1991-05-31

Mr. Jerry Pickard (Essex-Kent) moved:: That this House call upon the government to institute policies that
would require that service to Canadians be the priority for Canada
Post.
He said: Madam Speaker, it is indeed a pleasure today to bring forward concerns I have heard over the last two years I have been in Parliament about what primarily is happening in Canada Post, concerns which people in my riding and across Canada have voiced over the difficulties they are experiencing with service within that organization.
If we consider the situation around the world, probably the most changing technology is in communication. It is my opinion that Canada Post represents in Canada a very, very important means of communication which must serve Canadians to its utmost, must smooth its process and make certain that every Canadian, whether living in the far north, metropolitan Toronto, Vancouver or the maritimes, receives a service that is first and foremost number one.
How Canada Post Corporation deals with this type of quality service which we need is going to be fundamentally important to all of us. In rural Canada its dealings with this type of service seems quite strange to me. In rural Canada corporate post offices are being closed; in rural Canada the 5,221 post offices that existed in 1986 are dwindling. Today about 1,000 of those post offices
have already been closed or converted. What has this done to rural Canada? This has taken away the only federal presence in many small communities. It has taken down the federal flag in those small communities. It has left those small communities without the pride and the privilege of Canada's presence.
This has eliminated about 3,000 jobs at the same time. Those jobs in small communities are very important. In most cases they are relatively low-paying jobs, but I think another significant point here is that 80 per cent of those jobs are for women. We are seeing women in small rural communities losing the privilege of working and helping others in those communities.
We have eliminated the one-stop service of Canada Post. In certain cases, mail is now picked up in one location and other postal services, the services one would expect to have, at counters, are being done elsewhere. In some cases, rural Canadians have to travel as much as 12 miles in order to receive service today which they could have counted on just a few short years ago.
What have we heard the government say on this issue? The government and Canada Post Corporation maintain that changes in postal service, for example a closure or a conversion, would only take place under certain circumstances. Canada Post and the government have suggested these circumstances would only be through resignation, retirement or promotion of a postmaster, loss of a postal site, or local initiative. In other words, they have very clearly set out the premise for which closures would occur. These are called by the government "natural occurrences". The correspondence that I have been receiving suggests that natural occurrences are not the means by which many Canada Post facilities are being shut down.
A small community, Mossley, Ontario, stated in a letter to me just a short while ago: "Canada Post Corporation has promised and continues to advertise that communities of Canada are given a 90-day period of meaningful consultation before community consent". A period of consultation was never offered to the Mossley

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community. The Mossley post office will be shut down on June 28, 1991.
It is interesting to note that I have a letter from the member for London-Middlesex who represents Mossley: "By working together, as Minister Andre said himself on Mossley Heritage Day, June 6, 1987, we can ensure that the Moseley post office remains operational for at least another 122 years". It is being closed this June. What a change in position.
I also have the notes from the statement of the minister at that same meeting. He very clearly stated that Mossley post office was secure, adding that he hoped it would remain that way for another 122 years.
The minister, speaking to a group of heritage people in Mossley in 1987 suggested that this government would protect our post office and make sure it remains open. Now, five years later, there is a total change of commitment.
It appears that the guidelines, the rules and the regulations that have been set forth for rural closures are changing day by day, month by month and week by week, but not to improve service to Canadians. Let's be very clear. The primary goal of Canada Post service to Canadians is the goal that is being tom apart by the actions of this government. However, a very unnatural occurrence happens every time a Canada Post office gets closed in these communities.
Across Canada, 157 post offices have been targeted for closure or conversion in a very short time. Across Canada, another 250 jobs will be lost. I would like to point out that I have a listing of post offices that are scheduled to be closed. I can say very clearly that there is a full sheet of the names of post offices to be closed in Ontario. Post offices are to be closed in maritime Canada; Newfoundland, Labrador, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and in Quebec. There are 63 closures scheduled for Ontario, 18 for Manitoba, 22 for Saskatchewan, five for Alberta and seven for British Columbia. Every province in this country will have several closures.
This list, by the way, comes from negotiations with Canada Post, and it is a Canada Post target list.


