that also indicates that the opposition are keeping governments on their toes.
I think she was meaning more than that, that within the Canadian experience of acting responsibly in an economic sense there is a need to work together to work our way out of what I regard as an extremely dangerous and difficult situation. None of us can be happy by the fact that the deficit at $30 billion is still far higher than it should be.
I would like to challenge all members of this House, and I suppose particularly those who are in the opposition, to contribute to this debate and others in a way that would suggest how we can make further and effective reductions in that, because, ultimately, the most important thing we can do in achieving economic recovery, and with that, environmental and social recovery, is in raising the confidence level of the Canadian economy. I fundamentally believe that that will not happen unless we can prove that we are serious about getting our own economic house in order and reducing, in a significant way, the sure strangulation that the continuing debt and deficit have effected on the Canadian economy and on our people.


Mr. Derek Lee (Scarborough -Rouge River):: Mr. Speaker, I enjoyed much of the content of the remarks of the hon. member for Rosedale. Just as he was

speaking, I was at my desk replying to a letter from a Scarborough group using the name The Agincourt Ecumenical Ministries, a number of Christian churches. One of the questions I was attempting to answer, just as he spoke, was what more should Canada be doing to assist the famines around the world and to help the hungry and the dying out there right as we speak. One of the items they mentioned was the delivery by Canada of the UN exhorted .7 per cent GNP contribution to world aid. I know we are not there yet.
I agree that the Canadian debt is going to have to be better managed. We have to have the money in our hand before we spend it, but one thing that appears to be missing, and it may not be missing but I have not seen it, is the commitment from government to move our foreign aid up to a level that is more commensurate with the needs of the world.
As I ask the hon. member that, I also would recall for him the events of Sunday night where he and I were at a dinner where a magician who had come from China moved a coin from my hand into the hon. member's pocket about 15 feet away. I still do not know how the magician did it, but I will do that right now and ask the hon. member to comment on that.


David Samuel Horne MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Scarborough for the comment and the question.
As he will recall from Sunday night, the coin that was briefly resting in my pocket went right back to the magician and, of course, that seems to be often the case.
What I am concerned about in terms of the major point that he raised affecting Canada's commitment to international development is that we not, in an attempt on a short-term basis to maintain some kind of, I guess I would call it, if I can use some theological terms, some cheap grace, satisfy a situation that will ultimately make it even more difficult for us to play what I think is a major and significant role in international development.
It is true we have made a commitment to go to .7 per cent, and we got very close to .48 per cent or .49 per cent on a GNP basis. We have slipped back a bit, although quite frankly, in the last several budgets, the ODA budget has not taken as large a cut as other parts of federal expenditure. If you compare our contributions on a percentage basis with most of the countries that are
Government Orders
involved in international development in a serious way, we are still a major contributor and have held our own better than a number, certainly much better than our friends in the United States, who have seen a very dramatic reduction in their ODA budget.
There is no easy answer. One cannot isolate either the international development expenditures or any other part from the over-all economic management that is going on. However, I do think that we can use our contributions more effectively and efficiently, in view of some of the recent announcements that were made over the past year or two, in dealing with the poorest of the poor. I believe that, fundamentally, we should be using our aid to assist in those situations where in fact not large amounts of money but small amounts of money used on people-intensive areas can be very important. We have learned over the last few years that spending large amounts of money is not the key; it is enabling people to help themselves.
One of the best projects that I managed when I was Ambassador to Ethiopia and Sudan was the Canada Fund, which allowed us to put money into small groups, self-help organizations, which achieved a great deal.


Peter L. McCreath: Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by complimenting the hon. member for Rosedale on his remarks. His presence in this House, in my judgment, contributes tremendously to the wisdom that is here, given his extensive experience not only over many years in this place but also in serving Canada abroad in the Third World.
I come here each day and listen to the debate back and forth, and I particularly listen to remarks from the other side of this Chamber, which are always of a highly negative nature respecting the state of affairs in this country. I know we are all concerned about the state of the national debt. I listened earlier with great interest to my hon. friend from St. Boniface who criticized the government for raising taxes, criticized the government for reducing expenditures, and then criticized the government because we had a debt. So I am not sure how this works.
I would like to put a question to my hon. friend, in view of his experience and his time in all parts of the world. It seems to me rather unusual that the severest and most frequent critics of this country are the people who fail to recognize how fortunate we are to live here. I wonder if

March 5, 1991
Government Orders
he would be kind enough to comment, notwithstanding the difficulties that we have with our national debt and the need for a borrowing bill such as we have before us, on what he has observed of the attitudes that peoples of different parts of the world have towards this country of ours.


David Samuel Horne MacDonald: Sometimes I think our greatest problem is that we do not have the opportunity to see ourselves as others see us. That is not easy to achieve, Mr. Speaker, because we are very much in a cocoon, if I can put it that way, of North America, and in particular with perceptions of ourselves that are somewhat our own and somewhat not our own. If I can talk about the way in which we see ourselves through the eyes of the United States, it is fascinating. It has always intrigued me, as one who is interested in communications and culture, how this is a country that basically understands itself on the basis of how other people treat us. And for most of us, it is how the United States treats us.
I see my friend from Humber-St. Barbe-Baie Verte here, who, along with myself and several others, travelled early on to the Ethiopian famine. I think we will never be able to quite overcome the kind of welcome we had. I have an image in my head that I want to share with members, because it involves the member for Humber- St. Barbe-Baie Verte. We visited at the height of the famine one of the worst famine camps in Mak'ale, in northern Ethiopia. For people who have not been there, even the thought of it must be almost appalling. But the image I have is not an appalling one. It is of about 30 or 40 children who found in the member for Humber-St. Barbe-Baie Verte a soulmate. They began to sing and dance in that famine camp in a way that recognized that even though they did not know our names, they did not know quite where we came from, they knew we were there to help and that we were friends. A bond of friendship and acceptance was established that said something very important, both for the hon. member and for the Canadians he represented.
We need to have a strong sense of that, I think, and if we are able to gain it, it will be very important in dealing with many of what we see to be very tough economic,
constitutional or environmental problems that we face. It is getting that kind of an understanding that I believe is quite important.


Brian Vincent Tobin: Mr. Speaker, I look forward to this opportunity to participate in the discussion on the borrowing bill. Let me say to my hon. colleague who has just sat down that I too remember very well-I think it was December 1984, just a few weeks before Christmas-the visit that he, as the then famine ambassador for Canada, and I, together with the member from Edmonton Southeast and Lynn McDonald took to Ethiopia. Certainly I could not agree with him more that that kind of experience will not leave any of us because it was at the height of the famine and it was early on. What we saw, in particular having seen it just before Christmas, just before coming home for that great spiritual but commercial celebration here at home, was quite a startling contrast.
I have to say to the hon. member that when I remember those scenes, when I remember those people, nothing in my experience has ever affected me as much or for so long a period of time, then I become one of those representing one of Canada's poorest provinces, Newfoundland, one of the highest areas of unemployment in Canada in the riding now named Humber-St. Barbe-Baie Verte when its name changed, I become one of those who has no hesitation defending even in times of restraint Canada's foreign aid spending development assistance.
I know I speak with absolute assurance on behalf of the people of my riding, that even though they live in the poorest province in one of the poorest constituencies of the 295 in Canada, the people of my constituency would not want to see the books balanced on the backs of the very poorest of the poor in the world. I hope the government will bear that in mind and will not feel some political obligation to make cuts.
I hope that if we are involved, as the Secretary of State for External Affairs has said, in the reconstruction of Kuwait and Iraq that those funds will not be diverted from existing aid programs, that we will not deny those who live in the sub-Sahara so we can do reconstruction in Kuwait or Iraq. That too would not be proper.

I want to say a few words about this government's spending program and its request for borrowings and the budget. The reality of a borrowing bill and the reality of a budget is that it is far more than just an economic statement. A budget is far more than an economic blueprint for the government. It is far more than a ledger of assets versus liabilities. As well, a budget is and must be a political statement. The budget reflects, after all, the priorities, the problems but also the potential of a nation. A budget is the reflection of the choices that a government makes in determining its spending program. Ultimately, a budget tells us something about the values of a society.
I have no hesitation in saying that I have a great many problems, a profound disagreement with this borrowing bill and this budget. It is not a disagreement founded on how much is raised and how much is spent. It is not a fundamental disagreement with the notion of practising a measure of frugality. It is not a disagreement with the Minister of Finance's seven year old objective of getting the deficit under control. He has been telling us every year since 1984 that that is his primary objective. However, the national debt has more than doubled in those seven years and the deficit has not been reduced by very much. So I do not disagree with those objectives, although they have been missed. No. My objection to the borrowing bill and to the budget is the kind of vision it paints of this country.
The member who spoke before me talked about values. I know that member is genuine when he talks about values. I know he feels things very deeply. I have never asked him directly, but I sense this. If you spend time with someone in a place like Ethiopia, a form of osmosis begins to happen. You begin to take the measure of people. I know that when it comes to values, the perception of the continued meltdown as is assuredly going to happen as forecast in the budget, the assured meltdown of medicare in this country; the assured meltdown in the ability of Canadian youth to have access to post-secondary education in this country, that evolution, as is foreshadowed by this budget, causes members of vision, I would suspect, a great deal of trouble.
If Canada is allowed to continue with the kind of spending program, the kind of priorities as outlined by the Minister of Finance, we are not going to recognize
Government Orders
this country in a very short period of time. We are not talking about 30 years, or 20 or 15 or even 10 years from now. We are talking about three or four years from now.
Do Canadians realize that this budget puts in place cuts for health, education and social assistance to the tune of $5 billion over the next five years and that within five years we are going to have as many as four of the ten provinces getting no transfers from Ottawa for health care. What does it mean when four of ten provinces get no transfers from Ottawa for health care because of these cutbacks? It means we can no longer talk about a national standard of medicare in Canada, because the national government cannot dictate a national standard if it has not put its money where its mouth is.
What does that mean? It means if you come from Ontario, which has some fiscal capability and there is a cut in health dollars, the provincial government makes up the difference and hopefully, you maintain the quality of the health care. But if you come from Newfoundland, where there has been a cut in federal dollars, and the provincial government has no ability to make up the difference, then health care goes down.
It means we are building a Canadian society where the notion of being a Canadian used to mean that in some fundamental ways, we are all equal whether we come from P.E.I. or Rosedale, or Newfoundland or British Columbia. We used to be equal in terms of our health care across this country. We all knew that if we got sick, God forbid anything else that went wrong, we would be looked after. We used to know that if we were totally down and out and had no other means, at least under the Canada Assistance Program we would be looked after. We always knew that if we were unemployed, we had our unemployment insurance. We knew that in our retirement, we could retire with the dignity of a Canada pension. All of these things, health care, access to quality education, unemployment insurance, and I suspect in the minds of people my age we are wondering whether there will be at this rate an old age pension, the security of an old age pension cheque.
All of those things are not about dollars and sense. They are reflections of the values of a nation. Do we as a nation value the notion that whether you come from east or west, north or south, rich or poor, you are entitled to quality health care? Is that not a Canadian value? Can it

March 5, 1991
Government Orders
be traded away against the bottom line of a budget estimate? Do we not in this nation believe that the brains of this country, the youth of this country, whether they are born north or south, east or west, rich or poor, Catholic, Protestant, Jew, Muslim, that every one of them ought to have an opportunity to develop the potential of their grey matter and that university ought not to be the privilege of the rich?
Mr. Speaker, every time we see another cut for post-secondary education, the post-secondary institutions raise the tuitions, and every time they raise the tuitions the universities become more and more a place for only those who have dollars in their pockets. That says something about the common values of being a Canadian that are being traded away in this budget.
I said a moment ago that I am from Newfoundland. In this country for the last 30 years we have had another concept that is being traded away in this budget. It was the concept of regional development, not a concept or a guarantee that every region would be equal because they will never all be equal, not a guarantee that every citizen would be equal. There can never be such a guarantee.
We always strived in this country whether we were Liberal governments and traditionally Tory governments to at least provide an opportunity for equality, the chance to succeed. When you play with medicare, and when you play with access to quality education, when you play with the basic sustenance of life, you deny that opportunity for equality of opportunity.
In the budget just brought down we again see cuts in training programs. The Minister of Finance announces forecasts that unemployment, which is now 1.3 million, is going to go up to 1.5 million-one million five hundred thousand Canadians unemployed, without a job, with no income, without the dignity of a pay cheque-one and a half million, the minister's forecast.
In the next breath he says: "By the way, I am cutting $100 million from our training budget". Is investing in training, giving skills, developing skills for Canadians an expense or is that an investment? Is that money wasted and thrown away or is that building on the most primary form of raw material of the country, the primary raw resource of the country, our people?
I suggest a $100 million cut to the Canadian Jobs Strategy is not in my judgment a wise investment. It is not a wise investment and would not be perceived as such in any of the constituencies of this country, whether we are talking low unemployment areas or high unemployment areas. But that cut has been made by the Minister of Finance and we on this side have asked the Minister of Finance, we have asked the government, to reconsider that cut. These are training dollars.
In Ontario, the great province of Ontario, they are really feeling as they have never felt the negative impact of this recession. Southern Ontario is taking a vicious beating. It is being de-industrialized.
The factories are closing, the workers are being sent home, but that is not the bad news. The bad news is that the factories are not reopening. They are relocating. They have gone south.
When the government brought in free trade, the Prime Minister at one point promised the most massive adjustment program that the world had ever seen. We did not get adjustment for those factory workers. Some of them who live in southern Ontario come from my province. They are now unemployed. They are coming back home again because they lost their jobs in southern Ontario.
We did not get an adjustment program in this budget. We got a $100 million cut in training funds. This budget smacks of a set of values that fly in the face of the institutional memory of government in this nation.
They are not Liberal values, New Democratic Party values or Conservative values. They are Canadian values that have evolved since 1867. They have come from the hearts, minds and souls of Canadians who distinguish themselves from that great neighbour to the south, the United States. We do not believe it is every man, woman and child for him or herself.
This is not a dog-eat-dog society. We do believe in caring and sharing. We do believe that no matter where you live, what your circumstances are, what your income is, there are some things we have in common. We are Canadians.
March 5, 1991

This budget has been written as if the Minister of Finance expected the applause that would normally be generated in the United States of America by the brutal values that are expressed in it.
Let those who have tried to suggest that this budget is really not a big deal-this budget has no big tax increase-remember that there has been a 24 per cent increase in UI premiums. It is going to raise billions. That is a tax increase.
There has been a $5 billion cut in the transfers to the provinces and so the provinces are now going to have to do what the federal government did not have the courage to do: cut programs and raise taxes.
Let those who will spend the next few months balling up their fists in anger at their provincial governments because they have cut their post-secondary programs, because they have raised tuition fees, because they have closed hospital beds remember that the source of that misery is not in the province. It is here in Ottawa.
The Minister of Finance is not fighting the deficit. He is transferring it onto the backs of the provinces. That transfer of the deficit onto the backs of the province is going to create a Canada where we have a multi-class society. Those who reside in provinces with the financial wherewithal to make up the shortfall will have one standard. Those who come from the poorer provinces will have another degree of Canadian citizenship.
This budget turns its back on Canadian history and on every Prime Minister, starting with John A. Macdonald who built the railway not because it made sense, not because it was economically viable but because he wanted to hold a nation together. He bound it together with bonds of steel.
He understood the notion of nation-building. He understood and dreamed about what kind of country this could be. This government, in six short years, most symbolized by this pathetic budget has squandered Macdonald's dream.


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, I am sorry to interrupt the questions and comments to my hon. friend, but there has been discussion among the parties in the House.
I think you will find unanimous consent for the following motion:
Government Orders
That upon the completion of proceedings on the adjournment motion today the House continue to sit, and revert to consideration of Bill C-97, the borrowing bill, and so continue until 10 p.m. today, with no superseding motions or quorum calls to be receivable during that extended sitting, and that the House adjourn at 10 p.m.; and
That on Wednesday, March 6,1991, the House continue to sit until 10 p.m. to consider Bill C-97, under the same provisions as for Thesday, March 5, 1991, save for the adjournment proceedings, and that any requested recorded division be deferred until 3 p.m. on Thursday March 7, 1991; and
That following adoption of this order the order for second reading and and reference to a legislative committee of Bill C-97 be changed to second reading and reference to the Standing Committee on Finance.


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


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


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


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Mr. Speaker, I would like to say something on this.
We are agreeable to co-operate with the government in this way, to facilitate it in dealing with this matter. We have a lot of speakers who would like to speak on the important debate on the borrowing bill. We recognize it is effectively a part of the budget debate that we have been carrying on with for the last four days, and I may say that after the speech of the hon. member for Humber- St. Barbe-Baie Verte, all speakers on this side of the House when they are recognized will be speaking for 10 minutes, followed by five minutes of questions and comments, if that is satisfactory to the House.


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, I would like to indicate first of all our appreciation to the House for the co-operation on this matter and, second, to indicate that should the parties wish to split their times, we on this side are very happy to co-operate in that and would in fact encourage it to make sure that all members who want to speak have that opportunity.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: In order to make sure that hon. members understand, may I ask whether it pleases the House to adopt the motion moved by the

Government Orders
Parliamentary Secretary to the House Leader of the Government?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Does the House agree also that hon. members should devide their times into ten minute periods?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: I would appreciate if hon. members when they rise, would indicate to the Chair whether they will speak for 10 or 20 minutes. It would be helpful, I have not yet heard the position of the New Democratic Party. Therefore I should like hon. members to do that in order to help the Chair keep track of the time.
Question and comment period. The hon. member for Souris-Moose Mountain has the floor.


Mr. Len Gustafson (Parliamentary Secretary to Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to comment, particularly after the presentation here by the hon. member for Rosedale and the first part of the comments by the hon. member for Humber-Saint-Barbe-Baie Verte, that the level of debate in this House had risen considerably.
I was very, very pleased to hear some of the positive comments, particularly about the important values of Canada and the important things such as medicare and the programs that we as Canadians value.
I wanted to make a comment about something former premier Tommy Douglas from Saskatchewan said about medicare. And you know, in Saskatchewan, if you are a Conservative, John Diefenbaker was the founder of medicare. If you are an NDPer Tommy Douglas was. Be that as it may, in reality that is where medicare had its beginning. It was in Saskatchewan. But Tommy Douglas made the statement that if we were going to maintain medicare, and if Canadians were going to enjoy it, we had to beware of the some of the abuses and some of the costs of it.
Certainly that is what this budget embodies, dealing with some of the important things in the budget and in spending that are necessary to maintain the areas that are so important to all Canadians.
The other part of the debate this afternoon that I was very encouraged about was the level of debate with respect to the unity of the country. I would just make a statement, and I think I speak on behalf of farmers in western Canada, particularly in Saskatchewan. The hon. member for Rosedale made reference to the difficult times we have been through.
I want to refer to it in terms of the importance of this country working together and staying united. I believe the Minister of Agriculture indicated that about $22 billion has been paid into agriculture in the last six years.
As a farmer, we in western Canada, especially those of us in the drought area, appreciated that. Really, without the unity of Canada that would not have been possible, because that kind of money could not have come from Saskatchewan, which has been in very difficult times.
The hon. member for Humber-St. Barbe-Baie Verte mentioned the problems in Newfoundland. The unity of this country, as the member for Rosedale said at the beginning of his speech, is so important to the future, not only to the economic development, but to the understanding of how we see Canada and how we believe it to be. Certainly, dealing with the deficit and dealing with financial and economic matters is so important.
We have a wonderful country, but it is most important that we pay our way, that we deal with the deficit, that we deal with it in a way that will maintain medicare and the universal programs that we cherish, and that we deal with it in terms of dealing with a deficit that could destroy us.
I really do appreciate the debate this afternoon having a little different level to it than at other times.


Brian Vincent Tobin: Mr. Speaker, I will take advantage of this to make a short response to the comments by the member from Saskatchewan, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister.
The parliamentary secretary, I believe, made a comment that we ought to reflect upon when he talked about the fact that $22 billion-I think he said-had gone into the farm community in this country. I cannot think of a group of people collectively more deserving of the support of their fellow citizens. Because the $22 billion we talk about is not money that is buried in a vault in Ottawa; it is printed here, but literally it is a share of the wealth of the country that has been transferred to a particular group because the country believes there is value in supporting farmers who for many decades, along
March 5, 1991

with other primary producers, have provided the cash to keep all the rest of us going.
So that is the nature of a country, Mr. Speaker. I would simply say to the hon. member that I agree with him about those great primary producers, farmers; that they ought to be supported in difficult times, just as fishermen, primary producers who harvest the sea, ought to be supported in difficult times.
If we understand that concept of making an investment in something that has value, collectively, for the whole nation, so, too, should we commit ourselves not to a pure, bottom line, immediate, this moment, set of criteria dealing with medicare and education, but we ought to defend the integrity of medicare.
I suggest with great respect, we do not do that when we produce a budget that forecasts within a number of years some of our Canadian provinces, as many as four, will get no funding from Ottawa for medicare. The day that happens we have no national standard, and, God forbid, we may have no program.


Alan Redway: Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest, as I always do, to my friends' comments with respect to the budget, and particularly with respect to medicare. I note as well that in The Ottawa Citizen of today there were some other comments with respect to medicare by well-known columnist, Marjorie Nichols. I would like to just quote a few of the comments of Marjorie Nichols of today.
In an article entitled "Medicare Furore is Fear-Mong-ering" Marjorie Nichols refers to comments by the former Liberal minister of health, from 1977 to 1984, who was the minister responsible for the legislation banning extra billing by the provinces, the Hon. Monique Begin. She states that Monique Begin over this past weekend, I believe, stated the following. Her advice to the medicare hand-wringers is to stay calm. "Medicare", she says, "is not under threat in Canada despite what the fearmongers may maintain". Maijorie Nichols goes on to say: "There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever to support allegations that the federal ceiling of 3.7 per cent on health and education transfer payments increases for the next four years"-by the way that is a ceiling on increases-"will bankrupt provinces or jeopardize health care. On the contrary, the evidence is that the provinces have not been shouldering their fair share of increased social costs or exercising proper fiscal
Government Orders
prudence. The share of provincial budgets that's spent on health care hasn't increased in 20 years".
The hon. member indicated that he supports the concept of deficit and debt reduction. I have yet to hear him indicate support for one measure either in expenditure reduction or in taxation increase which would support that goal that he says he has. I would like him to advise me of one measure of deficit reduction that he would support.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: The hon. member for Humber-St. Barbe-Baie Verte has one minute.


Brian Vincent Tobin: I hope the Speaker will allow me an appropriate time to respond to a question that was two or three minutes.
The first answer to the hon. minister's question: how should the deficit be cut? We could start by getting rid of the 40 ministries that is in the current cabinet which makes this the most bloated cabinet in Canadian history. The cabinet previous to this one was 26 ministries.
The hon. member who was a great spokesman as a backbencher for housing problems-in fact, I am convinced they put him in the cabinet to keep him quiet- has presided over and now almost has the title, and I hope he will take this in good humour, the minister of homelessness. He was a great spokesman for housing as a backbencher but he has presided over consistent cuts in the housing department, $400 million in this cut for housing for poor people in this country.
I would have thought the minister would have been preoccupied with fighting for those people for whom he was such a valiant articulate spokesperson before he got the chauffeur and limousine.
With respect to Maijorie Nichols, I think her problem is that she resides in Ottawa and not in St. Anthony; that she resides in Ottawa and not in Prince Rupert; that she resides in Ottawa and not in Rimouski; that she resides in Ottawa and not in Comer Brook. If she was out there in the real world, may I say-I reside in Ottawa too sometimes-away from the splendour of these stained glass windows and these fine, well-appointed benches that they provide for both members and for journalist, she would understand that people are hurting. The system is already bloated; it is already swollen; it barely works in some places already and people are not getting the health care they deserve.

March 5, 1991
Private Members' Business
These last cuts are just killing cuts, destroying medicare in this country.


Peter L. McCreath: Mr. Speaker, I see by the clock I do not have a great deal of time but I would certainly be pleased to begin because I think it is an important debate. Perhaps I will use the one minute to talk about why we are here to debate.
This Bill C-97 is before the House under the Financial Administration Act, section 43, which says in essence that no money shall be borrowed or security issued by or on behalf of Her Majesty without the authority of Parliament.
I think reflecting on the events of the last year it is important for us to remember that it is this body here, consistent with hundreds of years of tradition that has the responsibility to raise money to be spent on behalf of the Canadian people. That is what this bill does. It authorizes the government to borrow up to $26.4 billion to do the affairs of the nation as set forth in the budgetary plans of the government.
What this bill is about, of course, is debt. We have some talk about debt, though I must confess I am left somewhat confused by the remarks of some of my hon. friends opposite who seem to feel that the government should spend, spend, spend and then not raise any taxes to cover the expenditures. I have to tell you, Mr. Speaker, that it has always been my impression that in order to balance the books, which is the proper way to handle affairs, not only as an individual, but the affairs of a nation, you must raise revenues and balance them with expenditures and have them come together.
Curiously enough, Mr. Speaker-did you wish to call the time or may I continue. Very well, I will continue later.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: It being five o'clock, the House will now proceed to the consideration of Private Members' Business as listed on today's Order Paper.



PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS


David Kilgour: that Bill C-343, an Act to amend the Members of Parliament Retiring Allowances Act (government employment), be read the second time and referred to a legislative committee.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I would like to start by thanking the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands for seconding this motion. Since the hon. member sits on the Committee on Privileges and Elections, his support is a clear indication he did not vote against this motion a few weeks ago.


Mr. Gauthier:: Explain!


David Kilgour: Of course. The hon. member would like some explanations. You may know, Mr. Speaker, that this bill went before the Committee on Privileges and Elections, and I made a few representations at that time. Finally, it seems the committee voted against this bill. I was not present because this took place behind closed doors. I hope this bill will find solid support.

