1991-09-25

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40 Elizabeth II

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Published under authority of the Speaker of the House of Commons by the Queen's Printer for Canada
Available from Canadian Communication Group - Publishing, Supply and Services Canada, Ottawa, Canada K1A 0S9.
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Wednesday, September 25, 1991
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Prayers

Mrs. Beryl Gaffney (Nepean):: Mr. Speaker, yesterday representatives of the Croatian Canadian community met with parliamentarians from this House. They asked for Canada's assistance in involving the world community in working toward a permanent peace and to recognize Croatia's right to self-determination.
As the United Nations has a proven track record with similar interventions, members from all sides of the House agree that the first step should be third party mediation by the United Nations in the form of peacekeeping troops.
We must act now to stop the Yugoslavian strife. Untold numbers of people are suffering and dying from the ongoing violence and repression. Independent bodies, such as Amnesty International, have faced difficulties in obtaining accurate information as to the variety and the extent of the suffering caused by this conflict.
If Canada is to uphold its responsibilities within the new internationalism, it must ensure that human rights, individual rights and minority rights are placed above the absolute rights of sovereign states. The United Nations can and must facilitate this.
As the UN Security Council prepares for its special meeting tomorrow on this issue, I call upon the government and this House to contact the UN today to request the UN send peacekeeping troops to Croatia immediately-


AGRICULTURE
Mr. Peter L. McCreath (South Shore):: Mr. Speaker, I am sure all members of the House join me in urging the government to respond quickly to the plight of western farmers. But at the same time, let us not forget that agriculture is a vitally important industiy to Atlantic Canada as well.
Atlantic farmers are looking for a clear and unequivocal indication from the Government of Canada that the supply management system now in place and so vital to Atlantic agriculture is a principle that will be recognized as being sacrosanct by the Government of Canada and one that will not be bargained away during GATT negotiations.
Similarly, Atlantic farmers are concerned with the continuing erosion of the effectiveness of the feed freight assistance program. They are looking for a clear indication that the government intends to implement the second phase of the Atlantic livestock feed initiative. Livestock and poultry products in Atlantic Canada generate an annual farm gate value of $500 million. There are some 4,000 commercial scale farms with over 25,000 persons employed in the industiy.
I urge the government, and in particular the ministers of agriculture and regional development, not to forget Atlantic farmers and to keep their representatives well informed of the government's intentions.


FISHERIES
Mr. Cid Samson (Timmins-Chapleau):: Mr. Speaker, thousands of the men and women who make their living fishing and working in the plants and all their families are facing the most severe economic disaster in memory.
The fishery along the coast of Labrador and the northeast coast of Newfoundland has been nearly a complete failure. Even officials of fisheries and oceans have never seen anything like it. Thousands are without

September 25, 1991
sufficient fish or work to even qualify for unemployment insurance.
The Minister of Fisheries and Oceans has been hinting that something might be done some day. The people of Cartwright cannot wait for "some day". The people of Fogo cannot wait for "some day". These communities need help today. You cannot feed and clothe a family on air and empty promises.
The Newfoundland fishery needs a catch failure program for the future, but what the fishery needs now is an immediate aid program. This disaster is a federal responsibility. The government must act, and it must act today.


Mr. Bill Domm (Peterborough):: Mr. Speaker, I rise to congratulate General Electric Canada of Peterborough which has just won a multimillion dollar high technology contract to export robotic fuelling machines for the second CANDU reactor sold to South Korea.
The CANDU reactor is unique in the world for its superb design, which allows the reactor to be refuelled while it is producing electricity at full power.
G-E Canada is predicting the contract will generate 65 person-years of work in Peterborough over the next five years.
As you know, Mr. Speaker, the $1.2 billion cash sale to South Korea of the CANDU reactor was signed at Christmastime last year by Atomic Energy of Canada Limited. G-E Canada's world class nuclear energy technology speaks volumes for our country's high-tech competitiveness in the tough, global marketplace.
I would ask you, Mr. Speaker, to join me and other members of the House in applauding this significant Canadian achievement.
* *


PREMIER FRANK MCKENNA
Mr. Guy H. Arseneault (Restigouche -Chaleur):: Mr. Speaker, last Monday, September 23, because of his honesty, hard work and determination, the people of
New Brunswick rewarded Premier Frank McKenna with a second consecutive landslide victory.
Since he was first elected premier in 1987, Mr. McKenna has provided the province with principled and credible leadership. By emphasizing issues important to all New Brunswickers such as education, environmental protection and the economy, Mr. McKenna has proven himself worthy of the trust of New Brunswickers.

Furthermore, with his talent as leader, Mr. McKenna has succeeded in reducing unemployment and made New Brunswick the leader in economic growth in North America. Mr. Speaker, I have no doubt that in the next four years, New Brunswickers and Canadians will be very well served by the McKenna government and the example he gives us all. I wish to extend my sincere congratulations to Mr. McKenna and all members of his government and wish them best of luck for the next four years.


ACID RAIN
Mr. Stan Darling (Parry Sound-Muskoka):: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Jean Charest, Minister of the Environment and the Hon. William K. Reilly, Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency were co-recipients of the 1991 Gold Medal of the America's Society in New York City on Monday, September 23. The award honours distinguished service in the cause of greater Canadian-American friendship and understanding.
This year, the Gold Medal was presented in recognition of the Canada-U.S. Air Quality Accord and its implications for controlling acid rain on both sides of the border. Minister Charest accepted the medal on behalf of the Prime Minister and the people of Canada.
We are all very proud of the honour bestowed on Canada, and I wish to thank the minister for including me in the official party at the presentation ceremony. As you are aware, Mr. Speaker, along with most members of the House, I have had a great interest in the acid rain issue.
September 25, 1991

[Translation}


BREAST IMPLANTS
Mr. Phillip Edmonston (Chambly):: Mr. Speaker, thousands of Canadian women continue to suffer terrible side effects and horrible scars and their lives are endangered from breast implants, especially the Meme. The government still continues to refuse to act by claiming that anecdotal evidence is insufficient. However, about ten years ago, the government banned UFFI and paid millions of dollars to have it removed from homes on the basis of equally anecdotal evidence.
Does the government consider houses more important than women? Mr. Speaker, women and we men who share their lives and see their suffering demand the immediate withdrawal of the Meme implant and stricter control of the testing of all other breast implants on the market. Secondly, we want immediate concrete assistance for women with the Meme implant so that they can have it removed.


Hon. Alan Redway (Don Valley East):: Mr. Speaker, what would be the economic impact of Quebec's separation on the rest of Canada? It would certainly disrupt interprovincial trade, and because all of the provinces, with the exception of British Columbia, export significant amounts to Quebec, separation would undoubtedly necessitate the negotiation of a Canada-Quebec trade agreement.
In return for signing such an agreement, Quebec would likely want a say in the fiscal and monetary policies of the new Canada since they would impact on the repayment of Quebec's share of our national debt.
With the Quebec market gone, the United States might terminate not only the free trade agreement but the auto pact as well. The new Canada would definitely be out of the G-7. Its credit rating would go down and its borrowing costs would go up.
Who will pay the costs of separation? The average Canadian.


MILK PRODUCERS
Mr. Don Boudria (Glengarry-Prescott-Russell):: Mr. Speaker, Canadian milk producers are rightly concerned. The Government of Canada has just ended another round of GATT negotiations and according to many people, it may be prepared to sacrifice Article XI of GATT that enables Canada to set farm product supply management policies.
Farmers have benefited from a quota system for over 20 years and milk producers in particular need such a system, without which their industry would be flooded with foreign overproduction, especially from the United States.
We in the Liberal Party still support our quota system. I call on the Conservative government opposite to also support supply management, this system that has served us so well for more than two decades.


FORESTRY
Mr. J. W. Bud Bird (Fredericton-York-Sunbury):: Mr. Speaker, earlier today the Minister of Forestry announced a $100 million six-year initiative entitled "Partners in Sustainable Development in Forestry". This program will support, within the productive force of Canada, the establishment of a network of large-scale exemplary model forests demonstrating the very best in comprehensive management practices.
As part of this plan the Government of Canada will accelerate and expand forestry research across the nation. For example, Forestry Canada Maritimes Region will take a lead role in the development of a national program for integrated insect management with special emphasis on the spruce budworm, the spruce budmoth and the white pine weevil.
Along with other scientific activities such as examining the potential impacts of climate change, this research will usher in a new era of forest science and technology in the maritime provinces of Canada.

The model forests will clearly represent the leading edge of Canada's commitment to sustainable development.


Mr. Svend J. Robinson (Burnaby-Kingsway):: Mr. Speaker, in 1975 the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 3379 declaring that Zionism is a form of racism.
Canada vigorously opposed that resolution then and we should certainly join in current efforts at the UN to repeal it today. At the same time, Canada must make it very clear to the Israeli government that UN Security Council resolutions on the Middle East, particularly 242 and 338, must be respected. Israel's ongoing violation of international law in the occupied territories including deportations, collective punishment, detentions and violence, and in particular illegal settlements must stop now.
Certainly Canada must extend no loan guarantees to Israel until these fundamental violations of international law and UN Security Council resolutions end. There will only be lasting peace when Arab countries end their state of war against Israel and when the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination and statehood have finally been realized. The suffering has gone on far too long.


THE CONSTITUTION
Mr. John Reimer (Kitchener):: Mr. Speaker, yesterday I was delighted to hear in the Canadian constitutional renewal proposal the government saying: "The charter of rights should be amended to guarantee property rights".
In May 1988 my private member's motion to add the words "and the enjoyment of property" to section 7 of the charter was adopted by a vote in the House of Commons.
Had Meech Lake passed, the Prime Minister in April 1987 assured Canadians that other constitutional issues such as property rights would be dealt with.
As a member of Parliament, I am pleased that a backbencher can sometimes succeed in bringing about major constitutional reform, first through a successful vote in the House and now through the Prime Minister
who, true to his word, has included that same constitutional issue of property rights, for which I lobbied, in the Canadian proposal for constitutional renewal.


FISHERY
Mr. Joe McGuire (Egmont):: The lobster fishing industry in Prince Edward Island remains in a chaotic state because of the stubborn refusal of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to rescind its decision on increased carapace size and to roll back the minimum size in all P.E.I. districts to the former 2.5 inch measure.
The situation concerning carapace size has reached the point of absurdity. P.E.I. has three different fishing zones and three different carapace sizes in effect. Fishermen who live across the road from one another may fish in two different zones and, as a result, not have equal opportunity to earn a living. Buyers in the eastern sector may end up with lobsters from two different zones and two different minimum sizes in the same truck.
What the government should do is roll back the increases already in effect in Districts 25 and 26A. Fishermen in District 25 suffered a decrease of over 25 per cent in the last two years. There is a market for small lobsters. There is no conservation problem. There is no reason to continue this policy.
I ask the minister to put an immediate freeze on all further scheduled increases, to study the disastrous effects the increases have already had and to listen to the voices of the fishermen and processors. If he does these things I am sure he will rescind his earlier decision-


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member's time has expired.


THE CONSTITUTION
Mr. Jim Edwards (Edmonton Southwest):: Mr. Speaker, it is a good beginning. The proposals tabled by the Prime Minister yesterday Shaping Canada's Future Together are precise where needed, open-ended where necessary.
Most English speaking Canadians readily recognize the distinctiveness of Quebec, with its unique language, culture and civil code. However, many of these same people balked at the Meech Lake notion of "distinct society", fearing the unknown. The proposed section 25.1 should dispel these fears by spelling out the meaning of the concept and its limitations.
September 25, 1991

The open-endedness of the proposals will be a boon to the new special joint committee. It will be up to them, for example, to design the new reformed Senate, based not only on the government's recommendations but on what Canadians tell them.
The provincial governments have now been heard from, and the government has recognized the realities of the amending formula. Political reality in autumn 1991 will not accept a region based approach, however desirable a piece of political science. Any change to section 41 requires unanimity, but all of the changes offered yesterday are achievable under the general formula of 7/50.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Hon. Jean Chretien (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the right hon. Prime Minister.
Why will the Prime Minister not do the right thing and recognize the inherent right to self-government of the aboriginal people of Canada in the Constitution right now. Why wait 10 years?


Right Hon. Joe Clark (President of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada and Minister Responsible for Constitutional Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, I suppose it is a good thing that we are going quickly to the special joint committee so that these matters can be discussed there.
It is a legitimate question and an important one. As the Leader of the Opposition from his long experience in Indian Affairs will know, the proposal in this document is a very substantial step forward toward the entrenchment in the Constitution of a general right of self-government for the aboriginal people. The 10 year period that is set out is a period that allows for negotiations based upon a certainty among the aboriginal people of their constitutional rights. As the Leader of the Opposition will know, in effect, for those people who conclude negotiations, that constitutional right vests earlier because we are
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prepared to entrench negotiations that are achieved. I think it is a sensible, reasonable position.
What we are seeking in these proposals is something that will find acceptance across the country. I believe this will, but naturally that and other matters are capable of being discussed in the special joint committee that will hold its first meeting later this day.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask a question of the minister. Why does he not do exactly what was done in 1981? After a long debate there were a lot of lawyers around town telling us we could not do what we did; but we did it. It was done in committee by the three parties in this House of Commons. The same argument was made; we had to wait some years to be able to do this, and the House of Commons decided to do it at that time. Why don't we do the same thing with self-government?


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, first of all I am very pleased that the Leader of the Opposition, on behalf of his party, is endorsing here on the floor of the House the concept of self-government. Certainly that will help us in the deliberations that we undertake.
Our problem with this issue is not a problem with lawyers. Sure, there are too many of them around town.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Mr. Speaker:: The right hon. minister.


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, Maureen is in Halifax.
Our problem, Sir, is to find a proposal that can find general acceptance across the country and that will establish the best circumstances in which we can move forward toward a system of justice for our aboriginal people, status people and others.
As the Leader of the Opposition knows, this government has already taken historic action this summer with the establishment of a royal commission which will deal with some of the issues.
Constitutional issues are urgent. We believe that there is a chance to take a very large step forward toward entrenching a right to self-government, and we hope we

September 25, 1991
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will have the support of the Parliament of Canada in doing that.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, still on the subject of the Constitution, I have a question for the Prime Minister. Why did the proposals tabled yesterday take such a timid approach to economic union, when three provinces, and perhaps the majority of Canada's population, will be allowed to opt out, and when in the Allaire report, the Quebec Liberal Party supported the following proposal, and I quote: "Canadian legislatures must drop all restrictions on the free circulation of persons, goods and capital." Why not do in Canada what has already been done in Europe?


Right Hon. Brian Mulroney (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, the proposal concerning sections 121 and 91 is basically a response to requests by Mr. Parizeau, Mr. Bourassa, the Quebec Liberal Party and everyone who wants a stronger and tighter economic union in this country. That is exactly what we are suggesting. Our proposals reflect the traditional claims of a number of interested parties, including the leading players in Quebec. The new powers proposed under section 91 would allow the federal government to make laws for the efficient functioning of the economic union. However, this new power is not unlimited, being subject to approval by 7/50, with an opting out provision for Quebec, for instance.
So the nonsense we heard last night on television from people who said this power would savage Quebec is just not true, and Canadians and Quebecers know it isn't true.


Mr. Paul Martin (LaSalle-Emard):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister. The vast majority of Canadians and Quebecers are in favour of economic union. However, if we are going to get anywhere in this debate, we must first lay a number of fears to rest. Obviously, economic union does not and should not affect our major economic development institutions: La Caisse de depot etplacement, the Caissespopulaires and the Heritage Fund. Does the Prime Minister agree with this position?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I agree entirely with what my hon. friend has just said. In any case, the objectives of economic union are quite clear. They are: to enhance productivity in
Canada, to improve our competitive position and to make our country more prosperous. According to the MacDonald Commission and the Canadian Manufacturers' Association, one of the benefits of economic union would be an annual savings of $1,500 for every Canadian family with two children. I think we can say that for the average Canadian, this is indeed a vast improvement.
Our main objective in this respect is to achieve economic union, something, as I said earlier, Mr. Parizeau and Mr. Bourassa have always wanted and something General de Gaulle always wanted for Europe, a Europe that will be integrated in 1992. In Europe it all started with the Treaty of Rome, and then it was General de Gaulle. I always thought if it was good enough for General de Gaulle, it is good enough for me.


Paul Edgar Philippe Martin: I remember General de Gaulle, and I am not so sure about that, Mr. Prime Minister!

I have a supplementary question for the Minister responsible for Constitutional Affairs.
In the constitutional project the government has proposed that property rights be enshrined, that the residual powers be transferred to the provinces, and that mining and forestry be withdrawn from the federal ambit. These are very controversial proposals and they are going to engender a great deal of debate. Regrettably, however, that is for another day.
My question is quite specific. Will the minister assure this House that there is nothing in any one of these proposals that will in any way, shape or form inhibit the federal government's authority either to enact or enforce strong, national, environmental legislation?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, perhaps I may give those assurances to the hon. member on behalf of my hon. friend. In any case, a new low in political commentary was reached last night when Canadians and Quebecers were told that constitutional reform was a threat to the Caisse de depot, the Caisse populaire, and Hydro-Quebec. Why not the Nordiques and Michel Louvain? This is insane! It is ludicrous. Quebecers are smarter than that. They know perfectly well that these constitutional proposals are intended to strengthen Canadian unity and to strengthen our eco-
September 25, 1991

nomic union, and thus improve the economic well-being of every family in Quebec.


Hon. Audrey McLaughlin (Yukon):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister.
In the constitutibnal package the government proposes to turn over residual powers to the provinces. This could mean, of course, that in future if an area is not labelled in federal jurisdiction it would be turned over to the provinces.
The environment is not specifically under federal jurisdiction in the Constitution, which would by implication mean that jurisdiction could completely be turned over to the provinces.
I want to ask the Prime Minister: Is it this government's intention to abandon federal responsibility for the environment?


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, as the Prime Minister indicated in an answer just a moment ago, it is certainly not our intention to do that.
I would remind the Leader of the New Democratic Party that such actions as the Government of Canada has had to take regarding residual power, regarding the peace, order and good government clause, has been done under the national and the emergencies portions of that clause. It is a portion which, if she reads the document, she will see the Government of Canada intends to retain for itself.
I would also remind her of the suggestion by this government of the inclusion in the preamble to the Constitution of references to sustainable development, making it clear not only that environment is an issue of interest to us all but that a sustainable, respected environment is considered by this government to be a fundamental value of the country.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the minister.
Clearly, I think, all Canadians would agree that concern for our environment must be a concern of all
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Canadians, but the government does propose in its constitutional reforms to turn over such areas as forestry and mining to the provinces. It may also turn over such things that are mentioned in legislative areas such as wildlife, conservation protection, transportation of dangerous goods, and sod and water conservation. All of these areas are environmental areas. Obviously they affect all provinces and territories of this country and there must be some kind of federal overview.
I want to ask the minister: Will his government commit today to supporting a clear statement in the Constitution that the federal government has jurisdiction over the environment?


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, this government's concern for the environment is very clear in the references to which I referred earlier. If we were going to propose moving the environment, we would have done so. We did not propose it because we do not intend to do that. We believe it is a field in which existing federal jurisdictions must be respected and must be maintained.
If the Leader of the New Democratic Party wants to propose a change that would weaken the federal power over the environment then she is free to do that in the committee, but it is not our intention to do that.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the minister.
Obviously, the environment does not respect boundaries. Canadians must have a right to clean air and clean water. My question for the minister is: Can he quite simply guarantee Canadians these rights to a clean environment through a social charter?


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, for the first time, it is proposed to entrench environmental concerns in the Constitution. That is part of our proposal.
The Leader of the New Democratic Party talks about rights. As she knows, the word "right" has some implica-

September 25, 1991
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tions. I can clearly indicate our government's determination to keep and respect existing federal jurisdiction over the environment.


Mr. Jack Iyerak Anawak (Nunatsiaq):: [Editor's Note: Member spoke in Inuktitut.]
Mr. Speaker, my question is for the right hon. Minister responsible for Constitutional Affairs. Aboriginal people and northerners are disappointed with the government's constitutional proposal. The constitutional aspirations of northerners are put off indefinitely. In the government's proposal, aboriginal people are asked to wait 10 years while their right to self-government is defined.
Why has the government put the north and aboriginal people on the constitutional back burner?


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, I regret that I do not have the hon. member's skill in Inuktitut. In fact, some of the things they say about me in that language are certainly hard to translate in a favourable way.
Two serious points are raised by the hon. member. With regard to the territories and the question of evolution of government, we have made it clear that we would grandfather arrangements to allow existing territories to move to provincial status on the basis of 7/50.1 know that is not what would be the first preference of people in the territories. As became clear in discussions I had with the heads of government of the two territories earlier this week, that is regarded as better than the existing situation.
With regard to native people and the historic step that we are proposing to recognize and entrench in the Constitution, their general right to self-government-


An hon. member:: It already exists.


Charles Joseph Clark: The hon. member is incorrect. It is not something that already exists. This is a substantial change in the constitutional proposals of the country that we believe can be made acceptable across the country. We would certainly propose to begin immediately discussions on that basis, and we would certainly
propose to entrench immediately negotiations of selfgovernment arrangements that were made.
I think the hon. member would share my view that it would be wrong for us now to try to define a particular regime of self-government, given the diversity of cultures, traditions and situations of aboriginal people across the country.


Jack Iyerak Anawak: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the same minister. I congratulate the minister on a speech he made to the Queen's University Alma Mater Society in Kingston.
Yesterday's constitutional proposal again asks aboriginal people to wait for 10 years while their right to self-government is described. In a speech on September 9,1 point out, the minister responsible said that defining the exact meaning of self-government would be unwise and impractical because it would not allow for growth and recognition of differences. All we are saying is: Recognize the inherent right to self-government.
How does the minister reconcile his earlier statements with the limitations put on self-government's definition in yesterday's proposal?


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, the issue here is whether we are prepared to entrench a general right or a right that is called an inherent right.
The Government of Ontario, acting within its own jurisdiction, has opted for an inherent right. I said at the time that the Government of Ontario was a little ahead of the rest of us on that issue and that I expected it would probably stay there on that particular issue.
Nonetheless, what we are proposing is a very substantial change in the status quo, a very substantial move toward recognizing both the history of the first peoples of this country and the current reality in Canada. I think it will be regarded generally as something that is not only a major step forward as a proposal but also is a proposal that has a reasonable prospect of being accepted.
What we are trying to do in these matters is be pragmatic and find things that we can get accepted so we do not just talk about change, we achieve change. This is a change which together we can achieve.
September 25, 1991


TAXATION
Hon. Herb Gray (Windsor West):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister responsible for Constitutional Affairs.
It was reported earlier this week that the federal government intends to agree that the nine provinces that do not already do so can collect their own personal income taxes directly from individual taxpayers.
Is this true? If so, why does the government want to create an additional burden of paperwork and cost and an additional burden of taxation for individual taxpayers in most parts of this country?


Hon. John McDermid (Minister of State (Finance and Privatization)):: Mr. Speaker, on June 24,1 think the hon. member will remember that a discussion paper was released for the purpose of soliciting opinions on whether provincial requests for greater flexibility over their personal income tax collection could be accommodated within the tax act.
We are receiving those views at the present time, and we would be very pleased to receive a brief from the hon. member.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, can the minister tell this House the additional cost of the paperwork and administration if the nine provinces that do not already do so begin collecting their own income taxes directly from individuals in the country?
If he cannot tell us that figure, why is he launching down this course of additional burden for taxpayers already overburdened by the taxes imposed on them by this government?


John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, of course I am sure that is one of the factors that will be taken into consideration.
If we take a look at the goods and services tax where we tried to have a national tax, one tax, one collection system right across this country, harmonizing that system, and if the hon. member agrees that the income tax collection system by the federal government on behalf of
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provinces saves paperwork, then I am sure he will support a national sales tax system.


AGRICULTURE
Mr. Lome Nystrom (Yorkton-Melville):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the right hon. Prime Minister.
Earlier today in Ottawa, the prairie wheat pools made another request for a $1 billion cash payment to prairie farmers.
In view of the fact that the average farm income for prairie farmers this year per family is much less than the previous five-year average, I want to know on behalf of the farmers on the prairies of this country whether or not the Prime Minister will now accede to that wish and make sure there is $1 billion payment to prairie farmers some time this fall.