An hon. member:: The hit list.


Jerry Pickard: A very good point.
We realize that we are talking about 150 communities which are going to lose their postal outlets the way they see them existing today.
Across Canada, another Canadian institution will be dismantled. In front of every post office, the presence and the pride of all Canadians flies. We know that when people see our flag in our communities, it brings pride and respect to them, to their community and to their families. When we see the elimination of post offices, we also see the elimination of the symbol "Canada" in these small communities. That is what is happening. That is what this government is permitting Canada Post Corporation to do.
The government will argue that natural occurrences give rise to Canada Post action, that in each of the 157 cases a natural occurrence has happened. Did it? Or did Canada Post utilize a January 1991 agreement with the Postmasters Association to push nature along, an agreement which stated that over an interim period of time it would eliminate part-time workers?
Where a Postmaster had retired or was urged out of the job by certain offerings of Canada Post, the post office became available to be shut down. I think there are very many actions taken in Canada Post to unnaturally close post offices. In some post offices, term employees have been doing the work of regular employees for over two, three, four years and longer.
The work has been getting done. The people have been working for Canada Post, but now those people are done.
What criteria does Canada Post use to decide on post offices to be saved or post offices to be sacrificed? In 1991, in Quebec, Canada Post has targeted 12 post office conversions to date. Yet, Canada Post Corporation has advertised to staff 12 group-type post offices and seven grade-type post offices.
The group-type post offices are very small. Hopefully, Canada Post will staff these and will not let the competitions expire without filling the positions.
Why do 12 small post offices close and 12 group and 7 grade post offices have post office job competitions? What are the criteria? Where is the quality of service? Where is the equality of service for 7 communities in
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Newfoundland and Labrador, 15 in Nova Scotia, 4 in Prince Edward Island, 2 in New Brunswick, 12 in Quebec, 63 in Ontario, 18 in Manitoba, 24 in Saskatchewan, 5 in Alberta and 7 in British Columbia?
Equality will end this summer as we see Canada Post's massive campaign to convert the 1991 crop of post offices into oblivion. It is not only through Canada Post Office conversions that the government and Canada Post attacked rural Canada. Earlier this year, rural Canadians dodged another bullet fired by the government with, as a result of the government's policy direction, the elimination of a postal subsidy program. Canada Post was preparing to pass increases along to community weekly newspapers, which would have increased mailing costs from 200 per cent to 1,000 per cent.
How does that affect the lot of our average Canadians? Letters have come in to my office, and I thought, Madam Speaker, I would relate to you one which came from my home community. This was sent in to the Kingsville Reporter, in my home town, by a person who was very distressed at the fact that these postal rate increases would alter her ability to have the newspaper delivered.
"I was just ready to seal my envelope with a cheque for the Reporter covering the period to June 1, when-cancellation-cancellation when I read your editorial. I do not feel we can pay all that extra money to a government I absolutely abhor. It has brought nothing but depression and disillusionment into my life. Now that we are both retired and watching our pennies a little more carefully, I cannot, in conscience, let Jack send off the subscription cheque for such an increased amount."
Now we are going to hear from the government that it has put a delay on those rate subsidy changes. However, it has only put a delay on rate subsidy changes in postal code 2. Postal codes 3 and 4 already have those subsidies decreased. They are going on presently and it appears that by March those increases will go ahead.
I have talked to people from many, many, many small newspapers across this country and it has been very, very clear. Loss of subscription, loss of revenue, loss of news and loss of communication is the result of this govem-
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ment's callous way of looking at subsidies in rural Canada.
We have seen losses in transportation: VIA Rail and Air Canada. We have seen losses in CBC. We have seen losses with Canadian small newspapers. I wonder: would the same actions be taken against Canada's daily newspapers if in the same situation? Would this government stand against the great dailies in this country? I do not believe so. I believe the actions are usually taken against the small who are unable as a unit to protect themselves as well.
The postal rate subsidy given to rural Canada was given for a very specific reason. I would like to take a second to quote Bill Pratt, President of Canadian Community Newspapers Association. In his article he states:
I mean, dammit, I thought we had a pretty good relationship going for the past couple of centuries. There was even a time when politicians thought newspapers were important. The thoughtful knew newspapers could be a valuable tool for bringing people together through sharing of information.
Some politicians encouraged establishment of papers, and, because papers were a vital part of the political and social infrastructure, they decided to subsidize delivery of those papers to readers through the postal service.
The relationship began to cool a few years back. I'm not sure why, but I suspect it was about the time they invented "Canada Post".
I like to think we might discover some intelligent life form in Ottawa: that someone will realize community newspapers can mean a lot of business for Canada Post at very little real cost;
I think he is putting on the line a very direct comment: communication in small, rural Canada, communication in distant regions is just as important as communication in major cities. The government should be concerned about those people in outreach areas who need a little help because of the vast size of this country and because the local communication in smaller towns is not as efficient as The Globe and Mail. They also cannot have advertising and other costs that one might get from a major newspaper.
Coming from a community like Windsor, seeing a small newspaper close is going to be very drastic to that community. We saw CBC close; we saw the end of local news on television. Are we to see the end of local news in the media, in the local newspaper now? It appears we