Perhaps it will surprise you to know, Mr. Speaker, that I will not speak very long. I will be as brief as I can so that other members can speak. I urge, which will not surprise you, other members, particularly those on the government side, not to be standing at six o'clock when the debate ends because, if they do, lest anyone have any doubts, they will of course be in effect burying this bill, and it is a bill that I do not believe should be buried.
Let me, though, make the point in starting that apparently there have been some concerns expressed that not only would this bill prevent double-dipping, which of course is when MPs retire after six years, they can take jobs as judges or all sorts of other federal jobs and can continue to draw their MP pensions. At the
March 5, 1991

same time they are drawing in many cases high salaries as federal officials. There is concern that the reference to 60 years of age in the bill means that somebody after 60 can double-dip but not before.
I did not wish to mix up these two principles, namely that you should not be able to draw a pension at 60 because you have been an MP and the question of double-dipping. If anybody is considering either talking the bill out or voting against it, should it come to a vote because of the 60 years provision in it, I hope they will take it to committee and we will simply take out the 60 years there, if that is what is on his or her mind. If the bill goes to committee, it can be dealt with in that respect in committee.
According to Robert Brown, president of the Canadian Institute of Actuaries, when referring to the federal MPs' plan:
If a private company's pension plan was in such terrible shape as the
federal, it would go out of business.
The terrible shape that-


An hon. member:: Are you doing that?


David Kilgour: I think I remember that member. Was he not in committee the day they did not want to make this a votable matter?
The terrible shape that Brown referred to was the $144 million deficit of the MP pension fund which ultimately will be carried by our fellow citizens, 26 million of them, the Canadian taxpayer.


An hon. member:: Oh, oh.


David Kilgour: Mr. Speaker, I seem to have touched a sensitive nerve with that member. I wonder why.


Mr. Bjornson:: I just want him to explain what he means.


David Kilgour: The member will have a chance afterward. I wonder if he will be the brave one to be standing at six o'clock when you, Sir, say the debate is finished. If he is, I think his constituents will be very interested in seeing his face on television at six o'clock.
An MP with a minimum of six years service in this House upon retirement, quitting politics or being defeated in an election-and I suggest there are a lot of members on that side of the House who will fall into that
Private Members' Business
category after the next election- is now able to collect his or her pension for life immediately, whether he or she is 22, 32, 42 or whatever.
In addition, these pensions are fully indexed to the cost of living for those more than 60 years of age by an amendment in 1973. Who was in office then? I know who was in office then. It was not those opposite.


An hon. member:: It was the Liberals.


David Kilgour: He got the joke, Mr. Speaker. He got the joke.
The pensions are more generous than the maximum legal level in the private sector plan, as was recently noted by David Somerville, president of the National Citizens Coalition.


David Bjornson: Another expert.


David Kilgour: Mr. Speaker, to the Conservative member opposite, at least he pays for his own pension plan. They are income subsidies for people who retire or get fired by the electorates. In the private sector, a tax-paying citizen cannot collect his or her pension until the age of 65, or in some cases 60, as I am sure you know, Sir. On the other hand, former MPs do not have any age limit.
Last year the Canadian government paid out $7.6 million in the pensions of MPs. It has been estimated that the present plan, unless changed, will cost between $500,000 to $5 million per MP from the time they collect the pension until age 75. That MP opposite seems strangely silent.
This benefit will be paid to an MP even though he or she is still on the government payroll. To Conservative members opposite, do they remember the $400 billion debt we got? Their finance minister, the man to whom they give standing ovations when he coughs, is the one who has added more red ink and more debt to this country than all other finance ministers in Canadian history.
A good number of former MPs are appointed federal judges or to a host of other positions in the national government. Let me use the name of Mark MacGuigan, because he used to be my professor, an hon. member who is now a judge of the Federal Court or Ed Broad-bent-


Margaret Anne Mitchell: A Liberal.

March 5, 1991
Private Members' Business


David Kilgour: Is Ed Broadbent a Liberal now, to the member for Vancouver East? Should they be permitted to draw MP pensions while being paid high salaries in federal jobs?
To the member for Kamloops, what does Mr. Broad-bent earn these days?


Nelson Andrew Riis: He is not a turncoat like somebody else I know.


David Kilgour: To the member for Kamloops, that is a red herring.


An hon. member:: So they agree that those pensions should be paid. The NDP agrees. I cannot believe it.


David Kilgour: They will have the chance to get up in a few minutes. We will see if they have the courage to be standing at six o'clock.
For this pension, an MP is required to contribute only 11 per cent of his or her salary, whereas Canadian taxpayers pay the rest. My understanding is that the share for the taxpayer of our pension plan is currently in the 70 per cent range.
At a time when the government is reducing social, educational, and hospital spending and continuing to talk restraint for others, not walking its talk but talking its talk-


Nelson Andrew Riis: Can you say that again?


David Kilgour: Walking its talk. I can only say it twice for the member for Kamloops, because then I become boring to the other members.
When it comes to benefits for politicians, leadership requires more than talk. Example is what is needed and what better place to start than on MP pensions. It is argued that a good pension and a decent salary are necessary to attract men and women into sacrificing private careers to gamble on ones in elected public service. This argument is valid to a certain point, but one needs to define what is a healthy pension and what is a decent salary.
The average income for Canadians, according to Statistics Canada, was $23,709 per person. Out of this income they have to pay taxes-32 additional taxes since 1984, I believe-keep up their homes and meet other living expenses. As of January 1 they must, of course, pay the unfortunate 7 per cent GST for many goods and
services. Few can receive their pensions before the age of 65. The base salary of an MP is $62,100 per year, with a $20,000 tax-free allowance, and recently a further $6,000 in housing and other expense allowance. You have to claim on that and you have to provide receipts.
Additional privileges such as 64 first-class return air fares-


David Bjornson: First-class.


David Kilgour: Take my word for it, it is 64 passes, first-class passes. I mention that to the member for Orillia.


Edna Anderson: I am not from Orillia either.


David Kilgour: Barrie, Barrie.
Free VIA Rail passes for spouses and dependent children, subsidized meals at parliamentary restaurants, happily getting less so, and the early pension benefit already mentioned.
The gap between MPs and other Canadians is wide and getting wider. It explains in part the wide-spread view that MPs only look to serve their own interests.
I saw a poll recently that, I think, showed about 65 per cent of Canadians think that MPs are mostly interested in money. The sentiment is further strengthened when those decisions are made by a private committee, an all-party Standing Committee on Management and Members' Services which meets in secret, keeps no record of votes-if I am wrong on that I hope the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands will correct me- and does not publish any minutes or reports.
It is true that an MP's career is an insecure one, especially these days, and the average is tenure now between five and seven years. Moreover, as all members know, an MP's life includes pressures and burdens such as travel, family separation, loss of privacy, handling parliamentary and constituency responsibilities, and so on. Yet, it is a calling that all of us have chosen freely. As far as I know none of us was forced to run for office-all of us chose to run for office-an opportunity that is not afforded to all of our fellow citizens. No one was ever forced to run for Parliament.
Is it not therefore appropriate to pay us pensions that will add as of now $144 million to the national debt?
March 5, 1991


Margaret Anne Mitchell: Mr. Speaker, I just feel it is necessary to intervene again to ask the member to please, even though he is quoting, to clarify the language. We do have female members of Parliament in this place.


David Kilgour: Mr. Speaker, I should know better. The member and I were on a panel together recently in Vancouver and I hope I did not make that mistake there, especially having three daughters-and one son.
In conclusion, I propose Bill C-43 because it would reduce the deficit in the pension fund. Equally important, it puts MPs' pension benefits to be collected at an appropriate age with the law applied as with every other Canadian citizen with their pension.


Peter L. McCreath: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity to participate in this debate. I must say I listened with great interest to the hon. member for Edmonton Southeast and the concern that he is showing, quite sincerely I am sure, with the public purse and propriety.
I cannot help but wonder, since he has some concern about the collecting of pensions after people leave Parliament and whether or not it is the proper thing for them to collect funds on the basis set forth in the current plan, and I noticed when he chose to abandon the party under whose banner he was elected, and it was suggested that possibly it would be appropriate, indeed principled, if he were to-


David Kilgour: The member forgets, Mr. Speaker. I did not abandon the party. I was expelled from the party.


Peter L. McCreath: Mr. Speaker, when you seek public office under a certain banner, under a certain set of policies, and then choose to abandon those policies because they seem momentarily unpopular with the public, it seems to me you have abandoned the party and the banner under which you ran and, indeed, were elected.
Nevertheless, if my hon. friend is so certain that the position he puts forward is correct, I wonder why he did not accept the invitation given to him by so many people to put his money where his mouth is, to resign his seat and re-offer it, be it as an Independent or now as a Liberal candidate.
However, I will not make those points as tempted as I am to raise them at this time. What I really want to talk
Private Members' Business
about is the bill that he brings forward, again something that would seem to play to that which on the surface is very popular with the public.
There is no question if somebody happens to get elected to this House at a very young age, unlike myself I might say, and serves here for a period of time, they do have the potential of drawing a very generous and ample pension for the rest of their lives. Perhaps that is something that should be looked at. However, I think the principle being put forward here is a very simplistic one. Let us very seriously look at the issue before us.
Do we wish to attract capable men and women to stand for public office in this country? What are the bases upon which it is not only attractive but, on a more practical level, possible for people to seek public office?
If the only requirement is that you be rich, then it is no problem. Then it does not even matter whether they pay you or not, and it does not matter whether there is a pension plan.
But I ask: What about the mid-stream professional? Most people do not come to this place in their twenties or indeed in their thirties. Most people come to this place later on in their lives. One need only look around the room and note the sprinkling of grey hair here and there to note that most people come here either midway in their professions or indeed later on. If they come later on, then the problem which my hon. friend is trying to solve by his bill simply does not exist. However, if they come here in mid-stream, what are the sacrifices they have to make on behalf of their families?
He quite rightly points out that nobody forces us to come, but they sure urge us to. They come forward, and we want good people to stand. There are questions as to viability. For example, somebody may have been 17, 18, 19 years in their profession and in their mid-forties or late forties. Maybe they have paid for 17 or 18 years into a pension scheme, and they have to abandon that to come to Parliament and start all over again.
Are we going to attract people to come here, if in fact to come here means to throw their family's financial security on a trash heap? That is really the implication of what is being suggested, it seems to me, if we look at the majority of people who stand for public office in this country.

March 5, 1991
Private Members' Business
I do not think Parliament should be abandoned to simply the rich people. We look at the desirable aspects of MPs' pension schemes and one is tempted to say: "Boy, you fellows really have a good deal". But, then, let us look at the nature of the employment.
I served for 17 years in my profession, education, in my own province of Nova Scotia. When I came here, I had 17 years in my teacher's pension plan. Of course in order to draw a pension I have to go back and work for a few more years, and I know my hon. friends opposite will do their best to see that I have that opportunity at the next election.
But there are other elements of employment in other places, the most principal of which is security of tenure. One can reasonably anticipate, on embarking in a career, that one can stay there until retirement, until one is qualified to earn a pension. Let us face it: there is not that kind of security here, and the practical realities sometime interfere.
My hon. friend talks about the amount of money that the public pays for MPs' pensions. He then proceeds to talk about all the other things that MPs are paid. I would challenge him to name any other pension scheme in this country where the participant in the scheme pays 10 per cent. I know that in my old profession in education, six to seven per cent was the normal range of contribution that was paid.
I guess what I am saying is that I am not sure one can compare apples and oranges and then draw simplistic conclusions such as his friends in the National Citizens Coalition like to do.
What I would like to see, not only for MPs but for all Canadians, is a portable pension attached to the individual so that people do not become the captives of their employers as so often they do.
Over the years when I worked for teachers in Nova Scotia, I would have teachers come in and see me who would be burnt out, who would be tired of the profession, who would be ready for a job change, and they would say: "I have been in teaching for 21 years. I am 47 years old and I am burnt out. I want to do something else, but I cannot leave because of the pension. I am locked in for life; I have to stay here".
Why do we not look ahead in pension reform and look to the notion where every Canadian, on birth, is in effect
registered for a pension. Throughout the course of their career, whether they are employed or whether they are self-employed, as they achieve earnings they make contributions to their personal pension scheme. That leaves them in a situation where down the line they have an opportunity to make their own decisions about their own pensions. If they want to retire early, they have an option to do that. If they wish certain options with respect to how they draw their pension back, that opportunity exists. It is a system, for example, that is used in the province of Saskatchewan. The teachers in Saskatchewan have an individual purchase pension scheme.
What I am talking about here is the concept that you have a pension that is attached to you. If you choose to move from vocation to vocation, from employer to employer, you have your own pension and your pension serves your particular interests and indeed ultimately serves your particular needs. Along the way, your employers would contribute, just as they do with pension schemes now. If you are self-employed, you would have the option to increase the amount you put in. Indeed, people could put in varying amounts, although I believe there should be a minimum. Otherwise, some people would say that they do not need it and then later on in life they would find out that they did, but that they had not been very wise financial planners. Perhaps we should be looking in a more comprehensive way, not just at MP's pensions, but at the pension needs of all Canadians.
The particular bill before us does have some specific problems, and I will briefly mention them, Mr. Speaker, before allowing somebody else an opportunity to participate.
First, it deals with only one aspect of the pension scheme as it affects members of Parliament. Indeed, it seems to me that you have to look at the whole package. I would commend to my hon. friend from Edmonton Southeast, who in trying to solve this problem has brought this piece of legislation forward, that perhaps a more appropriate time to deal with MP's pensions along with others is when the President of the Treasury Board brings forward the Comprehensive Public Sector Pension Reform bill which he is going to be bringing before this House. It seems to me that that would be the appropriate context in which to examine MPs' pensions as well.
March 5, 1991

There are also technical problems with this bill, problems relating to the lack of transitional arrangements. If this is not remedied, the provisions of the bill could, for example, be applied retroactively to former members, and so on. There are some missing elements with respect to the inadequacy of definitions of such things as "part-time" and "public service".
In conclusion, I would like to say that I think pensions are an appropriate thing for members of Parliament to talk about. But I think for them just to talk about pensions that affect themselves is not really a constructive and valuable use of Parliament's time. We should be concerning ourselves with pensions as they affect all Canadians. One of the things that provides for an appropriate social safety net is a pension scheme that accommodates and looks after the needs of all Canadians. And that is what I think Parliament should devote its time to.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity to say a few words regarding this private member's initiative, Bill C-343, introduced by the hon. member for Edmonton Southeast.
I think for people watching this debate, I simply want to take a moment to read the critical clause in this legislation. It refers, of course, to the act regarding members of Parliament retiring allowances. This particular bill says:
Notwithstanding other provisions in this or any other Act of Parliament, no allowance payable under this Act shall be paid to a former member where the member is employed in the public service of Canada on a full or part-time basis and is less than sixty years old.
This is a very interesting suggestion on behalf of the hon. member and obviously reflects the concerns of a number of people. I submit that it actually only reflects part of a set of concerns. I know that the member himself went to some length to point out a whole set of areas of concern and I think most of us are familiar with them. I have to, with all due respect-and Mr. Speaker, you know that I mean this-have to ask how serious the hon. member is in his wish to actually advance this private member's bill or is it simply his intention to make a public statement.
He has been around here longer than I have. He knows that if the legislation is drawn in the regular draw for Private Members' Business, be it a motion or a bill,
Private Members' Business
the first obligation one has is to convince the appropriate committee that this ought to be a motion where a specific vote is eventually taken. That takes a good deal of discussion, formal and informal, perhaps to use the too often quoted term, lobbying members on the committee to point out the value of a vote. Obviously my hon. colleague was unable to convince his colleagues that this was an appropriate measure to vote on, which I think was the first reason I kind of questioned the sincerity of this initiative.
Second, once one fails there, as we have often seen, then it is up to members of Parliament to discuss with their colleagues here in the House of Commons, in a sense, two alternatives: that we do have an understanding among ourselves that this is an issue that ought to be put to a vote and consequently members keep their comments to a minimum and we eventually get to a vote.
I notice with interest that the member for Edmonton Southeast spoke for most of his time, which was almost twice what was allowed us.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: No, no, much less.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Concerning this intervention by the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands, I was watching and while it was not the entire 20 minutes, it was nearly that. Again, I wonder about the purpose of this initiative.
Second, we have on many occasions, and my hon. friends opposite will know this because they are always part of the serious deliberations, where we among ourselves arrange to send the content of the bill to the appropriate committee for consideration and study. That is another alternative.
Neither of these has been done. There have been no informal discussions, no formal discussions, no chats, no lobbying. In other words, again I have to simply assume that this is a public relations exercise and the hon. member's motives and intentions quite frankly are simply not there. Otherwise these discussions would have taken place as they do on a regular basis.


An hon. member:: Stay to the point.


Nelson Andrew Riis: I am just trying to explain to my hon. friend that it is not as though the member for Edmonton Southeast is a new member and consequently does not understand how this place operates. He knows only too well how it operates, having been a very, if you like, proficient member when it comes to procedural argu-

March 5, 1991
Private Members' Business
merits. I know he understands well how you move legislation through this institution.
Let us say that the point that my hon. friend from Edmonton Southeast makes is a very interesting one. It is a concern shared by many Canadians. It is a concern that is discussed among the members of various caucuses and I, quite frankly, agree that this is worthy of some consideration; that the matter of these pensions ought to be reviewed as in so many other areas. He has actually mentioned a few of them in his opening remarks.
Let us face it, this essentially deals only with doubledipping. Double-dipping is something that concerns most Canadians who have studied this issue but there are a lot of other related issues. I notice his colleague, an elected member, never comes to this place and I suspect collects his pay cheque regularly, week after week, month after month and I have not seen him here more than probably-well, I have not seen him for months, quite frankly, with one exception when he made one speech.
The point is, there are a whole host of areas where we have to ask: Are members of Parliament doing the job that was intended of them? Are they being compensated in a fair way in relation primarily to other public institutions and the private sector? These are questions that are more than legitimate to ask.


David Kilgour: We can only deal with one at a time.


Nelson Andrew Riis: My hon. friend says that we can only deal with one at a time. I beg to differ. I am quite capable of dealing with two or three issues at once. I do not need it piecemeal.
I do not question, I suppose, the importance of this at all, but I do question whether or not, if we are talking about changes to the pension plan and the pension program as it affects members of Parliament, we want to take it simply piece by piece-the whole matter not ought to be considered and reviewed appropriately-my experience has been that that is the best way to approach most items as opposed to ad hoc, piecemeal process.
I listened with interest to my colleague who spoke most recently and I have to say that I think he is dead on when he says: "Yes, the whole matter of pensions must be reviewed". If there was a sense that-


Mrs. Gaffney:: So isn't this a step in the right direction?


Nelson Andrew Riis: Do I hear echoes in here? "Isn't this a step in the right direction?"
I suppose I can say that this is a step in the right direction, but why take a tiny, minute step? If we are serious about the whole thing, let's just deal with this in a comprehensive, upfront, on-the-table, full discussion as opposed to a tiny step in the right direction. This is the way we handle too many things.
My hon. friend opposite makes the point-I think he is very close to the truth-when he says: "Listen, this ought to take place not in isolation, but let us talk about the pension system generally".
If you want to move beyond this, what are the concerns that people have about the portability of pensions generally? The fact is that there are people with good pensions, others with no pensions, and a whole lot of people with inadequate pensions.
Therefore, why not as a Parliament say that this is a number one priority, carry out a comprehensive pension analysis and examine the members of Parliament pensions, the Public Service pensions, a whole variety of private pension plans and the way they approach it provincially and federally as well in one context.
Then we can evaluate seriously one from another. I say I generally support that initiative. I support my hon. colleague when he says that consideration and review of this whole area is an appropriate matter.


David Kilgour: I'm for everything.


Nelson Andrew Riis: My hon. friend says that he is for everything. He may be for everything. I am not for everything. There are a whole number of areas that I may say I don't support, but in terms of the kind of discussion we are having today, I find it most fruitful.
In closing, I want to say one concern.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Tell us if you support the bill.


Nelson Andrew Riis: I believe that a review is more than appropriate, but I say to my hon. friend with all sincerity that if he was serious, why would he not have spoken to the
March 5, 1991

different caucuses to move this legislation through? There have been no discussions, no conversations and he has been here long enough to know that that is how you move legislation.
If he simply wants to make a statement of self-adulation in terms of representing an issue, this is the way to do it because you know it will not be advanced. However, I leave that for people to judge on their own. Certainly, it would not be for me to impugn the motives of my hon. friend.
In closing, Mr. Speaker, can I simply draw attention to the one clause that the member for Edmonton Southeast referred to, and that is, the whole matter of the age limit of 60. I do believe that when we get to committee this ought to be something that we look at very seriously because, let us face it, based on the Charter of Rights and Freedoms I am not certain that we want to put those kinds of elements into the bill.
There may be an argument. I have not heard it, but I am certain it will be open to consideration.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. There have been some discussions between the parties. I think you will find the disposition in the speech of the hon. member for Winnipeg North that he split his time with the hon. member for Nepean, each getting five minutes maximum.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: The hon. member for Winnipeg North for five minutes.


Mr. Rey Pagtakhan (Winnipeg North):: Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak on this bill introduced by my colleague, the member for Edmonton Southeast.
I am sure that later, my colleague from St. Boniface would join me in support as well as other colleagues on this side of the House.
Before I proceed further, I would just like to reiterate two basic questions as posed by the 1989 Commission to Review Allowances of Members of Parliament. And I will give my answers.
First, do we as Canadians want to have the most qualified people governing the country? The answer is, yes.
Private Members' Business
Second, are we prepared to compensate them adequately for the responsibility we ask them to assume? The answer is, yes.


Mr.   Bjomson@: Is that part of the Reform Party platform?"


Rey D. Pagtakhan: Mr. Speaker, if the member from Selkirk would be polite enough perhaps he would like to listen to some pearls of wisdom.
Let me state the purpose of this bill as stated by the sponsor. It is to "prevent a former member of the Senate or the House of Commons from receiving a retirement allowance while the member is employed on a full or part-time basis and is not 60 years of age". This bill, an act to amend the Members of Parliament Retirement Allowances Act, is numbered C-343.
Bill C-343 is a bill about fairness. Is it fair for politicians to raise themselves above the people they serve, ignoring the rules of the private sector, to award themselves pensions of the type that now exist?
The MP pension plan flaunts at least two principles accepted in the private sector from my way of thinking. The first is the 10-year rule. MPs need work only six years before receiving a pension. Everyone else must work 10 years at least. The second principle is waiting until one is 60 years of age before receiving pensions. The average citizens, whom we are sworn to serve, do not have another option. They must wait. MPs bypass this waiting period, accessing their pensions immediately after they lose their seat or decide to leave it.
The spouse of a member receives that member's pension after death, no matter how young or successful or otherwise wealthy that widow or widower may be.
I submit that these pensions are pensions of privilege. The Parliament pension funds collect more than twice as fast as the rate allowed for pensions in the private sector, giving former members of Parliament a much greater amount to retire on than a private citizen who has worked the same amount of time. This is something I find objectionable. There should be uniformity in the system. Our pensions should not be the pensions of privilege. What kind of example does that offer to Canadians?
Most of us were middle-class working men and women before our term here in Parliament. Before being elected in 1988,1 was a doctor in practice and a professor

March 5, 1991
Private Members' Business
in the faculty of medicine. If I were to leave politics and return to this work should I decide or the electorate decide, I feel it would be wrong for me to ask Canadians to pay me a pension-salary when I would no longer be working on their behalf. There is no reason why I should not have to wait until I am 60 at least, around the same age as most citizens before they receive their pensions.
At this time, members of Parliament are adequately paid for their services. We receive a base salary of $62,100 per year and other expense allowances. Some may argue politicians leave high-paying jobs in the private sector to work for the public. Maybe so, but those people weigh their decision carefully and set their priorities in order. It should not be the burden of the people to overly compensate these politicians or any other politicians in the years after they leave Parliament Hill.
In conclusion, this bill asks us simply to make pensions less generous than they are now, to send a clear message to Canadians that we members of Parliament genuinely recognize that our country faces serious economic problems and that we sincerely care to address them.
I support this bill to send a clear and correct signal to all our constituents and to all Canadians in the interest of fairness.


Beryl Gaffney: Mr. Speaker, I am also very pleased to speak in support of my colleague from Edmonton Southeast on Bill C-343 which is an act to amend the Members of Parliament Retiring Allowances Act.
I probably will not use my five minutes, but I feel that it is terribly important to recognize that this bill, although maybe general in nature, it is the principle and the intent of the bill that is so important to us as members of Parliament and to Canadians in general, and I support that.
I find it hypocritical that someone in the private sector who might get laid off from their job, or might get transferred to another company within the private sector in another area of Canada, does not have the same privileges as we do as members of Parliament under the present legislation.
If you think back to anyone holding municipal government office, they are not allowed to collect that pension
until they reach 60 years of age. After 10 years their pension is locked in and they may not withdraw it after that 10-year period, nor may they claim it until they reach 60 years of age, and I think that is appropriate.
I think of members of the armed services who might retire at, say, 50 years of age and are still obviously able to work. If they work for the federal government, it is my understanding that they are not allowed to collect that pension from National Defence as long as they are an employee of the federal government. So there seems to be a double standard here. We mentioned former leader of the New Democratic Party, Mr. Ed Broadbent who was a member of Parliament for a good many years. Mr. Broadbent is receiving a very large pension and is now working for the federal government as the chair of a major commission and collecting a very large salary.
We have widowers and widows who are living on very limited income. We have a country whose economy is very tight today. We have people who are unemployed, and I think we as members of Parliament must show some compassion and some consideration. I think this bill, although it perhaps does not go as far as it should go, is a step in the right direction and we, as members of Parliament, have got to show that responsibility and move forward.