Hon. Charles Mayer (Minister of Western Economic Diversification and Minister of State (Grains and Oilseeds)):: Mr. Speaker, I had a chance yesterday to meet with the prairie pools. We have had a chance over the last number of weeks to attend farmers' rallies where a lot of concern is expressed about the financial problems that farmers face. We all know that they are facing some extremely difficult times. This government has been with our farmers in the past and has been letting them know that it intends to do everything it can to support them in the future.
There is more to it than just financial support. We have to do everything we can at the international level, which we are doing. The Prime Minister is taking a lead in this to try to resolve the very debilitating trade war that is putting our farmers in such an unfair position.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: I specifically asked, Mr. Speaker, whether or not there would be a $1 billion pay-out to the farmers some time this fall. I asked that in view of the fact that the average income of family farmers in the prairies, even with the aid that is already there, is less than $6,500 a year.
I would like to direct my supplementary to the Prime Minister, if I may. If there is no pay-out to the farmers this fall of $1 billion, can he explain to the House why it is the policy of the Government of Canada to make sure

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that the farm income on the prairies is about one-quarter of the national poverty rate?


Charles James Mayer: Mr. Speaker, we had an opposition day in the House last Thursday and we had a very good discussion. It was basically a non-partisan approach to the problem. We all recognize that the problem is there. If you look at the track record of this government, it has been very substantial in supporting agriculture through a very difficult time.
We have absolutely no intention of abandoning our farmers in a problem which they are not making themselves. We have just harvested one of the best crops on record with very high quality. Food is in demand around the world. We intend to see that our farmers get through this so that they can take advantage of better prices when things turn around.
I say again what I have been saying to farmers, and I was at both rallies in Manitoba with some very frustrated and concerned farmers, as well as business people who rely on farmers. We intend to do everything we can to support our farmers to get them through this very difficult situation.


Mr. John Harvard (Winnipeg St. James):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister knows that the prairie wheat pools have been asking for $1 billion in emergency assistance to farmers to cover the losses in the 1990 crop year. The Prime Minister knows that the situation on the farm is critical. The Prime Minister should also realize that the government's efforts to help so far have fallen short of the mark. In fact, one of his own colleagues, the member for Brandon-Souris, has said on the public record and I quote: "Government efforts to support farmers have not been good enough".
When will the Prime Minister announce emergency assistance to farmers?


Charles James Mayer: Without repeating what I said in reply to the previous two questions, Mr. Speaker, we have a process in place to deal with some of these problems.
The member will know that we had a major meeting in Winnipeg about a month ago. There is a meeting again next week to deal with this so-called third line of defence. We have yet to hear the recommendations of that committee.
We understand the problem. I believe very much that we understand the problem. I say again, we are going to do the very best we can to address a problem that needs to be addressed because the farmers are not putting themselves in the kind of situation they are in.


Mr. Maurice Foster (Algoma):: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question. The minister knows that mass rallies are springing up right across the country: Lucknow, Ontario, Miami and Russel, Manitoba. There are others planned across the prairies. Farmers are rallying to protest because the government has not provided the emergency transitional assistance which it promised last spring when the farm safety network system was being put in place, and because they face the worst financial crisis in a generation.
Since the minister has attended some of these rallies, I ask him how many more farmers have to rally the way they have in these communities? How many more have to lose their farms? How many farmers' families have to be destroyed before this government will act?


Charles James Mayer: The hon. member does not need to get rhetorical and get emotional to make the point.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Charles James Mayer: Mr. Speaker, to listen to the hon. member, you would think that the whole problem is the result of this government's policies. Let me point out that there has been a substantial amount of support in the past for this industry.
I happened to attend both rallies that the member is talking about. There is another major one planned for Saskatchewan in Rosetown on Monday. Our members will be there in support of the agriculture industry. To say it again, we are waiting to see what is going to come out of the third line of defence meeting next week in Winnipeg and see what the farmers themselves have to say.
September 25, 1991

In the meantime, the member should know what we have said, which is that we are going to do the very best we can to support our farmers to get them through this very difficult period.


INTERNATIONAL NICKEL COMPANY
Mrs. Diane Marleau (Sudbury):: Mr. Speaker, International Nickel Company of Canada announced yesterday the elimination of 600 jobs in Sudbury. This government's high dollar and high interest policy savages an industry already facing other difficulties. I ask the Prime Minister: will he instruct his finance minister to put an end to this government's disastrous economic and fiscal policies.


Hon. Michael Wilson (Minister of Industry, Science and Technology and Minister for International Trade):: Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. member is very much aware that the International Nickel Company sells nickel all around the world and the reduction in orders it has had is a result of a world-wide effect in the nickel market primarily related to difficulties in the automotive industry.
I am not happy at all when I see 600 people being laid off there, but I have to recognize that it is not just a problem in Canada, it is an international problem. We in Canada have to understand how we can help those people who are being laid off and that will be done as a result of the policies that are already in place from this government.


Diane Marleau: Mr. Speaker, originally the announcement two months ago was for 200 jobs. On September 9, they announced it would increase the number to 400 jobs. And today it has been increased to 600 jobs. Meanwhile, the value of the dollar has kept on increasing.
The people of Sudbury, the people of Canada, ask when will it end. When will the Prime Minister and his government listen to Canadians, stop the de-industrialization of our country and bring forward new economic policies?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I repeat my point that Government of Canada policies cannot do much about the world-wide
Oral Questions
glut of nickel that is in place in the United States and other countries of the world. That is not something we can control.
My hon. friend referred to some aspects of government policy. We have seen interest rates in this country fall about 5.5 percentage points since May of last year, at the peak. We have seen a narrowing in the spreads between interest rates in Canada and the United States. This is designed to help the economic recovery that is under way now, as my hon. friend is very much aware. We have seen an improvement in economic performance in the second quarter of this year by 5 per cent in annual terms. So we are getting back on track again. The policies we will be implementing in the future will reinforce that process.


Svend Johannes Robinson: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Prime Minister. Earlier this year the UN Under-Secretary General described conditions in post-war Iraq as near apocalyptic and found that Iraqi children had stopped growing, due to lack of food.
A Harvard medical team said that over 55,000 children under five had died because of poor diet, sanitary conditions and lack of medical care.
My question to the Prime Minister is this: What concrete urgent action is our government taking as a war-time coalition partner to assist dying children in Iraq, and to ensure particularly at this time, that Canadian wheat sales to Iraq resume now.


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, the government is, of course, very concerned about the loss of life anywhere. Through humanitarian agencies under the auspices of the United Nations, Canada has made what we believe are significant contributions to be of assistance.
I think the greatest thing that could happen on behalf of the children of Iraq, and on behalf of the people of Iraq, would be if Saddam Hussein stopped acting like an international outlaw and conducted himself in such a way as to return to the international community. Then, and only then, will all of the people of Iraq find the peace and the prosperity to which they are entitled.

September 25, 1991
Oral Questions


Svend Johannes Robinson: Mr. Speaker, surely innocent children in Iraq should not be the victims of that kind of mad policy.
My supplementary question is for the Prime Minister. Last September the Prime Minister co-chaired the World Summit for Children. That summit issued a declaration which stated that the essential needs of children and families must be protected, even in times of war and in violence-ridden areas.
In view of the fact that the Harvard study team to which I referred previously has estimated that 170,000 children under the age of five years will die as a result of the delayed effects of this war in the gulf, I want again to ask the Prime Minister what steps is Canada taking now to assist these children to avoid death, starvation, and devastating medical conditions. What are we doing to help the children?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, although some 34th in population I believe, Canada's contributions to the United Nations and all of her associated funds, including UNICEF, ranks us with the top four or five in the world.
Our contributions to UNICEF and our leadership on behalf of children is, I think, generally acknowledged to be very significant. One of the great tragedies is that there are some 40,000 children who die each day in the developing countries of Africa and throughout the developing world for want of an investment of $5 per child.
Canada has provided, I think, quite substantial leadership and we are in the process of doing more to assist children throughout the world. It is an enormous tragedy when an innocent child dies for want of food or because of conditions created by its government.
We are working through the United Nations, the Security Council, and all of the agencies of the United Nations. We have done a lot and we are ready to do much more to assist children in developing countries and, indeed, in Iraq obviously.
But principally the problem of the children in Iraq comes from the leader of Iraq. If he wanted to correct many of these problems, he could do so immediately by conducting himself in a civilized way, by ceasing to act as
an international outlaw and by returning to the family of nations.


THE CONSTITUTION
Hon. Lucien Bouchard (Lac-Saint-Jean):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister. The document on constitutional reform tabled yesterday proposes, and I quote: "To provide the Parliament of Canada with a new power to make laws for the efficient functioning of the economic union of Canada."
Yet, the government is claiming today, as it did yesterday, that it has no intention of interfering with the operation of basic financial institutions in Quebec such as the Deposit and investment Fund or the Desjardins Movement. Besides the good intentions, is the Prime Minister not forced to recognize that the extremely vague wording of this proposal actually provides such power to the Parliament of Canada and could therefore put Quebec in the unbearable situation of having to use the notwithstanding clause?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member only read the first paragraph. He failed to read the next two, which state, and I quote: "Federal legislation under this new power could not be enacted without the approval of at least two thirds of the provinces representing 50 per cent of the population."


An hon. member:: Like in 1982!


Martin Brian Mulroney: Well, there is yet another article. There are three in all. The third one states that if Quebec for instance did not support the legislation, it could opt out altogether.


Lucien Bouchard: There you go, Mr. Speaker, the truth is out. The Parliament of Canada-and correct me if I am wrong-would then have the power to pass legislation that would cripple Quebec financial institutions and force the Quebec government to manage its economy through notwithstanding clauses all the time. Mr. Speaker, I want to tell the Prime Minister that, as he is no doubt aware, ministers come and go and governments come and go, and that a Liberal government in this House tried and pass Bill S-31, which would have had that very effect.
September 25, 1991

How can we be sure today that there will never be across this room a government that will use these powers for that purpose?


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, I do not want to use these words, but I have to. What the hon. member has just said is totally dishonest!


An hon. member:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Speaker:: I am sure the right hon. minister knows that his reply exceeded the bounds. I would ask him to withdraw and continue his reply.


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, if my choice of words was unparliamentary, naturally I will follow the rules. But I must point out that the behaviour of the hon. member who is afraid to face facts and is attempting to deceive the people of Quebec, that too is inadmissible in a democracy such as ours.


INDIAN AFFAIRS
Mr. Larry Schneider (Regina-Wascana):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development.
Recently an historic agreement to settle outstanding land claims was reached by the federal government and the Government of Saskatchewan. Mr. Ovide Mercredi, the National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, was reported in the media as saying that this agreement should not be construed as a solution for other provinces.
This causes me some great concern. Is it wrong to assume that this agreement could not at least be considered a basis for future federal-provincial agreements?


Hon. Thomas Siddon (Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development):: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Regina-Wascana has asked a very important ques-
Oral Questions
tion about the extent of this government's commitment to honour our historic treaty obligations.
I want to tell members of the House how proud we were to be able to sign an historic treaty land entitlement agreement with the province and the premier of Saskatchewan, the Hon. Grant Devine, a week and a half ago, which will bring a doubling of the land base to some 27 treaty land entitlement bands in Saskatchewan by an additional 1.5 million acres and $481 million toward that settlement.
This is an honourable settlement which was highly commended by the National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations when he present on that occasion.


HOUSING
Mr. Joe Fontana (London East):: Mr. Speaker, the government would have Canadians believe that the recession is over and a recovery is well under way. Well, Canadians are not buying it. In fact, the Canadian homebuilding industry does not believe it and thinks nothing is further from the truth.
Mr. Gary Reardon, president of CHBA, says that the industry is only working at 60 per cent and thousands of construction workers are still waiting for this government's recovery.
My question is to the minister responsible for housing. Will the minister finally implement the 5 per cent down payment plan for first-time homebuyers that will allow thousands to purchase their first home and thousands to return to work?


Mr. Dave Worthy (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Public Works):: Mr. Speaker, I think the member realizes, because he has been involved in many of the discussions we have had in this place and in others, that there are many ways that we can try to assist those people trying to get into the housing market.
Those proposals are being considered but to date there has been no decision made. We will advise the member when we do make that decision.


Joseph Frank (Joe) Fontana: Mr. Speaker, this government sat on the proposal for over a year. This proposal has proven its worth in the past and it will not cost taxpayers any money.

September 25, 1991
Oral Questions
I want to ask the government again: When will it take its head out of the sand and do something for the home building industry in this country and for home buyers who are waiting to buy their first homes?


John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, the mortgage rates today are at the lowest they have been in six or seven years. That is the best way we can help people to buy homes. Every time interest rates drop one percentage point, thousands of Canadians become eligible to put their down payments to buy homes.
Interest rates have dropped 5.5 per cent in the last year and that is the most important thing we can do for the home building industry.


ATLANTIC MARINE INDUSTRY
Mr. Ron MacDonald (Dartmouth):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transport. It concerns a report from his own department which recommends a user fee be charged to all vessels visiting Atlantic Canadian ports for navigational aid use.
Quite simply, this is just yet another tax which will further cripple the competitiveness of the Atlantic marine industry.
My question is: Will the minister guarantee in this House today that he will under no circumstances implement this new tax on the marine industry in Atlantic Canada?


Hon. Jean Corbeil (Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, as the member knows, a user fee policy was introduced and put to consultation by the transportation department last year. After receiving all the input of the different stakeholders in that industry, we are at the present time reconsidering the situation and will make our final proposal known pretty soon.


Mr. Pat Nowlan (Annapolis Valley-Hants):: Mr. Speaker, I am going to surprise many colleagues in the House by directing my question to the Minister of National Health and Welfare and complimenting him
and the CBC for the tremendous review and introspection they did of his mitosis on Monday night's The Journal from whatever it is.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: I know the problems. Quite frankly, I used to sit in the same caucus with the hon. member. Frankly he and I have not shared some views and I thought he was very personal when I had my problem on the Meech Lake thing.
My question is on the proposals laid before the House by the Prime Minister yesterday. Quite frankly, the house of federation I find tremendously confusing. But would he give us an assurance that regardless of whatever comes out of the proposals, but especially because of the proposals, that the uniform medicare system of medical treatment to Canadians, which I think is one of our fundamental prerogatives or rights, will stay intact?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I am happy to join my hon. friend in congratulating the minister not only for an excellent appearance, but also for the assurance that he has given in respect of medicare which will remain a strong and important dimension of Canadian national unity.
I would like to give him more assurances in other areas, but I will only be able to do that when the CBC does a similar flattering profile on me.


PRESENCE IN THE GALLERY
Mr. Speaker:: I wish to draw to members' attention the presence in the gallery of a Tanzanian Presidential Commission and Mr. Pius Msekwa, Vice-Speaker of the Tanzania Parliament.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Mr. Speaker:: I wish also to draw to members' attention the presence in the gallery of members of a subcommittee of the Defence and Security Committee of the North Atlantic Assembly, Mr. Anders Sjaastad, member of the Norwegian Parliament, and Mr. Hans Haekkerup, member of the Danish Parliament.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.
September 25, 1991



POINT OF ORDER


Mr. Louis Plamondon (Richelieu):: Mr. Speaker, I was shocked to hear the hon. member from Alberta use the term "dishonest" when speaking to one of our colleagues in this House, the hon. member for Lac-Saint-Jean.


Mr. Speaker:: One moment, please. The minister withdrew what he said, so the incident is closed. Does the hon. member have another point of order?


Louis Plamondon: I have a comment for the Chair. The minister said that he would conform to the Standing Orders but he did not withdraw the term "dishonest". I would ask him to do that.


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, if the inference was not sufficiently clear to the hon. member, I will act in accordance with the Standing Orders and withdraw. Thank you.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Mr. Jean-Guy Hudon (Parliamentary Secretary to President of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada and Minister Responsible for Constitutional Affairs):: Madam Speaker, on behalf of the Right Hon. Joe Clark, President of the Privy Council, I wish to take this opportunity to table in the House today the annual report to Parliament of the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, and the annual reports on the administration of the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act, for the year ending March 31, 1991.
[Editor's Note: See today's Votes and Proceedings.]
Routine Proceedings PETITIONS


GOVERNMENT RESPONSE
Mr. Michel Champagne (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Forestry):: Madam Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8), I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government's response to three petitions.
[Editor's Note: See today's Votes and Proceedings.]


THE ENVIRONMENT
Mr. Lee Clark (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of the Environment):: Madam Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 109,1 have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government's response to the report of the Standing Committee on the Environment entitled Out of Balance-The Risks of Irreversible Climate Change.


HOUSE MANAGEMENT
Mr. Charles Langlois (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Industry, Science and Technology):: Madam Speaker, I have the honour to table the seventh report of the Standing Committee on House Management. With leave of the House, I would like to move for concurrence now.
[Editor's Note: See today's Votes and Proceedings.]


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

Michel Champagne: That three members and one researcher from the Standing
Committee on Industry, Science and Technology, Regional and
Northern Development be authorized to travel to Victoria, British

Routine Proceedings
Columbia, from Saturday, September 28 to Wednesday, October 2,
1991 in order to attend the National Forum of Science and Technology
Advisory Boards.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Does the House give the hon. parliamentary secretary unanimous consent to move his motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: The House has heard the statement of the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt this motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

Mr. Derek Lee (Scarborough-Rouge River):: Madam Speaker, in accordance with the notice of motion that has been filed, I would like to move that the first report of the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations, presented to this House on Monday, June 17, be concurred in.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

Don Boudria: Madam Speaker, I have a petition signed by a number of people which under Standing Order 36 I would like to table in the House.
These Canadians are praying and calling upon Parliament to assist the grains and oilseed producers who are experiencing a terrible cash shortfall this year. They are urging the government, as my colleague from Algoma did earlier today, to provide assistance in these very difficult times.


Mr. Mac Harb (Ottawa Centre):: Madam Speaker, I have a petition signed by constituents from the Ottawa-Carleton region.
The petitioners are requesting that the film The Burning Times be withdrawn from circulation and that the National Film Board publicly apologize to Catholics.
It is their view that the presentation is historically inaccurate and that commentary is entirely biased against and hostile to the Catholic Church. In their view the film attempts to foster hatred and misunderstanding of the Catholic religion.


Mr. Derek Blackburn (Brant):: Madam Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 36 to present a petition signed by several persons from southwestern Ontario.
First they petition Parliament to urge the government to consider restoring proper funding to the CBC so that it can fulfil its mandate and its role as the heartbeat of Canada and, second, to re-examine this government's priorities in terms of decreased funding for Canadian institutions and this government's insistence on privatization.


Mr. Sergio Marchi (York West):: Madam Speaker, I am pleased to present a petition signed by Canadians.
Given the fact that we must become more internationally competitive, given the fact that we need a professional and skilled labour force, and given that there is a shocking 38 per cent rate of illiteracy across this great country, these petitioners are calling upon the government to begin with its provincial counterparts to begin to put together some semblance of national standards with regard to our young people in their pursuit of education and careers in this country.


Mrs. Christine Stewart (Northumberland):: Madam Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, it is my pleasure to present a petition to the House today which requests this government to address the very critical issue surrounding the problems faced by grain and oilseed producers in this country who do not have the cash to carry through this fall, let alone think to next spring. The petitioners humbly pray and call upon Parliament to urge the government to provide assistance as proposed by the House of Commons Standing Committee on Agriculture on August 29, 1991.
September 25, 1991


Mr. Jerry Pickard (Essex-Kent):: Madam Speaker, I too am presenting a petition from the farming community. They have had a disastrous year of extremely low prices and are having great difficulty in attempting to recoup their input costs. They are in disastrous trouble and are requesting the government to come forward with support this year.


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
Michel Champagne: Madam Speaker, I suggest that all questions be allowed to stand.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Shall the questions stand?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Michel Champagne: Madam Speaker, I ask that all notices of motion for the production of papers be allowed to stand.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Shall all notices of motion stand?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Thesday, September 24, consideration of the motion of Mr. Mazankowski that Bill C-32, an act to amend the Canada Assistance Plan, be read the second time and referred to Legislative Committee F; and the motion of Mr. Vincent (p. 2536).
Mr. George S. Rideout (Moncton):: Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise and speak on this particular bill and to bring to the attention of all citizens the devastating effects of this type of legislation and what it is going to mean to those people who are disadvantaged; the poor, the sick, the elderly and women in our communities.
Government Orders
I wish to bring to the attention of the House exactly what is taking place with this legislation. It is referred to affectionately, or not affectionately, as the cap on CAP. The second CAP stands for the Canada Assistance Plan and we all know what it does for those people who are disadvantaged.
It is ironic that someone from a have not province in Atlantic Canada is be up speaking and urging the government to reconsider this legislation, as it is going to affect what we call the have provinces of Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia. In looking at all the social programs in Canada, I think this is the thin edge of the wedge. While it may be affecting the rich provinces, and some will say they are best able to afford this situation, I am not sure that everyone realizes that over a five-year period a little over $2 billion in federal transfer payments will be stopped. That will have an adverse affect on these provinces.
The plan was created with a positive foundation of helping everyone, and to help each area of the country, with the federal government contributing 50 per cent of the cost. There was no ceiling on the amount of contributions because there is no ceiling on the adverse effects of a bad economy. We have seen that in the last couple of years with the adverse effects of the recession, the government's high dollar policy, high interest rate policy, and all of those things have transcended all provincial boundaries. Yet the disadvantaged need help. They need the resources of CAP.
The CAP funding went to single parent families, mentally and physically disabled persons, the aged, children in care and those in need of protection from abuse or neglect, the unemployed, families and individuals in crisis, low income workers and battered women. These are just some of the different groups in our society which have been adversely affected by the recession and which are in need of assistance. Now there is going to be a cap on that assistance.
The other thing which a lot of people forget and I think it is worth while to point out is that over half of Canada's poor live in these rich provinces. They are going to be adversely affected. We have seen what has happened in Ontario, with the Ontario government, rightly or wrongly, having to go into massive deficit financing. We know for sure that those people just enumerated are not going to receive the help and the assistance they really deserve because even our rich

September 25, 1991
Government Orders
provinces are not in a position to provide that type of support.
Another interesting fact, and a shocking one, is that children make up the largest group of those who rely on welfare. My information is that they make up approximately 37 per cent of the total. That is a shocking figure. The aim of this legislation is to adversely affect those people. To adversely affect children, in my humble opinion, and I am sure you will agree, Madam Speaker, if not anything else, is morally wrong.
Additionally, to give some of the facts and figures associated with this particular problem, spending in these areas has increased more than what the cap is going to be, so there will be a shortfall. On average across the country, it is at 7 per cent. Over the last couple of years, Ontario has seen an increase of 15 per cent, and the federal government's cap is at 5 per cent, all of which is totally unacceptable in my view.
There are some interesting facts as they relate to provinces such as New Brunswick which is experiencing the cutbacks to those types of social programs in which federal government involvement is necessary. I quote from a recent newspaper clipping about health care and health care standards in New Brunswick where health and community services minister Ray Frenette made the following comments: "The federal government should not expect provinces to maintain high health care standards if they aren't willing to help pay for it".
Frenette went on to say: "The area most likely to be affected by restraint measures is New Brunswick's $1 billion health care budget. Federal funding has been needed just to keep pace with the ever-escalating costs of medical care".
"Last year the McKenna government put restraints on doctors' use of medicare systems and scaled down hospital construction plans to save money. Frenette would not say what kind of restraints could be employed in 1991-1992 but said costs would far outstrip the level of funding available."
This is one province that is facing very serious problems in the area of health care standards and if we are attacking those standards, what is going to happen with
the rest of the social safety net in existence in this country?
We all acknowledge that the Canada Assistance Plan is the largest single source of funding for social services in Canada. It accounts for approximately 38.5 per cent of provincial spending. If we put on a cap that is less than what is actually needed, then the shortfall has to come from somewhere. It is going to be transmitted all the way down the system so that if the federal government opts out or cuts back, then provinces will have to pick up the slack. If provinces cannot pick up that slack, it will be handed on to the municipalities.
I know the situation is different in New Brunswick and municipalities are not responsible for social programs, but in other provinces municipalities are responsible. I know for a fact that municipalities in Ontario are facing very serious problems as a result of the social responsibilities being sent down the line. The municipality is the one level of government which is least capable of affording the increased cost but now they will face the largest burden as a result.
I would like to leave the House with the comments contained in an article by Ronald Melchers in Perception: "In abrogating its commitment to contribute equally with the provinces to the alleviation and prevention of poverty, the federal government is abrogating the sacred trust of Canada's social programs. CAP is the fundamental and minimum element of Canada's social safety net. Beyond the minimum subsistence it provides there is only the dependency of charity. With the Canada Assistance Plan Act in 1966, Canada joined the advanced nations of the world by accepting the essential responsibility of government for the subsistence of its citizens. With Bill C-69, and an extension of that, Bill C-32, Canada would take a great leap backwards."
There is no question in my mind that we are taking a great leap backwards by proceeding in this fashion with this legislation. We must maintain the social safety nets that bind this country together. It is one of the major threads that makes all of us Canadians, that holds us all together. We cannot end up with a two-tiered social safety net and we cannot end up with a two-tiered medicare system. We must put into place sufficient funding so that all Canadians from sea to sea to sea are treated equally. This legislation will do just the opposite. It is a reprehensible piece of the legislation and the
September 25, 1991

government should reconsider their ill-advised scheme of capping the Canada Assistance Plan.