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are heading in that direction under this government and Canada Post's policy.
Early this year, rural Canadians did dodge that bullet, but I would suggest to this government at this point in time that it make eveiy effort to re-analyse postal subsidies and not just say it is going to put a moratorium on it for nine months; re-analyse it and look at a fair system for all Canadians across this country.
I believe it is extremely important that rural Canada gets its fair share.
What I would like to do is go back to a statement that was made when this newspaper legislation came in. The newspaper legislation did come in on the basis that the government House leader, in response to a question I had in the House, said that rate increases would only be 25 per cent. On further inspection, rate increases for rural newspapers came up as high as 1,000 per cent. I think the decision was made on a very ill-timed, very ill-conceived bit of knowledge that the government had. It has certainly hampered rural Canada tremendously.
Finally I would like to come to the point of the government's idea that it has become a much more lean, efficient organization for Canadians. We have heard the government brag about the profits that Canada Post has shown. The government, for its part, did not listen to all Canadians on concerns, but it certainly was very proud that in the last year, 1988-89, it showed a profit of $96 million and that in 1989-90 it showed $149 million.
May I just point out that in those two years it also received $500 million in subsidy from the Canadian government. That certainly throws a different angle on what it is bragging about. The profits of Canada Post have only been gained through a $500 million subsidy.


Mr. Gilbert Parent (Welland-St. Catharines-Tho-rold):: Madam Speaker, I would like to commend my colleague for his very thorough analysis of the problems which are facing Canada Post at this time.
He mentioned the problems in his area of southwestern Ontario. I too come from a highly populated area in
the Niagara Peninsula. He mentioned some assurances that he received from Canada Post at an earlier time.
My question to him concerns the fact that assurances were given to him directly, and to the people in his area, about keeping the post offices open, and he used the term I believe, "at this time". I too have received that kind of assurance from Canada Post. I was told that the post offices in Welland, Thorold, St. Catharines and Niagara Falls will be kept open, notwithstanding the fact that Canada Post has put in a huge sorting plant in Stoney Creek.
I would like his opinion as to how much credence I should put into these assurances that the post offices for which I am responsible in the Niagara Peninsula would not probably suffer the same fate as many of his have suffered.