Mrs. Suzanne Duplessis (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of State (Science and Technology)):: Mr. Speaker, we are now discussing Bill C-343 which raises the question whether a former member of Parliament may continue to receive pension payments if he has joined the ranks of the federal Public Service.
As you know, Mr. Speaker, at the present time, members of the House of Commons can receive a retirement allowance under the Members of Parliament Retiring Allowances Act, according to which an allowance is payable upon retirement to members who have contributed to the Retiring Allowances Account for at least six years.
The amount of the allowance is based on the number of years of pensionable service. Under the existing Members of Parliament Retiring Allowances Act, members who have served at least six years in the House of Commons are entitled to a retirement allowance as soon as they cease to be a member, i.e. on the day they resign, the day of their decease or when they go down to defeat
March 5, 1991

in an election. The surviving spouse and children of a deceased member are entitled to receive the allowance.
Perhaps I may recall, Mr. Speaker, and I think this is very important, that during our years of service, each one of us must contribute to the Retiring Allowances Account an amount equivalent to 10 per cent of our sessional indemnity. These contributions are deducted at source on each paycheque.
Those members who have supplementary indemnities as a result of additional duties-ministers, for instance-may elect to pay a contribution equal to more than 10 per cent of this indemnity. This is an important point, because we contribute directly to our pension fund during our term of office.
Everyone knows, Mr. Speaker, that an MP's work is very demanding, both professionally and personally. Many left far more lucrative jobs to come and spend some time working on building up and improving the living conditions of Canadians. We do so by conviction, to defend the ideas which we believe in and which we feel are in the best interests of all our fellow citizens.
Mr. Speaker, we all know that members of Parliament are a long way off from job security.
It does not matter what government level an individual chooses to get involved in, he never knows when he will find himself without a job. Such is democracy and I for one can only say that I agree with the system. It is up to the people to pick their representatives under the provisions of the electoral process and in light of their priorities at the time. The principle of democracy is basic and nondebatable, as far as I am concerned, and I sincerely hope that some day all human beings will be able to live under a system where each man's and each woman's right to an opinion is respected. The principle underlying the electoral process is the very foundation of the citizen's democratic choice, and that is as it should be.
But political life does create a number of difficulties, such as separation from one's family, extremely long hours, and a heavy workload, just to mention a few. All those who are or have been active in politics know that, as do others who have been closely associated with someone in this field. Throughout our mandate we have to forget all about our personal life. Ninety five per cent of our time, thoughts and activities are centred on our
Private Members' Business
parliamentary duties, be it in our ridings or here in Ottawa.
Ours are exacting responsibilities, but seldom do we have an opportunity to talk about this kind of personal considerations which are unknown to the public at large.
Regardless of our political affiliation, all members carry a heavy burden which calls for big sacrifices. I suggest this must be said as we are debating the matter of parliamentary privileges. But that is the choice we make when we decide to enter politics, and we must live up to our responsibilities.
A moment ago I alluded to the fact that we have no job security. I have more to say about it because I think it is an important aspect of today's debate.
Indeed the enduring financial insecurity which comes with the iffy nature of our occupation is part and parcel of political life. I refer to this because it is an essential issue for all citizens, men and women alike and regardless of financial standing, if ever they should choose to run for elected office.
Given the precarious nature of our profession, we ought not to withdraw the few privileges which are attached to the position and which make it possible for any man or woman in Canada to enter the political arena. We might discourage from running some excellent prospects who already know that they would be deprived of the benefits they enjoy in their current occupation or, conversely, make it possible only for the affluent to run. We would be yielding to a financial elite who could afford the luxury of going into politics, which is certainly not what we want or wish. If they so desire, all citizens should have the opportunity to seek votes, thereby ensuring that Quebecers and Canadians continue to be represented by their peers from all walks of life.
I shall never accept for instance that a small businessman who could make a major contribution to our society be prevented from doing so, for he would have everything to lose as far as his future is concerned. Likewise, I shall never accept either that a person who is not financially secure should renounce his or her ambition of sitting in this House because he or she lacks the wherewithal in view of the insufficient salaries or retirement benefits associated with the job to represent people of the same social standing.

March 5, 1991
Private Members' Business
This would be absolutely unfair and unacceptable. Far from contributing to the progress of our society, we would cause it to lose ground by depriving ourselves of the talent of these men and women with so much to contribute to our society. While trying to increase the number of women in politics, I am afraid we would be excluding them altogether because it is a well-known fact that women are often less affluent than men. Mr. Speaker, I suggest that this is a consideration we should really ponder upon.
There is another point in the bill introduced by my honourable friend which puzzles me. Why indeed should a former member of Parliament who went on to work for the Public Service of Canada not receive this retirement allowance before turning 60 years old, when the same rule would not apply to former members working in the provincial Public Service or in the private sector?
It seems to me that to pass this bill would be a serious breach of the equal opportunities principle. I think that the members of this House should ponder on this. I wonder if it would not be against the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees, as a fundamental principle, the right to equality.
Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, I see that my time is up.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: The hon. member for Louis-Hebert has one minute left.


Suzanne Fortin-Duplessis: Good, thank you.
Looking at the intent of the bill and its potential impact, I also wonder whether it is advisable, Mr. Speaker, to legislate only on the eligibility of a former parliamentarian to pension benefits when he or she has joined the Public Service of Canada. Is this the most urgent issue we have to address regarding all the pension plans in the Public Service of Canada, plans which were introduced by the Parliament?
All members of this House know full well that there are many other aspects of the plans provided under the Public Service Superannuation Act, the Canadian Forces Superannuation Act, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Superannuation Act, and of our own plan under the Members of Parliament Retiring Allowances Act. Considering the wide variety of current problems and the complexity of the existing plans, I would tend to agree that we should avoid looking into changing any element
of a plan taken individually. It would certainly be wiser, Mr. Speaker, to consider each element of the plans as part of a whole set of changes designed to update and modernize pension plans throughout the Public Service of Canada.
Assuming we firmly believed that an issue so urgent and important exists that it should take precedence over any other, would it be fair to devote only the little time we have to the situation Bill C-343 attempts to address? What is most urgently needed? To deal with the complaints of those who dread to see a handfull of parliamentarians receive allowances once they have become federal public servants?
Mr. Speaker, I hope that the minister will table in the near future his bill containing all the changes he intends to make to pension plans.


Ron J. Duhamel: Mr. Speaker, I am extremely pleased to be able to support this particular bill which will bring I believe, if it were to be enacted, a sense of fairness in the whole scheme of pensions. I am delighted to join my colleague from Nepean, my colleague from Winnipeg North and I am told that my colleague from Thunder Bay-Nipigon, as well as my colleague from Winnipeg St. James, support this bill in principle.
There is in fact a double standard. We also make our own decisions with respect to our funding, our salaries and benefits and frankly, that could be and should be questioned.
It is when government is slashing health, education and social programs that people are really getting very, very upset. We can understand that. They see this kind of cutting back and they see us with fairly lucrative salaries, benefits and pensions and they become increasingly angry.
I will give a couple of examples. I hate examples because they tend to exaggerate and suggest that they go to the whole. I want to make that point very, very clear. This is not the case. There are some people who are not nearly as well off as others because of their circumstances. For example, and I am not picking on the Minister of National Health and Welfare, but he happens to be my example. He came in rather young. If he were to retire today and if he were to live to be 75 years old, and I suspect as cranky as he can get every once in a
March 5, 1991

Private Members' Business
while he will go away beyond that, he would be paid over $5 million in pension.
Many of you will know for example that it takes us only 10 years to get 50 per cent of our salary, but it takes the other Canadians 25 years to attain 50 per cent of their salaries. Most Canadians do not like that one little bit. You know as well that our cap is 75 per cent of our salary, Mr. Speaker, while for other Canadians it is 70 per cent, and there is no happiness there.
With respect to retirement before 60, there is a 2 to 3 per cent penalty per year for other Canadians and none for us and that does not seem to be fair at all. Many of you have heard about "double-dipping" even today. I do not want to pick on anyone in particular but I have to use examples. Former cabinet minister Erik Nielsen retired a few years ago and got 75 per cent of his pension at that time, indexed since retirement until now, and $133,000 as president of the National Transportation Agency.
That is a lot of money, particularly when you think of the 5 million Canadians out there. There is a double standard, and I am not sure that we ought to be doing this all by ourselves.
What should we do? Let's consider an independent third party to address questions of salary, pensions, allowances, and other remuneration. Why not account for expenditures if it is going to make Canadians feel a lot better? With respect to future increases, looking at what is happening in the private and public sectors, there ought to be things that we are doing.
I believe that we need to do something like that. We need to look at questions of transferability of our own pensions to the private sector as opposed to having a separate one. We need to look at the possibility of continuing our own pension plans when we come here.
I could have spoken a lot longer, Mr. Speaker, but I notice that you are giving me the signal. I simply want to say that-

-yes, there is a double standard, and we should not be the ones to make decisions regarding our own salaries and benefits. I think that should be someone else's responsibility.


Miss Deborah Grey (Beaver River):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to speak very briefly on this. I appreciate the hon. member for Edmonton Southeast bringing forward Bill C-343. I know that it is certainly not popular on many of the benches in this Chamber because it is a very touchy situation.
Having said that, I realize how important it is for this place, which seems so isolated from the rest of the country, to get together and to not just have something in the budget that looks good on paper, but to send a signal to the Canadian public that we are not above and beyond the rest of the Canadian public.
I want to speak very briefly about my friend from Louis-Hebert and what she said about our putting in a certain percentage of our wages into the pension plan. If we are looking at real dollars, I just got my T-4 and I put about $7,000, very roughly, as a new member of Parliament into my pension plan. If I am looking at that $7,000 per year and then I am entitled to a pension after six years of being in office, I have actually put $42,000 into that account.
In my particular instance, I would be eligible for a pension at age 42. If I multiply that all out, at roughly $18,000 or $20,000 that I would get on pension, that would mean that in two and a half years the actual money that I have put into my pension plan would have been used up and then I would be on the public purse, as it were, after that. Although this life is taking its toll on all of us as members of Parliament, I expect that I would live a little longer than two and a half years.
I would go one step further with my friend for Edmonton Southeast and indicate that my friend from Louis-Hebert made a very good comment, that being that somebody getting into the private sector would not be qualified for their pension under this bill. Someone working in the public sector would be penalized. I think the member for Edmonton Southeast would go along quite happily, as with one of his other private member's bills, were I to suggest that we go one step further and defer pensions for members of Parliament to age 60, whether they are working in the private or the public sector. I think that would bring it much more in line, and we would not be held in such contempt by the Canadian public.

Adjournment Debate


Mr. Lee Clark (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of the Environment):: Mr. Speaker, I like other members of this House have a right and responsibility to speak on bills which are before the House. I would note in doing so that the hon. member who moved the bill took, as my friend the House leader of the New Democratic Party has said, almost 15 minutes in addressing this bill. If he had been really anxious that all members of this House should have an opportunity to participate and to express their views on a very important matter, then I think he would have spoken more briefly, which would have provided more members of Parliament with an opportunity to speak with respect to the bill.
I would suggest that I would have no difficulty in supporting this bill, with perhaps one or two changes. I would indicate to the hon. member that he might want to suggest that the bill refer only to full-time employment in the government service, because there are many people who have part-time jobs, perhaps earning $400, $500 or $1,000 a year, and they should not be penalized unduly for that.
I also think that he should address the question of the salaries which are going to be earned by members of Parliament-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: The time provided for the consideration of Private Members' Business has now expired.

Pursuant to Standing Order 96, this item is dropped from the Order Paper.


David Kilgour: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: You are not in your seat, so the Chair cannot recognize you.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

[Stage Direction]
A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 38 deemed to have been moved.
['Pursuant to the order adopted earlier today, the motion to adjourn the House is deemed to have been withdrawn.']
The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: The hon. member for Winnipeg Transcona.


David Kilgour: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: The hon. member for Edmonton Southeast, on a point of order.


David Kilgour: Mr. Speaker, since there seems to be a great deal of interest in this bill, I wonder whether there might be unanimous consent for continuing this debate. Could you put the question?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: I am sorry but this item has now been dealt with. We are now on the adjournment motion, and I have recognized the hon. member for Winnipeg Transcona.



William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, I rise to pursue with the government the question that I asked with respect to Lithuania sometime ago. Of course some members will know that I asked a number of questions about the situation in Lithuania and in the other Baltic States, Latvia and Estonia, over the last little while, ever since returning from there just over a year ago where I had the opportunity to observe the elections in Lithuania which brought the Sajudis movement to power.
Since then, of course, there have been other elections in Latvia and Estonia. Democratically elected governments have come to power in those republics. There have been declarations of independence. Now, just in the most recent weeks, and indeed in recent days, we have seen a series of referendas in those three republics, beginning of course with Lithuania where they had a referendum on independence and on Sunday, March 3, in Latvia and Estonia.
I think what is significant is not just the overwhelming majority which voted for independence in Lithuania where the Lithuanians, ethnically speaking, still form 80 per cent of the population, but the significant vote which independence received in Latvia and Estonia. Both of these republics have within them large Russian ethnic populations. It seems clear at this point that it is not just the ethnic Balts but others who envision the prospect of independent Baltic republics as a positive option.
I want to say that I am as glad as I am sure many others are that the central power in the Soviet Union, that is to say President Gorbachev and the Soviet Union per se,
March 5, 1991

permitted these referenda to take place. These referenda have taken place in a thoroughly legal and constitutional way, but there was a time some weeks ago when it appeared because of the tragic actions of troops in Riga and Vilnius that there might have been a move afoot to undermine and even overthrow the democratically elected governments of these republics.
I hope I am not just being over-confident in saying that it appears that is not now the case and that these governments are continuing, as indeed they have demonstrated by being able to hold the referendas which have been held.
I think it is now incumbent upon the Soviet Union and upon President Gorbachev, given the unambiguous results of these referenda, to negotiate meaningfully and in good faith with the Baltic republics a way in which their special case, as opposed to other republics, can be recognized. When I say their special case, I mean of course the fact that they were incorporated by force into the Soviet Union as a result of the Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement or the Hitler-Stalin pact of 1938-39 and that this is a factor which has to be taken into account by Moscow when it is dealing with the Baltic republics.
Given the result of the referendas, I think it is now incumbent on Moscow, as I said before, to get serious about finding a solution to the aspirations for independence of the Baltic peoples, one that can be worked out and that is a positive alternative to both the real and implied threat of force should the Baltic republics continue to pursue the goal of independence.
It seems to me that much could be gained by Moscow, if indeed it were to allow the special case of the Baltics to be recognized and to permit the negotiation, albeit a tough negotiation, of Baltic independence.
There will be very difficult economic questions to address, given the many long years of economic integration and many future years of economic integration, I am sure. There will be security questions. There will be questions of minority rights in the Baltic republics, concerns which many non-Balts legitimately have.
There are many things to be worked out, but they can only be worked out after and when the Soviet Union finally admits that it has a problem here that cannot be
Adjournment Debate
solved by force or intimidation and that has to be dealt with by negotiations in good faith.
I call on the Canadian government to do its part, now that these referendums are over, by seeking ways to persuade-not to force or anything like that-the Soviet Union that the time has come to deal with this.
I think one of the ways that that can be done is to signal an intention on the part of the Canadian government that at every opportunity, in every appropriate international forum, the question of the Baltic states will be raised, whether it is at the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe or at the United Nations. Wherever opportunities present themselves, Canada should be in the forefront of saying to the Soviet Union in the appropriate international arenas: "Look, you guys, you have got to deal with this question. It is not just a matter of the internal affairs of the Soviet Union. It is a question which belongs in the international arena, given the former independence of these republics. We want you to negotiate with them in good faith, and we want you to respect the long-standing de jure view of the international community that these are indeed independent republics and should become so in fact as quickly as possible".


Walter Leland Rutherford (Lee) Clark: Mr. Speaker, I thank you for the opportunity to say just a few words in response to the concerns raised by my friend, the hon. member for Winnipeg Transcona.
As all members of this House know, Canada recognizes the de jure independence of the Baltic states. We have never accepted their enforced annexation. We believe that their peoples have a right to determine their own future. In fact, Canada has clearly demonstrated its uncompromising support for the Baltic states on several different occasions during the course of the past year.
The right hon. Secretary of State for External Affairs and the Prime Minister himself have both met with past leaders of Lithuania and Latvia and in some cases with the present leadership. In all cases, during the course of those meetings, I think Canada has taken the opportunity to demonstrate its commitment to the Baltic peoples who are continuing to strive for their right of self-determination.

Adjournment Debate
In addition, the concerns of Canada and the concerns of this House have been conveyed to the appropriate Russian officials, to former Soviet Minister Shevardnadze, seeking assurance that there would not be a crackdown on the Baltic states. Unfortunately, as we all know, those assurances were not forthcoming.
In fact, we were among the first to react to the unwarranted military force used against the peoples and democratically elected governments of Lithuania and Latvia.
The Soviet Ambassador to Canada was called in on three different occasions during the month of January. Our ambassador in Moscow conveyed Canada's very strong concerns to the appropriate officials in that country. In communications with President Gorbachev on January 13, the Prime Minister of Canada expressly linked further offers of Canadian assistance to the continuation of reform.
As you know, Mr. Speaker, the Secretary of State for External Affairs welcomed the debate which occurred in this House on January 21. I can assure you that we will continue to exert the same kind of influence and pressure on the Soviet Union in the future that we have been doing in the past.
We will also continue to work with the Baltic peoples in Canada. There is consideration at the moment in the establishment of a Baltic information centre which I think would be of some value.
In conclusion, I believe that Soviet authorities are in no doubt as to the position of Canada on this matter. In fact, a member of the Official Opposition who has just visited the region recently reported that the influence and the activities of the Canadian government are well recognized there. They are also much respected there.


JUSTICE
Mr. John Harvard (Winnipeg St. James):: Mr. Speaker, I am compelled to pursue questions relating to the David Milgaard case.
First of all, I will state a few facts. David Milgaard is Canada's longest serving prisoner. He is serving a life term for the murder of a Saskatoon nurse, which
occurred in 1969. He says he did not commit the crime. He has denied himself parole because he will not confess to that particular murder.
Much evidence has come forward casting doubt on his conviction. He applied to have his case reopened more than two years ago, and just a few days ago the Minister of Justice said "no" to the reopening of that case.
This case has attracted the attention of a nation. It has attracted attention of people who are concerned about justice. I am sorry, though, that I cannot say the same for the justice minister.
I believe that the hallmark of her handling of this case can be summed up in one word: indifference. She has not shown interest in this case. She has not shown a deep concern.
I am also concerned that the justice department approached this case with a closed mind. There is evidence that the Department of Justice was not impartial.
Take for example a report, Mr. Speaker, in The Globe and Mail of last August 1. In that report, a senior justice official, Mr. Bill Corbett, likened people who believe in Milgaard's innocence to those who believe that Elvis Presley is alive. Tb me, this reflects a damaging bias certainly to Mr. Milgaard's case, and I do not think it promises a fair hearing.
Bias also showed up in other ways. The prosecuting attorney in the case 21 years ago, Mr. Bob Caldwell, was asked to collaborate in the investigation of the case in the last few months.
We must remember who Mr. Caldwell is. Mr. Caldwell was the man who asked for Milgaard's conviction. I ask: Would he provide evidence that would reflect poorly on himself? I doubt it. Yes, let's have Mr. Caldwell's evidence under oath. Treat him like any other witness, I say. Anything less than that is contrary to natural justice.
We also have to wonder when the Department of Justice sends an investigator accompanied by the RCMP to interview a witness who testified at the trial 20 years ago. The witness was asked to visit a police station for interrogation without benefit of counsel. This occurred after arrangements were made to hold the interview at the lawyer's office, that is the lawyer of the witness.


March 5, 1991

Was this some kind of scare tactic? I have to ask the question. Was this an example of impartial, unbiased treatment? It does not seem likely. These are questions that concern me.
The Milgaard family along with their counsel have worked long and hard to uncover new evidence. The justice minister has more or less said a few days ago that this new evidence that was uncovered really would not have made any difference at the trial, that is if the evidence had been made available at that time. In effect, she was saying that the verdict would have been the same.
The victim in this case was raped and then murdered with a paring knife. Before that murder there were similar incidents of rape enforced with a paring knife, but the jurors were never told that. Had they known about these other incidents, would their verdict have been different? It is very possible. I think the minister's indifference to that is shocking.
The minister also pointed out in her statement of some days ago that a former judge from British Columbia was retained to look at the Milgaard case. That is fine in itself, but what were the terms of reference for the learned judge. We were never told. What evidence was the learned judge given to examine? We were never told. What was the judge's opinion? We never heard his opinion. We never heard about his judgment. We only heard from the justice minister what her opinion was.
If this were not bad enough, the judge's work was done behind closed door and Milgaard's counsel was not a party to any of it. This is not intended as any reflection on the judge. I am simply commenting on the process.
Finally, we must ask whether the justice department itself is in a conflict of interest. We must remember that in a case like this the justice department is asked to investigate itself. Is that a conflict of interest? Certainly on the surface it is.
We wonder about the justice minister herself. Remember, she is both the Attorney General of Canada and the Minister of Justice of Canada. Are those conflicting roles? Perhaps, especially in a situation of this kind, and we have to ask the question if we are really concerned about justice. In closing I want to say that we cannot, in all good conscience, accept the way the hon. Minister of Justice has handled the Milgaard case. I am talking about
Adjournment Debate
her handling of the case going back to day one, that is day one when she was asked or her predecessor was asked to look at this case and possibly re-open it. We cannot, in good conscience, accept her refusal to re-open the case. There are just too many questions and justice, natural justice, demands answers to those questions.
This issue is not going to fade away. It is not going to disappear. The justice minister might want it, but I assure you, Mr. Speaker, that it will not fade away. The questions are far too serious and, besides, we must remember this: David Milgaard who has been behind bars for 21 years might be an innocent man.


Mr. Rob Nicholson (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada):: Mr. Speaker, the section 690 procedure of the Criminal Code allows for ministerial review of cases where new evidence or information provides a reasonable basis to believe that a miscarriage of justice likely occurred when the case was before the courts. An applicant may only resort to section 690 when all judicial remedies have been exhausted.
In the Milgaard case, an impartial juiy found him guilty of murder; an impartial court of appeal dismissed his appeal; and the Supreme Court of Canada refused his application for leave to appeal in 1971. Having exhausted the judicial process, Milgaard's counsel wrote to the Minister of Justice on December 28, 1988, and applied on Milgaard's behalf for relief under section 690.
Two grounds were initially raised in the Milgaard application. To assess them properly, the department requested additional information which the applicant provided in May and August, 1989. Those grounds were investigated and a preliminary report was prepared in December, 1989.
While that report was being reviewed by senior justice officials, the applicant raised additional grounds which required investigation. First, a new suspect was introduced in February, 1990. Second, further forensic results were supplied in June, 1990. Third, additional statements from trial witnesses and others were supplied in June, 1990. Fourth, a "new witness" surfaced in July, 1990.
Each of these grounds was investigated by the Department of Justice with the aid of the RCMR Since a number of new matters were added to the initial application the department at the request of the applicant's

March 5, 1991
Adjournment Debate
counsel received counsel's oral submissions in person on October 1, 1990.
The departmental report was completed and an independent legal opinion was obtained. The report, the opinion, and the applicant's submissions were all submitted to the minister who devoted a considerable amount of time reviewing the application, the facts, and the issues before the minister rendered a decision on February 27, 1991.
The proper exercise of the serious and important responsibility conferred upon the Minister of Justice requires a thorough review because the remedy is one of last resort. Accordingly the scientific issues raised in this case were referred to specialists in those disciplines for their evaluation and the authors of those reports were interviewed.
During the investigation of all the issues in the application over 36 witnesses were interviewed by the RCMP and departmental counsel. Some were questioned under oath and their answers were transcribed. The trial and appellate court record were also examined and reviewed.
During the minister's review of the case there was a careful consideration of the facts obtained from all sources and from counsel's submissions, in determining whether a miscarriage of justice likely occurred.
The minister concluded there was no body of new evidence or information which constituted as reasonable basis for believing that a miscarriage of justice likely occurred in this case.


HOUSING
Jean-Guy Guilbault: Mr. Speaker, I welcome this opportunity to discuss a matter that I raised on December 11 with the Minister of State (Housing), regarding the Quebec government's dissatisfaction with federal social housing policies.
Articles published in the press gave the impression that the province of Ontario had benefited from federal assistance for social housing, at the expense of Quebec.
Created a few years ago, the Ministry of State (Housing) has introduced a number of initiatives designed to provide more help for Canadians who need it most.
Thanks to improved and sustained federal-provincial co-operation and a joint planning process for social housing, resources are now being put to better use and are better adjusted to regional needs. Umbrella agreements have eliminated administrative overlap and guarantee continuity of the planning process. In fact, these agreements direct social housing assistance to the neediest in this country, especially those who must spend more than 30 per cent of their income on housing. About
615,000	households benefit each year.
I was delighted to hear last December that the Co-operative Housing Program will be extended. Originally set up on an experimental basis, the program has helped low-and middle-income families, senior citizens, women, native people and disabled persons to find housing. The program will therefore continue to offer housing to households on modest incomes. New criteria for future residents of co-operative housing will ensure that federal funds are paid to lower-and middle-income households that cannot afford to become homeowners.
The program also provides that half the co-operative housing units will go to the neediest. The government also helps elderly Canadians in need through its social housing program. Those who do not require direct government assistance are offered a range of housing options that enable the elderly to maintain their physical and financial independence.
Since 1988, the federal government has provided for the construction of 8,811 senior citizens homes in Canada. Quite frankly, Mr. Speaker, in my own riding, since 1985, federal commitments to social housing have been very impressive. As part of the non-profit housing and rural housing programs, the federal government has helped increase investment in the riding of Drummond to the tune of $14 million.
Furthermore, under the non-profit housing program, six residences totalling 175 housing units have been built which will require an annual subsidy estimated at $717,000, to be paid for thirty-five years. The capital cost represents $25 million for the riding.