Derek Vincent Lee: Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to have this short period of time to address this particular piece of legislation, sometimes referred to as the cap on CAP.
This bill originally emanated from a desire on the part of the government to place some controls on federal spending, 'taken by itself, I do not see that as a bad thing. We in this House realize that the federal government has been spending a lot more than it has been collecting in taxes. Notwithstanding that the taxpayer has been screaming "ouch" for quite a while, we still do not have enough tax revenue to cover the kind of expenditures we are being called upon as a nation to dispense.
So from the simple perspective of fiscal management, any initiative to regulate spending is welcome.
The principal problem we have here in opposition with this piece of legislation is that this fiscal management initiative, or so it is addressed and described, is blind. It is blind to the poor. It is blind to the provincial administrators who take the federal money and dispense it to the various provincial mechanisms. It is blind to the realities out there on main street Canada this year.
The reason why it is blind is because the funding that we dispense federally is not placed directly into the hands of the recipient it is intended to assist. These expenditures are set aside and used for welfare and social assistance costs right across the country. Therefore, when we in the House of Commons approve this kind of spending, we know that those dollars are going to virtually end up in every part of this country.
When we entered into the agreement to share fifty-fifty with the provinces in that spending, I think it fair to assume that we did not get out the measuring stick and try to calculate how much we were actually going to spend year after year. We simply agreed to share 50 per cent of whatever the provinces, through their own municipalities, decided should be spent in social assistance.
Government Orders
Perhaps that was an initial flaw when we addressed this. In any event we are in the present and the government feels that it must put a cap, a limit on what we do spend.
In my riding in Ontario, there have been two separate large macroeconomic issues that have occurred.
One is our made-in Canada recession which has swelled the numbers of individuals who really are in need of social assistance. When we talk about social assistance, we are usually talking about the basics of food and shelter. So the numbers of those who are truly in need in my province, and I am sure it is the case in many parts of the country, have grown.
Second, the number of refugees who have come to Canada over the last three, four, five years, has swelled the ranks of those who are in need. That is a problem that is particularly evident in the Toronto area, and I am sure it is a problem in other large municipalities where many refugees, at least on an interim basis, settle.
In the face of this large growth in the number of poor, in the number of needy who really do need the assistance, the government has taken this opportunity to say that we must artificially cap our spending at 5 per cent.
The 5 per cent figure does not face two structural realities, not the two historic facts I have just mentioned. It does not take account of the fact that when we put the cap in place, the raw numbers of poor may increase. I have already referred to the numbers of "poor" who have been harmed and on whose backs collectively we appear to be fighting inflation by means of our self-induced made-in-Canada recession. It is not their fault. That is how our Bank of Canada and this government decided to proceed last year.
Second, it does not take into account that the real costs to the poor for those basics of food and shelter may, in certain localities, increase to more than 5 per cent. The cost of shelter in Vancouver, Whitehorse, St. John's and Toronto may in fact-and it is not the fault of the poor nor the fault of this House necessarily, it is simply an economic fact- increase to more than 5 per cent.

September 25, 1991
Government Orders
In that way this legislation fails to face those realities faced by the poor. I accept that there are fiscal realities at the same time, but my caucus and I cannot accept that this fiscal tool, the 5 per cent cap is fairly applied. For that reason, we feel we have to oppose this legislation.
I would like to think that before the cap was put in place and before it was in force that the government here, which we oversee in this House, would recognize that a hungry child on street number one was just as hungry as the child in the next block. If in fact we are going to cut back on the money we are putting in to the system to provide the food and those basics, we must find another way to make sure that hungry child number two is treated as well as hungry child number one.
I think of the parable of the loaves and the fishes. It is fortunate that the good Lord did not have to work within a budget at that time. He did not. He had a couple of other fiscal tools at his disposal. Until and unless this bill, as hard as it is, as fiscally needed as it is, can take account of those very real Canadian poor realities, Madam Speaker, we cannot support it.


Mr. John Brewin (Victoria):: Madam Speaker, I rise to oppose this bill as strongly and as forcefully as I can. Bill C-32 is a bad piece of legislation and the government should withdraw it and start over. This bill extends for a further three years the cap on social assistance payments by the federal government to the provinces in three provinces; Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia. It will have a devastating impact on millions of Canadians. It is important to underline what this bill reveals about this government and its priorities as it tackles the issues before this country.
Listen to what CAP serves. Listen to what social programs are served that are now being held down under this legislation. The Canada Assistance Program, which is funded jointly by the federal and provincial governments across this country, benefits abused and neglected children in need of protection, mentally and physically disabled persons, one parent families, seniors, the unemployed and the working poor, battered women, families and individuals in crisis. The program serves homes for the aged, nursing homes, shelters for homeless and shelters for battered women, residential welfare institutions and rehab centres. It services child welfare services and child care through subsidies to low income Canadians.
What this government is doing with this bill is imposing a further limit for another five years on the legitimate needs of those who are served under the Canada Assistance Program.
In British Columbia, the province from which I come, there are already 43,400 people a month served by food banks, 18,000 of whom are children. We have an unemployment rate of over 10 per cent in British Columbia, and it is rising. Thousands more are under-employed, barely scraping through an existence that could be described as below the poverty line.
The Canada Assistance Program is one of the few programs in this country designed to help the poor. We in Canada have over a million children below the poverty line, one of the worst records in the western world. In British Columbia, as in Canada as a whole, the gap between rich and poor is obscene, and yet this government proposes to try to deal with its budgetary problems by imposing a cap on CAP.
In British Columbia alone it has been estimated that this bill will cost the provincial treasury, in its attempt to shift from the federal treasury to the provincial treasury, over $900 million in the next three years. We, unfortunately, at least for the next three weeks, are blighted by a government that simply passes on the bill to the poor.
Rita Johnston has already said in some public statements that faced with this bill, they are simply going to pass it on to the poor. "It is little enough", she says, "that we are doing now for those people who are not able to help themselves". She certainly has that right. To follow on the quote: "If we are having to look at the taxpayers of British Columbia assuming more of the responsibility than they presently do, it is going to be a hardship". In future provincial budgets she says "You are going to see us saying 'no' and 'not right now' more often than you have in the past". And this is a provincial government which has one of the worst records in Canada for dealing with the poor and those who have not.
This bill, having a direct impact on the poor, must not proceed.
The government raises its fiscal problems in answer to the criticism it has been getting from this side of the House on this bill, and yet the Conservative government over the last six years has actually reduced taxes to the large corporations by 20 per cent, while their profits have increased by 34 per cent in the same period of time. Liberal and Conservative tax loopholes at the rate of $6 billion a year are not being touched by this government.
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Instead, it chooses to attack the poor in British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario.
Madam Speaker, this is a bad bill. It should not proceed. We will vote against it.


Joseph Frank (Joe) Fontana: Madam Speaker, I wanted to say it is a pleasure to stand up in the House and speak on this Bill C-32, but this bill really punishes people. While the government would have us believe that it is simply a bill to try and deal with its deficit and debt and its budgetary problems, I think one needs to look at what the Canada Assistance Plan does, has done and will do for the people of Canada.
It becomes clear that putting a cap on the Canada Assistance Plan, especially in the provinces of Ontario, B.C. and Alberta, essentially says to the provincial governments and the municipal governments: "We, the federal government, do not believe that we have a responsibility beyond the 5 per cent increase to look after the people who are in need in your provinces that find themselves in some difficult circumstances".
In 1965, Prime Minister Pearson brought in the Canada Assistance Plan to a certain extent, as it has been said, as his declaration of war on poverty. I and my colleagues, about eight months ago, travelled across this country to look at the effects of the government's economic policies and the effects upon the men and women, the workers in this country, and what was occurring because of this government's made-in-Canada recession.
In 35 cities across the country we found that there was an awful lot of pain and anguish, that men and women were losing their jobs and having to go on welfare because their unemployment insurance benefits were exhausted. Because of another of this government's bad, ill-fated attempts at creating equality under Bill C-21, people were forced off unemployment insurance on to the social welfare rolls in the municipalities.
Municipal leaders, provincial leaders, business leaders and social community groups said that the recession was having a devastating effect on people's lives. In fact, the provincial and municipal governments were now forced financially to deal with the great needs out there and that the federal government had essentially washed its
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hands and its responsibility, its social obligation, its moral obligation that it has had since 1965 to essentially assist people, no questions asked.
Yes, everyone would agree that we need to get our financial house in order, that one needs to look at waste in government and to target our expenditures, but surely we do not need to essentially gut the most important social net that we have in this country and that is the Canada Assistance Plan.
I want to deal again with what is behind the Canada Assistance Plan. In its preamble, the Canada Assistance Plan states that its objectives are to alleviate poverty and to prevent and remove the causes of poverty and the dependence on public assistance.
Well, we may be in the 1990s, and some people may have it good, but there are a lot of people who do not have it so good; the 1.5 million unemployed. Last year there were over 1,800,000 people were assisted through social assistance, with the help of the provincial and municipal governments for such things as welfare, dental care, home care, safe housing for abused women, foster homes for abused children, subsidized child care for low income families, shelter, clothing, food and emergency shelters for the homeless. If you look at what the Canada Assistance Plan stands for, it stands for helping people. Surely the government, if it wanted to essentially save some money, could look at other areas within its budget controlled areas to deal with the budget, but not to gut the social net that is there to help our citizens.
To suggest that Ontario, B.C. and Alberta can best look after the needs of people themselves, and hence the federal government putting the cap on CAP, is surely trying to create two different kinds of citizens in this country; those who come from the richer provinces and those who come from the not so fortunate provinces. Yes, the government introduced Bill C-69 in its last budget. It was only supposed to be for two years. The provinces fought it in the courts but the courts suggested that the federal government had the power to do as it did, which was to change its social contract. The government did it again this year and said that it was going to continue to impose this pain and suffering on municipalities, the provinces and the people by extending it for a third year.

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I find this really hypocritical because the government's constitutional plan laid out yesterday talked about cooperation, about a federation of the councils in which the provincial governments would sit down with the federal government to discuss the budget and co-ordination of programs. This government talks about one way to deal with other governments but does exactly the opposite through legislation such as Bill C-32.
If the constitutional plan as the Tories envision it was in place, would they have the gall and guts to do this to the provinces, to put a cap on CAP? It would not be allowed. The Constitution would not allow this government to do what it is now trying to do through the back door by putting a cap on CAP.
The government and the Prime Minister talk about a compassionate society, about the fact that this country has to be united and that we have to work together to solve our constitutional problems, our economic problems, and our social problems. Yet at the first opportunity, where does it attack? It attacks the very social fabric of this country by tearing apart the safety net that previous Liberal governments had put in place, and this government is prepared to watch people go through that net.
It is prepared to say that while we want to deal with our deficit, the provinces and the municipalities must deal with the deficit. Municipal leaders, especially in Ontario where they are facing elections this month, have had to increase their property taxes because their welfare rolls are ballooning 100 and 200 per cent. The provincial governments are having to put more money into those social assistance benefits. Why? Because this government has forgotten its moral obligation to help each citizen of this country.
I find it reprehensible that this government can talk about co-operation, about a compassionate country, about unifying this country while at the same time it is prepared to take a scalpel to our social net and our social benefits and leave people to fend for themselves.
I am not sure that Canadians can accept that kind of government. I think they want more than that. Does this government really want to deal with budgetary problems it has created? The Tories have had seven years under the best of economic conditions to deal with their budget, yet our deficit is still at $30 billion. Our debt has gone from $200 billion to $400 billion. I suggest that the
problem is not with the Canada Assistance Plan but with this government.
We need a new vision for this country and a new government to deal with it.


Sergio Marchi: Madam Speaker, like my colleague from London East I rise to discuss Bill C-32.1 suppose a debate such as this one on Bill C-32, which is an attempt to limit the Canada Assistance Plan, helps distinguish what it means to be a Conservative in this country for average Canadians tuning into this parliamentary debate.
I say that because it is part of their agenda to interfere with a program that has been in existence since 1966, a program that allows a national federal government, under a cost sharing agreement with provincial governments, to provide social assistance programs for Canadians who deserve them when they need them.
For a Conservative government during one of the worst recessions in this country's history, which was made by the Conservative government, to introduce a piece of legislation such as Bill C-32, does not speak too highly of the winds this country has had to go through in order to arrive at the Canada Assistance Plan. Does the government realize that Canadians are going through some very tough times?
The solutions to our social problems are good, solid economic policies and programs. However, we do not have those economic programs. We do not have good economic times.
My own city of Toronto is quite often labelled as the fat cat city but let me tell the government that there is an underbelly to metropolitan Toronto as well. There happens to be double digit unemployment in the city of Toronto, including in my own riding.
There are a record number of plants closing in the city of Toronto. There are a record number of plants moving south and a record number of people unemployed for the first time in their lives, embarrassed to be unemployed and embarrassed to go to their members of Parliament to fill out a UIC claim. They are embarrassed because they feel their dignity is under attack.
There are a record number of people going from full-time jobs to part-time jobs. There are a record number of students graduating from our universities and
September 25, 1991

college fraternities who cannot find their niche in society.
There are a record number of people lining up at our food banks. The numbers are greater than during the Great Depression which this country knew some years back. There are a great number of people in the city of Toronto with children who go hungry.
This government needs to listen. This government needs to open its eyes and recognize that Canadians are hurting. Yes, Canadians want, expect and deserve good, solid economic management. However, Canadians also recognize that in time of legitimate need there has been a history and tradition in this country which is part of the Canadian social contract that they contributed during the good times and there will be some allowance, some assistance, some social safety net for the rainy days, the troubling days.
A bill like Bill C-32 would remove in large measure the ability of provincial governments like the one in Ontario where the recession has been the worst, where the manufacturing base has been hit the worst, where most of the plant closings have been. This bill will begin to undermine the underpinnings which have kept that safety net there for Canadians who have to endure the tough times.
This government simply cannot ignore its economic policies, its dollar policy, fiscal policy, its interest rate or its lack of an economic plan to put Canadians back to work. It cannot ignore that fact while also at the same time begin to remove itself from any social obligations as a response to that economic malaise.
It cannot do both at the same time and expect Canadians to be confident, to survive and to have any sense of dignity about living in a country that has been the pride and envy of countries around the globe.
We cannot have both at the same time. If we try to do those things at the same time-that is, ignore the economic needs and remove the social underpinnings- we are going to create a situation where many Canadians across the country will be able to make their ends meet.
How many of us as members of Parliament meet Canadians in our constituency offices on Saturday mornings and see people in desperate situations? They are working middle class Canadians who are finding it more
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difficult to stay working middle class. They come to us and say: "How do I make things work? I have children who go to school to feed and clothe". Both parents are working. The mortgage on their house is unpaid yet. Property taxes continue to go up. GST is a reality. Increased taxes from all levels. Then, when you really, legitimately need some help through no fault of your own and you do not control the economic lifeblood of your community, there is going to be even less for you when you go looking for the types of programs that have been a pillar since 1966, since Mr. Pearson introduced the Canada Assistance Plan.
Now that we have a constitutional proposal, let the government think of the role of the national government, of national standards, of trying to give dignity and a sense of decent lifestyle to Canadians from coast to coast. If it is serious about a true national role, then it cannot be serious about moving Bill C-32 through the House at this stage.
Even in the worst case scenario there may be an argument when economic times are good. However, the experiences of real Canadians and real communities across the country are far different. In fact, we probably cannot legislate based on good and bad times anyway because we are going to know both in this country.
What Canadians want to know and be reassured of is that while we are going to have economic roller coasters, that there is a base, a foundation, a contract, a consistency, a stability of some minimum in this country that should not be constantly attacked. We have seen moves by this government since 1984 in the social arenas, whether it was the pensioners one year or the Canada Assistance Plan this year. We have seen moves to begin to unravel programs that we fought for and that political blood has been expended on. We cannot begin to unravel and undo in short order what it has taken this country generations to build.
I believe in this time of cynicism, when Canadians are lacking confidence in their institutions and in their members of Parliament, part of that is a feeling that we are losing too much too quickly as citizens and as a country, whether it is defined through sovereignty, whether it is defined through our close relationships to the Americans to the free trade, whether it is open skies, and even domestically, when one begins to lose the

September 25, 1991
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things that have been of value and have given definition and sense of purpose to the term "Canadianism".
We on this side of the House are urging government members to reconsider Bill C-32, to understand the hurt out there and to begin to feel and share the hurt. If they feel it and begin to share it, they will not move on Bill C-32, because to feel it and share it would be to have a sense of compassion and a sense of duty.


Mr. David Kilgour (Edmonton Southeast):: Madam Speaker, I too would like to speak on the bill before the House. Bill C-32, would effectively cap the CAP for the three so-called wealthy provinces: Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia.
You may, Madam Speaker, being from a province which is not subject to this bill, say: "Well, that is fine. You are wealthy people in Alberta. You have no poor people there". I doubt that you would say that, but some people might think that. Therefore, one makes a sacrifice to try to balance the budget.
In starting, I would point out that on the weekend the Department of External Affairs has allegedly spent $140 million on a communications system that does not work.
You will have noticed, Madam Speaker, that last year the federal government spent $500 million on sending its public servants-one of whom I used to be-around the country. The government is spending about $160 billion a year now on some things which I think to most Canadians are simply beyond our means to afford.
I will spend time on this, although I realize I only have a few moments. I would like to talk a little bit about poverty in Alberta since a lot of people think it does not exist. There is a lot of poverty in Alberta. There is a lot of poverty in single families in my own constituency, and I have met a lot of them, invariably women because, as you know, divorce or separation, is instant povertization for women. In fact, one single parent told me recently that by her estimates, the husband's income actually goes up substantially when they separate, the wife's goes down enormously.
There is a great deal of poverty in Alberta and unfortunately it has been growing rapidly. There are 49,000 households in Alberta living below the poverty line. There is the working poor, which you know about as well. Children in Alberta are now marginally worse off than those of the average Canadian. I wonder how many
people outside of British Columbia and Alberta know that. It is actually higher for Alberta than it is nationally.
There are all kinds of indications which I think are irrefutable that poverty and the working poor children in Alberta are not living in the lap of luxury at all. What this bill does, as I am sure you know very well by now, Madam Speaker, is it is going to make it harder for us to provide assistance. It is going to make it harder for us to provide education. It is going to make it harder for the people in Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario to provide things which probably are part of the glue that holds Canada together.
If this government removes enough of the glue that holds us together, I fear enormously for the future of my country. You may say that they are only doing it to these three provinces. What are we going to do next year when they do it to Manitoba, or to Saskatchewan where the farm price is probably unprecedented in this century, including the Depression years. If they can do it to three provinces, they can do it to any province.
I would ask members of this House to urge the government to withdraw the bill, not to go ahead with it given the present economic situation, because it will weaken the ability of three provinces in this country with thousands and thousands of poor families, families who need educational assistance, families who need hospital assistance, to provide those services.
According to the government's estimates, the three affected provinces will lose $2.13 billion in federal transfers over the five-year period through to 1995-96. Provincial estimates are significantly higher.
Under CAP, as you know, Madam Speaker, the federal and provincial governments share equally in the costs of basic necessities such as food, shelter, clothing, utilities and household supplies to persons who so qualify. Services are provided for poor people and lower income people through CAP and include such things as dental care, essential living services for disabled persons, foster homes for abused children, safe housing for abused women, subsidized child care for low income families.
The cap on CAP, as it has been termed, has been extended by the Conservative government and, of course, as we know the court has now recently ruled that it can do that. As a result of that ruling, the government will seek repayment of CAP funds transferred to the three provinces, including $40 million to British Colum-
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bia, $400 million to Ontario, and I am afraid I do not know how much for Alberta.
This party, I am proud to say, has consistently opposed the cap on CAP. We do not support the Conservative government's measures to transfer the burden of the national debt and federal deficit reductions on to the backs of poor Canadians, in this case the three provinces at issue.
I am delighted that so many speakers on this side of the House have got up to oppose this bill. I assume, Madam Speaker, you are going to hear shortly from a colleague from Sudbury who will do the same. I think it is a very sad day, as an Albertan and a western Canadian, when a government is going to bring in a measure that will do significant harm to our fellow citizens in the three provinces which have difficulty getting by at the end of the month.
I would put it to you, Madam Speaker, that the bill makes a mockery of the 1984 election pledge of the now Prime Minister that social programs are "a sacred trust". It also digs the grave for universality. I believe it could well turn out to be part of the-perhaps tombstone is too strong a word-end of medicare as some health experts argue. Anti-poverty groups have said that the poor will be left defenceless. The Native Council of Canada has called this bill and its earlier predecessor C-69 "a national disaster for people already living in Third World conditions."
The bill is unacceptable to my party and, I believe, it is unacceptable to the vast majority of Canadians and certainly the vast majority of people living in the three affected provinces.


Diane Marleau: Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-32, which is a bill to extend the cap on CAP. CAP, in essence, is the Canada Assistance Program which is the bill that provides or matches moneys to provinces for a number of welfare and social programs which affect, by and large, seniors, children, women and those people who are unfortunate enough to no longer have a job, to no longer collect unemployment insurance and are really in desperate need of welfare. Of course, we do have a law that states that if a person
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qualifies in the municipalities, they must pay them the money.
As you know, this creates a tremendous burden on municipalities and so the property taxes end up being increased. In my community and in many communities in Ontario, already the property tax base is very high. People have been taxed to death and it continues to happen.
I must say something. It seems very strange to me to be standing here in this House, in essence speaking for the people of Ontario, defending the people of Ontario and speaking for the NDP government in Ontario, saying that we all know it has a huge deficit and this will certainly increase its deficit, but I wonder, over the last little while, why I have not heard any of my colleagues from the NDP rise and deliver any kind of speech on this subject. It seems rather passing strange to me that I, as a Liberal, am here defending the position of Bob Rae's NDP government in Ontario when I know that he has many colleagues here who do not seem to be standing up to speak on this subject.
Nevertheless, I feel very strongly about the issue. I feel that someone has to stand up and speak for those who have a veiy difficult time defending themselves in our social system.
I do agree with deficit reduction and with controlling the amounts of moneys that are spent. I find that very commendable, but I often wonder how a government can, on the one hand, say we are going to control the deficit and we are going to control it on the backs of those who have nothing, and then turn around and have money for many of the projects that please them and their friends. We have any amounts of moneys for computer programs and computer systems. We had one just the other day that we heard about in External Affairs. It was scheduled to cost $28 million and it is costing $148 million. There was money for that. There will be money, I am sure, for many other projects which happen to appeal to the Conservative government's friends.
It surprises me that suddenly there is no money to match for those provinces that are seemingly the richer provinces, although I would beg to differ now after what has been happening in Ontario with the massive longterm loss of jobs in the industrial sector.