Under the rural housing program, four buildings containing a total of 40 housing units were built. This represents an annual subsidy of $207,276 for the next twenty-five years. The cost is evaluated at $5,200,000.
Two buildings erected under the federal Co-operative Housing Program will receive annual grants of the order of $51,003 over a 30-year period. These costs will amount to $1,530,000.
As well, government commitments with respect to rent supplement applicable to social housing constitute annual grants of $138,348 over the next 35 years, a total of $4,800,000.
Finally, under the provisions of the Residential Rehabilitation Assistance Program the federal government approved repairs in 839 housing units in the riding of Drummond, an expenditure of $4,702,649.
As to rent supplement, $138,348 in annual grants over the next 35 years will account for $4,800,000.
Mr. Speaker, the last Wilson budget has earmarked $1,000,739,690 for the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, a considerable amount.
However, despite the many commitments of the government in the social field, it would appear that the federal-provincial agreement benefits Ontario at the expense of Quebec.
Mr. Speaker, I always thought that federal government funds for housing poor people should be equitably distributed.
But on the contrary the articles to which I referred indicate that Ontario residents got more than their fair share. In fact the author of the article claims that the minister is more interested in looking after the housing needs of Torontonians that those of other Canadians. Mr. Speaker, it has also been suggested that these inequities date back to a number of years. If that be so, it is not time to set things straight?
Back in 1988 in Regina the federal government, the provinces and the two territories signed an agreement which was supposed to correct the situation. Now it would seem that the agreement has failed and that Quebec continues to be penalized.
I know that before our government took office the province of Quebec had decided that federal housing funds would not be invested in major construction projects. Instead the government favoured programs
Adjournment Debate
which did not entail long-term grants. As an example, the administration at the time saw fit to spend the federal money on home and apartment repairs rather than build new social housing units.
This decision was a blessing for thousands of people living in units badly in need of major repairs to be safer and more comfortable. This program in fact was a big help to thousands of households throughout the province in both urban and rural regions. One thing for sure however is that once the work was done there was no need for long-term grants.
In Ontario and elsewhere in Canada the need for new housing was more urgent than repair work, with the result that there were more construction projects spead over a number of years and subsidized over a longer period of time.
To be honest, Mr. Speaker, I know as well that Ontario got directly involved in shared-cost programs some ten years before Quebec did.
I would like to ask-I see the minister is in the House today, so this is a good opportunity for me because I have known him as a colleague since I first came here in 1984-whether that is the reason why more federal dollars went to that province rather than to Quebec, and can the minister tell the House why Quebecers who pay their fair share of taxes do not get as many benefits as some other regions of the country?


Alan Redway: Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank the hon. member for his question. It provides me with an opportunity to clarify the formula used by the government of Canada for the distribution of federal social housing funds among the provinces and territories to respond to the housing needs of Canadians across the country.

The objective of the federal government in social housing is to help low-income Canadians find adequate and affordable housing no matter where they live in the country. To that end, in 1985 we entered into negotiations and an agreement called the Regina Accord, with all of the provinces of Canada including Quebec, which developed a formula for the distribution of federal social housing funds.
Under that formula, which Quebec signed and agreed to, Quebec's share of federal housing funds was set at

Government Orders
24.75 per cent of all of the units available. In fact, in the years between 1986 and 1989, Quebec received more than that share which it had agreed to in the formula and in fact, received 25.4 per cent of all of the units available.
In 1987, the provinces started to object to the formula. We tried to develop a new formula which all would agree to. We did agree to the fact that no matter where people lived in this country, they should all have access to assisted housing and, in effect, we agreed to national standards for housing across this country.
Unfortunately, there was no final agreement on all of the terms of the new formula. In 1990 I decided as a temporary measure only, without agreement of all parties, that we would put into effect the new formula. Under that new formula, we would respect the fundamental principles of needs and access for all Canadians, national standards.
Under that Quebec received in 1990, actually a larger share than it had before. Quebec now receives 25.65 per cent of all national housing units. In fact, that amounts to an increase in funding for Quebec for federal social housing dollars. In 1989, Quebec received some 18.31 per cent of the allocation, but in 1990 it received 5 per cent more, some 23.20 per cent, whereas Ontario which had received some 41 per cent of all of the federal social housing dollars in 1989, went down to some 35 per cent of social housing dollars in 1990.

I am the national minister of housing. As such, I have special responsibilities. Canada is a rich and civilized country. We must guarantee the quality of life of all our fellow citizens. We must ensure that their basic needs are met. As you know, food and housing are basic needs. I am firmly committed to helping the poor. I cannot let the administrative or political priorities of the various levels of government divert me from this responsibility and from the principle of equality which should motivate the actions of a national government.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Pursuant to the order adopted earlier today, the motion to adjourn the House is deemed to have been withdrawn.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Wilson (Etobicoke Centre) that Bill C-97, an act to provide borrowing authority, be read the second time and referred to a legislative committee.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: At the suspension of the debate at five o'clock, the hon. member for South Shore had the floor. He has 17 minutes left.


Peter L. McCreath: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to resume the debate begun earlier.
I had started by making reference to the fact that what we are here to debate, of course, is the borrowing bill which is, in effect, an element of the budget though, in fact, it is something that exists under the Financial Administration Act.
Borrowing is about debt and it is about deficit. I hear all sorts of things said and played with about debt and deficit in this country. I think it is important to review the realities of the situation, to find out why it is necessary for the government to borrow money. A lot of people operate on the principle that the best way to run your affairs, whether they be government affairs or personal affairs, is to pay your bills as you go along. I am sure that is what most people want to do and that is certainly what any responsible government wants to do.
On the other hand, that is not what has been going on in Canada for the last decade or so. Consequently we are faced today with a staggering national debt, a debt that unfortunately is the legacy of our forebears. We are fortunate, however, in that for the past six and a half years, the country has benefited from a Minister of Finance who has made as his number one principle, his cardinal principle, fiscal responsibility and the coming to grips with the massive deficit he inherited.
When this government came into office in 1984, the annual deficit of this country had risen to $38 billion. That is a staggering amount of money. What is even more shocking, when one reflects on that, is that this deficit was not just interest payments, that in fact it included an $11 billion deficit in program spending. The government of the day was spending $11 billion more
March 5, 1991

than it was taking in in revenues. On top of that, this government and this Minister of Finance inherited $27 billion in interest charges every year.
My hon. friends opposite like to say: "Look at the way the national debt has grown under this government and under this minister." But it is a lot easier to say: "Get rid of the national deficit" than it is to do it. My hon. friends opposite are forever imploring this government to spend more. Every time there is a cost-cutting measure, we hear anguish and howling from the other side: "Why don't you spend more here?" We heard it in this debate during the course of today's session. On the other hand, any time the government takes a revenue-increasing measure-which of course is a lovely way of increasing the taxation load of Canadians, which is, in my opinion, too great-they say: "No, you cannot raise taxes either." So, you cannot raise taxes to deal with the deficit and you cannot reduce expenditures to deal with the deficit.
Then what do my hon. friends opposite do then? They turn around and criticize the government because we have a big deficit and a big debt.
How do you achieve rationality out of that? It is very simple. Canadians recognized some years ago that the only way to have rationality was to get a government that had a sense of fiscal responsibility, that had a recognition of the fact that you have to pay your bills in this world, and that recognized that ultimately down the road there is no such thing as a free lunch, that ultimately somebody is going to pay. And that is the government we have in power today.
When my hon. friends opposite suggest that we should not cut expenditures here or we should not raise taxes there, they never come up with a solution to the problem. Goodness knows what the shape of the deficit and the national debt would be in this country if my hon. friends opposite had continued the spendthrift ways that existed in this country from 1974 to 1984, when the average growth in program spending by the Government of Canada of the day-a government, I might say, not of my political persuasion-was 13.8 per cent. Since this government has been in power, that rate has been
Government Orders
reduced to 3.6 per cent, a remarkable improvement, which is below the level of inflation.
I believe that is a correct statement. I would not want to mislead the House.
The bottom line is that we have experienced fiscal responsibility.
When people say "cut", what do they mean? I go around my constituency and my province and people are always saying: "The government has to cut more spending." My impression of what people usually mean when they say to cut spending is to cut the programs that they are not interested in. Or if they say that you have to raise taxes, what they really mean is: "Raise the taxes that other people pay; don't raise the ones that I pay."
Fiscal responsibility means cutting the cloth according to the pattern in order that you can pay your bills. And that has been the hallmark of Mr. Wilson's period as Minister of Finance. The country's finances are in sufficiently good shape that we stand here debating a borrowing bill giving the government authority to borrow $26.4 billion. As the minister said to me the other day: "How do you figure out what $26 billion is? I cannot relate to that." He said: "I found out that they built the dome in Toronto for $500 million; that is half a billion. So, what I think of is 53 domes."
I hope the day will come when we do not need 53 domes or the money to purchase them.
The bottom line, Mr. Speaker, is that the progress that this government is making is such that we see a commitment that by 1994-95 we will have no further need for new borrowing by the Government of Canada. And that will be a very happy day for all Canadians.
The borrowing authority is in fact part of the government's budgetary plans. Let's take a look at those plans and see how they are put in place in such a way as to deal with this debt problem that the country has. What we saw in the budget the other night-and I must say that I thought it was an excellent budget brought forward by the Minister of Finance-is a budget that presents a clear plan for recovery and economic growth and renewal in this country. It will ultimately lead to lower interest rates which is going to be a benefit to all Canadians, I believe. It establishes clear and attainable inflation

Government Orders
targets and sets a clear path to a balanced budget, something we have not seen for many, many years in this country.
I want to say a word about interest rates. We used to hear members opposite, during the course of the last year, say: "ah, the government should arbitrarily lower interest rates". Well, you know, that was a politically popular thing to do. The government said: "Hey, if we just do that we get ourselves in a situation where we will simply fuel inflation, and that is not going to be for the benefit of Canadians". Inflation, in the final analysis, is the killer. We need investment in this country. Investment is attracted by people who have confidence in the economy.
The keys to the recovery and economic growth and development and fiscally responsible approach that this government is taking are several. First and foremost is control of government expenditures. This government has done this, as I said before, by getting a handle on those expenditures.
I mentioned that when Mr. Wilson became finance minister we had an $11 billion operating deficit in this country. That has been turned around to the point where it is now a $12.5 billion operating surplus. The reason in 1994-95 we are not going to need new government borrowing authority is because by then that operating surplus will be up to $22 billion. So we are making remarkable progress.
Now expenditure control may be responsible, but it is not always easy and it is not always popular. In the budget this year we have a freeze on program spending and a 3 per cent growth permissible thereafter in government spending. That is tough because we all know that costs are rising, so that if you are going to pull 3 per cent out it means you have got to find it from things that are there and that hurts.
I heard one of the hon. members opposite earlier today saying: "oh, it is terrible that we have had reductions here and reductions there". The fact of the matter is, given the interest rates from last year, in order to control inflation which is something clearly we are successfully doing, we had higher interest rates than we would have liked and the result was, of course, an increase in the interest pressure on the government debt charges. That meant that we would have had a deficit of $35 billion this year. Instead, through the restraint
program, we have brought that down to $30.5 billion and the finances of the country are in much better shape.
I think it is important symbolically as well as substantively that the government is not leading by saying this is what you should do, but leading by example. We are obviously not going to save a great deal of money in terms of the deficit by freezing cabinet ministers' salaries or by capping members, of Parliament salaries, but it sends the message that we, too, are prepared to share the burden. Similarly, with respect to the Public Service.
Now we have heard a tremendous amount of anguish expressed by leaders of the public service unions about the proposal in the budget that there be no increase in the budgetary allotment for salaries in the public service. That the government is not prepared to enter into a contractual arrangement in excess of 3 per cent and that if we go to the 3 per cent that is going to mean a comparable reduction in employees in order to make up the difference.
Well that is not a very happy circumstance, but the fact of the matter is that the government cannot preach to private industry, it cannot preach to the provinces unless it is prepared to set the example itself.
I heard a member opposite the other day lamenting the fact that salaries in the Public Service were barely an average of $30,000 a year. Well I would like to say that there are an awful lot of fish plant workers in the South Shore constituency, there are an awful lot of Christmas tree harvesters in the South Shore constituency who would be more than pleased to try to get along on $30,000 a year. So I think things sometimes have to be put into perspective.
I see, Mr. Speaker, that you are telling me that my time is almost up and I am barely getting warmed up, but I do want to mention one thing before I conclude and that is with respect to the subject of grants and contributions where there is to be a $75 million reduction in expenditures.
I think non-governmental organizations play an important role in Canada. I am not always convinced that we have to give out, as government, all the grants that we do, but I think there are certain principles that should be followed in determining where these cuts should be made. First of all, it is fashionable to say cut core funding and just fund projects. Well, having been president of a national NGO for three years I can tell you that if they will not provide you with core funding then you spend all
March 5, 1991

your time trying to stay alive and cannot get on with the work you are put there to do.
Secondly, we have to look at which NGOs have the potential to fund-raise. Some do, some do not. That is a principle we should look at.
Finally we should look at the federal mandate and policy objectives and make sure we support objectives which Canadians feel to be desirable.
Mr. Speaker, I see you are giving me the sign so I guess I must adjourn. If I may just mention in closing that it is extremely important that this bill pass expeditiously because borrowing authority extends to March 31 from last year's bill. If we do not get a new borrowing authority bill we are then faced with short-term financing which will cost the taxpayers of Canada a lot of money that we need not spend. Therefore, I commend the bill to all members and urge their support of it.


Stan Kazmierczak Keyes: Mr. Speaker, if it was not so laughable I would let it go, but the hon. member for South Shore says and I quote him: "The debt is the legacy of our forebears". Well, when is this member and the member who said "right" and, in fact, this government going to start taking responsibility for their own economic and fiscal mismanagement.
This government was elected in 1984. It has been almost seven years in power, holding the reins of power for almost seven years, seven of our almost most prosperous years in this country where we had jobs, where we had the money. Did this government during those seven prosperous years sock away any money for the rainy day? No. In fact, they spent like drunken fools.
Before 1984 we only had about 26 ministers in the Liberal government. Today they have almost doubled the number of ministers, doubled the number of ministers.


Mrs. Marleau:: Limousines.


Stan Kazmierczak Keyes: And with all that doubling, as my hon. friend from Sudbury says, come all the expenses-


Diane Marleau: Big offices.


Stan Kazmierczak Keyes: Bigger offices, big expansions, chauffeurs, limousines, extra perks, extra expenses. That is a lot of money. Did any of those ministries get cut back in this budget? No, I would not think so. Instead the govem-
Govemment Orders
ment continues to play this cruel and vicious game of cost-cutting.
I want to ask the member would he not admit that given the opportunity of the last six to seven years you could have done something, you could have socked away some money for the rainy day? Instead, you have brought forward a budget with its viciousness and its cruelness at the worst possible times.
For example, I go to my own riding of Hamilton West. I talked with the department of social services there. Total spending for mandatory welfare programs in the Hamilton-Wentworth region last year budgeted $52.4 million. They had to spend $64.1 million, and he tells me that they expect a significant increase again this year. But they are cutting back.
Want to talk cases? Let us talk welfare cases. There were 7,195 welfare cases a year ago January. Last January that number increased from 7,195 to over 10,000 cases in Hamilton alone. But they want to cut back on welfare assistance. Does this make sense to the hon. member? When times are tough? When the need is there? Not when the going is good but at the worst possible time they decide to cut back and implement their cruel and vicious cost-cutting measures.


Peter L. McCreath: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to respond to my hon. friend who has just provided a marvellous illustration of precisely the point that I made. He chastises this government for reducing the expenditures on the one hand and then calls for more expenditures and criticizes us for the debt situation at the same time.
My hon. friend should understand that when you inherit a $38 billion deficit, the only way you can keep the national debt from growing is to go from a $38 billion deficit to a zero deficit in one year. If you are faced with inheriting incredible interest charges, which as I said during my remarks which I know my hon. friend listened to with great attentiveness, included inheriting $27 billion worth of interest charges, that is what we inherited, along with an $11 billion deficit in program and operations, you will understand the magnitude of the task.
When you realize that an $11 billion deficit has been turned around to a $12.5 billion surplus on budget, you will see a $25 billion difference or approaching it, so we have made remarkable progress. Regrettably when you

March 5, 1991
Government Orders
inherit that deficit, even if you cut it down, whatever is left, you are still adding on to the debt year after year after year. That is the crippling load.
My hon. friend says: "You should be able to wipe that out". We have just heard him chastise this government for the cuts it has made. I presume by implication he is saying: "Cut a few ministers and cut out a few ministers' cars". With any luck you might save $1 million that way. Where are you going to get the other $11 billion that is there.
I invite him to look at a little publication called Where Your Tax Dollars Go that will clearly illustrate for his benefit and help him decide where we should cut the $27 billion. Does he want it cut out of the transfers to persons receiving the old age pension, does he want it taken out of veterans allowances, does he want it out of family allowances? We have put a cap on the growth of EPF for health and education and they are screaming over there. They say we have destroyed health services and medicare. I guess they do not want us to take it out of there.
We cannot take it out of the interest charges. Where are we going to take it from? We know they did not want to send troops to the Persian Gulf. Maybe they would like to abolish the Department of National Defence. Surely they abandoned it for many, many years when they were in power.
I think there is an incumbency on the other side to recognize as Canadians do, as they did in 1984, and in conclusion, Mr. Speaker, as they did in 1988 that fiscal responsibility comes from the crowd on this side of the House, comes from having a government-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Questions and comments, the hon. member for Windsor-St. Clair.


Mr. Howard McCurdy (Windsor-St. Clair):: Mr. Speaker, when I listen to the hon. member, as I observe the government, I have a vision of a single party somehow having a struggle with itself. The government has the government by the neck. It has got the government on its knees, with its knees on its chest, choking, fighting and carrying on. That is the vision I have of this government. The hon. member leaves as I am posing a question to him. Look at the question of the deficit. I am not talking about social expenditures or anything of the
sort. I am talking about what this government is doing on its own ground.
It ought to be at least understandable to the hon. member for South Shore that ultimately the deficit is going to be dealt with only if there is consistent economic growth in this country. Yet in this budget not only is there not a clear-cut economic policy based on the necessary steps that almost everyone agrees have to be taken, in fact there has been an attack on all of those things that we all know must be funded, must be strengthened if in fact we are going to have the kind of economy that will not plunge us into further deficits and deeper deficits in the future.
I am talking about research and development, post-secondary education, training and infrastructure which are not there at all. On the other hand, a good deal of that deficit is attributable to high interest rates which have been engineered by this government.


An hon. member:: Right on.


Howard Douglas McCurdy: In fact, it says that it is struggling with inflation. It says it has to keep wages down in the Public Service I suppose, as a message, to other workers. Yet, if you look at the increase in inflation that this country has experienced, a good deal of it is due to high interest rates. A good deal of it is due to the increased costs of regulated services. A good deal of it is due to higher taxes. A good deal of it is due to the GST.


An hon. member:: Right on.


Howard Douglas McCurdy: Now, if that is responsible financial management, I would sure hate to live in the house you are running on that basis.


Peter L. McCreath: Mr. Speaker, I will just briefly respond. I take it from the hon. member's remarks that he does not endorse the budget put forward by this government. Nevertheless, I notice, as well, that he, like my hon. friend from Hamilton, has suggested ways in which the government could spend more money without offering constructive suggestions as to how we do deal with the deficit that faces all Canadians and, indeed, has led to the high rate of inflation that in turn has fueled the high interest rates which have caused so much difficulty to Canadians from coast to coast. It is only because the government took a strong stand in accordance with sound economic policies that we have apparently got
March 5, 1991

inflation under control and that is why we have seen a 3.5 per cent drop in interest rates in the last year.
If my hon. friends opposite would take the time to carefully read the budget, they would see that we have clearly established targets. We are looking ahead to 2 per cent inflation, to 6 per cent and 7 per cent interest rates and we are going to be looking-I hate to tell my hon. friends opposite-at a booming economy just in time for the next election.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Resuming debate. The hon. member for Windsor-St. Clair.


Howard Douglas McCurdy: Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member for South Shore indicated, this is a debate on Bill C-97, the borrowing bill, which may be considered to be a part of the budget.
I hesitate to be a participant in what is, according to this government, increased borrowing power, as the House will almost surely decide in the final analysis. This government is already deeply enough in debt on borrowed time. If this government wanted to serve the people of this country, what it would do is resign right now.
I listened to the Prime Minister deliver his constitutional talk to the Empire and Canadian Clubs in Toronto and I listened to his vision for dealing with the question of Canadian unity, of its future Constitution, and his solution to the problems that are plaguing the country and causing such great concern to Canadians. I want to read a portion of this speech because I think it is important for Canadians to understand what he is up to, what he has been up to, and what he will be up to.
He set out I think seven characteristics that would govern constitutional change in this country. He said that the first benchmark of that future reconstitution of this nation would be to build the kind of prosperous Canada that his government has been in the process of building.
Let us understand specifically what that means because I think it is going to frighten Canadians when they understand what he considers to be fundamental to any constitutional change. That is that those gains that have been achieved by the free trade agreement, privatization and fiscal changes such as the goods and services tax are
Government Orders
the first prerequisite in this man's vision of the future of Canada.
Evidently, he is completely immune to the fact that what he has already been engaged in, in terms of that economic policy, lies at the very basis of the constitutional crisis in this country, because every Canadian has the presumption that he has been involved in the destruction of this nation. That is why we have a constitutional crisis.
Let us look at the record of this economic policy. First of all, that economic policy has been marked with a closer identification with American values. This is in some respects exemplified in the free trade agreement, the specific intent of which is to bring a greater degree of harmonization between our two nations. It really is a reflection of the Prime Minister's personal identification with a philosophy that is exclusively market-driven. It is a point of view that leads Canada to be the lap-dog of American foreign policy, as well as its economic mimic.
Someone said that when the Prime Minister went to New York when he was first elected Prime Minister of this country he came, he saw, he concurred.
An important part of this Americanization of Canada, the hurtful part of this Americanization of Canada, has been the attack on those institutions and programs which to the Canadian mind has kept this country together with a sense of community. It is a nation that extends across the vast geographic area, that consists of any number of different populations requiring certain kinds of institutions to keep them together such as the CBC, VIA Rail, the post office. All of these things have been under attack.
Social programs have been under attack. Medicare is under attack. Even in Quebec, even among those who are not sure of the future relationship that Quebec should have with Canada, the attack on medicare has been regarded, even there, as an attack on the Confederation of Canada.
Then we have the strange approach to economic growth, which in fact is completely contradictory to everything that they have said about improving Canada's competitiveness in the world.
The deficit has been the determinate of just about everything this government has done. It has undermined

March 5, 1991
Government Orders
growth in the economy and, as a consequence, it almost surely means over the long run that, unless there are other factors that change, the deficit will become larger.
After all, the deficit reflects the ability of the country to produce wealth and therefore to what degree taxes are collected and in what amounts. It reflects the payments that have to be made to those who are not working. It is clear that the deficit is not just a fiscal measure. It must reflect economic measures as well, but this government has failed to choose those appropriate measures that will address the economy and, over the long run, address the deficit.
The budget, with its attack and preoccupation with the deficit, is a reflection of a mentality: the bookkeeper's mentality, the economists mentality, the bottom line mentality. If I wanted to compare what the Minister of Finance has done, I think what I would want to cite is the example of the automobile industry 10 years ago, in which accountants like the finance minister and others on that side were so preoccupied with the bottom line and circumstances when they could get away with it that they started getting rid of their engineers, their scientists, their designers, their creative people. Yes, they are still getting a profit, but across the Pacific Ocean the designers, the engineers and the scientists-the people who do creative work, not the accountants-were producing cars that created a field of competition that required change. They had to look at the roles of creativity, of innovation, of knowledge, and of technology in the automobile industry.
We can extend that analogy to this nation. This has become a bottom-line nation in a world of knowledge, technology, creativity and ability to produce value added combined to produce wealth. This country is falling increasingly far behind and has been doing so ever since this government came into office. The strange and bizarre thing is that the Prime Minister seemed to recognize back in 1983 the necessity of doing something about Canada's utter failure in the areas of research, development, technology and innovation.
This budget continues the tack that has not only failed to meet the measure of improvement, but the Prime Minister's promise has still further eroded our ability as a nation to create the kind of value-added economy we are going to need to have to compete.
What are the dimensions of this? Specifically, we must have increased investment in research and development. We must have more scientists, more engineers and a more highly-trained work force. We must have, therefore, improvements and not a deterioration in post-secondary education. We must have improvements and not a deterioration of the levels of training, and we must make investments in infrastructure.
Yes, what has happened? It goes on. If we look at research and development, for example, the National Research Council will get an increase of roughly 3 per cent. It is kind of difficult to calculate with any precision, but roughly 3 per cent. In fact, before the budget was released the National Research Council received a message from the finance minister that it could be assured of an increase in funding of $50 million over the next five years.
This is the same NRC that this government cut back in 1985-86. This is the same NRC that has had its scientific complement cut over the last year by about 100. This is the same NRC that submitted a proposed five-year plan last spring in which it asked for $125 million over five years for IRAP alone, that is the Industrial Research Assistance Program. Let us look at the comparison: $50 million over five years of which the 3 per cent increase received in the budget is applied. For the entire NRC, as compared to $125 million asked for over five years for IRAP, the most successful job producing program the government finances anywhere at $15,000 a job.
Yet, the government did not see fit to take money for its advertising of the GST and all those other wasteful expenditures and put it where the proper priorities would have had it.
Similarly, NSERC, which is responsible for funding research in the universities, received an increase of 3.7 per cent. The National Advisory Board for Science and Technology and the House committee on industry, science and technology, on which you might realize, Mr. Speaker, there are a couple of government members, agreed that the funding for the granting councils which support basic research in universities should be doubled over a three-year period. This year they got an increase of 3.7 per cent. The impact of this is tremendous. Given the way they are going to spend money, it is true that slightly more researchers and slightly more graduate students are going to receive grants. However, they will all receive less.
March 5, 1991

The impact of this kind of approach to basic research in the universities is documented right in the estimates. It says that equipment currently used in research laboratories is generally in worse condition than in use in 1981 when the NSERC first made its report on the status of research equipment in universities.
It is important to have up-to-date equipment both for competitiveness and forefront research and for training graduate students. There, in the government's own document, is the clear statement that what this government is doing is an attacking. It is an attack on research and development in this country, an attack on our ability to produce trained scientists and engineers.
Similarly, the Medical Research Council received 2.4 per cent in increased funding.
In the present budget in education they have cut Established Programs Financing by virtue of Bill C-96 as they have done practically since this government was elected. The cuts for 1990 together with the cuts for 1991 are going to cut $3.8 billion from universities alone. That amounts to roughly $1,000 for each student in the college and university system. That is just heaped upon an over-all cut in federal funding to the universities of almost $10 billion that was engineered by the Liberals at the beginning of the 1980s and continues now with the Conservatives at the beginning of a new decade.
It is not just scientists and engineers that we need; it is also trained workers that we need. But they have cut $100 million from Canadian Jobs Strategy. By the way, this is after they had already cut training programs, job creation programs, from $2.4 billion to $1.3 billion and after they had cut the Canadian Jobs Strategy summer program for students from $200 million to $140 million.
In education, in training, and in research and development this government is attacking this country's ability to grow.
Finally, with respect to infrastructure, we find that this government has failed utterly to recognize the importance in our municipalities, our provinces and our
Government Orders
regions of infrastructure for the success of future economic development in this country.
Robert Reich has described two kinds of approaches to an economy. You can have a vicious cycle that is based on the premise that you can achieve economic development by offering a good business environment. That is kind of familiar, meaning low wages, few regulations and low taxes especially for the rich. You can have a virtuous cycle, he says, of economic development if you adopt the premise that you are going to educate your workers and you are going to encourage creativity. Because you have education and training and you have creativity, it grows; it gets greater.
But once you start the kind of policy that this government has adopted of attacking the workers by trying to suppress wages, by redistributing wealth so it goes up instead of down, then you are on your way to a vicious cycle in which you will have no alternative but to offer still lower wages and still poorer conditions for everyone.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Pronovost):: I regret having to interrupt the hon. member. Questions and comments. The hon. member for London-Middlesex.