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This is not like the last recession in the 1980s. If you can recall in the early 1980s, we did have a very terrible recession in the country. It was very much a world-wide recession.
In the early 1980s, the jobs were put on hold. They did not disappear forever. These jobs are gone now. It seems to me that we have to give some consideration to the burden that will fall on the provinces and on the municipalities because obviously the provincial government has no room in its budget to take up the slack of what this government is not going to give them. It has already overspent in many areas, so it is going to pass it on to municipalities and municipal taxpayers.
I was once an alderman and a regional councillor, and I can recall how terrible it was for us to keep raising taxes. The people of Sudbury pay just about the highest municipal taxes in the province of Ontario, and yet already the budget for welfare has surpassed anything that they predicted. Obviously, that money will have to come from somewhere.
It is not just the welfare rolls. It is the other areas, the seniors and the homes for seniors. Every day we read of some of these homes which are inadequately funded. I was reading just the other day of one home-I am not sure where it is-where the staff actually had to go out and do the laundry because there had been no laundry delivered. There was no money to make sure that they had clean linen.
Have we forgotten that we do have a duty to our seniors, to make sure that they are well cared for? We must not forget that we owe them a debt. They did many things for us, and now it is our turn to do for them.
We must also not forget those who will follow after us, that is, our children. You all know, of course, of the desperate need of many of our children. Many of our children live below the poverty line. They live in homes where the income is very low. They live in homes where there is only one parent. That parent may not have a job. That parent may be living on social assistance.
What happens to these children? What kind of hope can we give them? I am convinced that somewhere, somehow we have to start co-operating with all levels of government. It is not fair for one government to decree to another one. Somehow there has to be a mechanism put into place so that every level of government can sit down and say: "Listen, we have these problems. We do have the problem of the deficit and the debt. Yes, we acknowledge that."
We also have a problem with people who are unemployed and with people who are on social assistance. We have children. We have the middle income, ordinary taxpayer who is absolutely pushed to the limit. In any of the subdivisions where people have kept their homes to see their property tax base continually increase year after year, is there any wonder why there is a revolt?
Do we forget that it does not matter which pocket the dollar comes from, be it the right pocket or the left pocket? It is all from the same person.
I think there should be some way that we could sit down together. Let us not pass this bill, Bill C-32. Let us come back with some kind of project where all levels of government will work together to help all sectors. Perhaps we could come up with some answers.
I know it is not easy, but there are no easy answers. Obviously, this is not the answer that it should be. It is certainly not an easy answer.
I plead with the members on the other side of the House. I know there are many of them who are compassionate. They do not all believe that they should hurt people. I plead with them to please all sit together, work together and try to resolve some of these problems.
Slashing, cutting or decreeing do not help. They really do not help.
I on the other hand would be very happy to sit down with these people and say: "Yes, let us all tighten our belts, but let us not forget those who need our help also". There are many instances where we can ourselves cut back on our spending and help those who cannot help themselves.
I think it is horrendous that now in the 1980s it seems that wherever we go there are food lines and people who are hungry. It is national disaster in a country with the numbers of resources and with the standard of living that we have that we should have that kind of a disaster befall us.
I understand that it is not always easy to address these issues, but it is certainly a very worth-while one. I have to ask again whether our friends to the left will be prepared to stand up and defend the province of Ontario. In my riding, we have three provincial NDP members. I wonder what they think of this. I wonder if the people from their party here in the national capital are willing to stand up and speak to this point. I have not heard any of them. I gather perhaps a few have spoken to the issue.
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Have they just walked away from the fate of our poor Canadians? I do not know.
I can understand the people from the Conservative Party not wanting to rise because they are ashamed. I would be ashamed too if I was doing that to those who have less than I have. I can sympathize. I would be ashamed also.


An hon. member:: I am not ashamed.


Diane Marleau: The member across the way tells me he is not ashamed. I think he is an exception. Otherwise, why are they not standing up and defending their position and saying why they are going to do this to all of these poor people.
I want to thank you, Madam Speaker, for your patience, and I want to ask that you do everything in your power to convince this government to be fair and honourable with regard to our poorest.


Mr. Bob Wood (Nipissing):: Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to be able to rise and speak on debate on Bill C-32, an act to amend the Canada Assistance Plan. The Canada Assistance Plan is a program created back in 1966 to permit the federal government to enter into cost sharing agreements with provincial governments for the provision of social assistance and also social welfare services for Canadians in need.
What does this bill do? It reaffirms, I believe, the agenda this government has been pursuing for seven years now, which is to attack the fundamental social safety that this country had established over decades and at the same time to pursue financial debt and deficit reduction in a clearly unbalanced way which ignores the tremendous social debt and deficits we all face in this country. Good government requires a balanced pursuit of both economic opportunity and social justice.
The bill introduced under the name of the Minister of Finance implements a measure announced in the 1991 budget and will drain-and the federal government admits this-more than $2.2 billion in federal transfers to affected provinces over five years through 1995 and 1996.
The provinces, for their part-and we are talking about Ontario, Alberta and B.C.-expect the actual lost
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dollars to be much higher. Regardless of the final figures the same people do suffer. The provinces affected by these restraint measures are home to about half of the poor families in Canada, and 54 per cent of all welfare recipients under CAP live in these provinces.
The result is that the majority of the most vulnerable people living in this country are very hard hit by this measure. Of course the impact of this bill must be added to a similar measure passed as part of the 1990 budget which cut the growth of the same CAP transfers through 1991 and 1992.
What is the federal government targeting for cuts with this measure? It is kind of a fly-by-night operation. Under the Canada Assistance Plan the federal and provincial governments share equally in the cost of basic necessities such as food, shelter, clothing, utilities and household supplies needed by those most needy in our society.
Only a Conservative could question these vital programs as luxuries or frivolous spending. That is the conclusion from Bill C-32. Under CAP, services are provided for children who are in care and are in need of protection due to abuse or neglect, mentally and physically disabled persons, also one parent families, the aged, the unemployed, families or individuals in crisis, low income workers, and battered women.
Do these sound like people with the luxury of tightening their belts as the Minister of Finance keeps telling us? CAP services include dental care, essential living services for disabled persons, foster homes for abused children, safe housing for abused women, and subsidized child care for low income families. Many Canadians agree with financial responsibility in government, but do these sound like programs where federal dollars are being squandered or wasted? Hardly, and I would expect most Canadians do agree.
The restraints in Bill C-32 are bad enough in their own right, but they also confirm once again to the whole country this government's approach of attacking the most vulnerable in our society. It reminds everyone that for those at the bottom of the income ladder Tory times

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are indeed tough times. It tells those who today must look to government for a hand to get in line behind the government's crusade against the deficit. It also says, once again, that this government will pursue the deficit problem alone above all others.
As Canada enters the 1990s there are compelling reasons to fear for the survival of the nation's social safety net, and it is because of this government. Since 1984 the Conservative government has pursued a legislative and fiscal agenda that demonstrates an abrupt departure from traditional values and priorities in this country.
One example is the erosion of universality of children's benefits and senior citizens in the legislation to tax back family allowances and old age pensions. It is true, as one observer put it, that under the Conservatives the responsibility of social policy has seemingly shifted focus from the Department of National Health and Welfare to the Department of Finance, hardly the social conscience of the federal government.
We are only now discovering what it means to have left the economists and tax lawyers at Finance in charge of social policies.
This government's record in a relatively short seven years stands as a clear rejection of Canada's proud record in advancing the cause of social justice and of enhancing our social safety net as a symbol of caring society.
In looking back, 1940 brought the Unemployment Insurance Act; 1945, the universal family allowance; 1944, the National Housing Act; and 1941, Central Mortgage and Housing. These were all measures which took steps to decrease the gap between rich and poor in this country.
The 1950s extended social safety in this country. Income security provisions for the elderly and for the disabled were substantially revised. In 1956 legislation was passed to furnish 50 per cent of provincial social assistance payments and share in the cost of provincial hospital insurance programs.
The 1960s brought the Canada Pension Plan, the old age security guaranteed income supplement and the Canada Assistance Plan. Through the 1970s these programs delivered to Canadians the kind of society they wanted and they believed in. The early 1980s continued this trend with the Canadian Health Act reaffirming universal medical coverage and an end to provincial extra billing.
This was a record of the past that Canadians had spoken in favour of through past governments. And what
was the goal through all these developments? They enabled the country to bring together its collective resources to enhance the development of the individual man, woman, and child and the individual's opportunity to succeed in life through education, health, and home.
Who would argue today that those were not good steps for Canada and every Canadian? Yet this government appears to believe its greatest achievement has been in reversing this proud record, and often in sneaky, backhanded sorts of way, never through the front door and never as a policy choice put before the Canadian people in an election.
This government has seen fit since 1984 to attack Canada's achievement as a country, that of a balanced agenda between economic opportunity and social justice, an attack that continues with Bill C-32.
Canadians will all remember the regressive steps under this government. There were cuts to medicare and post-secondary education through the EPF restraint, the clawback of old age pensions and family allowance benefits, the removal of the interest income deductions from the income tax forms, a measure which so helps seniors. Also there were cuts to unemployment insurance programs that have affected every part of the country. Special fees on student loans make the burden of education even bigger. Deindexation of the child tax credits, abandonment of child care, not once but three times, cuts to housing programs, and the list goes on.
Bill C-32 is yet another in the long list of regressive steps this government has taken over the years in reducing social expenditures in the name of fiscal restraint and deficit reduction. But this bill is also a very important symbol of this government's short-sighted approach, an approach of ignoring many of the real social needs facing this country while blindly focusing on the deficit.
As ministers opposite were whisked off to work this morning in their fancy limousines, hundreds of thousands of Canadians got out of bed but no longer had jobs to go to. This government appears oblivious to the plight of the beggar on the street. It is oblivious to the families slipping below the poverty line. It has little feeling for the family that cannot adequately feed and clothe itself. It is demonstrating all of this in Bill C-32 because its aim is to limit the benefits to those in this country who need
September 25, 1991

help the most. Those hon. members know that that is true.
Deficit reduction is a top priority of this government. The Prime Minister says it, the last Minister of Finance said it, and the new Minister of Finance says it. What the government has not learned is that deficit reduction is not a social policy. You cannot substitute good, sound forward looking social policy for a policy of deficit reduction. Good government always requires a much more balanced approach.
The government has failed to learn that it has to consider, along with the country's economic and financial deficits, the tremendous social debt and deficits that we also face. One cannot ignore one in favour of the other, as this government has done. One cannot abandon ones social targets and social policy goals in order to accommodate some sort of blind, narrow-minded view that the deficit should be our strait-jacket. This government has made the mistake of not forging a balanced approach.
Deficit reduction alone is not going to answer many of the real needs that are facing this country: job training, education, research and development. Deficit reduction is not a policy that improves the skills of one member of our work force, nor does deficit reduction feed people waiting in line at various food banks. For these challenges you need other policies, strong social policies on things like child care, income balance with economic policies. If we are going to build a caring and compassionate Canada we need all of those.
Canadians might again be able to look to their national government as a true reflection of values that we share as a people, a more equitable society. More economic as well as social concerns are all part of our national agenda.


Mr. Alfonso Gagliano (Saint-Leonard):: Madam Speaker, I welcome the opportunity today to speak to Bill C-32, an Act to amend the Canada Assistance Plan. The purpose of Bill C-32 is to amend legislation that caps amounts paid by the federal government under the Canada Assistance Plan to provinces that do not receive equalization payments.
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The government has set a ceiling of 5 per cent on transfers to these provinces for 1990-91 and 1991-92. Today, Bill C-32 will maintain the 5 per cent ceiling until 1994-95. These provinces, Madam Speaker, are Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario.
In his speech on September 23, the Minister of State (Finance and Privatization) argued that this bill was important as part of the government's restraint program. According to the minister, spending restraint was necessary to put the country's fiscal house in order. However, we must not forget it was this government's poor economic policies that were responsible for the first made-in-Canada recession.
Although the government keeps saying the recession is over, there are daily indications that the opposite is true. Today, 600 jobs were lost in the riding of Sudbury, the riding of my hon. friend right next to me. So even if the minister says the recession is over, it is not, Madam Speaker. It is still a fact of our daily lives.
My point is that this recession, whose effects we experience daily, has heightened the need for the kind of services provided under the Canada Assistance Program. As you know, Madam Speaker, contributions to the plan help meet Canadians' most fundamental needs, including food and shelter as well as various forms of social assistance. In fact, the Minister of State for Finance said as much in his speech last Monday.
That is why I wonder how the minister can justify extending these ceilings when Canadians need this kind of support more than ever before. Canadians have been hard hit by the GST, by lay-offs and by the recession created by this government, and now that same government has decided to cap assistance to Canadians in three provinces. That's Tory logic for you!
The Minister of State continued his statement by saying that Bill C-32 is based on the same economic doctrine that the government has pursued since 1984. That worries me a lot, Madam Speaker. I remember that in 1984, the Prime Minister based his whole election campaign on the creation of jobs, jobs, jobs. Seven years later-and it must be pointed out, Madam Speaker, that throughout those seven years, we experienced economic growth as never before in Canada. Nevertheless, after

September 25, 1991
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seven years and the tremendous economic growth of 1984, 1985, 1986 and 1987, we find ourselves with the same unemployment rate as in 1984 when the Prime Minister wanted to create jobs and more jobs, as he promised all Canadians-he would create jobs and give them prosperity.
But here we are in a recession made in Canada by this same government and payments to the provinces are being cut. Madam Speaker, during the summer, like many members, I used the break from Parliament to go door to door and visit my constituents. In my riding of Saint-Leonard, because the federal government had cut transfer payments to the provinces, the provinces cut transfer payments to the municipalities and the municipality of Saint-Leonard had to impose a garbage tax on all citizens, be they owners, tenants or business people. The people of Saint-Leonard got the bill just as I was going door to door. I can tell you that they were not happy; they were desperate. They told me, "Look, this has got to stop. Always taxes and more taxes."
When I tried to explain the situation to them, I understood one thing, Madam Speaker: It is all very well, and it would have been easy, to say to my constituent, "This is not my field. I am a federal representative and this is a municipal matter. Go and see your city councillors." But they knew very well where it was coming from. They said, "This started at the federal level. You cut at the federal level, the province cut funds to the municipalities, but it is always the same taxpayers who pay." On one hand, we increase taxes and on the other, we cut services. Therefore the citizens are desperate, Madam Speaker, and of course this cannot continue. They have really had enough.
Since we returned, Madam Speaker, we have had all sorts of debates on Montreal. There are 10,000 more unemployed in Montreal since 1986. Every day, something closes. How will we get out of this? If we cut public assistance at the same time that people need it more than ever, it definitely cannot help the situation. Things will get worse and that is why crime is rising and we have all the troubles we do today in our society. It is because the economic situation is so terrible, the burden is so heavy that the people are really desperate.
Madam Speaker, I know that my time is running out-we are in a ten-minute period-but before concluding, I would not want to forget to thank my colleague, the hon. member for Mount Royal, who led this debate for us in the Official Opposition. I would like to congratulate her on the outstanding work she has done in the past few days.
And I hope that when the time comes to vote, government members will think of the poor, the sick and the homeless in their ridings who need these programs that support public assistance.
Madam Speaker, a fair and adequate social policy cannot be replaced with only deficit cutting. I agree that a more balanced solution must be found for the country's economic and social problems. The Canada Assistance Plan is the cornerstone of our social security regime. It is a last resort for many Canadians, whatever province they live in, because the problems are the same everywhere, Madam Speaker. All this bill accomplishes is the destruction of social security measures. That is the Conservatives' real agenda.

I would like to cite an article from the Winnipeg Sun in the month of August. The title says it very clearly: "Feds will make poverty worse. The poor will always be with us, but thanks to the Mulroney Tories, there will be more of them and they will be worse off". We cannot say more clearly what the situation is. That is where we are collectively as a people today. The government is leading the attack on the poor, and we hear Canadians say that they have no more.
I remember a young woman who came to see me in my office in the month of August. She said: "Well, Mr. Gagliano, it is nice for you to say that we should be proud of our countiy, should be proud of our Canada. How can I be proud of my country when it has been two years since I finished school and I cannot find a job? It is easy for you, you have a job, but I do not have a job".
Those are feelings we get from our constituents when we go back to our ridings. This is first day of the debate on national unity. In a room not far away from this House members of Parliament and senators are meeting to start the unity debate. I hope they will remember that if we want to keep this countiy together we need economic prosperity. We need economic and social policies that can keep Canadians hoping there will be better days; so that our young people can go to school
September 25, 1991

knowing that after they graduate they can get a job; so that our seniors and our poor people, whenever they are in need, can have a roof over their heads, can have food on the table to eat and adequate health care services to take care of them.


Christine Susan Stewart: Madam Speaker, it distresses me very much to have to debate this particular bill, Bill C-32 today. It makes me so angry that this government which had called this country's social programs a sacred trust has brought forward Bill C-32 to the House, asking for our approval to its cap on CAP, the Canada Assistance Plan.
It says to me that this government is terribly out of touch with the people of this country. If there is one thing that we as politicians hear across this country day after day after day, it is that we are out of touch. I like to think that I am not out of touch with the people in my riding. I cannot understand how a government can be so insensitive and morally bankrupt to bring in such a bill as this legislation today.
The other day the minister, in presenting this bill to the House, said that he was putting the cap on CAP in order to get our debt under control. He said the cut funding would be used to support programs Canadians want. What Canadians? If this government had sat down and had told the people of Canada of its vision and ideas for the future of this country and talked about the different options, I do not believe there is one Canadian who would be willing to see individual Canadians suffer as they are today in this country through poverty and lack of assistance.
This bill proposes to continue the cutback of funding to the provinces of British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario, supposedly the three richest provinces in this country. Yet we have heard week after week and month after month how Ontario, my province, is suffering day after day with more industries closing, more bankruptcies and more and more people unemployed.
It has affected the citizens of my riding of Northumberland most severely. If members of the government have not heard in their own ridings how it impacts on
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people individually, I would like to say a few words about how it is impacting on the people in my riding.
The government's lack of vision and support of a healthy economy in this country through various fiscal and monetary policies that are inappropriate has caused the constant growth of the unemployment rate in Northumberland.
In 1988 in my riding of Northumberland, unemployment rates did not rise above 5.9 per cent. In August 1989, the rate was 3.7 per cent. In 1990, the rate rose in August to 7.9 per cent. This year in August, the rate was 10 per cent, but what is more significant is that this represented a decline from earlier rates this year which were above 16 per cent.
My riding is suffering terribly. People are not even on the unemployment rolls any more because there are not jobs for them to go to after their unemployment insurance is exhausted. They are going on to the welfare rolls, the very programs that this Canada Assistance Program was put in place to assist.
The number of people who are receiving welfare in my riding has increased dramatically, a change from August 1989 when the offices providing social assistance had only about 200 cases, to August of this year when the number of cases approached 900.
Statistically, the curve for social assistance decreases in August in my riding, but this year the curve from January forward has shown a steady incline. There is great concern that we have not seen the end of this curve rising this year as more and more of the people who are presently on unemployment insurance are required to seek social assistance as their only way to survive.
The people who receive social assistance are also having to line up with their families at food banks and be cared for by volunteers in different programs across my riding of Northumberland.
The cap on CAP not only has a very direct impact on those who are poorest in our society, those who are most deserving and needy of the type of assistance provided by this program, but it also impacts upon those professional people who are working in agencies trying to provide services that are covered with funding from the CAP program.

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In addition to those professionals, it also affects the volunteers who are working many hours, compassionately trying to provide necessary services for those most in need in my riding.
At this time of year in communities across the riding of Northumberland, United Appeal programs are taking place. Those programs are not successful without the contributions of many volunteers. In the past, the government provided assistance to the programs that those volunteers are involved with was a spur. It helped our volunteers to go forward and to provide the many hours of work to the benefit of the poorest in our area. The same thing is true for communities across this country.
The cap on CAP affects several programs, and they have been outlined by other speakers before me. Just to recapitulate, the CAP program provides social assistance from persons in need including single parents. Single parents with children are judged in our society to be the very poorest of the poor in our communities. Social assistance helps to provide for our aged, for our disabled, for our unemployed as I have indicated, and those unsung heros, those people who are low income working people with children who just are not able to survive on minimum wages. The CAP provides care in homes for aged people. It provides child care facilities and it provides transition homes for battered women.
The decline in our economy has had a dramatic impact on children in my riding of Northumberland. In 1991, the number of child care cases rose by 88.4 per cent from the 1984 level; from 509 cases to 959. In the same period, the child abuse cases rose by 279 per cent.
If you talk to the police forces in my communities they will tell you that no, unlike in the cities where drug abuse and drug related crimes are on the rise, it is not such a large problem in my community, but the calls that are surging up in number and that cause the most difficulty are cases of family violence. They attribute, very directly, the increase in the cases of family violence to the difficulty that families are having with their personal economies, families that suddenly find themselves unemployed, unable to cope with the economic obligations they have, not just to themselves personally, but to their families as well.
It is recognized that of those Canadian citizens receiving social assistance or welfare in this country, 40 per cent of them are children. The cap on CAP will have a direct impact on the suffering of children in this country.
Our Prime Minister went to New York last year in September for a summit for children which tried to urge all countries around the world to ratify a convention for the rights of the child. Children have the right to live well. By well I mean they have the right to food, housing and clothing, the basic needs. The cap on CAP, this bill, will prevent many children from having those very basic rights which are theirs.
I cannot say more about how distressed I am that day after day I go home to my riding and hear of more individual cases of families whose plans have changed because of a declining economy. That our government feels that cutting back on our debt problem on the backs of the poor is the way to resolve problems, to my mind, is very faulty thinking. In fact, we create a snowball effect where the costs of poverty will only increase by allowing more people to lapse into even more severe poverty.
There is no way that I can support this Bill C-32. [Translation]


Madam Deputy Speaker:: The hon. member for Megantic-Compton-Stanstead on a question of privilege.


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Mr. Francois Gerin (Megantic-Compton-Stanstead):: As I walked down the halls of Parliament this afternoon, Madam Speaker, I noticed that the Joint Committee on the Constitution which was established pursuant to the order of reference made by House on June 19, 1991, was sitting. Upon checking the official parliamentary returns I found that the membership has yet to be appointed. Having made all the necessary arragements to represent the Bloc Quebecois on this Joint Committee, I was surprised that the committee be allowed to convene before its members have been appointed and their names published in the Debates of
September 25, 1991

this House, so that I could see if I can sit on the committee or if I have been excluded from it.
I raised the issue with the committee, but I was told that the membership list had been left with the table officers after the House adjourned last night, claiming that the House was not sitting at that time.
The order of reference just can't be read that way, because if you take the trouble of mentioning in the order of reference that the list of members can be tabled when the House is not sitting, that also means that it can be presented when it does and only during the hours the House is sitting for publication the next day. Otherwise, the order would just state: the clerk of the committee can file the list with the table officers at any time. It would not mention specifically what to do "if the House is not sitting at the time".
Therefore, I consider that from the moment that the House has been sitting be it only one hour on a given day, the government or the person responsible for the tabling of the list should have tabled it while the House was sitting. The government cannot surreptitiously file a document with the Clerk during silent hours and think that it will be good enough. I repeat, it would not make any sense if that were the case. Otherwise, the government is going to start filing all kinds of documents and wait until we have adjourned for the day at 8 p.m. to table them and expect that is going to be just fine.
That being said, as regards the way my privileges as a member of Parliament were breached, I cannot tell from reading the Votes and Proceedings of the House of Commons whether I have been appointed or excluded as a member of the Bloc Quebecois.
My second point is this. On the list tabled yesterday the names of 32 members of Parliament appear, while according to the order of reference there were to be 30 members. The Table can certainly make this list available to you, Madam Speaker.
We can see that the four last names at the bottom of the list, all from the New Democratic Party, are asterisked. The inference seems to be that it will be up to the whip of that party to decide who will be a replacement one day and an ordinary member the next and vice-versa and so on. I understand that it may be difficult for the NDP to designate members, but the problem is that members like that are bound to cost us a lot in travel expenses, such as hotel rooms outside of Ottawa, in Ottawa and across the country, and much more just
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because they have joined the committee as I do not know what.
So, for these two reasons, Madam Speaker, I maintain that the committee which is officially sitting today and hearing as we speak the minister responsible for Constitutional Affairs, is sitting illegally. This committee made various decisions this afternoon. As a member of Parliament, I could not move or second anything, I could not call for a vote, I could do absolutely nothing, while I, as a member of this House, had at least as much right as anyone else to be there and take such action. So this committee, which among other things has decided to broadcast its proceedings and incur substantial expenses, is now sitting illegally.
That is why I speak to you this afternoon on one hour's notice, instead of doing so at three o'clock, the time usually reserved for questions of privilege. I ask you, Madam Speaker, given the illegal situation in which the joint committee is operating-and I would point out that I am surprised that I, an elected representative who has won an election, am refused the right to participate, but unelected senators are appointed. But that is another problem that we can talk about later, Madam Speaker.
So there are now 30 or 32 people, we do not know the exact number, sitting and pretending to act as a committee of this House, but doing so illegally, incurring expenses and sowing confusion everywhere among all Canadians and Quebecers.
Madam Speaker, I ask you to rule immediately on these two questions.


Mr. Iain Angus (Thunder Bay-Atikokan):: Madam Speaker, I would like to help clear things up in order to assist you in the consideration of a very important matter, and an important claim by the hon. member. I want to indicate very clearly that when what used to be called the striking committee, the subcommittee to House management, finally reached an agreement on the manner in which to implement the agreement reached between the Minister responsible for Constitutional Affairs and my leader, the member for Yukon, it was very late in the day yesterday.
Regretfully, that subcommittee had not been called together during the summer to come up with the membership of the committee. In fact, the first formal call from the clerk of the committee to get us together was not until I believe Monday morning, and we worked through a number of days. It was not until late yesterday that we actually had the wording to agree to. By the time the signatures of the three Whips were obtained to

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Privilege
approve it as a decision of that subcommittee and it was transmitted through the vice-chair of the committee to the clerks, it was after the hour of adjournment.
Notice had to be given for an organizational meeting at three o'clock this afternoon, so due notice was necessary. It would have been very difficult for it to be done during Orders of the Day at three o'clock today when we had a room full of members, senators, media and interested public in the Railway Committee Room wanting to begin the process.
We believe we followed the motion adopted in this House on June 18, 1991 which says very clearly: "If the House is not sitting at the time of such Standing Committee on House Management Report, such report shall be deemed concurred in upon its being filed with the Clerk of the House of Commons".
The second point I wish to raise concerns the size of the committee. The motion does require 20 members of the House of Commons to be appointed. A list of 18 members' names is placed on the record. In addition, member no. 19 and member no. 20 are shown with asterisks with the provision that as Whip of my caucus I can rotate any two of four listed members into those two positions. The motion adopted in the House on June 18 gives the Whips of all three caucuses-the government caucus, the Official Opposition caucus and the New Democratic Party caucus-the power to substitute members of that committee. What we have done is not inconsistent with that decision.
Madam Speaker, I would ask that you give serious consideration to this matter, review with your clerks the procedure that was used and report back accordingly.


Alfonso Gagliano: Madam Speaker, as the Official Opposition Whip, I would like to say, as the hon. member for the New Democratic Party said earlier, that we have been trying since Monday to decide on the membership of this committee, in accordance with the Standing Orders. Unfortunately, due to questions of interpretation and negotiations that took place between the Minister responsible for Constitutional Affairs and the Leader of the New Democratic Party, it was not until late last night that we were able to reach
an agreement and thus enable the committee to sit today.
We feel it is very important for the committee to start sitting immediately, and we believe we acted in accordance with the Order adopted on June 18 in this House for appointing 20 members of the House of Commons and 10 members of the Senate. Yes, there are three NDP members on the committee, and the NDP whip will be entitled to substitute two other names. In the motion we filed yesterday with the Clerk of the House of Commons, it is clear there are three members belonging to the New Democratic Party and two rotations are allowed. The same courtesy or privilege was extended to the four members who may replace or substitute for the three regular members. The same proportion was granted, and applies to, the government and the Official Opposition, Madam Speaker.
So I think we acted in accordance with the Order adopted in this House in June and in accordance with the motion adopted by the Standing Committee on House Management and the same motions adopted here in the House.


Mr. Alex Kindy (Calgary Northeast):: Madam Speaker, the Order of the House provides that 20 members of the House of Commons and 10 members of the Senate would be appointed. I have the list of senators and members of the House of Commons who were appointed, and there are 22 members of this House.
The Order was for 20, not 22. I find this rather odd, because in fact, this is infringes on our privileges as members. We were not consulted. We were not told about this. I feel the Chair should intervene to clear up this matter, and I think the hon. member for Megantic- Compton-Stanstead made a very valid point in his question of privilege.


Iain Francis Angus: Madam Speaker, I apologize for intervening a second time. I just want to make it clear that the issue before us does not deal specifically with whether independent members of this House have the right or the obligation to be members of that committee. That is a separate issue, and we would certainly not object to independent members participating. In fact, according to
September 25, 1991

normal House rules, any member of the House can participate in the committee. Usually that is done after the normal round of questions, but everyone has the right to participate in the committee at any time.


Jean-Guy Hudon: Madam Speaker, I am not an expert on the way various committees are suppose to function, but I think it is quite clear that the Chair should take this under advisement and consider the matter further, because both issues seem to be fairly complex.
I do find it rather amusing that a political party should find it so difficult to decide who should be appointed. As for substitutions, as you know, all the parties will appoint substitutes. Nevertheless, I wonder why a party should have so much trouble deciding who is going to be a full-time member of the committee.
Madam Speaker, I would advise you, and I say this with a great deal of respect since you know far better than I do how to deal with these matters, to take the question under advisement and report back to the House in the near future.


Mr. David Dingwall (Cape Breton-East Richmond):: Madam Speaker, while you probably want to take this under advisement and report to the House at a later date, I bring to your attention the motion which was put forward by the Minister responsible for Constitutional Affairs on June 18, 1991. You might want to reflect on that particular motion which subscribes to the comments referred to by the chief opposition Whip.
With regard to comments made by my other colleagues concerning infringement upon their rights, I wish to read for the benefit of members, Madam Speaker, as well as you, the provisions of Standing Order 119 which read as follows:
Any Member of the House -
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That includes members who may represent different political persuasions from the three main parties in this House. They continue:
-who is not a member of a standing, special or legislative committee, may, unless the House or the committee concerned otherwise orders, take part in the public proceedings of the committee, but may not vote or move any motion, nor be part of any quorum.
Although you may not be a designated member of a particular standing, legislative or special committee, the provisions under the Standing Orders, as indicated by Standing Order 119, all members would have an opportunity to participate in the public proceedings.
There is a certain decorum, a certain approach that chairpersons of the respective committees follow. As the rules indicate very clearly, committees are the masters of their own rules and their own proceedings and can proceed in accordance with that particular directive.
I share that with you, Madam Speaker, because I think you probably might want to take this under advisement. I think you might want to reflect on the motion of June 18, as well as the provisions of Standing Order 119.


François Gérin: Of course, Madam Speaker, the second of the two points I raised, concerning the NDP in fact being represented by five members, could be dealt with right now and fairly easily if the Chief Whip of the NDP, who is in the House, told the Chair that the five names shown
on the list that I will officially file with the clerk-and
you will notice that it includes the names of the hon. Lome Nystrom, Phillip Edmonston, Lynn Hunter, Howard McCurdy and Ian Waddell.
As I was saying, if the Chief Whip would immediately tell the House that two of these five names were put down by mistake, that would solve half of the problem. The only thing left to do after that would be to check if the two members struck off the list made, seconded or voted on a motion, or made amendments to a motion this afternoon. Because one can wonder whether it was number 31 or 32 who passed the motion or voted on it, or if the same person requested that I not be entitled to vote myself. The question is: who voted to exclude me? The problem could be solved if the whip would just rise

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and tell us which of the two extra NDPs will be in a bad mood tomorrow morning?
On my first point, I would remind you, Madam Speaker, that when it says that the House is sitting, it obviously means that the House is sitting that day. Otherwise, we will not use that expression again, never. It would not make sense any more.
The point of the matter is that the interpretation of a word must make sense. Sentences must be interpreted so as to mean something. If it did not mean anything, it would not have been mentioned.
So, Madam Speaker, I table the list of members of the committee, which I got from the joint committee this afternoon and which indicates there are 32 members. It is hard to tell which ones are for real any more. Would it not be better to have a member of the Bloc Quebecois on the Committee to represent the proponents of sovereignty? We do not know any more.
I now file this document officially with the Table Officers.


Mr. Marcel Prud'homme (Saint-Denis):: Madam Speaker, of course I do not know exactly what happened in discussions between the three whips. I speak now as a parliamentarian. It isn't always easy. An agreement was reached last night. Now I am normally a very disciplined person who bows to decisions that are made to promote harmony in the House and enable committees to operate effectively. I don't argue. However, I must say I was surprised when I attended the committee session this afternoon. I am very fond of this committee. I was a member in 1972 and travelled across Canada in the process. I have chaired many parliamentary committees, so I think I am in a position to offer a few comments you may wish to consider.
I am very surprised to see that the poor clerk- We have no right to ask a clerk to choose. The clerk's position on a committee is neutral. The clerk is an officer of the House.

I will proceed from now on in English. I see that in the membership, attendance and voting lists coming from the committee's directorate.

-there are 10 senators. Then we get to the MPs. There are 18 members of the House of Commons, with no distinguisghing characteristics, and then I see four names marked with an asterisk. I know what this may mean, but I wish we were told officially what is going on.
Everyone knows that my respected Whip, who is aware of my interest in constitutional matters, knows that I am available. He knows that, and I am telling him now, in front of everybody. He may not appreciate my carrying on and on about this, but I want to say that I am available, and if Misses Ouellet, Allmand, Guarnieri and Duhamel are not available and he wants to consider me, I will be available. The Standing Orders provide that the Whip files with the clerk, and all the clerk is supposed to do is say: The Liberal Party Whip or the Conservative Party Whip or the NDP Whip asks that Mr. Mark Assad, who is also interested in the question since he has been a member of other committees, substitute for Mr. Ouellet or whomever. So the same rules for everyone. No exceptions, because in that case, next week I will ask my Whip, my House Leader, to list a series of names of Liberal members marked with an asterisk, and then we will see who is important and who is not so important.
I respected my party's decision. They selected six members. We know they cannot be available all the time, all year. So the Whip will decide who replaces whom, as appropriate, at least as far as disciplined people like me are concerned, who respect our institutions. And I want to repeat publicly that I will be available if he thinks it is appropriate, and even if he doesn't, there is no law against a member who has a keen interest in the matter to go and sit down and listen. That is what I am doing, that is what I will do, and I am sure my Whip will understand.
So we have a document that is rather unusual. Well, in concluding, I must say that as a senior member of Parliament, this is the first time in 27 years and some months that I ever saw anything like this happen. I would like to understand what is going on, but I don't want an answer immediately. Patience is one of my virtues. I would therefore urge the Chair to take this under
September 25, 1991

advisement and then report back to the House and let us know exactly what should be done.


Iain Francis Angus: Madam Speaker, I did not plan on getting up a third time, but I think it is important that the House know that prior to the commencement of the organizational meeting this afternoon, a form entitled Committee membership or substitutions or changes was delivered to the clerk of the committee. It says: "Pursuant to Standing Order 114, notification is hereby given of substitutions or changes in the membership of the Special Joint Committee on a Renewed Canada and that committee member 19 was replaced by Mr. Edmonston and committee member 20 was replaced by Ms Hunter" .
I can assure the hon. member that at no time were more than three votes cast by the New Democratic members of that committee. At no time did any of the other New Democratic members move or second motions in that committee.
Unless something happened in committee this afternoon that I am not aware of, I do not believe there was any motion put forward by anyone to request an increase in the size of the committee to provide for full membership by Independents. That decision was taken in this House back in June by a standing vote in which, incidentally, my caucus voted against the creation of this committee and its composition in terms of the numbers of members. If there were to be any change, it should have happened back in June when this House was seized with that motion.


François Gérin: I just want to ask a very simple question. Who are the three permanent members of the NDP?


Marcel Prud'homme: I want to know too. It is no joke. It is a parliamentary committee of the House of Commons. You have three members. Who are they? It is as simple as that.


Iain Francis Angus: Madam Speaker, I can say that today the members of the New Democratic Party caucus who are voting members of the special committee are Mr. Nys-trom, Ms. Hunter and Mr. Edmonston. That may be different tomorrow if the committee meets tomorrow, just as down the road different Liberal members and different Conservative members will be sitting on those committees; but today those three people I named are the voting members of the day.
Privilege


Marcel Prud'homme: I submit, very respectfully to you, Madam Speaker, that the hon. member is absolutely right in what he said. Today those three members are members of the committee. Fine. If he wants to change them tomorrow, all he has to do is do as anyone else who is a Whip and send a message to the clerk informing him that it is Mr. X who was forgotten today, who may happen to be Mr. Waddell for Mr. Edmonston, and that is the usual way. But why would the five names appear in the paper? The hon. member knows that I do not take direction from my caucus or from anybody. I am interested in a harmonious development of the rules of the House and I follow that. It is too bad if some people do not like it. It is embarrassing for me because I like to have good relationships, but this is not a harmonious way. Only three names at any one time should appear. Only six Liberal names at any one time should appear. Only ten senators at any one time should appear.
Of course, the hon. Whip is entitled to change it tomorrow or every day, but is he telling me and the House that only these five will be allowed now? What if these five members cannot attend and you want to have three? Why do you not put another asterisk? Are you going to name your entire caucus and therefore my Whip should do the same?


Madam Deputy Speaker:: The hon. member for Megantic-Compton-Stanstead gave the Chair an hour's notice and raised a question of privilege that has stimulated some most interesting debate and involved members on all sides of the House. First of all, I want to thank the hon. member for clearly and briefly presenting the points that concern him. I also want to thank the hon. member for Thunder Bay-Atikokan, the hon. member for Saint-Leonard, the hon. member for Saint-Denis and the hon. member for Beauharnois-Salaberry-
The point raised is fairly complex. The hon. member told me first that he thought that the members of this committee were not appointed according to the rules. He told me about this morning's Debates or Journals in which the list of members did not appear. He seems to want to accuse the government of tabling the list "on the sly", as he said. Furthermore, he asks me to rule quickly, now, to decide for or against someone now.

September 25, 1991
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I understand his impatience, but I also think that he would allow me time to act a little more circumspectly, to take the time to recheck with the clerks the special order of June 18 or 19, which I do not have at hand, and to find out at what time the members of the committee were named, and then determine what "when the House is sitting and when the House is not sitting" really means, a point he called into question just now.
So if he, who is a lawyer, is unable to give a single interpretation of that, he will allow me a little time to find out and report back to the House.
The second point that he raised concerns the names of the members appointed to this committee; the hon. member maintains in his first point that they were not appointed according to the rules. The representatives of the New Democratic Party are mentioned. The hon. whip of that party told us how he saw things; other members gave us their opinions. I think that the Chair and the Clerk together will have to look into these matters and perhaps discuss them again to have the opinion of the whips who took part in these appointments. I want to assure the hon. member for Megantic- Compton-Stanstead that I will come back to the House as soon as possible with answers that are as precise as possible.
Resuming debate. The hon. member for Cape Breton Highlands-Canso.


CANADA ASSISTANCE PLAN
[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Mazankowski that Bill C-32, an act to amend the Canada Assistance Plan be read the second time and referred to Legislative Committee F; and on the motion of Mr. Vincent (p. 2536).
Derek Vincent Lee: Madam Speaker, I rise today to add my voice to the cause of those on this side of the House who have taken serious issue with the government's introduction of Bill C-32, the bill laughably entitled an act to amend the Canada Assistance Plan.
I say "laughably" as one might be referring to decapitation as a head cold.
Before I begin my remarks, however, I would like to express my concern for the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre, Mr. David Walker, who is currently under the weather in his hometown of Winnipeg. I realize that it is not the custom of this House to refer to the absence of a member, but I should like to make an exception in this case. The member for Winnipeg North Centre has been a strong, thoughtful opponent of this legislation and I will be hard pressed to do him justice today. I wish him a speedy recovery.
In the absence of the aforementioned hon. member, I am pleased that so many members of our caucus have risen to speak against Bill C-32. My colleagues have been quick to point out the obvious inequities which are contained in this bill.
I note that yesterday and the day before, no fewer than 20 members of my caucus have risen to voice their concerns and their dismay with this government. I am, therefore, glad to have an opportunity to make my own comments today on behalf of my constituents in Cape Breton Highlands-Canso.
What I believe we have before us today is a classic example of the government attempting to close the barn door after the horse has escaped. It goes beyond this, however. It is far more insidious. We have a government which is trying to shift the burden of the national debt for which it is primarily responsible on to the backs of provincial and municipal governments. It is a loathsome example of buck passing, and it is the Canadians who are least able who will ultimately pay the price.
Informed members of the media have questioned the motivation for this and similar acts coming from this government. They have suggested that this is part of an over-all electoral strategy on the part of the government to project itself as fiscally responsible. It is becoming abundantly clear to more and more Canadians that fiscally responsible is the last adjective one would use to describe this government's dismal economic record.
This is the government which inherited a public debt of $167 billion in 1984 and which has managed in seven short years to balloon this debt to over $400 billion today. This is a government which took on a deficit of $16
September 25, 1991

billion per year in 1984 and which has raised that deficit to over $30 billion.
In light of this, how can the Minister of State for Finance claim as he did in this House on Monday that his government "has taken steps to reduce government spending so that we can live within our means".
What this government is trying to do is off-load the debt in the name of fiscal responsibility on to the backs of the provinces and the municipalities. In the case of Bill C-32, it has chosen to do that by cutting into some of the most critical areas of social assistance. In doing so, it has devoided itself of the tough decisions as to who will suffer as a result.
I need not remind members of this House that the Canada Assistance Plan was established under the government of the Right Hon. Lester Pearson in 1966.
It allowed the federal government to enter into cost sharing agreements with provincial governments for the provision of social assistance and welfare service to those Canadians most in need.
It is these same Canadians whom the government would today abandon so callously. Bill C-32 provides for the implementation of one of the more despicable measures of the 1991 federal budget, namely, the extension of the 5 per cent cap on the rate of growth in transfer payments under the Canada Assistance Plan from two years to five years.
The original cap in growth was introduced in the 1990 federal budget for those provinces not receiving equalization payments, namely, British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario. There can be no denying that this cap and the extension of it will severely weaken the ability of the governments of those provinces to provide federal/pro-vincial cost sharing social assistance programs. The government estimates that the cost to the province of Ontario alone will be $1 billion per annum. Over-all, this cap will cost the affected provinces some $2,135 billion at a time when the Canadian economy is attempting to pull out of the recession brought on by this government.
We all know that the province of Ontario has been devastated by this recession, and by the consequences of other misguided policies of this government, the free trade agreement, which has prompted a flood of companies to move south to the United States, and the GST, which has accelerated the practice of cross-border shop-
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ping and has affected businesses all along the Ontario- U.S. border.
We in Atlantic Canada are not immune to the consequences of a severely weakened Ontario economy because sooner or later, and generally somewhat after the worst effects of the recession in Ontario, we will experience the worst effects of the recession in Atlantic Canada. Already we are starting to feel that as our economy in eastern Nova Scotia sinks ever and ever deeper into recession.
Let us examine more closely those areas of social assistance that are most likely to be affected: subsidized housing for low income Canadians, foster homes for abused children, safe houses for abused women, essential living services for disabled Canadians.
Are these the Canadians who should be paying the burden of this government's fiscal mismanagement? I suggest not, Madam Speaker, not in Ontario, not in British Columbia, not anywhere.
These are just a few examples. Underlying each example is the common knowledge that the Canadians who will be most adversely affected are those Canadians who are the most defenceless, the poor, the sick, women and children. But come election time, you can be sure that members of this government will be trumpeting their interpretation of events, how they restored a sense of fiscal responsibility. Such empty words when you consider the human potential that has been lost, and the suffering inflicted as a result.
Yesterday in this House, the Prime Minister introduced his government's plan for renewing confederation. It was obvious that his government has learned, to the detriment of Canadians, that you cannot exclude people from the process without grave results. The government has now pledged an open process wherein proposed changes will be considered and acted upon. Yet this government, through the introduction of this bill, continues to exclude those Canadians who most desperately need our help. It has not learned from its experience with Meech Lake that to exclude people, either politically or economically, is to do a grave injustice to the history and to the culture of our nation.
The government has seen fit to include the protection of property rights in the Charter, yet it does not see the merit in protecting those who have no property, those most in need of help. This government has consistently

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ignored the plight of disadvantaged Canadians, as it continues to do with Bill C-32.
In conclusion, I would say that the experiences of the past suggest that if the government does not reform its way in this regard, in this most crucial of areas, it risks not only the lives of our least advantaged citizens. It risks the very nation itself.


Mr. Jim Peterson (Willowdale):: Mr. Speaker, the government today with this bill is continuing its assault on the poorest and the most disadvantaged people in Canada. This thrust is not new.
Mr. Speaker, you will recall that the first measure taken by this government, after it assumed office in 1984, in the realm of social policies was to try to deindex the pensions of Canada's seniors. Seniors revolted en masse. They appeared on the Hill. Finally, the government had to back down. Had those seniors not had the will or the means to fight back, we in this House alone as members of Parliament would not have had the strength to make it happen. It was their demonstration of political will which forced this government to back down.
What do the Conservatives do? They continue their assault. They went about clawing back seniors' pensions and they were able to get that through. The heart had been taken out of many of the seniors who protested.
That assault continues today with their measure to take away the Canada Assistance Plan. This Canada Assistance Plan, as has been explained by my colleagues, is the last resort for those who suffer from poverty. When a person can get no assistance elsewhere, they have to resort to the social programs that come under the Canada Assistance Plan.
This was a plan entered into whereby the federal government said to the provinces: "We will bear half the cost of your ultimate social assistance programs". What has it done? It put a cap on it of 5 per cent a year for Ontario. This cap was put on at a particular time in our economic history. It was put on in June 1990 when unemployment in Ontario was at 5.8 per cent.
All of us are concerned about the deficit and our national debt. If we can find ways to economize, we want to do it. Maybe back in June 1990 there was some
justification, although I disagreed with it vehemently at that time because it was a program for the most needy in our society. There was maybe some justification when Ontario had only 5.8 per cent unemployment to cut back on the CAP program.
It did not take the Conservatives very long to come forward with another program. Eight months later, in February 1991, they said not only will this 5 per cent ceiling exist for two years, but they brought in a budget that said it is going to go for five years. This capping of the CAP is taking $2,135 billion away from the poor people of Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario.
When they brought in that extending bill in the budget of February 1991, unemployment was no longer 5.8 per cent in Ontario. It was 9.5 per cent. Today, unemployment in Ontario is still slightly below our national average, but it is up to 9.9 per cent.
Even if you can say that the justification was that they had to save funds and they were going to impose that onus on the rich provinces, such as Ontario, back in 1990 that justification no longer existed. In February 1991 when they brought in the budget, or today when we are asked to vote on this bill, unemployment is high in Ontario.
In June 1990, when they brought this bill in originally, unemployment in Toronto was 4.5 per cent. Today it is above the national average. It is a disgrace that Canada's foremost city has unemployment of 10.8 per cent. What does this mean in terms of the poor of my city, the metropolitan Toronto area? What does this mean to the poor in Ontario?
Not only is unemployment dramatically up from when they brought in this bill, but welfare has risen incredibly. Welfare is up in the province of Ontario 64 per cent over a year ago, and yet the CAP program is going to cut it off at a 5 per cent increase. It has absolutely no relation to the needs of the people.
Maybe under some neo-Conservative philosophy this would be justified, if these people had alternatives. Maybe some neo-Conservative is going to say: "Let these people on welfare go out and get a job", but how can you find a job in the Toronto area when the unemployment is 10.8 per cent today? It is not their fault they are unemployed. It is this government, which has
September 25, 1991

brought in what is admitted to be a deliberately "made in Canada" recession; a recession it sparked in its monomaniacal attempt to deal with inflation. In the name of inflation, it went about taking us up to a record spread in interest rates above the U.S. rates. Never before in the history of Canada have Canadian interest rates been 5.8 per cent higher than American interest rates.
What did this do? It drove up our dollar. It drove up our dollar some 29 per cent from its low of a few years ago to its high today of over 88 cents.
The Tories say to us, as the Minister of Finance did the other day in this House, that isn't it a sign of confidence in our economy that our dollar is so strong. Mr. Speaker, it is absolute insanity.
The Liberal Party task force on deindustrialization travelled across this province for three months, starting in April. We listened to the people, the businesses-big businesses, small businesses-labour unions, experts, municipal councillors, the unemployed. We met with them in their town halls, their union halls, their closed down plants. The message was the same; this government gave us free trade, but at the same time it gave us free trade it took away our ability to compete. Our dollar went up some 20 per cent; it raised our interest rates; it has given us 32 tax increases so we cannot compete with the Americans in taxes. And then we have a government in Ontario that is threatening all sorts of other legislation, which means businesses will not come into Canada.
All of us on this side of the House hope that the recession is over, and there are a few signs that maybe things are getting better. But I was just talking with a major contractor who builds industrial buildings. I said: "How are you doing?" He said: "Well, I can hold on; I can hold on for maybe another year. It is just because I have a few buildings in the bank". He said: "But there are no new industrial construction projects going on". This is the story you are getting everywhere. Over the two and a half years since free trade came in, Canada has lost 261,000 or 13 per cent of all its manufacturing jobs. And, Mr. Speaker, with the recession, hopefully coming to an end, many of these jobs are not going to come back. They have moved to the United States and Mexico and with them have gone south the hopes of many young Canadians.
So here we have a government created policy of making a recession in Canada, a policy that anybody
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could have told you-and we told you-was going to drive the jobs out of Canada. What are we doing to the people who are suffering the most, the people on welfare, the people whose unemployment insurance has expired, the people who want jobs but cannot get them, the single parents, the disabled, the elderly?
What are we doing to help them? We are cutting payments available to them for welfare. Mr. Speaker, there are times in the life of a society when you have to stand up and say enough is enough, it is not fair, it is not right, it is not proper. Our society is going to be judged, not by the SkyDomes or the coliseums or the large buildings on Bay Street, or the ports and the docks. This is not the legacy we are passing on to our children. History will judge us on the way we treated our fellow human beings, the measure of compassion and caring. Did we, in their time of need, respond when we have the riches?
We will be remembered for the way we treated the weakest in our society, the people who do not have the means to rise up and rebel, the people who are not mobilized and organized, and can stand on Parliament Hill and rub the Prime Minister's face in what he is doing to them. We shall try in this House, but for these people what a pittance, the CAP program itself should not be enough. We should be investing in these people, giving them retraining and the capability to rise up and become active parts of our economy and our society.
It is that which we ask. What this government is doing is a shame to all of us as Canadians.