Mr. Terry Clifford (London-Middlesex):: Mr. Speaker, I am glad to have this opportunity to respond to the diatribe we heard from Windsor, Ontario. I am sure the hon. member is speaking with a great deal of compassion but I really do not think a great deal of fact, and certainly no understanding at all about what this government has done since 1984.
I want to rebut a couple of the points. For example, in economic reform he questioned the basics of our policy on GST and free trade. In fact he made the statement that we are succumbing to American values. I say that is not true at all. They are Conservative values. I am sure it sounds very foreign to the member, but clearly that is what they are.
He questioned world access at a time when the whole world is responding and wanting world access for their markets. Countries of the world, in increasing numbers, realize that an inter-linked economy is the economy of the future. I think the member has missed the fact that this government has already seen that since 1984 and has been directing activity and putting policies in place so

March 5, 1991
Government Orders
that Canada can respond to an inter-linked global economy and be a key player. Clearly he did not follow the GATT proposals and the debates. These countries are all dedicated to a market economy and closer and closer toward free trade, words that are foreign to that party's policy of course.
The accountant's mentality that we are charged with, why not? Why not have some bottom-line thoughtfulness here? Why duplicate services? I think the clear signal in this budget was just that, the fact that we have to find ways. The signal in the budget of the Minister of Finance was to the provinces and to the municipalities was that we could no longer duplicate or triplicate services, that we had to find ways of bringing this economy into common sense and bringing it together. Clearly the Prime Minister has recognized that by asking the Economic Council of Canada to do a review of the whole subject.
Research and development was another key point. Clearly this government knows about this, knows that we are going to be 30,000 engineers short by the end of the decade. I am sure the member knows this. He has a university in his town, like I have in mine. The University of Western Ontario has grabbed on to our new program in science, engineering and technology and has become part of the scholarship program of $200 million to produce these new students, these new leaders in this particular field.
I think the member has forgotten this program. We are committed to research and development. The private sector should get the signal that it is going to have to pay more. That goes along with training as well.
The member does not understand that good training, the stuff that is going to be real for the work force in Canada, is the kind of programs designed by people in the work force and people in management who are trying to make this country competitive in an increasingly competitive global market. With the $800 million we save with the UIC changes we are dedicating money to the training and retraining of Canadians to fit the competitiveness of the global economy.
There has in fact been a national board established to develop these programs from the grassroots. We finally want to get programs that work for Canadians so that Canadians can hold their head up and compete with
anyone in the world. This country can do it. The member has just got to listen and follow our lead.


Howard Douglas McCurdy: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member called my speech a tirade, which I gather means that he did not approve it. Then he followed by demonstrating that he did not understand any of it.
It is not a question of being aware that there has to be a budget and that the budget should adhere to certain reasonable notions of what we can afford, and all of that. That is not the issue. The question is what goes on inside that budget.
If the hon. member thinks that this government has done anything significant with respect to research and development, then he does not know what he is talking about. The level of expenditures for research and development for this government has not increased a penny since 1984. If you call attention to the role of industry, the fact is that industry has increased its share while the government has decreased its share. What it has put in new has been a pittance and has not come anywhere near matching inflationary requirements.
With respect to training it has utterly failed up until now to produce anything but promises, including this vaunted panel which is right now paralyzed because Quebec will not participate.
Consistently over the period from 1984 to 1991 this government has shown a distinct lack of leadership in respect to post-secondary education as well and if he does not believe that he does not have to trust what I say. Read the report of the National Advisory Board on Science and Technology. Read the report that was produced by a majority of his own members on the committee on industry, science and technology. Listen to the provincial ministers of education. Listen to what is being said by industrial organizations. Listen to what is said at the science forum organized by this government itself.
What you will read, what you will see, what you will hear is that: this government has failed to do what is necessary to be done to make this country a competitive nation. All it has done is adopt the free trade agreement that makes it impossible to use most of the tools we ought to be able to use and the government has failed to use what tools are left.
March 5, 1991


Diane Marleau: Mr. Speaker, I must agree with many of the comments made by my colleague, the hon. member for Windsor-St. Clair. This Conservative government has really failed to invest in training. A dollar spent today is worth ten dollars five years from now.
The Conservative government always claims that business must become more involved in training and retraining and that is a very laudable approach except that it appears that the businesses and the corporations are fleeing our country. How can we ask these businesses and corporations to be retraining the future generation of people who must bring wealth to this country? First, perhaps this government should consider changing some of its policies and we may be able to attract these companies who might in future retrain.
One of the other problems, and I will ask you to comment on this, is that in the cutbacks on Established Program Financing that we are seeing, this government has gone on to say how they would bring forward legislation to penalize provinces who do not keep up standards or keep up universality in the health care system. What they have neglected to consider is that if these provinces comply and maintain the same level of spending in health then it needs to cut back in education. Again, who is going to be hurt the most? It is our country, our economy, and our future because there will be no investment in that future generation.
I would like your comments as to this point.


Howard Douglas McCurdy: Mr. Speaker, I quite agree. In fact, when the Liberal government in 1977 cancelled the fifty-fifty split with respect to EPF that is when the trouble began. Since then the portion of EPF transfer payments that goes to universities has deteriorated to about 37 per cent.
You are quite right. If the government tries to enact legislation that would tie the provinces to meet the standards of medicare, and standards with respect to post-secondary education, that is going to impose a rather severe burden on those provinces if there are no transfer payments accompanying that responsibility.
However, I personally have quite considerable difficulty understanding how mechanically, or constitutionally, the government will be able to pull that off, especially
Government Orders
given that for the last six years whenever the issue has arisen with respect to specifying a portion of EPF for universities and requiring matching funds from the provinces in order that the provinces meet their responsibilities with respect to post-secondary education, the government has always said that goes too far, that we should not be imposing anything on the provinces.
This seems to me to be a wild contradiction from this government. This government contradicts itself.


Alan Redway: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to make a few comments in respect of Bill C-97, the borrowing bill, which obviously relates directly to the budget recently brought down by the Minister of Finance.
Also, it relates directly to my own responsibilities, my own portfolio, and the impact that this bill and the budget has on housing, on our national housing programs and on the federal housing agency, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.
You and I well know, Mr. Speaker, the difficult problem that faced the Minister of Finance in trying to address the economic situation in a budget this year. On the one hand, there was an enormous deficit situation, a situation which had grown more severe in this past year, on top of a very substantial national debt.
Balancing that situation were economic difficulties in the country which have to be addressed as well. Somehow or other, the Minister of Finance had to meet the debt problem and, at the same time, meet the economic difficulties we have in the country.
I believe that he has managed to do that in a way that has not hurt or damaged those who are the poor and the disadvantaged people in this country, particularly as that applies to housing. It was not an easy task. I have to congratulate him for the job he did with respect to dealing with the housing budget and with people who need help in housing.
In fact, the bottom line of the budget is that in spite of a continuing 15 per cent reduction in ongoing increases in social housing spending-a reduction that was put into place in last year's budget, through this year and on for the fiscal framework of the next five years-this year the actual amount of money the federal government will be spending on social housing is going up by $116 million.

March 5, 1991
Government Orders
That is added to the amounts that were spent last year and in previous years. This extra amount includes an inflationary increase which will go into effect and will allow us to continue to maintain the existing assisted housing program across our country. That inflationary increase to help existing housing programs amounts to some $30 million of additional money.
Added to that is an additional $86 million which will allow the federal government, through the federal housing agency, CMEIC, to help to assist even more people who need housing and help with housing in this country in the coming year.
I trust that all members of the House are aware that currently across the country the federal government is assisting almost 650,000 needy households. These are people who fall into the categories of senior citizens and single parent families, the majority of whom are women-led single parent families. They fall into the categories of disabled people, low income single women, families with low incomes, single people with low incomes, disabled people with low incomes and natives with low incomes.
It is interesting to note that this help is directed towards Canadians who this year will have an average annual income of around $11,000 a year only. Therefore, this sum is being spent to assist people like that. It is certainly very needed and certainly very helpful.
Again, I think the Minister of Finance is to be congratulated for making sure that this budget does not impact on those people any more severely than it has in the past, and in fact will be helping over 40,000 more needy households this year than were helped last year.
It is important to recognize as well that the budget is going to allow for the continuation of all of our national housing programs, and, in particular, will allow for the continuation of some housing programs which we hope to improve this year.
One of those is what is known as our RRAP program, our Residential Rehabilitation Assistance Program. It helps natives living on reserves, it helps low-income homeowners and it helps people with disabilities who are homeowners as well.
In 1990, the federal government was able to assist some 25,000 households under this program. This was done through a forgivable loan program which involved some $105 million and which allowed people whose housing had fallen below standard to upgrade their homes and to continue to live in those homes. This program helps very dramatically, very inexpensively and cost effectively Canadians who own homes but who need help to maintain them. If they do not get that help, they are going to have to move into other assisted housing that some government would have to build from scratch.
This is a very cost-effective program. It is one we have been reviewing over the last few years and I expect we will be coming forward with some new suggestions in the coming year. Perhaps there will be a suggestion that I know my colleagues in the House from the province of Quebec are most interested in and that is helping low-income people who rent. Our past program, which was discontinued two years ago, the rental RAP program, is being looked at to see if there is some way that we could provide some help in this area. That help will go to needy people and not to investors or people who can afford to make these repairs on their own.
Another program we hope we will be making some additions to this year is our rural and native housing program. This program has been targeted to natives living off reserve and to people in remote and rural areas of the country. Some 50 per cent of all of the funds under that program have been targeted over the last few years to natives. We again expect that in the coming year, after completing a consultation process and an evaluation process of those programs that we will be coming forward with some new suggestions as to how we can improve that program as well.
One of the programs we have already improved is one that I announced a week ago yesterday, and that was a new and augmented initiative in the area of housing for the victims of family violence. This, of course, includes the women and the children who are victims of family violence. It also includes senior citizens. It also includes disabled people who, as you know, are these days the subject of family violence, something which all of us feel very deeply is completely and totally unacceptable in our society. As a result, not only must we try to prevent family violence from occurring, we must deal with the effects, the impact of family violence. We have to
March 5, 1991

provide some housing, whether it is emergency shelters for the victims of family violence or whether it is longer term housing after they have had a short stay in an emergency shelter.
The government already has in place a program called Project Haven, which started in 1988 and should conclude in 1992. Over that time we should be able to put in place another 450 emergency shelter units to help the victims of family violence.
A week ago yesterday I announced in Edmonton an augmentation of that program whereby we would provide a further $4 million for shelters and a further $16 million for second-stage housing for the victims of family violence. We estimate that the program, once it is in effect, combined with Project Haven with its 450 units of emergency shelters is going to be able to help some
27,000	victims of violence, whether they be women and children or whether they be senior citizens or disabled people who are suffering as a result of those abuses.
At the same time, the second stage housing I announced a week ago will be able to assist some 2,100 victims of family violence each and every year.
I do not think I have to say that housing is one of the very basic concerns Canadians have. It is what I refer to as one of the fundamentals, one of the cornerstones of Canadian society. As such, I believe very deeply that it is necessary for us to maintain into the future, as we now have, national standards in housing. We have to make sure that we allow people to become homeowners, because that is one of the deep-felt yearnings that binds us together as Canadians, that feeling that we want to be able to own our own home. Many people came to this country because they wanted to be homeowners.
In addition, we have to make sure that those who cannot afford to be homeowners, those who cannot afford to look after all of their housing needs, have decent and affordable housing wherever they live in this country, whether it is in urban areas, whether it is in rural areas, or in the remote north. Every needy Canadian who just cannot afford to provide decent, affordable housing for themselves has that opportunity. That is why we need to have national standards in housing.
Government Orders
In the debate on national unity which is under way right now and as we examine the question of the division of powers between the federal Parliament and provincial legislatures, one of the things we must bear in mind in this debate is the need for national standards in housing that apply right across this country.
One of the important aspects of the budget which ties in with the bill we are debating this evening, is the fact that all of the items in the budget are aimed at trying to bring down interest rates. It is obviously a very essential part of helping housing in this country.
It is interesting to note that a drop of 1 per cent in interest rates allows approximately 100,000 more Canadians to become homeowners. It makes housing affordable for 100,000 more Canadians with the drop of 1 percentage point in interest rates. In fact, over the last few months, I think it was about June or July of this year, you will have noted that mortgage interest rates had reached some 14.25 per cent. Now that is still far below the 22 per cent to 23 per cent that mortgage interest rates reached in the early 1980s, but at the same time, there has been a drop since June and July from a 14.25 per cent mortgage interest rate to an 11 per cent mortgage interest rate today. That has meant a veiy substantial difference in the affordability of housing. In fact, it means that the average person buying a house and paying mortgage payments on a $100,000 mortgage is in fact paying about $250 a month less than they were paying a few short months ago.
All of this is extremely important in encouraging housing and, of course, the building of housing and the improvement of the real estate market. All of that, of course, is what the budget is aimed at and, I think, aimed at quite successfully.
We are going to be doing some other things in this coming year as well and I would just like to comment on two of those very briefly. One of them is that I hope to be bringing forward some amendments to the National Housing Act which will allow the mortgage insurance fund of CMHC to ensure shared-equity home purchases. I hope, as well, that it will allow for the insurance of reverse annuity mortgages for senior citizens.

March 5, 1991
Government Orders
I expect, and very shortly will be announcing, the creation of a Canadian housing partnership centre which will take the initiative and act as a catalyst in developing public-private housing partnerships so that we can do more with the funds that we have available in providing badly needed assisted housing for Canadians.
At the same time, in this coming year we are going to be putting into effect some cost efficiencies and cost reductions which will allow us to continue to do and to help another 40,000 more Canadians next year much more than we are helping at the present time.
In conclusion, I just want to say that I believe that the budget that has been brought down by the Minister of Finance has created a delicate balance here, and, quite successfully, one which is going to lower interest rates, lower inflation, lower the deficit, increase economic confidence and, in doing so, it is going to give a boost to housing.
As you know, housing means strong families, strong communities, a strong economy and a strong nation.


Thomas (Tom) William Wappel: Mr. Speaker, as always, the Minister of Housing presents a persuasive argument.
I want to begin my comments by congratulating him for the announcements that he made, of the shelters to help battered families. I applaud that, but I note in passing that, of course, the minister represents a riding in metropolitan Toronto as I do and he knows that the Toronto Homebuilders Association has been on the Hill many times and has spoken to many members of Parliament about the situation of housing in the Metropolitan Toronto area.
Of course, the minister knows as well as I, probably better, what Homebuilders of Toronto said. As I understand it, they said that the situation with respect to housing in the most populous city in this country is a disaster. Housing starts are virtually nil in the largest city in the country. Not only are housing starts virtually nil, but the housing industry is complaining about something which is very prominently mentioned in the budget, upon which the bill that we are debating is predicated, and that is the unfair treatment that builders have with respect to existing inventory under the GST and the artificial
deadlines that have been imposed on the building industry with respect to existing inventories.
The minister has said that this budget is going to do great things. The minister has said that he is committed-and I believe it-to increased housing. He has also said that a 1 per cent drop in interest rates creates another 100,000 homes. But then he falls into the Tory trap; and that is to try and bring us back to ancient history and blame everything in the world on the Liberal government. And he dared to say that interest rates in the early 1980s, if you please, were in the 22 per cent to 23 per cent range. The minister knows perfectly well that that is an exaggeration, that they were there for a temporary time based on a world-wide recession.
My question for the minister of Housing is this: When are we going to see some meaningful drops in the interest rates so that we can see increased housing? What are we going to do about the GST anomaly with respect to the building industry in Toronto? When are we going to see something more than words? When are we going to see houses starting to be built in metropolitan Toronto and the rest of this country?


Alan Redway: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to respond to my friend. I have to say that it was not I who drew attention to the problems with respect to the former Liberal government; I merely referred to the early 1980s. But my hon. friend has certainly pinned it down.
I, too, obviously have had a great many discussions with the Toronto Homebuilders and the Canadian Homebuilders as to what they believe should be done in order to deal with the difficulties that they are having. The first thing that they tell me is not to start meddling in the housing market with some sort of stimulated program. Stay out of that and let the market do its own thing, except bring down interest rates. I found in my post-budget discussions with homebuilders that they have been delighted at the thrust of the budget and the fact that it is aimed at bringing down interest rates; that that is the whole basis on which the budget is built, the recognition that interest rates have to come down.
I have found that the homebuilders are actually delighted with this budget and believe it is going to be extremely stimulative. I might just say that my sense- and I suspect the hon. member's sense as well-in
March 5, 1991

talking to real estate people in metropolitan Toronto is that the low-end housing, the affordable housing end of the market, is starting to move again. In fact, they can't get enough listings at the low end of the market. So hopefully once the builders get the interest rates lower, they are going to start building housing that is affordable, not these monstrosities for half a million dollars or a million dollars. That certainly will help the GST problem they have too.


Mr. Jack Iyerak Anawak (Nunatsiaq):: First of all, I would like to congratulate the minister for coming up to my region, Keewatin. He is one of the few ministers of this government to come up and see for himself how high the prices are up north.
On another issue, I would like to ask the minister a question regarding his comments about how much more they would like to do for the aboriginal housing, native housing, on and off reserve. The minister will note an article in The Globe and Mail this morning-and it has been running for the past number of days-about a particular community. This community I think can be used as an example of a lot of communities in reserves. It is the Osnaburgh community, about which it was quoted that about 50 per cent of the housing is without electricity and 50 per cent is without water. Right next to it is Pickle Lake, which has all the good things.
The minister mentioned the programs that they are planning, and again, I reiterate the term "average reserve communities across Canada".
I would like to ask the minister what more can he do to ensure that these communities are brought up to standards. He mentioned putting in legislation to ensure that there are national standards in housing all across the country.
I would like to ask him what more he can do for the average reserves across the country in terms of housing.


Alan Redway: Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for his kind words. I certainly enjoyed visiting his constituency which was a learning experience for me, as I have over the last year on two occasions. I have had the opportunity to see first-hand some of the
Government Orders
great difficulties and the great problems in the far north of Canada, Arctic Canada.
At the same time, as the hon. member has pointed out, there are problems both on and off reserve in northern Canada, some not as far north as the hon. member's constituency, but we have got to deal with all of these problems.
Last summer I had the opportunity as well to visit native communities both on and off reserve in northern Saskatchewan and northern Manitoba. I visited some 22 communities in the space of about a week and I, too, saw very dramatic differences from one community to another. When I returned from that trip I was convinced that what we needed in particular was much more co-ordination between the two federal departments that deal with native housing. The Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, as the hon. member knows, deals with housing, for the most part, on reserve. We do have a modest role there in co-operation with DIAND but our basic role has been to assist natives off reserve.
I think we have been making great strides that way, although there is much more to be done. There is no question about that.
I believe, however, that through the consultation process, the evaluation process that we have carried out on off-reserve housing under the Rural and Native Program will be bringing forth some improvements and some good ideas that can help.
The hon. member will know that the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development has recently brought forth a consultation paper as well for housing on reserve. We are going to be working very closely with DIAND, and I would expect that out of that will come improvements and help for communities like Osnaburgh and others.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBIois):: The Liberals will now split their time in two. The hon. member for Kent.


Rex Crawford: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak about this bill, with particular reference to the budget's affect on my riding of Kent, and southern Ontario as a whole.

Government Orders
Southern Ontario is the economic engine of Canada; in fact, southwestern Ontario alone is responsible for 60 per cent of the province's gross domestic product.
This is no ordinary recession. The government's economic policies are hitting southern Ontario hard. Plants are closing down and jobs are lost forever. It is a far ciy from the temporary examples of the last recession of 1981 and 1982.
We know that an economy, like an engine, cannot keep revving at high RPMs forever. You cannot sustain a hundred miles an hour. But with proper upkeep and good maintenance the engine will be ready to fire again. But this government is a group of very poor mechanics. Its policies are putting up roadblocks and southern Ontario is seizing up with the twin-engine killers of high interest rates and a high dollar.
For those who say that this recession may be bad but it definitely is better than the last one, they are dead wrong. The welfare rates in Kent County are up 400 per cent from 1981 levels. The city of Chatham has a 30 per cent unemployment rate in the automotive sector. Companies such as Motor Wheel Corporation are closing their doors. That plant has been in Chatham ever since I was a young child, and we have been through tough times before. The Hunt-Wesson tomato canning plant in Tilbury closed down last year after being in operation for over 25 years. That plant and its workers made it through the last recession but not this one.
The blame lies in the high interest, high dollar, and free trade policy of this government.
I point out, Mr. Speaker, that it is not me who says that. It is not the unions who say that. It was Hunt-Wesson's president who said that. Those jobs are going to California and to Ohio, with tomato farmers in my riding left holding their baskets.
Before, Canada was armed for the wars of recession, but with free trade our guns are checked at the border and we now have no protection from the gunslingers of big corporate America.
A fact that should not be overlooked as well is that in the 1982 recession only 24 per cent of the layoffs involved total or partial plant closings. But in 1990 these accounted for 64 per cent of the job cuts.
This is not the same as 1981-1982. The impact of the recession is hitting everywhere.
In Dresden, population 2,500, two of its most major employers are closing their doors, over 100 jobs eliminated. Think of the ripple effect on the local economy.
In Chatham, at truck builder Navistar nearly one-quarter of its 800 strong workforce is laid off. Seimens, a world-class company with more than 1,000 employees now has nearly a third on lay-off.
But the biggest blow is the impending closure of Motor Wheel where only 250 remain of a workforce that once totalled over 600. The plant is shutting its doors in May.
About a third of Chatham's workforce is in the auto parts industry so it would follow that the city would suffer similar setbacks as other auto towns such as Windsor and Oshawa. But Chatham is smaller with a population of only 42,000 and when a plant lays off the result devastates and disrupts the entire local economy.
The lay-offs have had a dramatic effect on the city. Real estate sales are down 50 per cent. Bankruptcies handled by just one office of Peat Marwick Thome in Chatham are up 50 per cent from last year.
Kent County is home of the Ontario tax revolt and it can only balloon after this budget. To compensate for the loss of federal transfer support the provinces and municipalities are either going to increase taxes or cut services.
Federal inaction could result in more bed closings at hospitals, even longer waiting lists for surgery, a poorer education system, and less money for roads and infrastructure.
The finance minister has actually suggested that provincial road budgets should be reduced. He must not do much driving on the 401 highway.
Modem highways and transportation routes are absolutely crucial to southern Ontario with their "just in time" industries. Improved routes to help our industries should be a priority not an afterthought.
This is no ordinary recession. The town of Dresden, ever since I can remember, always had about four or five farm implement dealers. Those small businessmen made it through 1981-1982, but not this time. Now there are none left-zero.
March 5, 1991

The working people see federal tax revenues up 70 per cent since 1984.
This is the stuff of which tax revolts are made. Canadian households will pay a total of $11.1 billion more in federal taxes, net of transfers, than they would if the 1984 tax system were still in place. An average Canadian family is paying about $1,000 more through this government's policies.
This is a government that promised in its first budget an $18 billion deficit this year. After six years of tax increases, program cutbacks and global economic growth, the government is having great difficulty explaining why the deficit is still increasing and the public debt is out of control.
In 1981 Canada followed the rest of the world into recession. This time we plunged into recession fully eight months before the U.S., creating the first "made in Canada" recession. The recession is cutting deeper into the economic foundation of southwestern Ontario.
The finance minister calls his budget a prosperity challenge. For most Canadians it is going to be a survival challenge. The years ahead will see the fiercest competition the world has ever known but we need the tools to do it. The government's actions are taking us in the other direction. We are witnessing the terrible deindustrialization of Canada. We have lost 229,000 jobs or 11 per cent of all manufacturing jobs since free trade.
The Canadian Manufacturers' Association has shown that the ability of Canada to compete with its major trading partners is only 85 per cent of what it was in 1980. We have lost 20 per cent of our share of the world markets during the last five years.
The trade balance with our major trading partner, the U.S., has dropped $6 billion since 1984. Further, our current account balance with our neighbours to the south has been ripped from a positive balance of $6.7 billion in 1984 to a $2.7 billion deficit in 1989.
These are certainly not the results that government is looking for, after saying we should be competitive.
As our industrial sectors are being sacked and pillaged through free trade and a sad economy, the Tory government has offered no adjustment programs to deal with the restructuring.
Government Orders
Canada is facing a serious long-term competitive crisis, and it is no more apparent than in southwestern Ontario. Southern Ontario, Canada's manufacturing heartland, is suffering from hardening of the arteries. As the winds of change blow away our economic structures and erode southern Ontario's foundation, the government is standing back and watching. Any good farmer knows that you do not just stand back and watch your soil erode and blow away. You set up windbreaks.
Our manufacturing sector is the soil by which Canada's economy grows and prospers. The Tory government is letting it erode.
Recession is not just a word in the dictionary. If affects your neighbour across the backyard fence, the farmer down the road, and the local coffee shop where everyone gathers at six in the morning. It affects your kid's hockey and baseball coach. Recession hits families.
To conclude, this is no ordinary recession. There is a tax revolt in Kent County as the Conservatives, through this budget, place more of the burden on the provinces and municipalities. Welfare rates in Kent Country are zooming, burdened by the weight of the recession.
No, this is no ordinary recession. The economic engine of southwestern Ontario is seizing up. The budget presented last week offers no tune-up, no answers, just more of the same. Our economic foundation is being wrenched away. Plants are closing down. Jobs are lost forever.
We need a government that is sensitive to the changes going on around us, one that will stick up for the little guy and will lend a helping hand to workers and their families.


Thomas (Tom) William Wappel: We need a Liberal government.


Rex Crawford: Right.


Peter L. McCreath: Mr. Speaker, I would like to compliment the hon. member for Kent on the sincerity of his presentation, although I must confess he did leave me a little bit bewildered with some of the things he said.
At one point during his remarks, I noticed he said that his constituency was the source of a tax revolt and that people felt they were paying too many taxes already in his constituency. I believe that is the thrust of what he said. Then, only moments later, he was complaining that

Government Orders
we may have a cut, as he refers to it, in EPF payments affecting education, health and welfare.
As I have listened with great interest to this debate today, time and time again I cannot help but be bewildered by my hon. friends opposite who on the one hand say: "We have too many taxes. Taxes are going up too high". That is revenue. On the other hand they say: "You cannot cut". That is expenditures.
Thxes cover expenditures. How do we increase expenditures if we do not want to increase taxes to pay for them? Maybe that is why my hon. friends opposite, when they were in power, got this country into such a horrendous deficit situation in the first place. I do not know.
I would like to raise a question with my hon. friend. I notice that like his friends further to his left he seems mired in anti-Americanism. He believes that Canadian consumers should not benefit from the best possible price and that we should build tariff walls around this country regardless of what it costs to produce consumer goods so that the Canadian consumer is gouged again and again.
Does he not have any consumers in his constituency? Perhaps my hon. friend would like to comment on those two issues.


Rex Crawford: Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for posing the questions.
I will start with the last one: Do we have any consumers left in my riding? At the present time it is getting very shallow. We are losing consumers in our ridings through lay-offs with factories closing. We also happen to be on the American border. We are losing people who are shopping in the United States.
I know the minister spoke about cigarettes, which is great.


Peter L. McCreath: You are losing to the United States because the prices are cheaper.


Rex Crawford: Yes.


Peter L. McCreath: If you had a competitive marketplace, then our consumers would get competitive prices.


Rex Crawford: How are you going to do that? By lowering the wages of the poor working man who is paying over 50 per cent of his wages now? How do you expect him to pay the taxes?
In our riding of Kent, as I mentioned earlier, where the tax revolt has started, programs that the provincial government put on to the municipalities-


Peter L. McCreath: Where are you going to get the money?


David Bjornson: How are you going to support the farmers?


Rex Crawford: We are going to support them a hell of a lot better than you have. The provincial government put programs on to the municipalities and then walked away. I know. I have been a municipal politician for approximately 14 years and had to put up with what Ottawa does and what the province does. They put programs into your municipality that you did not want and spend money beyond reason. We always said in the municipality: "We will do the job for x number of dollars. Give it to the province and they will do it for x and y; give it to the federal government and they will do it for x, y and z". That is what happens to cost.
In answer to the member's question, the other day I asked the Minister of the Environment where he got his $3 billion budget for the environment from. I am not disagreeing with the $3 billion. I am not saying it is too low or too high. I can agree with him. I wanted to know where he got the figure.
In municipal politics one starts at cent one and works up. In federal government one starts at the top and works down. The answer he gave me is quite simple: we needed $3 billion; it is there. But I cannot see where it started at penny one, $10,000 for a project here, $100,000 for one here, $125 million for another one. I have never seen those figures.
We started at penny one if it was $100,000. Our municipality is a lot smaller than the federal so I can use $100,000 instead of $100 billion. Once we reached that, we had no more money. Here there seems to be overruns. I sat on three government committees. There are overruns on every one of them: "Don't worry about the money; we can spend it". Contracts go out, and when contracts go out in a municipality one wants to know what the bottom dollar is, the last dollar to be spent on

HIBHHHUlHHi
March 5, 1991

that project, and no one goes one penny over it. Yet, federally it seems the programs can run 20 per cent, 30 per cent, 40 per cent over, or they hold a project up for five years, or study it for five years.
I have seen projects on the environment that were to cast for approximately $150,000, but over the last five years there has been $800,000 spent on studies and they still have not been done.
You are asking me where the money is being wasted-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Order, please, the hon. member's time is over.


Jack Iyerak Anawak: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have this opportunity to speak on the government's borrowing bill and to raise certain economic issues of concern to northern Canada.
With this bill, Parliament is being asked to spend and to approve the government's spending plan. Parliament is being asked to approve an awful lot of money with this bill but very little of the government's proposed expenditures, as we learn in this budget, will address the most pressing social and economic needs of the aboriginal and northern people.
When the Minister of Finance tabled his budget a week ago, he announced that Inuit and Indian programs would be exempt from the extension of the government's expenditure control plan, which sounds very good on the surface, but we still do not know the extent of that exemption. The Minister of Finance neglected to tell this House and the people of Canada that the Indian and Inuit programs were capped for two years in last year's budget. There were some exemptions for health, education, social assistance and claims, but these programs were not exempted out of the goodness of the federal government's heart.
The federal government has a legal obligation to provide health, education, social assistance, and claims funding to aboriginal people. The question we have is: Does the extension of the exemption apply only to these programs which the federal government is legally obliged to provide? The answer is not clear. Even the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development was not sure last week.
As I said earlier, last year's budget cap on Indian and Inuit programs was for two years. The cap on Indian and Inuit programs is in effect this year as it was last year.
Government Orders
This fact, the Minister of Finance neglected to mention in his speech.
I will remind the house that this cap on Indian and Inuit programs means the loss of $100 million to Indian and Inuit programs. The minister's own budget documents from last year display these figures in black and white. Last year $50 million was lost, and this year another $50 million is being cut.
The government is not restoring this lost $100 million. As I said earlier, we do not yet know how much the recently announced exemption covers.
Last year's budget strangled aboriginal organizations and aboriginal communications. The pattern continues this year.
Last year the core operating funding for the aboriginal organizations in this country was cut severely. This year it has been cut again.
The government's borrowing bill does not restore any funding to aboriginal organizations or aboriginal communications. Government's borrowing bill does not provide any additional funding to Canada Post for the food mail program.
Since the fall we have been waiting for a report from the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development on this issue, and we have yet to see it. When are we going to see this report?
The territorial government has had its transfer payments cut back by this government. The Yukon government will receive about $80 million less over a five-year period than it would otherwise have received from the federal government. The Northwest Territories will receive about $100 million less over the same time period. In 1991-1992, there is a loss of about $30 million in federal transfer payments to the Government of the Northwest Territories.
It has become abundantly clear that this federal government does not have an economic plan for the north. The government does not recognize the unique social and economic development needs of the north. Investing in the north is not a priority of this government.
The government produced a document in 1988 called A Northern Political and Economic Framework, but nothing is happening under this framework that is improving the daily lives of people in the north. Instead, the north

Government Orders
has seen only cutbacks and federal policies which discriminate against the north.
For example, we have seen in the past few years cutbacks in the funding formula for transfers to the territories, a tightening in the unemployment insurance program, a substantial weakening of the tax benefits provided to mining by the elimination of flow-through shares, previous increases in the sales tax burden on air transportation and telecommunication services, the imposition of the GST and others.
The 1991 federal budget is just the latest example of this federal government's anti-northern bias. The budget makes cuts to the environment, to the Canadian Jobs Strategy; to housing and to aboriginal organizations. It provides no help, no hope and no relief.
Instead, northerners are being told that they will have to continue to suffer. We have serious housing problems in the Northwest Territories. We have homelessness. We have overcrowding. We have social problems and health problems as a result, but the budget does nothing to alleviate these problems. Instead, it cuts back on the spending for social housing.
We have serious unemployment problems in the north, especially among our youth. This budget does nothing to help the unemployed. Instead, it cuts back on job training funds.
The north desperately needs regionally appropriate and culturally appropriate education and training programs. Forty per cent of the population of the Northwest Territories is under the age of 19. Where is the help for these young people? There are no jobs. Where is the forward thinking that would see our youth as our future? Why has this federal government not invested in our youth?
Last April, this House unanimously approved to support my private member's motion on aboriginal youth. The government has not acted on my motion even though, as I said, it was unanimously approved.
Our aboriginal youth have the highest suicide rate in this country. There are serious social problems, but there is little or no help from the federal government. The government has no vision for the north. It does not listen to the people of the north.
When this government makes economic policy, northern Canada and northern Canadians are left out. Our geography places us far away from the centre of Canada. Our population is small compared to southern Canada, but our geography and population are not reason to leave us on the fringe of federal, political, and economic decision-making. Not only are we on the fringe of this government's decision-making; we do not even get the fringe benefits that normally flow from being a Canadian.
There is a significant gap in the levels of services in the north compared to the rest of Canada. The borrowing bill and the budget will not reduce these gaps, and these gaps will likely increase.
Infrastructural needs in the north have barely been addressed. Yet, basic infrastructure is a necessary precondition to the development of a self-sustaining northern economy. We lack transportation infrastructures. There are no roads linking communities in my constituency. We cannot reduce our high cost of living and our business operating costs without basic infrastructure. Our community infrastructure needs expansion and upgrading.
Substantial catch-up funding is also required to bring standards of some educational and health facilities in line with those of the average Canadian. There are seven communities in the Keewatin region and no hospitals. There are nine communities in the Kitikmeot region and no hospital. There are 14 communities in the Baffin region and one hospital.
Our unemployment rates are staggering. The Government of the Northwest Territories is projecting an over-all unemployment rate of 24 per cent and a native unemployment rate of 40 per cent by the year 2000. Yet, there are only two Canada employment and immigration offices in a constituency serving 36 communities. The Keewatin region has one, the Baffin region has one. The Kitikmeot region has none. I want to use this opportunity, on behalf of the residents of the Kitikmeot region, to urge the federal government to establish a Canada employment office there.
Where is the Arctic environmental strategy? In December, when the government tabled its green plan, the Arctic environmental strategy was missing. Last week, the Minister of Finance cut $125 million from the green plan by stretching its planned spending from five to six years. Major elements of the Arctic environmental

strategy are supposed to deal with Arctic contaminants and waste clean-up. The green plan itself recognized that it was most urgent to protect the Arctic ecosystem.
In conclusion, we need action now. The federal government must make a commitment to the sustainable development of northern Canada.
A few weeks ago, several of my colleagues in the Official Opposition spent some time in the north with me listening to northerners about the economic situation. The government's policies and its latest budget are contributing to the creation of an Arctic ghetto.
I urge this government to reverse this course before it is too late.


Mr. Ron MacDonald (Dartmouth):: Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the words of wisdom and instruction from my hon. colleague. He speaks very lovingly about his part of the country, and any members who have been up there will understand why. It is truly a very unique and special part of this great nation.
However, something struck me when I was up there and I listen to him and his colleague from the Western Arctic talk about the unique and special needs of Canada's aboriginal peoples and of the needs of the frontier that we call our north.
It strikes me as odd that when this country was making money, when the economy was doing so well in the last number of years and we had all kinds of revenue coming in, that this government did not practise the principle that you share the gain.
The government decides following its own fiscal mismanagement, after being at the stewardship of this country for seven years, and after it has raised taxes at an unprecedented level, that when times are tough, places like the Northwest Territories have to disproportionately share the pain.
If there is ever a part of this country that shares the greatest possibility of a new economic renewal in this country, I believe it is the north. My colleague has said quite correctly that this government absolutely has refused consistently over the last seven years to recognize the great resource that is the north, to recognize the
Government Orders
great resource that is our aboriginal peoples, particularly in the north.
Now, when it comes time for budgets to be cut back, it turns a blind eye altogether to that great potential and once again our aboriginal peoples, in the north in particular, are suffering disproportionately. I am making a comment here, so I want to leave my colleague with almost a saving grace. I am from Atlantic Canada, and many times even my colleagues on the other side of the House, if they were not in their partisan roles, would agree with me that the regions of this country have suffered pain disproportionately, but we do not proportionately get the gain when things are good.
I want my hon. colleague perhaps to comment on this. This government has done something that I never thought was possible. There used to be have and have not provinces in this country. Ontario used to be a have province.


An hon. member:: Not anymore.


Ronald MacDonald: The north, the Atlantic and the west were have nots. It has done, what nobody ever thought any government could do and that is make Ontario, particularly rural Ontario and southwestern and eastern Ontario, a have not province as well.
I want to ask my colleague: Now that it has wreaked economic devastation even on the economic heartland of this country, what does he believe that will do for the real needs of the north and of the people of the north which this government even in good times has not addressed?


Jack Iyerak Anawak: Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from the maritimes for his comments and question.
One of the things we have always been proud of as northerners was that we were able to get along without much assistance in the past. And we have. We have existed in the north for thousands of years without any federal government assistance.
Since the early 1950s, without being asked, we started having houses brought in. We had Hudson's Bay come in and start buying our furs and so we had to start existing on other things which previously we had not been using. That created rich employment, which I have no problem with, but it also created a demand for southern goods

March 5, 1991
Government Orders
such as groceries, such as dry goods, all the things that we are using today.
Those matters were addressed through some programs in the past, such as the Canada postal rate assistance for groceries so that communities in the north were able to buy groceries at a level that was almost affordable for the northerners, even though they were still about 50 per cent higher than in the more southerly regions. I just want to make one comment. The government started cutting back and even higher prices started coming in. This government, through its cutback of programs is creating an Arctic ghetto. Northerners cannot afford to buy groceries, any more, the very fundamentals of life such as vegetables. It is a treat to get an apple up north. It is a treat to get a banana up north. It is a treat to get oranges up north.
I just wanted to press that point.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Resuming debate. The hon. member for Manicouagan. Could the hon. member tell me if he intends to use the full ten minutes alloted or less?


Mr. Langlois:: I will take ten minutes, Mr. Speaker, for my comments.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: I gather you are sharing time with a colleague from your party.


Charles A. Langlois: That is correct, Mr. Speaker.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: The floor is yours then.


Charles A. Langlois: Mr. Speaker, before getting into the main thrust of my remarks tonight, I would like to respond to a number of comments made by the hon. member for Nunatsiaq when he painted a rather bleak picture of life in his region, in the North.
I would like to point out to the hon. member that in my riding there are native communities all along the north shore of the Saint-Lawrence. These communities, Mr. Speaker, achieved a lot in the past few years. They got involved in their economic development, their housing development, as well as their development in the fields of health and education. They created organizations to
achieve the objectives they have set and to improve substantially their living conditions.
I also had the privilege of visiting a few northern localities of my riding, along the Bay of Ungava. There too, Mr. Speaker, great strides were made. Since 1984, this government pumped considerable amounts into the development of the communities and institutions of the northerners.
That being said, Mr. Speaker, I would like to revert to the main thrust of my speech and tell you that this opportunity to speak on Bill C-97 will allow me to reflect tonight on certain very important aspects of the budget presented by the Minister of Finance. The borrowing authority requested is anticipating on the financial needs of the govemement, needs that in turn depend in part on the efficiency of the measures which the government is going to take to control expenditures.
Since it came to power in 1984, this government has recognized that its first financial responsibilities lay with its own operations. Its operating expenditures have been severely restricted and even reduced in real terms.
Mr. Speaker, Canadians expect that the government and its civil servants also be subjected to restrictions in hard times. But most important, federal politicians and civil servants are requested to accept wage restraints in order to set an example during these difficult times. Wage settlements in the public sector should not increase inflationary pressures upon the economy. That is why the government shows moderation in its wage settlements while maintaining the principles of collective bargaining.
In fact, since 1987, wage settlements within the federal administration have been lower than those of the provincial, municipal, or private sectors, Mr. Speaker. In this period of recession, other restraints are necessary. The 1991 budget announced new spending cuts and measures to improve efficiency. The Prime Minister's remuneration as well as his cabinet members' salaries have been frozen for a year while the hon. members' wages are subjected to stringent limitations. The wage budgets of departments will not be adjusted for any increases in costs arising out of new collective agreements.
The government is not prepared either, Mr. Speaker, over the next three years, to consider wage increases beyond 3 per cent at an annual rate. Rates of salary increase for senior civil servants, deputy ministers, and

Crown corporation managers will be limited to a level not exceeding the average of negotiated settlements in the federal public service.
We will eliminate layers of management and reduce by 10 per cent the number of senior managers in the public service. Finally, next year capital spending and new-wage operating budgets will be frozen at their 1990-91 levels and subsequently we will strictly control their growth. This reduction program will allow savings of $3.6 billion over the next five years.
Mr. Speaker, all government levels must assume their responsibilities in that area, because we are all serving the same taxpayer. Moreover, we will all benefit from the alleviation of inflationary pressures under the form of lower interest rates, more vigorous growth, and greater job creation. Wage restrictions are particularly important at the provincial and municipal levels, more so in education and health care because the wage settlements increased at a faster rate than inflation in those sectors.
Wage settlements concluded in the private sector have also contributed to inflationary tensions. The reduction of those tensions will help in lowering interest rates, down, reducing costs, and improving competitiveness. There will follow a more rapid growth, new jobs and higher revenue.
Mr. Speaker, we must remember that the more dynamic economy that is the goal of those measures will allow the government to move faster towards deficit reduction and debt control. The spontaneous reaction to the request of $26 billion that is made in Bill C-97 is one of consternation, but the legislation only reflects the reality of government finances at this time. I prefer to take a positive approach to the issue, remembering that without the budget, a much greater amount would have been required.
Mr. Speaker, we should also remember that the last budget contained legislative measures that restricted government expenditures. This is the first time for a government to introduce such measures in a budget. It is an extremely important measure which will force all governments, present and future, to limit by an act of law the growth of expenditures.
Government Orders
Certain members also said, Mr. Speaker, these last few days, that transfer payments to provinces will not increase. This is not true, Mr. Speaker. Transfer payments will indeed increase, but at a slower rate than expected. Nevertheless, these increases represent 3.7 per cent or at last 3 per cent to 4 per cent of the amounts projected for the transfer payments to provinces.
These are measures which must be mentioned. These are positive aspects, and it is not right to say that this year's budget is completely negative for the economy. On the contrary, it is a budget designed to stimulate the economy. It is a budget which proposes spending cuts. It is a budget which is extremely selective in the additional charges it imposes on Canadian taxpayers. I believe it is a budget which will be approved by all Canadians and economic sectors, because it reflects accurately Canada's economic state.
Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I suggest that my colleagues approve this bill without delay. We must let the committee go to work right now and study the bill in order that it can be adopted as fast as possible. This is necessary to ensure the smooth operation of public finances and to keep control over the government's borrowing.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Five minutes for questions and comments. The hon. member for Sudbury.


Diane Marleau: Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the hon. member for Manicoua-gan. I am a little surprised that he seems to blame inflation, I mean inflationary pressures, in part on wage increases in the public sector. I have always heard, especially lately, that these increases did not make up for inflation. By and large, public servants are a little behind. Their wages never caught up with inflation. So, I find it hard to understand that inflation could be blamed on the public sector. As far as I am concerned, it was caused to a large extent, especially recently, by the GST, which has undoubtedly pushed the inflation rate way up, as well as the various taxes introduced over the past few years.
It seems a little unfair to blame the public sector, the governmental sector, for those problems. I understand that expenditures must be controlled, but we are not to blame a group of men and women who in fact have a hard task to fulfil.. Not all of them earn a lot. There are many secretaries and other small wage-earners among them.

March 5, 1991
Government Orders
Not only does the member blame them for the inflationary pressures, but the government decides to impose this 3 per cent ceiling and tells them: "Turn against each other now". Even for a modest wage increase, you are up against your neighbour, your brother, or your colleagues.
Do you think it is reasonable to do such a thing to the very people who implement the government programs?


Charles A. Langlois: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Sudbury is reading far too much into my comments. My point was that some collective bargaining agreements, some wage settlements in various sectors, including the municipal sector and government corporations, have gone as high as 8 per cent. Perhaps she will recall the latest settlement at Ontario Hydro, with 7.8 per cent the first year and 8 per cent the second year, a settlement that in itself will help create or activitate inflation.
There have also been collective agreements in the public transit sector that were clearly higher than agreements negotiated in the federal and provincial public service. Those are the points I wanted to make. Furthermore, during the past two years, Mr. Speaker, there has been a tendency to accelerate or increase wage settlements in the private sector.
To control inflation, we must take the appropriate steps, which will include ensuring that wage increases in collective agreements are not part of the inflationary curve and rise completely out of sight.
It was just that particular situation, that I wanted to highlight in my comments. I did not put the blame on anyone. I simply gave the facts and reminded the House and the Canadian public that we must be extremely careful not to lose control of inflation, because if we do, we will get right back to the problems we had at the end of the 1970s and the early 1980s, when inflation simply got away from us, with the result that interest rates soared and the economic situation became extremely difficult.
That was what I was trying to say, Mr. Speaker.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Resuming debate. The hon. member for Saint-Maurice, for a ten-minute speech.


Denis Pronovost: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased today to speak to Bill C-97 and follow up on
the excellent speech just delivered by my colleague from Manicouagan, a businessman who was in a good position to know how the public sector operates and who can convey his opinion clearly, correctly, and concisely.
You know, Mr. Speaker, we have to learn to make choices in life. Some are easier to make than others. In my case, for example, it would be a lot easier today to say that public sector employees ought to get pay raises somewhat higher than what the government has provided in the budget. I will tell you why, Mr. Speaker. It stands to reason because in my riding of Saint-Maurice the federal government is by far the main employer, with the taxation data centre in Shawinigan South, the National Park of La Mauricie and a number of other federal government agencies.
How much easier it would be for me to walk in here and say quite simply that the government is wrong. That would make me more popular among public sector employees. Strangely enough, Mr. Speaker, after the federal budget was tabled I had an opportunity to meet with a number of public sector workers in Shawinigan. Of course they were disappointed, and that is understandable under the circumstances. Still I noticed something very different in the attitude of some of the union leaders who represent them and other employees at the Shawinigan South taxation data centre. They told me: We are not particularly pleased, but then we appreciate the current situation. We understand that the Government of Canada has to set its financial house in order, and we are aware that these past few years some people around us in Shawinigan lost their jobs, people who now have a hard time finding a new employer.
Public service workers back home understand that they have to make a special effort. Of course they did not feel like giving a standing ovation when they heard Mr. Wilson's budget address. I should think that nobody wants to applaud when kinds of measures are unveiled.
You know, we had a similar debate when the goods and services tax was introduced, and people were saying that it was one tax too many. Opposition members kept repeating they were against that tax, yet they did not suggest any alternative. Well, Mr. Speaker, if you were to walk down the street tonight here in Ottawa or in Sudbury in the riding of my colleague who had the floor a few minutes earlier, and asked the residents of Sudbury
March 5, 1991

or of Grand'Mere in my riding or again the people of Sept-iles: "Are you in favour of a tax on gas; are you in favour of a tax on alcohol?" They would all say: "No, we are against any and all kinds of taxes." To my mind that it a perfectly normal reaction on their part, and I am not a bit surprised to hear every single Canadian say that he or she is against any kind of taxation.
Still, Mr. Speaker, we in this House have the serious and major responsibility to manage public affairs. Managing public affairs in our case means that this year we have to administer a budget of $156 billion. For most Canadian men and women who are listening to us and who are interested in politics, this amount is absolutely extraordinaiy, beyond comprehension. Very few people can grasp its true significance. Many people are telling us: "It just does not make sense that you should have quite so much money to administer". For a great many people in Canada, it is very difficult to understand the operation of the Canadian government. They are quite surprised when they learn that the federal government must pay as much as $36 billion every year in transfer payments to the provinces. For ordinary mortals, this amount is absolutely fabulous.
Mr. Speaker, I know that you would not allow me to say that the members of the Bloc Quebecois are absent, that they are not here in the House, and that they are almost never here. I know that such a statement would not be allowed. However, when they informed Quebecers of the budget's content, the member's of the Bloc Quebecois tried again to create a superparanoia by saying that Mr. Michael Wilson, Minister of Finance, had attempted again to favour the citizens of the other provinces at the expense of Quebecers. Whenever a budget is presented, we expect the members of the Bloc Quebecois to come out with the same identical recorded message; they have almost no staff in Ottawa and are almost always absent from Parliament Hill. Of course, I do not mention the House of Commons, for you would not permit it.
Yet, Mr. Speaker, there is a reality which Quebecers should be aware of. I should like to denounce the narrowminded and biased attitude of some of the Bloc quebecois members. One of them voted with the government while the others voted against it.
Government Orders
Just the same, when we check the real figures, we realize that the federal government's transfer payments program is not such a bad deal for Quebec. From 1961 to 1990, Quebec received from the federal government, not $91 million, but $91 billion, in transfer payments, while the provinces deemed affluent, including Ontario, Alberta, and British Columbia had to pay approximately $100 billion in order to help Quebec, the Maritimes, and a number of Western provinces.
So perhaps I should ask the members of the Bloc Quebecois whether they can deny this money is there, in addition to the tax revenue. And that is very important, Mr. Speaker. The money was not paid by Quebecers. It was paid to Quebecers by other Canadians, because we live in a federal system which tries to equalize revenues to help the poorer provinces. And this budget contains concrete evidence to that effect, Mr. Speaker.
The latest budget brought down by the Minister of Finance provides for transfers of $960 per capita in Ontario and $1,500 per capita in Quebec. The Bloc quebecois cannot deny those figures. They are right there in the Public Accounts of Canada.
I wonder why the hon. member for Shefford always forgets to mention this fact, since he kept bringing it up only a few months ago when he was still sitting on the Liberal side. Unfortunately, the hon. member was not pleased with the new leader of his party, so he decided to change his allegiance. The hon. member for Hull- Aylmer, one of the greatest federalists in this Chamber, Mr. Speaker, did not like Jean Chretien as Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, so first he sulked, and then he became a sovereignist. It's a little like the hon. member for Chambly in the New Democratic Party. This is a rather unique case. The hon. member for Chambly had developed an approach I never saw before in this House. When he isn't in his riding, he is a sovereignist and independantiste. When he comes to Ottawa with his car, "his lemon", as soon as he crosses the Quebec border, he turns into a federalist. That is the ultimate irony the New Democratic Party has brought to this Parliament.
Mr. Speaker, it is crystal clear that the federal government must make sacrifices. The Liberals can say, like the hon. member for Hamilton West, that the government has been in place for seven years, which is entirely true. However, when you inherit a rotten apple, thanks to the tender loving care of MacEachen, Lalonde, Chretien and associates, Mr. Speaker, it becomes very difficult to

Government Orders
deal with the national deficit. We have taken brave, sometimes unpopular measures, but in the end they will ensure that Canadians have a healthier, more balanced government administration.
Today, it would be easy for the federal government to announce a 20 per cent increase in old age pensions, a 20 per cent increase in family allowances, and a 20 per cent increase in salaries for all public service employees. The government would probably become very popular in the short-term, and would be number one in the polls, but is that any way to run a country?
Mr. Speaker, I have been in this House for only two years and a few months, and if I were to add up all the requests from Liberal members and especially the NDP members, we would need an annual budget of not $156 billion but 400 or 500 billion dollars. The requests we get are absolutely phenomenal! They show an utter lack of fiscal responsibility at a time when we have a budget to manage.
Mr. Speaker, there is a lot more I would like to say, but I know you will not let me refer to the absence of Bloc Quebecois members. I will get back to this some other day, when I have an opportunity to highlight other aspects of this bill and the budget brought down recently by the Minister of Finance. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Jack Whittaker (Okanagan-Similkameen-Merritt):: Mr. Speaker, in listening to the member's speech, I noticed him talking about the rotten apple that he had inherited as a member of the government referring to the deficit problem.
I think the people of Canada would like to know a little bit more about the deficit and I refer him to the budget speech. In the budget speech, the minister talked about the plan for economic recovery and the debt servicing and reduction fund, saying that all GST revenues will be allocated solely to the effort to bring the public debt under control.
If he looks at page 78, under the debt servicing and reduction fund, he sees there that:
The Prime Minister has given a commitment that any aboveprojected revenues from the GST will make a contribution to deficit
reduction -
In the next paragraph it says that the fund:
-will be credited net GST revenues and from which will be debited public debt charges.
I think the people of Canada would like to know what is under the shells that we are seeing here. Certainly I, as a member of Parliament, would like to know. It is implied that the money from the GST, approximately $16.5 billion after taking off administration charges and rebates, would be going to pay down the national debt.
Can this member tell me whether in fact that money will be going to pay off the national debt or whether this government is playing with people and in fact the money is going into general revenues toward the deficit, which is the year-to-year expenditures of this government? Can the member tell the people of Canada that, please?