Ms. Catherine Callbeck (Malpeque):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to take the opportunity to make a few comments on Bill C-32, which is an act to amend the Canada Assistance Plan. What this means is that the federal government will cut the Canada Assistance Plan payments to certain provinces, in this case, British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario.
This plan was brought into the House of Commons back in 1966. It gives the provinces the authority to enter into cost sharing arrangements with the federal government for the provision of social assistance and social services. The federal government pays 50 per cent of the costs that are approved under this plan.

September 25, 1991
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We have had the Canada Assistance Plan for 25 years. Yes, there have been problems. There were times when the provinces have expressed their concerns about this plan. I think that on the whole, this plan has worked relatively well.
I know in my own province of Prince Edward Island it has been the means whereby my province has been able to provide many services that otherwise would not have been possible.
The proposed amendment to the Canada Assistance Plan that we have before us this afternoon means that the federal government will drain $2.2 billion in federal transfers from the provinces affected, British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario. That is a lot of money, $2.2 billion over a five-year period.
I want to give you a brief outline as to what this money is spent on. Children who are in care, and need protection due to abuse or neglect, mentally and physically disabled persons, one-parent families, the aged, the unemployed, families or individuals in crisis, low income workers, battered women.
Those are just a few examples of what the funding that comes from the federal government to the provinces under the Canada Assistance Plan is used for. I know that the legislation we have before us today, Bill C-32, really does not pertain to the Atlantic area.
My concern is about the future and I have a real concern which I want to express this afternoon. This government has shown that it is heartless enough to cut the funding for services in the area where 50 per cent of the disadvantaged live in this country. If it cuts the funding for that 50 per cent, what is to stop the federal government from going after the other 50 per cent outside these provinces.
Basically my concern is that if this government goes ahead with Bill C-32, and I imagine it will because it has the majority, it will mean that the federal government will have its foot in the door, setting what I think is a very dangerous precedent.
I know in my own province of Prince Edward Island that we receive approximately $30 million a year under the Canada Assistance Plan. As I said, the federal government pays roughly 50 per cent of the services that the province provides under this plan. This funding goes toward very essential services, services that are really
needed in the province. We have the homemaker service in Prince Edward Island which is a very popular program. It is one which means that the elderly are able to live in their own homes because of services provided by people that come into the home.
Many of the individuals who take advantage of that service are people who are 70, 80 or older. Most of them have spent many years living in that community. In rural areas-certainly my district is mainly rural-we generally lack facilities to serve the needs of the elderly. That is why the homemaker service is particularly important. It is important that these people are able to stay in their own homes, in their own familiar surroundings where a lot of their friends are living, in a community where they have made a tremendous contribution through their earlier years.
That is one program that is offered in my province because of the funding from the Canada Assistance Plan. It is a wonderful program and certainly one that the seniors wholeheartedly endorse.
There are many other programs that the province funds from money from the federal government under CAP. It runs the sheltered workshops for the mentally handicapped. It runs group homes for people requiring that assistance. It helps to sponsor community agencies that help with transportation for the disabled. In many cases if the disabled were not able to be transported by that agency they would probably have to stay at home. This way they are able to get out to various events, meetings, and various types of entertainment.
The money that the province of Prince Edward Island gets through CAP is spent on very essential services.
There are others such as counselling and foster homes for abused children.
Mr. Speaker, you just signalled that I only have two minutes left, so I do not have time to elaborate on all of the tremendous services my province is able to offer because of the Canada Assistance Plan.
Certainly, as a former minister of social services, I understand the increasing cost pressures these services place on the provincial budget. I also know the resolve of provinces such as Prince Edward Island to ensure that these services are adequately maintained.
September 25, 1991

When the federal government cuts back on CAP, as it is doing with the bill before us this afternoon, it places great financial pressure on the affected provinces at a time when most provinces are trying to practise fiscal restraint.
As I stated earlier, the Canada Assistance Plan is essential in my province of Prince Edward Island. I know that this legislation today does not affect the Atlantic area now but my concern is for the future. By passing this legislation-as I said, the government has a majority so no doubt it will pass-this government will demonstrate once again that it is willing to implement its fiscal policies on the backs of the disadvantaged.


Mr. Jesse Flis (Parkdale -High Park):: Mr. Speaker, Bill C-32, an act to amend the Canada Assistance Plan, if passed will put a cap on the Canada Assistance Plan transfers to Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario.
This government believes that these three provinces do not need federal equalization payments, but this government does not tell the public that over 50 per cent of all welfare recipients under the CAP shared programs live in these three provinces. Ontario alone will lose about $1 billion this year because of the cap on the Canada Assistance Plan.
What happens when the transfer payments are reduced or cut? People suffer. This government says that Ontario is a have province. What does that mean? What do we have in this have province of Ontario?
We have raging unemployment. That is what we have in Ontario. We have massive numbers of plant closures, such as the plant closure in Swansea in my riding. We have people who have been employed all their adult lives who find that their unemployment benefits have run out and they still have no job. These are people in their mid-fifties. Some, who are 60, have to work because their companies have not provided adequate pensions for their retirement.
What do these people do? They go on welfare. It is either that or beg for food from food banks. How humiliating. How depressing. Two years ago, there were
36.000	welfare cases in metro Toronto. Last year, that figure jumped to 50,000 and this year there are almost
88.000	cases. This is what we have in a have province.
Recently, a Liberal task force held hearings across Ontario, including the major cities and small villages. I joined the task force when it held hearings in metropolitan Toronto. We heard presentations by Mr. Alan Tonks, chairman of the Metropolitan Toronto Corporation. We
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heard a brief by Mayor Art Eggleton of the city of Toronto. These two gentlemen alone represent and serve over two million people. They serve more than many premiers serve. People do not realize that some of these cities have populations larger than many entire provinces. These two gentlemen are responsible for providing services to and caring for over two million people. Both of these gentlemen said, and I will never forget it, that the federal government has abandoned the big cities.
We heard in Question Period about how Montreal has been abandoned and about the economic woes of that city. The government has abandoned Windsor. We have been hearing about the prices and the unemployment there. It has abandoned Hamilton and the city of Toronto.
Here are some more startling statistics. There are
130.000	people in metropolitan Toronto who are currently collecting unemployment insurance benefits. Can this government give me assurances that when its claims are exhausted they will get jobs? I think not. They are going to go on social assistance. Does the Prime Minister still think that Ontario is a have province? Does he think that B.C. and Alberta are have provinces?
I recently asked my constituents some questions in a survey sent to every household in my riding. In the comments section my constituents said over and over again that every Canadian should be equal and that every province should be equal. They know that Bill C-69 was wrong. They know that this bill, Bill C-32, is wrong. This government is not treating all Canadians equally when the provinces are divided into have and have not provinces.
When one is very ill one should have equal access to hospital care. Where is the principle of universality that we cherished in this country for so long? It is the backbone of fairness in Canada, and this government is blatantly ignoring that fact.
Metro Toronto hired 350 new case workers for welfare last year and has been forced to hire 250 more this year. One of my constituents came to me recently and asked for a letter of reference from me. I have known him for about 15 years now and he had a very successful photography business. He came to me and said: "Mr. Flis, I have had to sell off all of my equipment and I need a letter of reference". I said: "You need a letter of reference to go on welfare?" "No", he said, "I want to work for welfare". The number of welfare offices and personnel is growing by leaps and bounds to serve these
88.000	welfare cases. I complimented him because rather

September 25, 1991
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than go on the welfare rolls himself he applied to work in the welfare office to serve others.
The Conservative government hangs its hat on the Supreme Court ruling that the federal government does have the authority to unilaterally limit increases to the Canada Assistance Plan. However, the federal government has a moral obligation to assist provinces in providing services and care to those who need help the most: disabled persons, those requiring dental care, seniors who now are bedridden and require intensive care, foster homes for abused children, safe housing for abused women, subsidized child care for low income families, and the label low income families can be deceiving.
One of my constituents, a single mother, wrote to me recently and explained that she is a very fortunate person because she is earning $37,000 a year. She gave me a breakdown of what she pays for rent, what she pays for child care, and what she pays for other services. At the end of the month she has only $34 left to spend to take her children to a movie or wherever. She is seriously thinking whether it is worth getting up at six in the morning to do this day in and day out and she is contemplating whether she should go on welfare.
Well, if someone earning $37,000 is having difficulty, imagine the people getting an income of $15,000 or $20,000 a year.
My party recommended to this government how to take some of these people off welfare rolls, but the government will not listen. We agree in helping to reduce the deficit. We agree in bringing the public debt down. We have thousands of self-exiles in Canada who, while they were waiting for landed immigrant status, could not work. The government would not give them work permits to work. They wanted to work but this government felt it was more profitable to put them on welfare rather than give them work permits. Then they put a cap to reduce transfer payments to the provinces. The provinces passed that on to the cities like Toronto to pay welfare to these people. I cannot understand how
this government can say it is managing this country very well. It is no wonder with this kind of mismanagement that the welfare rolls in Toronto are growing by leaps and bounds. It is no wonder that students come to me who cannot afford to go to university this fall because these of cuts and putting caps on CAP.
I hope that everyone listening will lobby, will appeal, that this Bill C-32 be killed.


Mr. Rey Pagtakhan (Winnipeg North):: Mr. Speaker, I too am glad to have the opportunity to speak on behalf of my constituents of Winnipeg North, the Liberal Party, and my other colleagues in the Liberal caucus who would like to speak as well, but time does not permit. This is a very important bill entitled an act to Amend the Canada Assistance Plan. In fact, I wonder whether we can call this an act to amend Canada. There is really nothing left untouched by the Tory government, nothing which is holy.
Nothing is given back, only taken away. The Conservatives took away the trains and the CBC. They tax tobacco but use none of the revenue to help people quit smoking. They freeze transfer payments, endanger medicare and reduce funds available for student loans, then they take the loan money and tax students three cents for every dollar they receive.
This is a heartless government. And the thing that makes it most heartless is how little it cares care for the children of Canada. A cap on the Canada Assistance Plan cuts social programs. Who benefits from social programs? The people who have nothing, and many of the people who have nothing are children.
The welfare rolls are full of children. These kids often go to school with empty stomachs because their mothers cannot afford food. How can you concentrate on math and reading and reading when your stomach is empty? These children cannot learn with barriers like the ones the government is erecting for them.
The government professes to wanting a leaner machine where the excess is trimmed and the bottom line is cost-efficiency. Well, the bottom line for a hungry child is this.
September 25, 1991

His family is poor. His father was laid off. It is because of free trade, the plant manager said. His mom stays home to care for his little sister. They cannot afford day care. He goes to school hungry. He is small for his age, unhealthy, humiliated, and falling further and further behind in school. The other children tease him, call him names because of his old clothes. Is this the face of the leaner system? Does cost-cutting mean taking security away from a child and his parents?
Only 6 per cent of the federal deficit is attributed to social programs. Meanwhile the government can raise, according to the book The Quick and the Dead-Brian Mulroney, Big Business and the Seduction of Canada by Linda McQuaig, an additional $6.8 billion by closing off tax breaks.
Let me just say a word about this book written by Linda McQuaig, a leading journalist. This book is a shocking portrait of greed and ambition in the highest places and what it has done to the fate of the nation. Are we trying to amend, with this bill, Canada?
Why not close the tax breaks and stop taking food from the mouths of children? Is the government afraid it will become unpopular with the people it feels matter most, the rich company executives and their heirs? Are they the people who make up that 12 per cent still in the polls supporting this government? Are the other 88 per cent of Canadians in the middle class and the working poor? I imagine so.
No, the government could not risk jeopardizing its popularity by offending the wealthy and big business. Forget the small businesses of this country. Forget that most taxes in this country are paid by the middle class.
Once an author and philosopher, John Ruskin, said in his work Unto This Last, Essay iii:
Whereas it has long been known and declared that the poor have
no right to the property of the rich, I wish it also to be known and
declared that the rich have no right to the property of the poor.
Why does this government not leave the poor what they have, and try to improve the lot of the poor, instead of taking what little they have left?
For 1.5 million Canadians, they no longer think about the problems of income tax, and as likely, property tax is no longer a concern either. Why? Because the government took away their jobs and will probably take away
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their homes as well through its strictly private marketplace, rules-of-the-jungle boardroom logic. They are unemployed and fearful about the future of their families. To be unemployed and poor in Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia feels no different than being unemployed in any other province, including my province of Manitoba. Poor is poor.
And 54 per cent of these poor people live in the three aforementioned provinces to be affected by this bill. The government calls these provinces rich. Rich compared to what provinces? It is relative. Should every province's greatest aspiration be to have a deficit as well? I worry about the precedent it is setting for the other provinces later on, because this government has an obsession with deficit reduction.
I would just like to briefly call to the attention of the House that the Standing Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology in its report of January 1, 1991 on children and poverty, Toward a Better Future clearly states that it will invest in our poor children. We will reap fivefold more in 20 years if spending on the poor is not deficit spending but investment in the future of our country.
This is a finance bill, according to the government. At the briefing session held for the opposition, officers from the Department of Finance explained the purpose of the bill, the need for restraint and cautioned: "The government cannot be a good financial steward on behalf of Canadian taxpayers if such transfers were allowed to grow without any restraint".
Where was the briefing from the Department of National Health and Welfare, explaining how, on behalf of Canadians, the government was showing itself a good social steward by forcing this bill through the House? I did not see the minister of health stand to defend this bill. I wonder if he is ashamed of his government. I believe he should be.
He knows he has lashed the burden of the national debt on to the backs of the sick, the youth, the unemployed and the seniors of Canada. It is battered women, forsaken children and all the abused who have been harnessed with the debt. There is no security, no safety, in this place called Canada.
Making the poor pay the national debt has become the life force driving this government.

September 25, 1991
Business of the House
I would like to conclude by just recalling that on November 24, 1989, almost two years ago, this House of Commons unanimously passed a motion which read: "That this House express its concern for the more than one million Canadian children currently living in poverty and seek to achieve the goal of eliminating poverty among Canadian children by the year 2000."
I would also like to call to the attention of this House that in 1965, almost 26 years ago, in the Speech from the Throne, the Canada Assistance Plan was one of the five elements in a program designed to abolish poverty in Canada. What have we done today? There is a bill before us to abolish the very basic program that will abolish poverty in the country. That, I think, is the sensitivity of this government. Truly pachydermatous, Mr. Speaker. No social conscience at all. I wish this government would wake up and withdraw this bill.


BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Mr. Jim Hawkes (Calgary West):: Mr. Speaker, I think you will find a predisposition in the Chamber for unanimous consent to the following motion, which was being worked on for a good part of the day:
Thai notwithstanding the Standing Orders and usual practices of the House, that when the second reading debate begins on Bill C-19, an act respecting bank and banking, it shall be deemed that Bill C-28, an act respecting insurance companies and fraternal benefit societies, and Bill C-34, an act to revise and amend the law governing co-operative credit associations, and to provide for related and consequential matters are called jointly with Bill C-19 for second reading debate,
That Standing Order 11(2) be suspended for the duration of the debate,
That the debate be held on the subject matter covered in the three said legislations,
That immediately after Bill C-19 has been disposed of, The Speaker shall put forthwith and successively, without further debate or amendment, all the questions necessary to dispose of both Bill C-28 and Bill C-34 at second reading in that order, and that Bills C-19, C-28 and C-34 be referred to the Standing Committee on Finance.


David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, I thought the hon. member was going to go on and add another paragraph and talk about the reduction of the Prime Minister's salary down to $1, but since he did not do that, I think there might be disposition within our party to give our consent to the contents of this motion.


Iain Francis Angus: Mr. Speaker, I am also House leader today.
Yes, Mr. Speaker, there has been consultation and we are quite prepared to support this motion. I just want to point out that we are facilitating debate in this House by combining three bills and one would hope that the government will allow those members who wish to speak to do so without resorting to any time allocation or closure.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Mr. Speaker, I might just respond to my friend that if the Prime Minister were paid by private sector standards for the responsibility and the skill, the salary might be six or seven times as large as he now gets at a minimum.
Mr. Speaker, I think you might also find a predisposition on the part of the House for unanimous consent to the following motion:
That when the debate collapses on Bill C-32 this day, that the
question not be put and that the Chair call it seven o'clock and begin
the Private Members' hour debate.
The effect of that, if the House is that way inclined, for all those members who are waiting behind the curtains and other places, would be that there would be no vote today and probably the next substantive vote in the House would likely occur Monday about six o'clock, so members would have greater certitude about the impact of that motion.


David Charles Dingwall: Yes, Mr. Speaker, I, too, wish to give the consent of my party with regard to the second motion. Just to clarify it so that there is no doubt, my colleague from Eglinton-Lawrence, my colleague from Prince Edward-Hastings, my colleague from Ottawa South and my colleague from Halifax will be the speakers who will follow. Then, in accordance with the motion, as read by the chief government Whip, it would then be called seven o'clock with no vote tonight and presumably a vote later, next week.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Mr. Speaker, it my intention to call the item on Friday morning and, if nobody rises, then we would have the voice vote and a deferral which would then take us through until Monday at 6 p.m.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Members have heard the first motion a propos des projets de loi a incidences financieres.
September 25, 1991

Is there unanimous consent.


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: On the second motion on Bill C-21, is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.
Motions of Mr. Hawkes agreed to.


CANADA ASSISTANCE PLAN
[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Mazankowski that Bill C-32, an act to amend the Canada Assistance Plan, be read the second time and referred to Legislative Committee F; and the motion of Mr. Vincent (p.2536).
Mr. Joseph Volpe (Eglinton-Lawrence):: Mr. Speaker,
I am sure that you have noticed, as some of my other colleagues have noticed, that over the course of this debate there has been nary an individual who has risen to speak in favour of this bill. It is probably because all of those who are following this debate, both inside and outside this House, must be impressed with the nature of the negative components of this bill.
We are all familiar with the government's stated claim that what it wants to do is address the national debt and the deficit and put the country back on an economic keel that is appropriate for the aspirations and the needs of all Canadians everywhere in this country.
Yet it comes forward with a piece of legislation like Bill C-32, which extends all the negative elements we saw in the last session with Bill C-69 where we put a cap on the Canada Assistance Program.
It highlights just a couple of points that are worth noting. Some of my colleagues from this side of the House, more particularly from my party, have been eloquent, articulate, precise and forceful in the arguments that point to the fact that this is a most unjust bill. It is unjust for a couple of reasons.
First, it indicates that the government is transferring its responsibility for the national debt and for the deficit on to the provinces, and through them on to citizens who are least capable of maintaining the responsibility for that debt.
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All members of this House are already familiar with the fact that when this government came to power in 1984 the national debt was high at $170 billion, but today, after seven years of this government, after five years of unprecedented economic growth and wealth and prosperity in Canada, after those kinds of conditions, our national debt stands at well over $400 billion and is approaching $420 billion.
The government is now turning to provinces and residents of those provinces. The government's economic policies in this Parliament turned conditions around to the negative and the disadvantage of all citizens. The government has now decided that three provinces, in particular Alberta, British Columbia and my province of Ontario, must now bear the brunt and responsibility of the government's inefficiencies, inadequacies, incompetence and downright stupidity when it comes to economic policies and fiscal and monetary management in this Parliament.


An hon. member:: They do not know what they are doing either.


Giuseppe (Joseph) Volpe: We are looking at a bill that essentially says that citizens of this country, no matter where they live, used to be equal in the sense that they had the same opportunity of access to government services. They had the same standing before law and they could get the same quality of services for the taxes that each and every one of them equitably paid. Now these citizens from these three provinces are to be treated differently.
Citizenship now has gradations of quality. Citizenship can no longer bring to an individual the same level of services in one province as it will in another.
At one time yes, perhaps Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario might have enjoyed greater prosperity. Not so today, and thank you in large measure, in fact almost exclusively, to the government's policies. We have seen them. We have seen evidence. We have seen enumeration of documentation, of statistics from independent sources, business communities, labour communities, our own Statistics Canada, pointing to the destruction of manufacturing in Canada as a result of the free trade agreement, pointing to the weakening of the national government's ability to deliver programs thanks to the government's spending habits, none of them indicating for a moment a priority which should be working toward

September 25, 1991
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national unity that the government talked about so eloquently over the course of the last two days in its Canada unity package.
How can unity be developed when it has already been decided that through legislation Canadians will be treated differently from one province to another? How can we address unity? How can we talk about responsibility when at the same time we propose a bill such as Bill C-32 that essentially denies the federal government's responsibility when this program was put forward to share equally with the provinces in the cost of basic necessities for all Canadians such as: food, shelter, clothing, utilities and household supplies.
That was a basic principle that is now being eroded with this bill. We already attacked it, aggressively so with Bill C-69 in the last session, and we are doing it more nefariously again with Bill C-32.
My colleagues have already pointed out to government members, who seem to close their ears and their eyes to these sorts of things, that with this bill the federal government will renege on $2,135 billion until 1995 that would normally go to those provinces.
If citizens from three provinces are to be denied what is theirs by law, what is theirs by virtue of their participation in this country, what are we doing to the value of Canadian citizenship? What are we doing to the confidence Canadians have in their politicians, their elected government, to ensure that what is provided for them is the appropriate net that guards them against the vagaries of the economies and the vagaries of a cyclical marketplace? Well, not very much.
The other point I wanted to raise is that as with the other government fiscal and economic policies, and I am being generous now, this one is either ill-timed or wrongly focused. What are we doing? We are asking this House to accept a reduction of moneys designed to provide services that are generally put in place for those least advantaged.
Who are the least advantaged? Some 54 per cent of all individuals who fall in that poorer category live in the provinces that are being attacked by this bill, 54 per cent who would otherwise require the kinds of services that are now going to be cut. Make no mistake about this,
what this bill is doing is cutting services such as dental care, essential services for the disabled. It is providing fewer foster homes for abused children, less housing for abused women, and less housing for low income families.
Where is that going to hurt most? You heard my colleague from Willowdale talk about the plight of Ontario manufacturing. Ontario, which used to be a have province, is being reduced to a have not province thanks to the government side. I see a couple of the members and parliamentary secretaries beating their chests, taking credit for the devastation that is being wreaked on Ontario. I think that is shameful, especially shameful because this cap on CAP represents an additional increase in taxes. Who is being asked to pay more? In Ontario alone this bill might represent an additional reduction that will cost Ontario taxpayers an additional $1 billion in this coming year. That works out to about $112 per person or roughly $450 for the average family. Look at the increase in taxation. For those who are lucky enough to have a job, that comes on top of the 25 per cent increase in unemployment insurance last year and an additional 35 per cent in unemployment insurance premiums this year. The fact of the matter is that those who were able to bear the burden of taxation are no longer in such a condition.
We see, for example, and I regret to say this very much, in my own city of Toronto welfare cases have increased by 73 per cent from July 1990 to July 1991. There is an anticipation that it will increase to 250,000 over the course of this coming year. When we are talking about people who are in need, we need not go any further than look at Toronto. The unemployment rate is the highest of major cities. It has doubled since last year, 10.8 per cent this summer; over 226,000 people on unemployment rolls, thanks to this government's economic policies.
They are going to ask these same people to pay more. Where will they turn when their unemployment runs out? To welfare cases again.
I know you are asking me to stop, Mr. Speaker. Let me leave you with these terrible thoughts that should encourage everyone in this House to vote against this bill. In my own riding there are only 20 per cent of the factories still operating. We have lost the manufacturing
September 25, 1991

sector and we have 85 per cent unemployment in construction.
What we need is a government that gets its priorities straight, focuses its financial responsibilities appropriately and asks those who can pay to pay.


Mr. Lyle Vanclief (Prince Edward-Hastings):: Mr. Speaker, I too want to spend some time in the House this evening talking about this ridiculous bill that the government is going to ram-jam down the throats of this House and the throats of Canadians, Bill C-32, an act to amend the Canada Assistance Plan.
I just want to take a couple of minutes to explain to people what the Canada Assistance Plan is and then I am sure it will become very clear in their minds the false results and the foolishness that the government is carrying on in cutting back on this funding.
The Canada Assistance Plan is a program that assists those less fortunate in Canada to have some of the services that we in Canada are proud to say that up until now we have been able to provide for that unfortunate sector of our society. The program assists provinces on a fifty-fifty basis, up until this bill is concluded by this majority government, for the funding of many of those services.
The Liberals have always opposed the cap on the Canada Assistance Plan, as it is referred to, the cap on CAP. I can tell you that the Liberals will continue to oppose that, because it is not what we in the Liberal Party stand for.
What is happening is the government again is transferring the debt of this country over on to the backs of those who can least pay. I know they say it has been challenged in court. We all know that the British Columbia government challenged it and at the provincial level it won. But the federal government took it further than that and it went to the Supreme Court. At that stage the federal government won.
We can say therefore that what is being done is legally correct. I ask Canadians: Is it morally correct?