Denis Pronovost: Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from the New Democratic Party for his question, because it is the very first time in my two and a half years in this House as member for Saint-Maurice that I hear a member from the New Democratic Party show a genuine interest in reducing the deficit. I want to congratulate him because this is out of character for the NDP.
You know what, Mr. Speaker? The hon. member should spread the good word and explain to his colleagues in the New Democratic Party that it is extremely important to fight and reduce the deficit. I listened carefully to the hon. member and, on that precise subject, I would like to quote, if I may, Mr. Speaker, words that were heard not so long ago in my riding when the member for Beausejour happened to come and meet my constituents. He told them this: "Don't worry about the national debt, people of Shawinigan. It is not important". That is the message he had to give the people.
March 5, 1991

I must say that such an attitude is totally irresponsible, Mr. Speaker. With all due respect, it is unbelievable, in 1991, that the hon. member for Beausejour would say something like: "Do not worry about the national debt. We will look after that later". This is parallel to his famous line on the way to resolve the constitutional crisis: "When the car is in the ditch, you go back and forth and back and, eventually, you get it out". Except that some people manage to drive the car right off the road. It was probably something like the solution he had in mind during the Oka crisis when he suggested: "Let the Warriors go and arrest them later.
It was probably something like the solution he advocated to settle the Persian Gulf crisis not so long ago when he said: "Well, it is not all that bad, we ought to give Saddam Hussein a chance to save face.
That, Mr. Speaker, is the kind of contradictory statements we hear. The Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance have been quite clear about the extra revenue the GST will bring in as compared with the manufacturers' sales tax. When the current leader of the Liberal Party was representing my riding, that tax cost hundreds and hundreds of jobs because the industries in Shawini-gan and Grand'Mere were no longer competitive.
We did away with that tax, Mr. Speaker, and replaced it by a modem tax which is in force in socialist countries like Sweden and France. I was in Belgium recently and people there were telling me: "We cannot understand what is going on. We in Belgium have a GST, a value-added tax similar to yours and we fail to understand why some parliamentarians in Canada are against a sensible, modem and future-oriented tax." I am strongly in favour of rebuilding our country, Canada, Mr. Speaker.


Stan Kazmierczak Keyes: Mr. Speaker, this is the finance minister's seventh budget and the first delivered during a recession, although looking at the minister's previous budgets it can be said that each one has contributed directly to the conditions under which we now find ourselves. The projections of the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board are completely out of whack with reality. The budget offers no solutions to Canada's poor, sick, unemployed, and homeless.
Government Orders
The good news, yes, there is even one bit of good news in this budget, is that it may be the Minister of Finance's last budget, and that is where it ends.
Some of the minister's promoters say that this budget is intended to be the cornerstone of his legacy as Minister of Finance, but, for the life of me, I cannot see why. This budget is only the latest in a litany of measures that have not worked, have been painful for Canadians and have resulted in Canadians losing their homes, their jobs, and their sense of national pride in terms of what Canada means to them in institutions, in symbols and in universality. Like all of his budgets, this one erodes that vision and that philosophy of Canada even more.
Among other things, this is a budget that continues the government's assault on health care and education in Canada. By freezing contributions to the provinces and capping other transfers, the government is altering the balance in this country which seeks to provide equality for the provinces and equality for Canadian citizens no matter where they live, no matter where they work, no matter what their income, and no matter what their status is in life.
Through all seven Conservative budgets, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance have attempted to show us that they are competent and that they care about the institutions of this country and are prepared to put a caring feeling into the fiscal policies. However, Canadians have realized that this budget is the same as all the others before. They can see that behind the rhetoric of the strong economic policies and the catch-all phrases like stability, a positive environment, and economic strength, there is nothing. These phrases are meant to convey an image which is false.
I like to refer to it as a hologram budget, an image of economic make-believe which Canadians can walk and see right through. In this light, I can agree with the minister's supporters that the budget is an icon for future Ministers of Finance to follow. It will be a legacy carved in stone, a testament to economic mismanagement that unfortunately is something his disciples here on the other side will have to wrestle with.
The Conservative government propped itself up on the belief that it could provide strong economic policies to ensure Canada's competitiveness the world over. It claimed that by getting government out of their lives, out of the lives of Canadians, in effect deregulating govern-

March 5, 1991
Government Orders
ment, it would save a pile of money and that Canadians would be better off, although it never said exactly how nor when this would happen.
In spite of these claims, as a former journalist, I can say that such claims must be weighed against the evidence in order to verify the truth. This deregulation is not the panacea it is hailed to be. The Conservative government thought that all it had to do was point to the United States in order to see the benefits of this practice. There, deregulation had another name; Reaganomics.
In his new book about the legacy of the Reagan years entitled Within Our Means-The Struggle for Economic Recovery After a Reckless Decade, Alfred Malabre concludes that: "Most of the problems that festered under Reagan grew worse from the pile-up of the debt to the deteriorization of health care and to the decay of the infrastructure. New problems arose".
Sound familiar, Mr. Speaker? Canada's national debt piled up to over $400 billion dollars, doubled since the Conservatives took office in 1984. The deteriorization of health care is also upon us, courtesy of the minister's latest budget, and the decay in our country's infrastructure can be seen in the gaping holes of Canada's social safety net.
Deregulation in Canada was taken by the Conservatives to mean that it was okay to deregulate the federal government, okay to deregulate our national institutions, okay to deregulate our social safety net, because that is exactly what the Conservative government has done over the last six and a half years of being here in office.
I asked the member for South Shore to give us an explanation, of which he could not, and I will say again that it is about time that this government took responsibility for its own economic and fiscal mismanagement, without excuses, for the national debt that has to have been allowed to double under this government. This government experienced over six years of the most prosperous years in Canada in recent times and it could not control the national debt nor the deficit.
The Minister of Finance predicted in his first budget of 1985 that by the fiscal year 1991-1992 the deficit would have been brought down to $18 billion. In the budget of 1991-1992 the minister instead predicted a deficit of $30.5 billion. Even in his latest attempt at diversion, the Minister of Finance says that things should not be as bad within the next few years because inflation will come down to 2 per cent.
What hat did the minister pull that figure out of? Even in the best of times-and I think the minister hopes things will get a little better-inflation just cannot get that low. The minister had predicted that the inflation rate would only rise slightly once the GST came into effect. But what happened? The inflation rate jumped to an incredible 6.8 per cent.
The minister had based the current budget projections over the next five years on the belief that inflation would go down to 2 per cent. All I can say is that he should bring in a new budget which reflects reality.
Suddenly the Minister of Finance announces in his budget that under the new legislation government departmental budgets will be spelled out in black ink, and that the GST revenues would be allocated solely to reducing the deficit. That is contrary to the minister's statement that the GST would be revenue neutral. Remember we all heard that. Of course that was misleading. After ranting about the deficit for six and a half years when his government could have actually done something about lowering the deficit, this announcement is absolutely unbelievable. I can hardly wait for the minister's legislation.
Where did the minister's projections go wrong? Why is he so far off? Because the minister and his government have failed to understand that the deficit problem is not simply solved by cutting away at programs, by cutting away at institutions, but by promoting growth and investment which is something they have failed to do. Perhaps it is because of his high interest rate policies. Perhaps it is those high dollar policies.
It is not so easy for the minister to say that the current recession is not as bad as the recession of 1981-1982, which is like comparing apples and oranges. Canadians know the recession of 1981-1982 was an international recession, not as the New Democratic Party Leader

alleged today a Liberal recession, but one emanating from international problems which affected the major industrialized nations. This recession on our hands today, however, we all know is a made-in-Canada recession.
I want to examine some of the features included in the budget and Main Estimates for which this government must get the authority to borrow. The Canadian Jobs Strategy, the government's so-called retraining program, will have its funding slashed by $100 million. It is outrageous.
Since the minister acknowledged in this House that he expects the national unemployment rate to rise above 10 per cent this year, it means that an additional 200,000 jobs will be added to the 1.3 million people who are already out of work in this country. For those Canadians with jobs, the Conservative government has raised unemployment insurance. We warned them about Bill C-21. Premiums are up.
I would like to go on with all the examples that I have in this budget. There have been job cuts. In Hamilton West and environs I will give a few examples of companies. I imagine the member for South Shore will be quite familiar with job losses down Lockport way: Cameo, Dare Foods, Stelco, Greening Donald, Canada Wire and Cable, Nabisco, Ball Packaging, just to name a few.
A year ago January we had an unemployment rate in Hamilton of 4.7 per cent. Just last January, one year later, it climbed to 8.8 per cent. In fact, we have had an increase in welfare roles of 46 per cent, but the government wants to cut back.
Let me conclude. Obviously we realize the scope and nature of occupational health and the importance of it in this country. I have been pushing day after day in this House about the CCOHS in Hamilton West. In fact, this House approved re-instituting funding to that organization. It has fallen on deaf ears with the minister.
Instead of investing in preventive health care, this government is divesting itself of universal health care. Under the guise of providing for tomorrow, this government is methodically dismantling our yesterday, the foundation on which this country was built.
Government Orders


Peter L. McCreath: Mr. Speaker, I am glad that the hon. member for Hamilton West indicated that he would welcome a response from me. I certainly welcome the opportunity.
I must compliment him on his remarks. They sound remarkably familiar to the thrust of what many of his colleagues had been saying earlier in the evening, although I must say he said them with somewhat more polish and I enjoyed them immensely.
However, I am greatly concerned that he has been here for much of the debate and I find it amazing that he has not benefited from so much of the wisdom that has been shared with the members of this House over the course of the evening. And he has not listened in terms of things like debt.
But, first of all he made reference to job losses and he made references to the community of Lockport which I have the honour to represent in this House. I must say that I should advise my hon. friend that, yes, we have dealt with job losses in Lockport, as we have in other coastal Atlantic communities. The reason we have of course is because of the decline in the fishery. My hon. friend surely is not going to blame the Minister of Finance for the fact that we do not have as many groundfish in the ocean as we might like to have at this time.
But I will say this: I am very grateful for the fact that we do have a government in power today and a minister of fisheries and a minister of regional development who have responded to those problems that we have had in providing community development funding for a town like Lockport to help them get over the difficult times.
I am really grateful that we have the Labour Force Development Strategy and the Canadian Jobs Strategy which are providing temporary relief for those communities as well as opportunities for adjustment.
I was really delighted that a little over a year ago the Minister of Employment and Immigration awarded a Community Futures Program to Shelburne County, Nova Scotia, which has benefited from it tremendously. That futures program is up and running and doing a tremendous job creating all sorts of employment opportunities through economic diversification for the people of Shelburne County.
My hon. friend, in his remarks, made reference to the $100 million reduction in the Canadian Jobs Strategy program, and yet I can recall just about a year and a half

March 5, 1991
Government Orders
ago being a member of the committee on Bill C-21 that travelled from coast to coast in this country and was going to put $800 million into that program, and my hon. friends opposite said: "These things are a waste of time. It is no good anyway."
When we talk about $100 million reduction, we should recognize that it is a $100 million reduction from $800 million that never really got there because his friends in the other place never provided an opportunity for that bill to pass so the money would be there.
There is going to be more money in the Canadian Jobs Strategy than there has ever been before. Perhaps he could explain to me why today his colleagues are so concerned about that Canadian Jobs Strategy money, when only a year ago they were decrying the whole thing as useless.


Stan Kazmierczak Keyes: Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question. The first dealt with wisdom. Wisdom must first be spoken before it can be understood.
Then I move to his second question on jobs. Peter C. Newman reported in McLean's magazine just last month, and I quote: "As a member of the G-7, Canada still qualifies as one of the world's leading industrial states. But the reality is disturbingly different. The accelerating pace of de-industrialization which the Canadian economy has suffered in the past five years threatens to turn us into a Third World economy by the end of this decade. Unless current trends are reversed, the number of Canadian factory jobs will follow the downward curve of agriculture, so that by 1999 fewer than 10 per cent of working Canadians will be employed in manufacturing. The Science Council of Japan dubbed Canada a Third World country with an artificially high standard of living in 1986, and every available indicator since has continued to point downward."


John Harvard: Mr. Speaker, this debate on the borrowing bill which flows directly from the budget of the Minister of Finance is a very timely debate. I say that because Canadians are very conscious of some of the economic indicators, indicators like the fact that our bankruptcies are up sharply. In the month of January alone they rose in this country 69 per cent. At this time we have about 1.3 million Canadians
unemployed and that figure, according to the Minister of Finance will rise shortly to about 1.5 million people. That is a tragedy on a monumental scale.
Since the free trade agreement came into effect we have lost maybe 250,000 manufacturing jobs. That is like a scorched earth policy of a kind. Plants closed. Since Christmas, since the imposition of the GST, retail sales in this country have gone flat. In fact they have gone more than flat; they have gone straight down the tube. Of course, we have inflation shooting up as well and that is attributable also to the GST.
I have one more economic indicator. There are over
180,000	Canadians lining up at food banks in the last year. Something which I find traumatic is that one in six Canadian children is going to bed hungry every night. It is hard to believe that this is Canada when we cite those numbers.
Then under this government and according to this very religious right wing agenda which is pursued with alacrity and enthusiasm, we have seen a diminution of our institutions, be it the CBC, VIA Rail or Canada Post and of course medicare, which I will talk about in a few moments.
Perhaps the most overriding concern, perhaps the major concern in this country and the major preoccupation of Canadians, is how to get rid of this Prime Minister. Really the major questions Canadians ask themselves are: How do we get rid of this Prime Minister? How do we get rid of this government? How do we get rid of a Prime Minister who construes that a five-year mandate given to him through an election of a Parliament as a dictatorship. He can do whatever his little heart desires. Whatever his little old heart desires, he will have. He will not listen because, after all, he has been given this five-year mandate.
Mr. Speaker, when was the last time that you or that gentleman over there, or the other gentleman over there, was asked how to impeach a Prime Minister? Is there a way of impeaching a Prime Minister of Canada? Unfortunately I have to say that I know of no way we can impeach a Prime Minister. There is a way of getting rid of a Prime Minister. There is the old-fashioned political process, but I do not know of a way to impeach a Prime Minister. Yet, if I have been asked that question once, I
March 5, 1991

have been asked that question a thousand times: How do you impeach a Prime Minister?
Canadians are perplexed by our system. I will tell you why. They look across the pond over to Great Britain and they see how easy it was to get rid of a Prime Minister who had served beyond her time. There was a time when Margaret Thatcher was riding high, particularly after the Falklands War. She was untouchable, she was unbeatable, but the Iron Lady had served her time. They had a very simple way of getting rid of that Prime Minister. It was almost painless.
I think Canadians ask themselves: Why don't we have something like that? Why do we have to live with this monstrosity that hangs around our neck? Why do we have to live with a Prime Minister who has absolutely no moral authority to govern, a man who has been sitting in the polls at 14, 15 and 16 per cent?
Here is a man who says: "I will do whatever I want, regardless of public opinion and regardless of what Canadians want". Be it Meech Lake, the GST or the war in the gulf, it does not matter. This Prime Minister absolutely refuses to comply or to heed for one moment what Canadians are saying.
That is why Canadians are perplexed. They ask themselves about something as unpopular as the GST. There were 80 to 85 per cent of Canadians who did not want that tax. How many Tories said: "We will vote against this government and we will vote against the tax"? None, except two who were expelled from the caucus.
Canadians asked themselves: Why, when there is such an unpopular tax measure, can we not get backbenchers on the government side to stand up and vote according to their conscience? It is very simple: Because they know that under our system if they vote down the government, they vote down themselves; if they kill the government, they kill their own political careers.
So they stay like good little boys and girls, because they do not want to lose their political careers. I will tell you, Mr. Speaker, Canadians are absolutely fed up with it. The party system or the party discipline has gone too far. Particularly on the government side of the House, an MP is a mere puppet.
The cabinet does not have to earn its legislation. Once the cabinet stands up and says "this is the way it is going
Government Orders
to be", what do the government MPs do? They are just like seals and puppets. All they say is: "Yes, sir; no, sir."
Canadians are absolutely fed up with it, right up to the teeth, and they will not put up with any more. Mark my words: there are going to be many Tory MPs who will pay the ultimate price because they would not represent their constituents.
I do not think I have any time left, but let me say something that relates directly to the budget. The finance minister and in fact all cabinet ministers go around and say: "We are not touching medicare, this crown jewel of social programs in this country". They are not touching it, despite the fact that they are going to take $2.3 million out of EPF, that is out of transfer payments to the provinces.
The estimates show clearly in black and white that the reduction in medicare payments will be in excess of $1 billion. Yet, these people have the unmitigated gall to say: "Oh, no, we are not touching medicare. Don't worry about it. Everything is fine and dandy".
The fact of the matter is that in just a handful of years there will be no more cash payments from the federal Treasury to the provinces for medicare. Yet, they have the gall to say: "Don't worry, we are not hurting medicare".
Once the government moves away from financial support for medicare, it is dead in the water, especially from the point of view that it will no longer be a national program. It will be the rich provinces that will have medicare. The poorer provinces will have a poorer kind of medicare.
I could go on about the slash in job creation programs. I could go on about the 24 per cent increase in UI premiums, which will have a devastating effect on small business. I could tell you, Mr. Speaker, if I had the time that there is absolutely nothing in this budget for rural Canada.
There is $1.3 million for the agricultural community, and I am very thankful for that. However, let me point out that $1.3 billion is supposed to cover the farm safety-net programs, GRIP and NISA, but that does not cover $300 to $900 million for the deficit of the Canadian Wheat Board. It does not cover the $450 million which is the shortfall in payments under the Western Grain

March 5, 1991
Government Orders
Stabilization Act, and it does not cover payments that will be made to the farmers some time this spring.
This budget is a failure. It is a failure. It is a Tory budget. You had better believe it. It is a Tory budget and it is a failure and Canadians understand that very well.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Questions and comments period of five minutes duration. The Hon. Member for South Shore has the floor.


Peter L. McCreath: Mr. Speaker, it is with some regret that I rise because I think that the hon. member for Winnipeg St. James does little credit to himself, little credit to his party, and little credit to this Chamber, to speak in the manner which he has here tonight about the Prime Minister of Canada-but more important than that about the man whom Canadians elected as their Prime Minister with two back-to-back majority governments, the first time that has been done in 40 years in this country.
He says that we have a dictatorship. He says: "How do you impeach a Prime Minister?" Well, let me tell him if he wants to know about dictatorship. Dictatorship is where those who are elected do not get to govern. We have a democratic country where those who are elected govern and they govern for the term of office for which they are elected, unlike what seems to prevail among his caucus colleagues in the other place who chose to put democracy second and who were defeated two elections in a row and yet took upon themselves, as if it were their right, to turn down the will of the elected majority in this House who were elected and given a mandate by the people of Canada.
It is very simple to answer the question raised by the hon. member for Winnipeg St. James. If a majority of the members of this House lose confidence in this government and this Prime Minister they can be gone tomorrow just as quickly as they were in the United Kingdom earlier this fall.
But I want to tell the hon. member something. As he pointed out some have left, some did not agree with this government, just as people have left his own party during the last 12 months and sat elsewhere. But let me tell him
that those of us who sit here sit here because we are proud to serve under a leader who has the courage to do what is right for Canada, who has the courage to be on the side of right even though it may mean unpopularity from time to time.
I think of the recent events in this world. Where did his party stand? Did they stand by the right, or did they stand by the polls. I would like to say to him that the people of Canada, when the next election comes, will ask the question: "Who stood by what was right for Canada, and who stood wherever the polls said this week they ought to stand?"
In closing, I met a friend who is an NDPer and he said: "The one thing you Tories got going for you that the rest of them don't have, you have a leader, a real leader, and in the next election Canadians will see him again as they did in 1984 and 1988".


John Harvard: Mr. Speaker, I agree with the hon. member for South Shore. He has a leader-he has a rotten leader.


An hon. member:: A dictator.


John Harvard: Canadians realize the kind of man that they put in charge of this government for the last seven years and I can assure you, Mr. Speaker, Canadians are not stupid. As we say back at home: "We didn't come down the river on a bale of hay".
I can assure you that Canadians will make that correction in the next election.
He talks about leadership. Let me ask you this, Mr. Speaker. Is it leadership to refuse any amendments to the most unpopular tax measure that was ever foisted on the Canadian people? How many amendments did we introduce in the House? How many amendments were introduced in the Senate? Not one single amendment was adopted, not one.
Remember the wonderful Meech Lake Accord? Seamless web, seamless web, concocted in the dark, concocted some time after midnight by 11 men.
What does the Prime Minister say? He says that this is a seamless web, you cannot touch it. We might have a little debate out in the country, but you are not going to change it. He talks about the Prime Minister being a leader. Is that a leader? It seems to me that smacks of dictatorship. That smacks of a man who has no commitment whatsoever to the democratic process.
March 5, 1991

Yes, I agree they have a leader. He is a rotten leader and the Canadian people will make absolutely sure at the next election that he is gone.