Giuseppe (Joseph) Volpe: Absolutely not.


Lyle Vanclief: My colleague from Eglinton-Lawrence says: "Absolutely not". It is not morally correct.
We brag in Canada about treating all Canadians equally. What is happening with this bill now is back in the 1990 budget the government said that it was going to
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cap it, that the provinces of Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario were going to get increased funding up to 5 per cent above the previous year but, if there were anything required above that, too bad, those three provinces would not receive anything above 5 per cent. In the other provinces in Canada, if the requirement was there, they would live up to the moral expectation and moral responsibility of the federal government to do that. However, for those three particular provinces there is a cap at 5 per cent.


An hon. member:: That's an increase.


Lyle Vanclief: Yes, that is an increase. No question that is an increase but it is not a fair increase to the province of Ontario, the province that I come from, for example- and I will refer to that for a moment-along with others. Ontario has been totally devastated in the last couple of years by hundreds of thousands of jobs leaving our province and hundreds of thousands more people going on social benefits and requiring social packages. That is all because of the actions of this government.
However, there is no ceiling for the other provinces. We as parliamentarians owe it to the other seven provinces to give them a warning that this government now has its toe in the door. Yes, the government has done it legally. It is legally correct, but it is not morally correct. I want to point that out.
Fifty-four per cent of the people in this country who require those social services are in the three very provinces in which the government is capping the increases-54 per cent.
One of the jobs, duties, and obligations of a central government is to collect the wealth from throughout the country and share and distribute it equally throughout the country, or as equally as it possibly can be done. I also point out to this House and to the members opposite that it is not only their duty to do that across the country but a duty and obligation to do that within each province as well. The government is certainly shirking its duty and responsibility.
This money provides such essential services to the poor and low income people as providing and assisting them with dental care, essential living services for disabled people, foster homes for abused children, safe houses for abused women, and subsidized child care for low income families. This is the type of assistance to Canadians that this government is reneging on and is

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backing away from. Again I repeat it is shirking its responsibility.
It began on this course in the 1990 budget and said it was going to cap it for two years. Then along came the 1991 budget and the government extended that period. Now it is going continue it until 1995. Take warning, the rest of the provinces in Canada, your time will come. The Tories will do it to you as well. The toe is in the door.
I just want to give few figures before I wind up, to show how this is affecting my riding of Prince Edward-Hastings. I talked to some of the people in Hastings County, in particular, as recently as today and asked: "What is happening? Do we have an increased need for this?" Here are the figures. The increase in welfare rolls in Hastings County from August 1990 to August 1991 was 58 per cent. If we go back one more year prior to that, from August 1989 to August 1991, there was a 91 per cent increase. In the County of Hastings alone, compared to the large city of Toronto, it is not a lot in total numbers. Some 4.94 per cent of the people depend on social assistance for their existence. That is a total of 5,154 people.
The number of unemployment claimants in my area has risen 20 per cent from August 1990 to August 1991. With the changes this government saw fit in its lack of wisdom to put forward in Bill C-21, the changes to the Unemployment Insurance Act, we are seeing more and more people fall off the end of the UI rolls who have to be picked up by the social services roll. That adds to that cost.
We do not need that in Ontario. We do not need this in Canada, and we do not need it for our low income people. The government is being penny wise and pound foolish at a time when we should as a country and as a nation realize the importance of assisting these people, the important resource these people can be for our work force, our places of business and everything else. At a time when we should be investing in them, this government is divesting itself of these people and shirking its responsibility.
This is an absolutely foolish move on the part of the government. We will pay for this as a country, as a nation, and as time goes on.


Mr. John Manley (Ottawa South):: Mr. Speaker, I stand here today to take part in this debate on Bill C-32. I think it is appropriate to discuss this legislation today right after the government tabled its proposals with regard to the Constitution of Canada. I believe this bill deals directly with the relations between the federal government and the provinces.

I am uncertain whether this bill is more iniquitous or more deceitful. It is definitely both, but I am not sure which one prevails.
It is iniquitous for many of the reasons my distinguished colleague from Prince Edward county said. It is a cut to those provinces-the three provinces of Ontario, British Columbia, and Alberta-where more than 50 per cent of Canadians in need of social assistance live. It is a cut in real terms, in the sense that it is a limit on the amount of increase that will go to those provinces at a time when the economy, particularly in the province of Ontario, is very weak and has been weak from the beginning of the recession in the second quarter of 1990 until today.
Whether we are technically out of a recession is not the point. In Canada we say recessions start when the curve begins down and they end when the curve begins to go up. Even if a recovery has begun in the sense that the curve is beginning to go back up, we are still far from reaching the point on the curve we were at when the recession began.
We are going to continue to go through a period of time in which many Canadians are going to require social assistance. This is then a particularly iniquitous time to be cutting back on the payments to those provinces where the majority of needy people live.
What I am really unhappy about, as I said a moment ago in French, is that this bill comes at a time when all Canadians are debating some of the very important aspects of our federation. It comes at a time when the strain of keeping Canada together is weighing on all of us involved in public life, both at the federal and provincial levels.
This is a unilateral decision by the federal government to cut back on long established shared cost programs.


Ms. Clancy:: Shame.
September 25, 1991


John Paul Manley: It comes at a time when the need has never been greater partly because of the recession, which was described by the Conference Board of Canada as the first ever made-in-Canada recession and was brought on by the policies of the government opposite.


An hon. member:: Nobody else had a recession.


John Paul Manley: My friend from Stratford says that nobody else had a recession. I quoted the Conference Board of Canada. It was not the Liberal Party that said this. Outside economic analysts say that this is the first time that a recession has actually been provoked in Canada by Canadian policies. I might add they were Canadian policies that were pursued particularly in 1989. Why did we have high interest rates in 1989? Because the government opposite pursued a policy in 1988 of attempting to buy an election when growth in Canada was about 5 per cent. It cut taxes. It permitted a much more open monetary policy and the result was high inflation in 1989 and high interest rates bringing on a recession in 1990. What did it do about it? It cut the payments to the provinces for social assistance by capping them at a 5 per cent increase.
Not only is the need brought on by the recession, but at the same time it brought in a program of unemployment insurance reforms which throughout Canada has resulted in many more people being in need of social assistance. Furthermore, it has pursued a completely hopeless policy in dealing with a large number of claimants for refugee status in Canada, which take people who have sought protection by being on our shores, and during the time that they await determination of their refugee status, are unable to work in Canada and therefore have to go on social assistance.
Who pays for that? It is paid for by the municipality with provincial support. As we know, as a result of this bill and Bill C-69 which preceded it last year, the support which was to come to the provinces from the federal government is being capped at 5 per cent, when the need is being generated by the federal government itself.
I think the official title of this bill is an act to amend the Canada Assistance Plan. It should be called the federal transfer of debt act. This is in effect an attempt to confuse the Canadian people into thinking that the government opposite is actually doing something about
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its deficit and debt problem, when in reality what it is doing is transferring its debt to the provinces.
Then we have the disgraceful performance of the Prime Minister of Canada going overseas, washing our linen before investors in Japan, criticizing the Ontario government, whose policies with which I do not happen to agree, but upon whom the federal government has transferred $1 billion of debt this year alone through this particular cap on CAP.
What the province and the federal government need to do, and I do not think there should be any cause for disagreement about this, is sit down together and make sure that there is an agreement on design and delivery of social assistance. Give the federal government a role in designing these programs so that there is co-operation flowing both ways. Then lock in the commitment to help fund the programs as agreed.
What we have here is the provinces spending federal money, granted without control, without limit, but the federal government cutting back the funds without consultation. No wonder things are not working right.
The transfer of debt to the provinces is not the way to solve any one's debt problem. Last week, we had the Minister of Finance in this House blaming provincial government borrowing for keeping the Canadian dollar as high as it is. Excuse me, but if the federal government, through the cut in transfer payments for post-secondary education and health care and the cap on the Canada Assistance Plan payments is forcing provincial deficits up, how can the Minister of Finance stand up in this House and criticize the provincial governments for borrowing too much? That is why I suggest that this really is as deceitful as it is iniquitous.
This is not an easy time for federations around the world. Canada has an opportunity, by making our federal system work, to be an example for federations elsewhere. My suggestion to the government is this, that they back off this ridiculous plan, and that they go to the discussion table with the provinces and say: "We have a problem, not the federal government, not the provincial governments, but we Canadians have a problem.
Let's find a way to address that problem collectively and co-operatively. Let's find solutions to the issues that confront us; recession, a weak economy, poverty in our cities, crime in our cities and the fact that our biggest deficit in Canada is soon not going to be the financial

September 25, 1991
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deficit which is big enough, but the deficit in wasted human lives and lost hope."


Mary Catherine Clancy: Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak on this bill as I have risen to speak on many others in nearly three years as the member for Halifax. I begin my remarks with a sense of disappointment, almost a sense of depression and certainly a sense of gloom.
The Canada Assistance Plan should be one of those programs that applies in all Canadian jurisdictions at the same rate, in the same way and for the same benefit to those who are in need. To put a cap on CAP is to effectively say to three provinces: "The poor people in your province are not as poor as poor people in other provinces."
I am an Atlantic Canadian, which everyone knows. I am a Nova Scotian, which everyone knows. Since we made the collective decision 124 years ago to come into Confederation, a decision that we have never regretted and a decision that we are proud of, we have, as Nova Scotians, seen a steady decline in our prosperity.
There are a number of reasons for that. There are shifts in world economy, there are specific government programs that have worked against the interests of Atlantic Canada in favour of the centre of the country, but I am not going to get into those specifics. Suffice it to say that poverty is not an unknown factor in the Atlantic region of this country. Extreme poverty is sadly not an unknown factor. There are very few people who live in the four eastern provinces of this country who cannot describe poverty on a firsthand basis. Maybe they, themselves, have not been poor-lucky them-but they have seen it, they have worked with it and they have worked against it.
Perhaps it seems odd. In one sense, certain members of the government have tried to say that capping CAP in the so-called have provinces will somehow create more benefit in the have not provinces. That is not what Canada is about, and that is not what members from the other have not regions want. It is certainly not what our constituents want.
We believe in the universality of our social safety net. We believe that one of the sacred trusts, dare I use those words that have been so sadly soiled in the last few years, for the people of Canada is the whole issue of dignity in
social programs. To maintain the dignity of those people who must rely upon governments for help, the whole concept of universality is key.
If suddenly three provinces are held to a different standard, to a different amount of money on percentage bases and per capita bases, then that means there are different levels of Canadians. In this time of constitutional crisis, in this time of what we all pray will be constitutional and national renewal, this is something we do not need.
There are not different levels of Canadianism. There are not different levels of citizenship. There may well be different levels of talent and different levels of need and different levels of commitment, but when it comes to access to government services, one Canadian is supposed to be the same as another. To put a cap the CAP in three provinces is to give the lie to that statement.
What is it going to mean in actual practice in British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario? It is going to mean that those provincial governments, faced with the cap over the next five years, are going to have to rob Peter to pay Paul. They are going to have to take from their own provincial coffers for programs that are desperately needed to cover off the need for social assistance.
While we are looking at what this particular pernicious piece of legislation does, we cannot look at it in a vacuum, because there are other things that are happening that are affecting provincial and municipal budgets in this country today that are a direct result of the policies of this government. I refer, of course, to the reforms, and I use that word in its loosest term, to the Unemployment Insurance Act that we saw rammed through in the last Parliament. No one in this Chamber will ever forget it.
What that has effectively done is disembowl the unemployment income insurance program in this country. It has driven people, who in the past, might have been able to tide themselves over through periods of unemployment, particularly in this recession which has seen the highest rate of bankruptcy in the history of this country, and particularly in a recession created in this country by the policies of this government. But that is
September 25, 1991

gone. Any kind of safety net from unemployment insurance is effectively out the window.
It is certainly out the window in my region and I know it is out the window in parts of northern and eastern Ontario, northern Canada generally, northern British Columbia and northern Alberta. It is certainly out the window in a lot of the major cities such as Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton and the major cities of Ontario. UI as we know it does not exist any more and all of us who sit in this Chamber are aware of it. Certainly those of us on this side of the House mourn its loss.
What does that do? That again puts extra pressure on hard pressed provincial governments and hard pressed provincial budgets. These governments had a right to expect some sort of stability from a federal government that claims to believe that all Canadians are equal.
We hear again that Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia are rich provinces. In Nova Scotia where I represent the people of Halifax, the poor people are no poorer in the long run than poor people in Toronto or the homeless in Vancouver or poor people in northern Ontario. Poor people are poor people and provincial governments are governments and there is only so much they can do. There is only so much that can be stretched to cover what is necessary for people to survive.
We did not even have time to touch on the whole concept of the dignity of people who need to think that emergency measures such as social assistance and unemployment insurance are there to hold them up and help them. Capping the CAP, like gutting unemployment insurance, is an assault on low income people across this country. It is an assault on provincial governments across this country. It is an assault on municipal governments across this country. It is the federal government standing up and saying: "The Canadian social safety net, the Canadian social contract exists no longer. We now live in a time where you sink or you swim and if you cannot swim, do not look to me for a life preserver, do not look to me for assistance."
This is not what Canada is about. This is not what we were elected and what my colleagues on the other side were elected to do here. This is not the Canadian way. It is not something that any of us can continue to stand for.
Private Members' Business


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBIois):: Pursuant to an order made earlier this day and to Standing Order 36, the House will now proceed to the consideration of Private Members' Business as listed on today's Order Paper.


PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS-MOTIONS   PUBLIC SERVICE MOTION TO AMEND THE PUBLIC SERVICE SUPERANNUATION ACT
Mr. Eugene Bellemare (Carleton-Gloucester) moved:: That, in the opinion of this House, the government should amend the Public Service Superannuation Act so that any Public Service employee who has lost his or her job on or after January 1st, 1988, as a result of a Public Service downsizing programme, and who had reached fifty years of age and had to his or her credit not less than ten years of pensionable service, would be entitled to receive a pension reduced by the product obtained by multiplying: a) five per cent of the amount of the pension that would have been payable if the employee had been fifty-five years of age at the time of the loss of his or her job b) 55 minus the age of the employee at the time of the loss of his or her job.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to ask today that the amendments already submitted in motion M-385, which pertains to the Public Service Superannuation Act, be accepted.
The thrust of my motion is to amend the Public Service Superannuation Act in order to address the plight of people who lost their jobs due to downsizing.
At present, employees aged between 50 and 54 receive a considerably smaller pension than those who are facing the same situation, but who are 55 years old or over.

When an employee in the Public Service becomes redundant due to downsizing and that person is 55 years of age or over and he or she has been employed on a full-time basis in the Public Service for a minimum of 10 years, the Public Service Superannuation Act says: "If at the time he ceases to be so employed and he has reached 55 years of age, has been employed in the Public Service on a full-time basis for a period of or for periods totally

September 25, 1991
Private Members' Business
at least 10 years and does not voluntarily retire from the Public Service, an annual allowance payable immediately on his so ceasing to be employed equal to the amount of the deferred annuity referred to in clause (a), reduced by the product obtained by multiplying: (1) 5 per cent of the amount of that annuity, by (2) 30 minus the number of years to the nearest one-tenth of a year of the pensionable service to his credit".
In other words, if a person is between 60 and 65 and is laid off from the federal government, he or she receives a full pension. A laid off employee who is between the age of 55 and 60 receives a pension reduced by 25 per cent or what he or she would receive at 60 years of age.
The act continues with this statement: "except that in any such case the whole or any part of the reduction provided for by this clause may be waived by the Treasury Board".
It is my understanding that Treasury Board has used this waiver in some cases when the person affected was 55 years of age or over.
People who are laid off from the federal government see their pension reduced unless there is a waiver from the Treasury Board.

The reality of current government practices is that many people under the age of 55 are being laid off through no fault of their own. Statistics which were obtained by my office for the period January 1, 1990 to December 31, 1990 indicate that a total of 357 employees who had been appointed under the Public Service Employment Act to indeterminate and permanent positions lost their jobs in that calendar year. Of these, 60 were over the age of 55 and 31 were between the ages of 50 and 54. The other 266 employees were 49 years of age and under.

The riding I represent has no less than 10,000 people who declared, during the 1986 census, that they worked for the federal public service. This is one of the largest
concentration of civil servants in a given region of the country.
Consequently, Mr. Speaker, people in my riding are going to be particularly affected by downsizing by contracting out, by relocation and other measures that the government chose to impose on its civil servants.

The case must be made here for those people 50 years of age and over. Unfortunately, society is not totally accepting of the re-employment of people in that age bracket. It is neither a pleasant nor a seemingly fair statement, but it is true.
Employment centres and private consulting firms, such as Casey and Associates Business Centres Limited, located in my riding, are faced with this reality each day. The owner, Femande Casey, at 53 years of age a senior executive with the federal government who had 28 years experience, was the victim of this outdated legislation. Her only recourse was to accept a reduced pension or engage legal counsel to try to waive the penalty to her pension. It cost her thousands of dollars, months of anguish and considerable personal suffering. She now assists and counsels numerous former public servants in coping with this economic impact. She is frequently bringing to my attention the harsh reality that many of her clients face. After dedicating one's adult years to the Public Service, the shock and reality of layoff and the uncertainty for re-employment is devastating for many of her clients.
Her challenge begins with building their confidence, and then finding employment. She is quick to point out that most of her clients are former public servants, 50 to 60 years of age, an age group that is not particularly attractive to many employers and with skills that are not easily transferred from the public to the private sector. Where does a former public servant who has specialized, say, in staffing or in preparing ministerial briefing notes look for employment in the private sector? Jobs are extremely difficult to come by in Canada's present economy for the young, let alone for the grey culture.
After dedicating ones adult years to the Public Service, what a shock it must be-I repeat, Mr. Speaker-what a shock it must be to arrive at work to the reality of a layoff and the uncertainty of re-employment.



September 25, 1991

In October 1990 I asked the President of the Treasury Board to provide me with statistics concerning people in the age 50 to 54 category who had lost their positions in the Public Service because of the government's downsizing policy. Treasury Board's answer to me was as follows: "Since February 1, 1990, 149 employees in the age category 50 to 54 have been laid off from the Public Service. Of this number, 36 have been reappointed to the Public Service.

Thirty-six people only succeeded in finding another job in the Public Service.
The private sector might have hired about the same number. So that leaves two-thirds of the employees out of jobs.

Should these laid off employees between the ages of 50 and 54 be forced to take their pension, they are dealt with in the Public Service Superannuation Act as follows: Section 13(l)(c)(2)(d) states that their annuity will be deemed as being the same as for those who are aged 55 and over, with a reduction of 5 per cent of the total amount of the pension for each year between the ages of 50 and 60.
What this amounts to is a further reduction of 25 per cent in benefits between those received by an employee who is laid off at 50 and one who is laid off at 55. Specifically, a laid off employee who is 55 has his or her pension reduced by 25 per cent for five years. One who is between 50 and 54 has his or her pension reduced a further 25 per cent, for a total reduction of 50 per cent.
All of these calculations take into consideration that each has at least 10 years of pensionable employment.

With my resolution, I want to try and correct this situation through amendments to the Act. Consequently, Parliament should recognize that an employee should not be subjected to actuarial reduction if he loses his job through no fault of his own. The Public Service Superannuation Act stipulates that a Public Service employee who has reached fifty years of age and has to his credit ten years of pensionable service is entitled to a pension. Parliament should not be guilty of age discrimination
Private Members' Business
towards a group of employees. By reducing their pension, we are punishing these employees and making their situation worse than it is now.

In June 1990 the House of Commons passed Bill C-52, an act to amend the Income Ihx Act and related acts. Regulations made pursuant to the bill clarify in general terms provisions for all Canadians who wish to receive early retirement benefits. Specifically, this bill, C-52, requires that there be no reduction in the amount of early retirement benefit in a registered pension plan if the individual receiving the benefits qualifies in law as pensionable.
I wish to remind this House that the Public Service Superannuation Act does in fact provide for pension benefits for 50-year-old laid off employees with at least 10 years of service, and, as such, these employees are considered to be individuals qualifying in law for early retirement benefits.
In the eighth report of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance, tabled June 7, 1990, an agreement was reached between the committee and the Department of Finance regarding modification of the proposed regulations. Concerning early retirement, it was suggested that "there be a provision in the regulations allowing consideration of payment of pensions at an earlier date without actuarial reduction to members who are retiring because of automation, plant closure or downsizing."
Again, in July 1991, the Minister of Finance released draft amendments to the income tax regulations which provided for special benefits for individuals in both the private and public sectors who are terminating employment as a result of a downsizing program that has been approved by the Minister of National Revenue.

Mr. Speaker, I am only going to all this trouble to show how Parliament reacted to the phenomenon of early retirement. I also want to draw your attention to the fact that, even if most provincial civil servants are entitled to early retirement at age 55 without any reduction whatsoever, in some provinces, such as in British Columbia, Alberta, and Saskatchewan, for example, given specific circumstances and for a limited time, like through a

September 25, 1991
Private Members' Business
down-sizing period, laid-off employees are entitled to early retirement without any reduction.
In Saskatchewan, that applies to laid-off employees as well as civil servants affected outside of Regina. Again, Mr. Speaker, I am pointing out those precedents so that this House recognize the realities Public Service is faced with in the 1990's, when finding how other jurisdictions have solved the matter.
Nobody could anticipate the circumstances we are now in when the Public Service Superannuation Act was first passed by Parliament.

I conclude with the following example of the pension benefits of one of my constituents who was forced to retire because of downsizing in the federal Public Service. This gentleman chose a pension when he was age 50. Consequently, his pension was reduced by 5 per cent a year until the age of 60; that is to say, 5 per cent times 10 years equals a 50 per cent reduction of his total pension.
Had this gentleman been age 55 at the time of lay off he would have received the maximum amount. He wrote to me, and I quote: "My feeling is that the eligible people in this group with at least 10 years service should only have their benefits reduced from the age 55, not 60, as is the current practice. This would mean that I would receive 75 per cent of the maximum amount, instead of the present 50 per cent".
We must act fairly. As a result of the government's policy of downsizing, a segment of its employees are experiencing financial penalty. This can be rectified by acceptance of my motion and amendments to the Public Service Superannuation Act.
I call upon the government to recognize that the act requires amending. This should be accomplished quickly so that when the full effects of Public Service 2000 are felt employees in the 50 to 54 years of age category are not further disadvantaged.

We must act fairly. We must recognize the quality with which public servants discharge their numerous and important tasks. Our attitude in our work relationships with the Public Service will reinforce the benefits of
PS-2000. And we will know that employees having to leave the government between the ages of 50 and 54 will not be further disadvantaged.


Mr. Sid Parker (Kootenay East):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend the member for Carleton-Gloucester for presenting this Motion M-385. As the New Democratic critic for pensions I fully endorse the proposal put forward by the member.
So we are clear on what we are talking about here, the motion states:
That, in the opinion of this House, the government should amend the Public Service Superannuation Act so that any Public Service employee who has lost his or her job on or after January 1st, 1988, as a result of a Public Service downsizing program, and who had reached fifty years of age and had to his or her credit not less than ten years of pensionable service, would be entitled to receive a pension reduced by the product obtained by multiplying:-
The member uses the 5 per cent formula at the age of 55. Downgrading it from the age of 55 to 50 would in fact be treating them the same way as someone reaching the pension at age 60 and downgrading it to 55. I had in my riding a person working for Parks Canada who has experienced the very thing we are discussing.
He is below the age of 55. Parks Canada is downsizing. He was called in and told that he would be eligible for a payout and he would be eligible for his pension rights. He accepted the proposal, took his leave, and waited anxiously for his payout and his pension. After a short period of time he was notified that he did not qualify for the pension and he did not qualify for the payout. He was left completely out.
I have a situation-and this is not a public servant but we are talking about a Crown corporation-in the post office. A senior person, not represented by a union, was six months from the date of receiving her pension, of qualifying for her pension, and Canada Post phased out the post office.
They came in and offered her a buyout. They gave her $16,000 as a buyout. Not even the private sector would have treated this employee that way. It would have carried her for the six months so that she could at least qualify for her pension. They bought her out for $16,000. She then transferred that money into an RRSP figuring that she would have to protect her pension rights.
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Then she went down to the unemployment insurance office to claim unemployment insurance and found out that she did not qualify for unemployment insurance because she had been bought out. This person not only lost her pension but she lost her unemployment insurance. That is what is happening.
When downsizing is taking place this government must be held responsible. This government must be held responsible for the public servants, and I do not think this bill has gone far enough. I want to say to the member that I support his bill fully.
In my view, in this case because of the 10 years this employee has received there should be no penalty. There should be no penalty whatsoever. The government, being the employer, should be the one who should have to offset that for the five-year period to ensure that the employee receives an equitable pension.
Five years from now when this takes place and the employee reaches the age of 55, the cost of living and the various things which will have taken place will impose a tremendous penalty on this public servant. It will not be his or her fault.
Certainly, he or she is not going to be able to go out. The government says they can transfer their pensions from one area to another. The member has rightly said that at age 50 or above it is very hard to find employment.
The employer has a responsibility either to find another location for that employee to ensure that he or she can reach pensionable age or find a mechanism such as the member has put forward. This change is long overdue and I would urge the government to consider it because of the policies it is bringing in.
I do not agree with some of the changes the Conservatives are talking about with regard to PS 2000 and other programs. For goodness' sake, if they are going to start changing and downsizing then they must take a look at the over-all Superannuation Act and how it affects these employees or bring in some type of training for these people who are let go because of downsizing so that they can carry on in another area.
That is not happening. The sad thing is that we are going to see more and more of this take place. The member's timing is right on. I would urge the govem-
Private Members' Business
ment to consider this and let this bill come back, be debated and introduced into legislation.
If it does not we are going to be faced with problems for the social programs. Why should we go through this when the people qualified with their 10 years and when they have carried out their duties for that length of time. Many of them might be between the ages of 50 and 55. They are not all 50. We have a period of five years to find some mechanism to ensure that these people are not going to be left out of their pensions because of the actions of the government.
I urge the government to allow this bill to proceed and to encourage this type of mechanism so that employees who have worked for us for many years will receive a decent pension and not be left out, so that they will be able to carry on.
I fully support the member's bill.


Mr. Bill Kempling (Parliamentary Secretary to President of the Treasury Board and Minister of State (Finance)):: Mr. Speaker, I am happy to address the substance of the motion today.
The intentions of the hon. member for Carleton- Gloucester are praiseworthy because the motion's aim is to ensure the financial security of former and present Public Service employees whose employment has or will be lost as a result of downsizing of the Canadian Public Service. As I understand the motion, it proposes that the Public Service Superannuation Act be amended to alter the way in which the pension benefits will be calculated for employees who are at least 50 years of age and have 10 or more years of pensionable service and who have lost their Public Service employment as a result of a layoff or downsizing in their area of work.
For employees in such circumstances, the pension benefits would be calculated by reducing the pension which would be payable at age 55 by 5 per cent for every year that the employee's attained age is less than 55.
I assume first of all that by virtue of the proposed formula anyone whose employment has been terminated under these circumstances and who has already reached 55 years of age would not have any reduction in pension. Basically, this is what happens now under the existing terms of the Public Service Superannuation Act, although Treasury Board approval is required in each case.

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Private Members' Business
There is, however, one difference between the existing superannuation legislation and the proposal in the motion, and that is with respect to the service requirements which an employee needs to qualify for the benefit.
Under the present law, to qualify for a waiver of pension reduction an employee must be at least age 55 and have 10 or more years of employment in the Public Service. Under the motion this requirement reads 10 years of pensionable service.
Pensionable service under the Public Service Superannuation Act is made up of a variety of kinds of service, not all which needs to be with the Public Service of Canada. If, for example, an employee has imported pension credits from an outside employer, under the terms of a reciprocal pension transfer agreement those pension credits are considered to be pensionable service.
Under the proposed amendment being discussed today, as the motion is worded a person could have 10 years of pensionable service and qualify for an unreduced pension, even though almost none of it was employment in the Public Service of Canada.
To use another example, the Public Service Superannuation Act does not yet permit the accounting of service where an employee regularly works fewer than 30 hours per week. An employee could have worked in the Public Service for 10 years but, if some of that employment was on a part-time basis, he or she would not qualify for the benefits under the proposed wording of the motion today.
I would therefore argue that in the terms of qualifying for special treatment on layoff or downsizing, the existing criterion of requiring 10 years of employment rather than 10 years of pensionable service is fair since it recognizes actual employment in the Public Service, either full or part-time, as opposed to pension credits which can be transferred to the superannuation plan from an outside employer.
The proposal's application to employees over age 55 seems relatively straightforward. However, in the case of employees between ages 50 and 55, it is not completely clear to me how the proposal is intended to operate. The motion proposes that eligible employees receive a pension reduced by multiplying the number of years that the employee is less than age 55 by 5 per cent of the amount of the pension that would have been payable if the
employee had been 55 years of age at the time of the loss of his or her job.
Does the hon. member, in referring to the pension that would have been payable if the employee had been 55 years of age, mean a reduced or an unreduced pension? Under the Public Service Superannuation Act, at age 55 only those public servants with 30 or more years of pensionable service would be entitled to draw an unreduced pension.
Employees at age 55 with fewer than 30 years service would be entitled to a reduced pension. For example, if an employee was laid off at age 52 with 26 years of service, under the existing law he or she would be able to receive an immediate annual allowance reduced by 20 per cent. Under the formula proposed in the motion, because of the way the PSSA operates the same individual at age 55 would still have a 20 per cent reduction. The motion would require that this reduced pension would be further reduced by 15 per cent because the employee is three years younger than age 55.
It is possible that the hon. member means to propose that in the above example we are to assume that the employee would also have three more years of pensionable service by age 55, in which case his or her pension would under the existing terms of the Public Service Superannuation Act be reduced by only 5 per cent.
If we were to take this 95 per cent pension and reduce it further by 15 per cent as proposed under the formula set out in the motion, we end up with a pension benefit very close to an amount which is provided under the existing arrangement under the Public Service Superannuation Act.
The employee in this example would receive 81.5 per cent of his or her unreduced pension under the proposed formula instead of 80 per cent under the present terms of the Public Service Superannuation Act.
For the employee who does not have more than 25 years of service at the time of the layoff, the situation is marginally better. At age 52, with 15 years of service, an employee's reduction under the existing Public Service Superannuation Act would be 40 per cent. This means a 60 per cent pension would be payable. By age 55, the reduction would be only 25 per cent. Under the proposed amendment that 75 per cent pension would then be reduced by a further 15 per cent so that the employee
September 25, 1991

would receive 64.5 per cent of his or her unreduced pension.
This example, as in the earlier one, is not clear whether the hon. member proposing the motion intends that service be imputed to employees covered when he refers to the pension that would have been payable if the employee had been 55. If that is the case, then the proposal becomes costly and would in fact be unacceptable under the newly revised income tax provisions and the regulations governing tax assisted retirement savings.
Under a defined benefit pension plan such as the Public Service Superannuation Act, pension credit cannot be given for service which does not actually take place. If the hon. member is assuming that at age 55 all Public Service pensions should be unreduced, we would be looking at an extremely costly proposal since it would be in effect lowering the retirement age under the pension plan. Such a proposal would be so far out of line with private sector practice as to be unacceptable.
Turning to the retroactive nature of the proposed motion, it would be quite unusual to provide pension improvements on a retroactive basis at all, much less to cover a period of almost four years. Prospective pension changes are the norm because of the liabilities associated with such improvements as well as the administrative complexities of recalculating benefits and making retroactive adjustments in the case of the active pensioner and the survivors of any who have died.
In conclusion, I must report to the House that the motion is technically flawed and its exact application is not immediately clear. If it is to improve pension arrangements for persons laid off between the age of 50 and 55, it needs to be recast to accomplish the objective. Nevertheless, it is the case that the existing pension arrangements are already relatively generous and although they favour the older worker, that is so because of the difficulties older workers face obtaining other employment after being laid off from the Public Service.
In the case of somewhat younger workers, the reduced pension is available to supplement their incomes in the event that subsequent employment is not obtained at a comparable salary to their Public Service earnings.
Private Members' Business
Public Service pensions are, as members know, indexed to the cost of living.
Hon. members may also wish to bear in mind that the public servants receive severance and other benefits under the work force adjustment policy so that they are treated fairly in relation to their private sector counterparts who find themselves in similar circumstances.


Mr. Ken Atkinson (St. Catharines):: Mr. Speaker, I too would like to commend the hon. member for Carleton- Gloucester for bringing this matter to the attention of the House and for the proposal he has put forward in regard to this matter and also for the example of the employee with the parks service.
However, before the government would table such a bill I would submit that the proposal would have to be explained thoroughly. I am sure that the President of the Treasury Board would want to have the views of his advisory committee on the matter.
Quite apart from the specific proposal that is in front of us, I think that this House should consider the merits or otherwise of proceeding with a single change to the pension plan for public service in advance of a comprehensive public sector pension reform package. I believe the whole matter should be looked at. I am sure individuals would agree that if there is a change made in this particular area it may impact in another area we are not completely aware of and perhaps provide a penalty to some other individual.
I believe that members are well aware that work has gone on for some considerable time on changes to the federal Public Service statutory pension plans. In fact, I understand that the President of the Treasury Board hopes to be presenting a reform package to the House in the near future.
The impetus for reform, in fact the need for reform, comes from a number of sources. For example, in the various studies which followed the coming into force of section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms there were a few areas where the government made a commitment to consider the matter in the context of pension reform.

Private Members' Business
While some of these matters were dealt with in the so-called "remarriage bill" which was enacted by this Parliament in June 1989, there are still a few matters needing attention in the whole area of pension reform.
While I am not sure that this is a strict section 15 issue, one of the items which stems from the Equality for All report of the parliamentary committee on equality rights is the problem of providing for the division of pension credits on marriage breakdown. This is one particular area about which I am sure many members of this House have also had constituents come in and make complaints or ask for reforms to be made.
Under the current statutes there is no provision to pay pension benefits to anyone other than the plan member or the member's surviving dependants except in response to a court order for family maintenance. This last order is provided for under the Garnishment and Pension Diversion Act which is limited to situations where the non-member spouse is entitled to maintenance under a court order.
The Garnishment and Pension Diversion Act does not apply to situations where property, that is family assets, are being divided. I am sure many members have received representations, as I have mentioned, from former spouses of public servants that the pension plan should be amended to accommodate court order division of pensions as part of an equalization of family assets on marriage breakdown. Obviously this is a matter that should be looked at.
Another very important pressure for pension reform is the Income Tax Act where recent changes instituted a fair set of rules for tax relief granted in respect of contributions to pension plans. The Income Tax Act and its regulations now set out the maximum benefits that a pension plan can provide and still have a registered status. Only contributions to a registered pension plan are tax deductible. We recognize that employers may want to make income arrangements for retired employees that exceed the registered pension plan limits, but the tax act does provide for retirement compensation arrangements.
The tax treatment of retirement compensation arrangements is different from the treatment of registered pension plans.
I really do not want to go much further into the new tax rules for retirement savings. However, I do want to
emphasize that there is a new system which all private pension plans must adhere to. I think that members will agree that it is important that federal Public Service pension plans be structured in compliance with the current Income Tax Act requirements.
Yet another pressure for reform of federal public sector plans is recognition of the requirements of the Pension Benefits Standards Act, 1985.
The statute which was enacted applies to all pensions provided by an employer engaged in a federal undertaking. However, it specifically does not apply in respect of pension plans related to employment in right of Canada.
While the Income Tax Act, because it has to do with a fair allocation of the tax burden, is concerned with the maximum benefits a pension plan can provide, the focus of the Pension Benefits Standards Act has more to do with the protection of persons who are members of pension plans. The carrying out of this protection is done by regulating a wide range of matters, including funding and investment, the trust nature of pension funds, plan members' rights to information, joint employee-employer committees, protection of plan members in cases of sales, acquisitions and mergers, and a prohibition against retroactive reduction in accrued benefits.
The Pension Benefits Standards Act of 1985 also sets out minimum requirements in terms of what a pension plan is to provide. These minimum requirements extend to matters such as maximum waiting periods for membership, coverage of part-time employees, two-year vesting and lock-in, that is the right to a pension benefit, maximum rate of interest on refunds of contributions, guaranteed portability options, access to a pension upon early retirement, and minimum pre-retirement and post-retirement survivor benefits.
As hon. members know, the public sector pension plans are good, solid and fair plans. However, while the plans do exceed certain of the minimum requirements of the Pension Benefits Standards Act, there are some of the requirements which are not met.
Pension reform should address any non-compliance with these requirements which are imposed on private pension plans in the federal sector. The foregoing relates more or less to the external pressures for pension reform. I think hon. members are also well aware of the many internal pressures for action, including, of course,
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an early retirement program for correctional service employees.
The point I wanted to make by this survey of the pressures for reform is that it does not seem prudent or efficient to move on a single issue in advance of a major reform package. In terms of the thrust of the motion itself, both the Income Tax Act and the regulations and the Pension Benefits Standards Act have something to say about early retirement. It is obvious that any change should be assessed in the context of parliamentary directions to private pension plans.
There is a broader issue too, namely, the possibility of constraining any future redesign of the pension plan which would take into account all of the reform pressures.
In short, Mr. Speaker, I think it is premature to consider this motion on the eve of the presentation of a total pension reform package, and the items I mentioned should be considered in this entire package.
Again, it is noteworthy that the member has brought this particular matter forward. We have had examples cited to us. There is obviously something that should be done with regard to Public Service pension plans in these matters, but it should be done in the context of a total reform package. I am sure the hon. member will be pushing the President of the Treasury Board to put that reform package in front of Parliament just as soon as possible.


Mr. Doug Fee (Red Deer):: In following up on the comments of my colleague who just finished speaking, I am certain the hon. member from Carleton-Gloucester will be pushing Treasury Board for changes. I am sure there are many of us who will be also standing with him to encourage some of those changes. I would like to commend him for his interest, his compassion and his feeling for the employees of the federal government. I think it is commendable and it is something that we all are interested in.
I had the opportunity this summer to meet with members of the superannuates association in Red Deer. They outlined to me the history of negotiations they have had with Treasury Board, some of the concerns that they have been expressing to different governments over many, many years. They have a lot of concerns they are hoping will be addressed at the same time.
Private Members' Business
I would like today to comment on the motion before us in the context of the already generous early retirement provisions in the Public Service Superannuation Act. While the government and each one of us here recognizes that there is always room for change and improvement in any scheme, the existing early retirement arrangements under the act already go a long way toward meeting the needs of Public Service employees.
The Treasury Board as the employer is apparently satisfied that when older workers must leave the Public Service work force before reaching retirement age, they have adequate and fair pensions and some flexibility in their pension options. Mr. Speaker, you know as I do that Treasury Board has the responsibility to evaluate employee benefit programs, to ensure that the employees are fairly recompensed and that their benefit plans are adequate.
We as members also have a responsibility to government employees and we have to balance that responsibility with another one that we have to the Canadian taxpayer. We have also got a responsibility to those superannuates who are already on pension and no longer working for the government.
As has been mentioned, the present plan is under scrutiny. It is also under scrutiny by the private sector. Many of them are looking at it jealously. In comparison to many of them, it is a generous program.
For the benefits of the members of this House who are not aware of some of the current conditions, I would like to briefly go through the retirement benefits that are in place now and available to public servants under the existing pension plan.
To begin with, public servants' normal pensionable age is 60. Thus, any public servant who has at least five years of pensionable service and has reached age 60 is entitled to an immediate pension. This pension will be calculated on the basis of 2 per cent of the plan member's average salary over his or her highest six consecutive years of service.
For those members in the House who are listening and notice, I should perhaps expand on that. The individual who has worked for only five years, I am told, will have his pension based on the average of the total service, not

September 25, 1991
Private Members' Business
on six years, because of course they did not have enough service for that.
The typical employee though does not start work for the federal government at age 55. Many, many start much younger. The Public Service Superannuation Act contains special early retirement provisions for employees who have reached at least age 55 and have 30 or more years of pensionable service. These people may retire on an unreduced pension. It is a pension based on the same formula as I just described for normal retirement; that is, 2 per cent per year of the average salary times years of service.
There has been much talk about retirement age in the last few years. I should comment that for pension plans age 65 is still the most widely accepted normal retirement age under employee sponsored pension plans in Canada. According to the 1988 StatsCanada study of pension plans in our country, 90 per cent of all pension plans covering 80 per cent of the total membership in those plans still provide for normal retirement at age 65.
I should like to point out as well that not only does the Public Service Superannuation Act provide for a relatively earlier normal retirement age, but it also provides for relatively earlier special retirement provisions. Special early retirement provisions exist in only a small percentage of Canadian pension plans. Where they do, age 60 is the most frequent age of entitlement and 30 years of service is the most common minimum period.
In terms of early retirement provisions, that is, provisions for reduced pensions in situations where employees leave the workforce before having reached age 60 or age 55 with 30 or more years of service, the Public Service Superannuation Act provides two benefit formulae for calculating pensions. The formula used depends upon the pensionable service credit which an individual has to his or her credit on retirement and the contributor's age.
The normal retirement formula for any plan member who has reached age 50 is to reduce the pension which would be payable at retirement age. For those in the business of employee benefits, this reduction is normally called a deferred annuity. It is 5 per cent per year for each year that the employee's age is less than 60 years. At age 55 an individual's pension would be reduced by 25
per cent, that is the age difference of five years multiplied by 5 per cent to equal 25 per cent.
Using this formula at age 50 the individual's deferred annuity would be reduced by 50 per cent. This formula roughly equates to an actuarial reduction. Such a reduction takes into account the fact that a retirement pension which begins to be paid earlier than at normal retirement is paid over a longer period of time. Accordingly, it should be reduced to take into account that longer period of time over which the payments are spread as compared to the payment period for a pension which is deferred until the plan member reaches retirement age.
Actuarial reduction is quite a mouthful. It simply means, as they have said here, that they anticipate or expect that everybody is going to live to a certain age and should you retire early, they are going to reduce your pension by an amount so that you will collect approximately the same amount of money should you live to be the same age as the average Canadian.
There is a second formula in the Public Service Superannuates Act which gives an advantage to employees with long service. Long service is recognized in employees who have 25 or more years of service and have reached age 50. In those circumstances, a pension would be reduced by the greater of 5 per cent for each year that the employee's age is less than 55, or 5 per cent for each year that the employee's pensionable service credit is less than 30.
For example, an employee aged 52, with 29 years of service would receive a pension equal to his or her deferred annuity reduced by 15 per cent. That is the greater of the reduction done by age, because 55 minus 52 is 3 times 5 per cent, which would equal a 15 per cent reduction.
Of course for the person with 30 years of service minus 29, which would have been a 5 per cent reduction, because it was the greater, it is reduced by 15.
Under this same formula an employee aged 50 or more who leaves the workforce with 25 or more years of pensionable service would have a maximum reduction of 25 per cent. In other words, the employee would receive 75 per cent of his or her deferred annuity. This compares, of course, to the person without the long service
September 25, 1991

award who would in the same situation see his pension reduced by 50 per cent.
There is, as some hon. members might know, one more special retirement provision which completes the retirement package for Public Service employees. I refer to the provision whereby the Treasury Board can waive the early retirement reduction or penalty, as it is sometimes called. The Public Service Superannuation Act sets out those conditions. The employee must have reached age 55, must have at least 10 years employment in the Public Service and must retire on an involuntary basis. Since this provision was introduced in 1971, it has been applied in many individual cases of layoff or where a Public Service employee's position has been declared redundant.
However, in recent years the Treasury Board has gone further and has given pre-approval in principle to the waiver of pension reduction in any case where an employee has been declared surplus under the terms of the Public Service Workforce Adjustment Policy.
This means that eligible older workers who lose their employment through workforce adjustments or downsizing exercises will not actually have their pensions reduced, even thought they have not reached age 60 or met the 55 with 30 years service thresholds.
I might finally add that all early and special retirement pensions are indexed under the Supplementary Retirement Benefits Act from the year following the year leaving employment. This immediate indexing provides an invaluable measure of security for employees who leave the workforce in advance of reaching retirement age.
As I said earlier, it is an easy matter to devise better pension arrangements. The difficulty lies in paying for them. Among the most costly of pension improvements is lowering the age at which unreduced pensions are paid. Given the already generous pensionable ages under the Public Service Superannuation Act and the fact that the proposal we are debating would fall into the category of the more expensive kind of improvement, it is difficult for me to support today's motion. Even though it would apply to a relatively small segment of the Public Service pension population, it would still be viewed as excessive by members of the private sector workforce, many of whom have either no pension coverage at all or have less comprehensive coverage. I believe
Private Members' Business
that our Public Service pension arrangements must be kept in line with those of other Canadian employers.


Mr. David Bjornson (Selkirk-Red River):: Mr. Speaker, a significant part of the discussion that is going on here this evening is rather dry and boring. It is unfortunate that it is hard to liven up a debate such as this. I do appreciate the efforts of all of those involved in the debate this evening, but once again, it is pretty hard to liven up some of the cold figures that are brought forward.
I know I have limited time and I have quite a prepared presentation to make this evening. It is my hope that if this debate is renewed that those involved with the debate will inform me so that I can come before the House and possibly continue the presentation if I am not able to complete it this evening. It is unfortunate that when the speaker's list was put up there was not a little more consideration with respect to the information of which I am in possession of. There is a little bit more history, and quite possibly by presenting the history preceding the other debate it would be more valuable to those with us this evening.
The Public Service Superannuation Act covers approximately 308,000 Public Service employees and sets out the terms of their pension coverage. At the present time, full unreduced pensions are payable under the act when a plan member reaches age 60 with at least five years of pensionable service to his credit, or at age 55 with 30 years of pensionable service, or at any age if retirement is due to disability, provided that the person has completed at least five years of pensionable service.
The act also provides reduced early retirement pensions, known as annual allowances. This means that any plan member with at lest five years of pensionable service can retire as early as age 50 and immediately start to receive a pension. However, the pension that is payable is reduced by 5 per cent for each year that the plan member is less than the age of 60, which means that the maximum reduction is 50 per cent.
This reduction is made and is indeed necessary under the costing arrangements of the act to reflect the longer period over which that early pension will be payable. The reduction for plan members who retire at age 50 or with 25 or more years of pensionable service is related either to age 55 or to 30 years of pensionable service, rather

Private Members' Business
than age 60. The maximum reduction possible is 25 per cent, rather than 50 per cent.
In cases of layoffs the Treasury Board may waive the reduction provided the plan member is at least age 55 and has a minimum of 10 years pensionable service to his credit. This provision was introduced by way of an amendment to the act in 1971 and was rendered more generous by a Treasury Board decision of July 1987 that makes the waiver of reduction more or less automatic where employment is lost due to downsizing.
The amendment proposed by the hon. member for Carleton-Gloucester would mean that in such cases an annual allowance would be payable up to five years earlier than it is at the moment. As well, although the potential maximum reduction of 25 per cent would remain the same, logic would dictate that the existing waiver of reduction policy should be extended to cover the new arrangement.
The consequent payment of a pension over a longer period of time starting at age 50 rather than at age 55 would result in increased cost with the size of that increase directly related to the number of pensions being paid out under these circumstances. These are costs which would have to be paid for by active plan members and the government, as the employer, and could result in increased contributions. With their contribution already equal to 7.5 per cent of their salary, any increase, however small, might not be well received by plan members.
I would just like to remind the Elouse that a change in design, which this proposal is, would be more effectively achieved by the Public Service pension plan reform process than through an amendment to the act since the government has indicated its intentions to introduce a Public Service pension reform bill this autumn. Until this bill is tabled, any impact it may have on the early retirement features of the current plan cannot be assessed. I will, however, remind hon. members that a previous Public Service pension reform initiative, Bill C-33, which died on the Order Paper when the last federal election was called, would have brought considerable changes to the Public Service pension arrangements.
This is not the appropriate time to describe all the proposed changes, but I would like to indicate that the financial and accounting side of the plan would have been revised to observe more closely the requirements and constraints imposed by the government on other employers and to enhance the financial security of the Public Service arrangements.
The cost for post reform service would have been shared equally between the government, as employer, and plan members with benefits being fully funded as they were earned.
A joint employer plan member Pension Management Board would have been established for the Public Service to permit any plan member involvement in the operation of the pension plan and to reflect the equal cost and risk sharing of the new arrangements.
The Pension Management Board would have significant input on the plan design. It was to have six months from its appointment to report to the President of the Treasury Board on its recommendations for the changes to be made to the Public Service pension plan to bring it into line with the standards and practices required of other employer sponsored pension plans.
These changes would then have formed a basis for phase II of Public Service pension reform. I think then that hon. members can see that the Pension Management Board would have looked at each and every element of the Public Service pension plan. It would have been able-


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

Pursuant to Standing Order 96(1), this item is dropped from the Order Paper.
The House stands adjourned until 10 a.m. tomorrow, pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 7.55 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Thursday, September 26,1991