Mr. David D. Stupich (Nanaimo-Cowichan):: Mr. Speaker, Bill C-97, which proposes borrowing another $26.4 billion, is one of a long series of government bills doing this. It is number nine since this particular party became the government in Canada. By this means they have borrowed something in excess of $200 billion, almost one-half of what the total debt of the country is at the present time.
The money is needed. We do not question that it will be needed by the time its authority under this bill runs out, due to the mismanagement of the government in office. For that reason alone, if for no other reason, we will have to vote against it as our expression of just how we feel about the mismanagement of this government.
I had the opportunity to watch the presentation of the budget in the House and made notes of a few things that I would question or that I would have liked to see changed. Of course, one does not get the opportunity to change them, but certainly one does get an opportunity to question.
The Minister of Finance talked throughout his budget about our inability to compete internationally. Well, whose fault is that? It was this minister, in co-operation with the Governor of the Bank of Canada who produced what the Conference Board of Canada called the first made-in-Canada depression, I mean recession. I better use the word recession, I suppose, it is the one they use.
The minister knew how it was accomplished. He kept saying over and over that he had to cool off the over-heated economy in southern Ontario. He did that by increasing interest rates and by increasing the price of the Canadian dollar. It was very simple. He knew exactly what he was doing. He boasted about it. It was the way he was going to do it. And surprise, surprise, it worked. At least that time he was right.
If it works so well to create a recession, then why not use the medicine in reverse to create growth of the economy, prosperity? But he is not ready to do that. He increased interest rates to cool off the economy and instead of bringing them down steadily and more rapidly, he is threatening to stop because he wants to control the growth of inflation. He wants to get the inflation growth
Government Orders
down to 2 per cent. Well, when is he going to start turning the screws again? When are the interest rates going to start going up because we are nowhere near 2 per cent now.
He knows how to do it, but he is not prepared to do it because to him it is far more important to get inflation down to 2 per cent than it is to put Canadian people back to work. It is just that simple.
Was or was not the Canadian dollar part of the free trade deal? A former member of the cabinet of the Conservative government said that it was included in the agreement, not in the documents we read, but that it was part of the deal that our Prime Minister made with the President of the U.S. It would then be easier for the U.S. to export into Canada and make us more of a branch plant economy than we had been then and are now. This government is continuing that process of increasing the Canadian dollar to make it even more difficult for us to compete internationally.
And that is what it was all about. After all, it was the Americans that had a tremendous trade deficit with Canada and it was their desire to turn that around and our desire to co-operate totally with everything that Uncle Sam wanted.
He wants to get the deficit down to $28.5 billion. Well, at least he is consistent. I have heard that same figure every year that I have been here, and I know from previous experience that it was close to that every year before that. So it is always the target, but it is not going to be this year, it is not going to be next year. Two years from now it is going to be $28.5 billion. As I say, he gets full marks for being consistent.
When it comes to pay increases, they are going to be limited. But the part I liked, the part I just had to chuckle at, is that the increases for executives, deputy ministers, heads of Crown corporations, the people who are all at the top of the salary scale now, are going to be limited to the same rate as the rate bargained for with employees subject to bargaining. If they get 3 per cent, for example, then the Governor of the Bank of Canada, who got a 30 per cent increase last year, is going to get 3 per cent on top of whatever he is getting this time. The increase alone will be something like three times what the highest person in the bargaining sector gets as his total salary.

March 5, 1991
Government Orders
That is fairness, according to our Minister of Finance: the same rate. Is that restraint?
The restraint package of this budget adds up to $1.1 billion. The Auditor General told the minister how he could recover more than that in a year, but he chose not to accept the advice. Remember the proposal to impose a new tax on banks because they had not been paying taxes? A favourite story is that a teller in the Royal Bank was paying more taxes than was the Royal Bank. The Minister of Finance was going to get after them and was going to raise $2.5 billion from that one source alone. However, he came into the House two years ago and said that it proved to be too difficult, so we are going to let the banks get away with it; we will not tax them the $2.5 billion they could well afford to pay.
The Auditor General said that over a period of 10 years of the manufacturers' sales tax, the government had forgone $2.4 billion in revenue by not having enough people checking up on the corporations which were paying it. So once again, because it is too difficult to watch the corporations, we will let them get away with that $2.4 billion.
He said also that hiring one more tax auditor at a cost of, say, $40,000, on the basis of the figures he had within the Ministry of Finance, would bring in from $300,000 to $900,000 in extra revenue. For an expenditure of $40,000 there could be additional revenue of $300,000 to $900,000. He said there were hundreds of millions of dollars out there waiting to be picked up that way.
He warned us when we went into the GST program that because we did not have the auditors, because we were not ready to examine the inventories, for example-there were different ways, but one of them was to check the inventories on which the government was going to be paying GST tax credits for manufacturers' sales tax that they would have paid previously-we were possibly losing hundreds of millions of dollars there as well.
The government had the opportunities to go after the corporations and to go after the high income taxpayers; the Auditor General told it where some of them were and it knew where the others were. But it chose to go after the little fellow, as it is doing in limiting the wage increases to the lowest wage earners in the government
sector, limiting them and letting off the people at the top, the high salary earners, the big corporations, the ones with the inventories that are going to make money on the GST when it opens up, because it is difficult to go after the big boys.
Mr. Speaker, he never explained to us why it was difficult to go after the banks for $2.5 billion. The government has never tried to deal with the Auditor General's concern about what should be done to tighten up on controls so that the corporations would not get away with claiming excessive GST credits on inventories; no explanation at all, no attempt to explain any of that, to the best of my knowledge.
The GST is going into a fund to deal with the deficit. I can remember in the legislature in B.C. when I was there four years ago, the Minister of Finance brought in a new fund. He called it "The Budget Stabili2ation Fund". At the time it was thought that it was somebody within his own department who used a name that could be shortened to "BS", because they knew that was exactly what it was and they wanted to reveal it to the world.
This is another "BS" fund. We are going to put the GST revenue of approximately $20 billion, $22 billion, into this new fund and out of it we are going to pay all of the debt servicing costs and get out of debt. The Minister of Finance said that in the year coming up, debt servicing costs-interest-is going to be in the neighbourhood of $45 billion. Up to now, he has always understated it. Let's hope he is high enough this time. But there is going to be half enough money in that fund in the first year at least to meet the carrying costs of the government debt. This is the way he is going to control debt. This is the way he is going to show the Canadian public that he is determined to keep expenditures under control and to get us to the point where there will not be any new borrowing.
This is another fund, such as the one in B.C. that was labelled quite appropriately as the "BS" fund.


Mr. Jim Karygiannis (Scarborough- Agincourt):: Mr. Speaker, I listened to the member with great interest. One of the things that I am not hearing from the third party, the party of the NDP, is their platform. One of their members stood up today and said, "Well, the Liberals have no platform", the Liberals this and the Liberals that.
March 5, 1991

We from Ontario have first-hand experience with what the NDP government of that province is doing. It went around and wooed all the ethnic vote. "Minorities, vote for us". We will do this for you, we will do that for you. Just last week, the provincial wing of their party held a convention. You would figure, that their mandate is what the grassroots and the delegates say, that this is what they are going to do. The leader of that party stood up and said, "No, just a minute now. This is not what we are going to do". He started sounding more and more like the Conservatives.
I am wondering what is the difference between the third party and the Conservatives. If the thirty party wants to do anything, it is like running a dictatorship. We know that the Conservatives have a dictator and he says, "My way or no way".


An hon. member:: What have you been drinking tonight?


Jim Karygiannis: I am not drinking. I don't touch the stuff. I am pretty sound and 1 am listening to my constituents. I am listening to the minorities.
Did you know, Mr. Speaker, that 450,000 of all small businesses in Canada are mom and pop operations, owned by first and second generation citizens? I have not heard the NDP say anything about this.
Will the gentleman of the third party finally stand up and tell us what they are going to do. Or will it be a song and dance like the provincial leader, "We are going to do this and then I am going to do the quick step and I am not going to do this". Is this what the hon. member is going to do? Is this how he is trying to woo the voters?
We are not doing a quick step. We know where we are going. I am wondering if the hon. member knows where he is going or is he talking from two sides of his mouth? He is thinking, "Oh, we smell power. We are going to talk from two sides of our mouths". Have some guts NDP and come clean because you are certainly not winning the popularity contest.


David Stupich: Mr. Speaker, he did not leave much time for an answer to all those questions.


Jim Karygiannis: Well, get to it.


David Stupich: Mr. Speaker, I will address my remarks to you, not to him, and if he cares to listen, that is his choice. He might have been listening when the NDP was talking about our alternatives to the GST, but he was
Government Orders
listening as usual with his mouth open and his ears closed unfortunately.
We gave our alternatives then. Among the things mentioned was to bring back the graduated level of income tax for the people at the top so that the ones making the highest incomes will be paying higher rates of income taxes as well as more total income tax.
We said we would reverse the procedure concerning corporations, and we are not talking about the mom and pop operations. When we were in government in B.C. we had two rates of tax. The smaller corporation paid a lower rate and it was the only province in Canada to do that. We are talking about going after the big corporations.
We would not find it too difficult to get that extra $2.5 billion out of the chartered banks. We would not find it too difficult to increase the percentage-to bring back the proportion of taxes paid by the large corporations so that it compares with what it was. Even when the Liberals were in office the corporations were paying almost twice as much in proportion to ordinary taxpayers as they are today. It is the Conservatives-


Jim Karygiannis: You are worse than the Tories. You're hypocrites.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Order, please. I remind all hon. members that some people watch TV and watch how the procedure works. The hon. member has one minute left.


David Stupich: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate your intervention.
I told you, we go after high income earners and the big corporations. We cut back on some of the grants. There are hundreds of millions of dollars in here. The one area where they did not cut back was the hundreds of millions of dollars given to the large corporations. The largest corporations are the ones that get the most.


An hon. member:: At least we have a policy.


David Stupich: They give more to the Liberal Party than the others do, and they watch that. It is a matter of getting more taxes from those people who should be paying those taxes, cutting back on the revenue expenditures and on the expenditures to the large corporations, making them pay their own way fairly. It is a matter of bringing it back to the proportion it was when the

March 5, 1991
Government Orders
Liberals left office. There are ways of dealing with it fairly, and that is the thing.
We would bring in a fair taxation system. That is the answer. We would not need the GST.


Mr. Rod Laporte (Moose Jaw-Lake Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak on this borrowing bill.
First of all, I find it amazing to hear the Liberals and the Tories and the hon. member from Toronto who has such a big mouth he is going to swallow himself whole if he is not careful.


Jim Karygiannis: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, if the hon. member was referring to me I wish he would withdraw his remarks. If I have a big mouth, that is why my constituents put me here. It is none of your bloody business. My constituents voted for me.


Rodney Edward Laporte: If my hon. friend was not so arrogant, he would sit and listen to remarks. He asked a question of my hon. friend here who probably knows more about how to deal with people and understands the politics of this country than he will ever know. He asked a question and he refused to listen to the answer.
He sat there for five minutes and screamed at the hon. member, and he did not listen to his answer. Now, he is going to rise on points of order.
If the hon. member would care to know what the NDP position was, he could simply look at the record of the New Democratic Party in the province of Saskatchewan. He is still talking. He does not want to hear, because he knows full well the history of the Saskatchewan New Democratic Party which went in in 1971. It was there until 1982.
We had a balanced budget in Saskatchewan for 11 years, and we left office with $142 million surplus. That is one heck of a lot more than the Devine government which now has a $5 billion deficit.
In fact, when Grant Devine was elected premier of Saskatchewan in 1982, he went around the province saying: "We can afford to completely mismanage the province and still break even." He has not had a balanced budget in eight years.
If the hon. member wants to look at the record of the NDP and the CCF before in Saskatchewan, he would find that it is a very good record. He would also find that
the record of Dave Barrett who was premier of British Columbia back in the 1970s was a very good record.
Now, Bob Rae is premier of Ontario. I hope he would ask that question two or three years from now, after the Ontario government has had a chance to deal with the mess that Premier Peterson left in the government. They went into the election saying that they had a surplus in the budget. It turned out there was a $2.5 billion deficit. There are thousands of people unemployed. Bankruptcies have gone crazy.
He talks about small business people. Small business people in Ontario are suffering, just like small business people in Saskatchewan are suffering.
That gets me to the point in this budget which I planned to speak on in the first place. Coming to my riding of Moose Jaw-Lake Centre, it is made up of small business people, workers, farmers and seniors. That is my riding.
There is nothing in this budget to help those people. In my riding, I have many constituents who have come to me who are saying: "I am working hard. I am trying to get ahead, but every time I turn around, this government has added more taxes. It is adding a situation which is intolerable and I cannot survive." That is what they are saying to me.
This budget is the same thing. The minister has said there has been no increase in taxes. There has not been because he introduced it on January 1 with the GST. It is the old shell game, as they say, that the Tories played.
They had a GST which was going to be revenue neutral back in 1988. It was going to replace the manufacturers' sales tax. It was not going to increase taxes. We had an indication back in December 1990 that in fact it is going to be an extra $5 billion and now maybe as high as an extra $10 billion. That is a massive tax increase. That is something that small business people in Saskatchewan do not like.
How has the Tory government in Saskatchewan responded? It has added a provincial sales tax to it now. We have a provincial GST on everything that the federal GST covers, starting April 1. That means that people buying meals in restaurants are going to pay 14 per cent extra, where they did not pay it before. It means that people who hire the plumber or the mechanic or so on, are paying 14 per cent more, which they did not pay
March 5, 1991

before. That is not good for small business. That is not good for the working people in my riding.
The government has an unemployment insurance bill which the Minister of Employment-unemployment I guess is a better word-said is going to allow for putting more money into job creation. It is going to make a better system for the unemployment insurance in this country so that people will be better protected. All it has done is raised premiums, lowered benefits and now it has taken $100 million out of job creation. On top of that, the premiums that were supposed to stay the same have now been increased as well.
Workers in Moose Jaw, like the workers across this country, are now going to pay $100 a year extra this year for unemployment insurance and $150 next year. The small business people are up around $140. That is another $140 they have to come up with, which is just one more item that brings down their ability to survive.
They say that they did not increase taxes, but they have in an indirect fashion with their off-loading. Their transfer payments are going to be down something like $4.5 billion over the next five years. The simple fact is that it is going to mean the provinces are either going to lower services or pass it on to municipalities. In Saskatchewan they have done both. The city of Moose Jaw is facing a huge increase because of this off-loading and the prospects are not going to get better. Other municipalities are saying they are simply going to cut services. Either way, average Canadians are losing out in this budget.
People in my riding are wondering where this government is. This is a government that is supposed to be good mangers of the economy and like the Liberals before them, they have made a complete mess of it. It is not the New Democratic Party that has raised a $400 billion deficit in this country. It is not the New Democratic Party in Saskatchewan that has a $5 billion operating deficit. It is the managers, the people who supposedly can manage the economy-the Tories, and they have made a mess of it.
In fact, back in 1982, Premier Blakeney was regarded by many business people across this country as a person who knew how to handle an economy. He was a New Democratic premier, a premier who knew how to have
Government Orders
fair social programs and provide a fair opportunity for business. That is what this country needs.
They have put aside $1.3 billion for farm aid. Well, we are not clear where this $1.3 billion is going to go. One thing though, I will bet, is that it is not going to go to help keep rural Canada alive. It is not going to help keep farming families around. It is going to be a nice little attractive program which will look good for a year or two or maybe three. It will help to try to keep Grant Devine in office. Of course it is going to fail. It is going to be designed to help keep this government in office, which I believe is going to fail as well.
We have out of this budget, Canadians, workers who are frustrated, small business people who are discouraged and seniors who are simply upset. It is a government that has simply ignored their needs. It simply has not paid attention to them. That is what this government has done. It has not addressed the needs of my riding and it certainly has not addressed the needs of the rest of Canada.
My colleagues months ago asked the minister in the House to lower interest rates. Why does he not lower interest rates 2 per cent to help small business, to help workers, to help people with mortgages and so on? The Minister of Finance said: "All you New Democrats do is complain. We have just had seven good years of economic growth and now it is time to tighten your belts and you are complaining". What a joke. What an insult.
That minister should go to Saskatchewan and tell people in Saskatchewan they have had seven good years of economic growth and tell them to tighten their belts because those people are just barely surviving. They find it quite insulting. It may have been seven good years for Conrad Black or others of that description, but it sure has not been seven good years in Saskatchewan, nor has it been seven good years in most of the country.
This budget debate simply is a continuation of the philosophy of this government that has succeeded in completely dismantling the whole infrastructure that we have through a transportation deregulation, now with open-skies policy that is coming, the potential deregulation in communications, post office cuts and VIA Rail

March 5, 1991
Government Orders
cuts. The list goes on and on and on. The free trade agreement has had a very negative influence.
Just in conclusion, as I say, I cannot help it, but listening to this debate I have to laugh at the way that the Liberals and the Tories have been throwing barbs back and forth and making comments and it is them who have been the ones who have dismantled this country and put us in the shape and the position that we are in right now.


Terrence (Terry) Clifford: Mr. Speaker, I want to address the member for Nanaimo-Cowi-chan, as well as the member for Moose Jaw-Lake Centre. I want to make sure they both hear these comments. From the former, we were getting a recipe, I guess, on how to control the deficit, in fact reducing and dismissing the deficit of Canada. I find that a little odd because I think that the member was in a former government of the province of British Columbia which turned a $100 million-plus into a $100 million-negative in a very few months. I do not know what kind of recipe he is going to be able to offer the Canadian public on how to handle the deficit.
I think it is very clear that this government has made a strong commitment and is a comer piece of what it is doing in economic renewal to remove this deficit which they see is the main part of the malaise of our economy and our future.
The member talked about the GST. He did not talk about any of the positive impacts, the fact that it was set up so that Canada could compete in the global economy, that it could export, that our manufacturing would not be hamstrung. We have access to the world now, certainly through the North America free trade agreement. Now, with the negotiations at GATT, in order to compete, clearly our manufacturing sector had to have the manufacturers' sales tax removed.
The member did not talk about the benefits of that and he did not congratulate his own province on the fact that by unifying the taxes, it has simplified the system and made it far more efficient. I congratulate the province of Saskatchewan for doing that. I am sorry that the member from Saskatchewan could not see fit to do that.
He talked about unemployment insurance, the changes that we made, but he did not talk about the retraining now that is possible with the private sector to become involved with the $800 million in funding now
available so that our private sector gets a chance to reinvigorate its workers so the workers of Canada can finally have a chance to take part in this global interlinked economy, which is facing virtually every Canadian today.
He talked about service changes and the off-loading between provinces and municipalities. I think clearly that is the message we want home to Saskatchewan, Ontario and everywhere else, that it is time, by the lead set by the Minister of Finance's budget, that the other provincial agencies and municipal agencies looked at what they are doing with taxes and stop duplicating and triplicating things. Let us make it simple for Canadians. We have set the tone with the federal government budget for the future.


Rodney Edward Laporte: Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend has asked a lot of questions or made a lot of comments.
First of all, if he wants to congratulate Grant Devine, I would invite him to come on out. I will set up a meeting for him and he can come out and congratulate my constituents and that will be great.
As far as the British Columbia government goes, it never ran a deficit budget under the Barrett government. In fact, it took a $550 million debt, which it had inherited, and turned it into a $250 million debt. It reduced it as well as balancing the budget. That is a pretty good record.
As far as job creation and so on, this government has talked a lot. But it has taken a $100 million cut in job creation. And if you talk to people in the CEC-they do not talk publicly, but if you get them in a small room somewhere, they will go on about the problems that this government is creating with job creation. They say they are being hamstrung; they are not being allowed to be proactive so that they can deal with some of the unemployment problems in this country. It is this government that has done it, and it has built it on a foundation from the Liberal government which preceded it. It is a situation that I find very funny.
Finally, with respect to the free trade bill, big business is now saying that the only way it is going to be able to compete in Canada is if it can have some harmonization, meaning we have to lower some of the social standards and we have to lower the taxes. That is the only way it can compete or unfortunately it will be forced to go to
March 5, 1991

the United States and do its business there and ship the goods back.
That is what we have inherited from this Tory government; that is what it has given us.


Mr. Joseph Volpe (Eglinton-Lawrence):: Mr. Speaker, before I begin, if you check I think you will find that there is unanimous consent for us not to see the clock so that I might complete my debate and that we will probably not have question and answer period.


Mr. Angus:: There have been consultations, and the member did indicate that he would be giving a ten-minute speech with no questions or comments, so that although we would not see the clock we would not be past ten o'clock by more than six, seven, or eight minutes.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Does the House give its unanimous consent to the suggestion of the hon. member?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: For ten minutes.


Iain Francis Angus: Only because he is a gentleman.


Giuseppe (Joseph) Volpe: I thank the hon. member.
Mr. Speaker, I find it a little ironic that here we are being asked by the government to pass estimates when its budget, in essence, asked the House to withdraw its mindset from the reality of today. The government is ignoring a reality that is staring every single Canadian man and woman in the face. Everyone in the country has recognized that we are in an economic recession. All economic indicators for 11 months in succession have indicated that the economy and the country is on the skids, and yet the government says that what we must do is we must cut back. We have to raise taxes because we have a big concern with the deficit and the debt. No one disagrees.
In fact, Canadians and all members of this House have been more than patient as they saw, for example-and I will read some statistics-that in 1985 as compared to 1984, the government increased income taxes as a share of government revenues by 4.6 per cent. The following year it increased it by a further 4.03 per cent, and again in 1987 by a further .18 per cent, and again in 1988 by 1.47 per cent. In total, over the course of the last six years, the government increased its revenue share of income taxes by 9.03 per cent. That is a 66 per cent increase over the
Government Orders
amount collected in 1984. In absolute nominal dollars, 66 per cent represented an increase of $25,457 million collected more in 1990 than in 1984 from personal income.


An hon. member:: Shame.


Giuseppe (Joseph) Volpe: And I might add, Mr. Speaker, that Canadians went along with that kind of record. They said that this has to serve some sort of purpose. The government went ahead and said that Canadians are generous. So in terms of excise taxes over the same period, we found it was an increase of 58 per cent of excise taxes. In nominal dollars, that represented an additional $12,447 billion collected from Canadian taxpayers, for a grand total, Mr. Speaker, of $37,904 million over the course of the last six years.
Canadians have a right to ask: What have you done with our money?


An hon. member:: Down the toilet.


Giuseppe (Joseph) Volpe: If today you come before this House and say that you need more money because we have to address the problem of the debt and the deficit, because we have to make Canadian companies more competitive, we have to make the Canadian economy more competitive in a global market, we still have the right to ask: What did you do with that $37,904 billion?
In fact, the total revenue share for direct taxes increased by 51.8 per cent between 1984 and 1989, and a further 57.06 per cent from indirect taxes.
We still have a right to ask this government what it has done with that money and what it proposes to do.
There is only one conclusion that one can draw on the face of some of the suggestions that the Minister of Finance has proposed to this House, and that is that either the government did not know what it was doing over the course of the last six years-


Thomas (Tom) William Wappel: That sounds right.


Giuseppe (Joseph) Volpe: -or that it is grossly incompetent.
We have heard on this side of the House on many occasions that we must ensure that our Canadian manufacturers, that our corporate sector, that our industrial sector be more competitive. Well, from 1984 to 1985 the government decreased the share of revenue from corporate taxes by 6 per cent. The following year, in 1986, it decreased it by a further 19.1 per cent. It changed its

March 5, 1991
Government Orders
heart in 1987 and went up just slightly, by 3.5 per cent. But then in the following two years dropped it again by 8.5 and 8.3 percentage points.
In terras of government revenues-remember, this is a government that wants to address the problem of deficit and the public debt-it allowed corporations to decrease their share of contributions to the public revenue by 34 per cent, at the same time that it was increasing personal income tax revenues by more than 9 per cent.
Well, you say that perhaps we put that money to good use. Did we put it to good use? Well, the interest on the public debt increased by a grand total over that period by only 6.9 per cent, or, if you prefer, in absolute dollars, by $16,439 million. That represents a net shortfall of some $13 billion.
Well, Canadians are still asking: what did you do with that money? Did you, for example, take into consideration some of the concerns on international trade? Did we improve our competitiveness there? Did we improve the competitiveness of our manufacturing sector? On the side of international trade, for example, it might be instructive for some of the government members to know that what happened is that we had a 61 per cent decrease in our net balance of payments on the international trade side. We dropped $12.2 billion in the hands of the great administration of this government.
If we are going to continue to give money to this kind of administration, we want to see what we are getting in return.
What are we getting in return? We got an increase in the value of the dollar. That decreased the competitiveness of our manufacturing sector, of our export markets, by 10.6 per cent.
The Minister of Finance can come before this House and say what we need to do is we need to raise our revenues in order to decrease the debt and the deficit. One looks at the figures that the government issues and says well, something does not jive. Well, if it does not jive, with what gall can you come before this House and say that we have to cut back expenditures some more at a time of recession, at a time when people need some attention?
What did the government do with the money that we gave it? When it cut corporate taxes, when it increased income taxes, did it increase the competitiveness of our manufacturing sector? The manufacturing sector is collapsing all over Canada, most especially in Ontario.
Did it address the problem of unemployment? Unemployment increased just over last year when we had the last budget. It increased by 34.2 per cent.
Good heavens above, Mr. Speaker, how can any Canadian in his or her right mind say that we must contribute more to government revenues when we get nothing for that money?
What did we do, for example, on the question of Canadian Jobs Strategy? We are supposed to be developing a skilled labour force. But we cut 12.5 per cent from the moneys allocated for Canadian Jobs Strategy.
If Canadians cannot use the money for the purposes of stimulating their trade, for stimulating their industries, for developing their employment, for what in heaven's sake are we asking this money? Are we aware that last year we increased premiums on unemployment by 17 per cent, and we have upped that by a further 24 per cent this year? Where are we going to put this money if we are not going to put it at the disposal of Canadians?
We do not have to go much further than the construction industry which is virtually non-existent in all of Canada and most especially in Ontario. We have an unemployment rate of 85 per cent in the construction industry in Toronto alone, 85 per cent, and in certain sectors of that skilled labour market we have got even higher. For example, we have 99 per cent unemployment among carpenters, 88 per cent among electricians, 87 per cent among drywall workers.
Even more important than that is this engine of economy in southern Ontario also drives the wealth of service industries that are related: for example, insurance brokers and their staffs, lawyers and their staffs, accountants and their staffs. The real estate industry itself has collapsed completely.
Does this budget address that reality? No. It does absolutely nothing. Does it take into consideration that this is the time for the government to be pro-active rather than reactive? It does not do that either. Yet we have seen the generosity of Canadians as shown by the statistics that I gave you, Mr. Speaker, over the course of the last six years, and for that kind of generosity Canadians get nothing but the back of the hand of this government.
March 5, 1991

There must be another reason for the government's withdrawing from the economic sector, from the social sector, from the political sector. Can it be that perhaps it no longer believes in this country? Are we seeing the devolution of financial jurisdiction to be followed soon by political devolution in this country?
The only thing I can think of is that what we needed to do in this budget was to save enough money to send a shuttle back up into outer space so we could bring the finance minister back down to earth. What it seems like, quite frankly, with these cutbacks in expenditures and
Government Orders
the increasing of taxes is that the finance minister is filing his nails while the country is collapsing around him. We need a budget that reacts to the needs of every man and woman of this country. This is not it.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: It being 10.07 p.m., pursuant to the order made earlier today, the House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 2 o'clock, pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 10.07 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Wednesday, March 6,1991