Jerry Pickard: Madam Speaker, I would like to thank very much my colleague for that very good question. It does bring into perspective an issue that I happened to see yesterday here in this House: statement one, statement two. It appears that from time to time, and I am not sure how long a time period, everything changes. The example of Mossley in my opinion well illustrates a situation where a minister said: "This post office will remain open for another 122 years. No questions. No worries. No problems". However, just a few short years later the post office is scheduled for closure.
There are 157, and I have got the listings of each one of those post office here in this document which came from the negotiations with the union and Canada Post- it is Canada Post's documentation-closures listed on this document.
We know that what is said at one time, over a long period of time, could change. It seems that there have been statements made politically which change very rapidly. I have a major concern that we do not have solid policies suggesting where we are going. We see changes occurring. That type of thing happened, I believe, with the postal rate increase.
The opposition on this side of the House and the back bench on that side of the House shook enough fences that there was a delay in the increase. It was very political.
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This government must examine its policies, clarify its policies and tell the Canadian public where we are going-not piecemeal, and chop, chop, chop Canada Post apart.


Mrs. Beryl Gaffney (Nepean):: Madam Speaker, I too want to compliment my colleague from Essex-Kent for an excellent presentation on his valid conclusions as to what is happening with Canada Post in this country, and where we as a nation should be going.
He mentions several regional areas in the country that are being hurt and also the people in this country who are being hurt. For many years the rural post office was what bound communities together, it was the meeting place where people gathered.
With our current great concern with national unity, this should be a major consideration of this government when it considers closing rural post offices.
My question has an economic basis. If we examine the position of Canada Post during the past two years, we will find it is true that on the books Canada Post shows profits of $96 million in 1988-89 and $149 million in 1989-90. This is what Canada Post shows as a profit. Yet for the same two years almost $500 million was paid to Canada Post as subsidies to offset certain mailing costs. That eliminates that so-called profit that Canada Post is claiming.
For almost two years the 46,000 CUPW workers have been without a contract. Since July 1989, 46,000 CTC employees have not received wage increases. While Canada Post boasts of profits, it conveniently takes almost $500 million in subsidies and does not give its work force a raise.
What would happen if these points were factored into the statements of Canada Post Corporation? I am sure there would be no so-called profits, and the numbers would be inclined to prove it.


Jerry Pickard: I thank my colleague for a very astute question, one that illustrates our consternation. Many times in this Parliament partial truths are told, the whole picture never being revealed.
The government has been telling us for two years that Canada Post is in the black, that Canada Post is a
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profit-making corporation with profits of approximately $100 million two years ago and $150 million last year.
That is total fiction. The truth is that we support the Canadian government in its endeavour to subsidize Canada Post, don't get us wrong on that. However, the truth has to be told that there is a $500 million subsidy to Canada Post for regions, for disabled people. Those subsidies must remain for communication.
The other point made by my colleague is that two years of negotiations have not brought a contract with Canada Post employees yet it states that it has a profit of $100 million, $150 million. Once it settles that negotiation there will be retroactive pay which has not been taken into account anywhere in the documents of Canada Post, meaning that the $100 million and $150 million-and we are talking about 60,000 employees-may not all be there. It may be another sham.


Hon. Pierre H. Cadieux (Minister of State (Youth), Minister of State (Fitness and Amateur Sport) and Deputy Leader of the Government in the House of Commons):: Madam Speaker, I welcome this opportunity today to speak to the members of this House about the services offered by the Canada Post Corporation.

Canada Post is organized in 10 divisions with a head office located in Ottawa. Canada Post has a national customer base of about 26 million people and over 1 million businesses served by more than 16,700 locations where postal products and services are available.
With approximately 47,000 full and part-time employees Canada Post also deals with more than 7,800 entrepreneurs across the country who provide mail transport and delivery in urban, suburban and rural areas. Canada Post delivers, on average, 40 million pieces of mail every working day, serves over 11 million addresses in every part of Canada, walks, drives and flies over some of the most formidable terrain in the world in some of the worst weather conditions. It runs a network of 26 major mechanized processing plants, buys more transportation services in Canada than any other corporation, and Canada Post makes a profit.

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When Canada Post became a Crown corporation, its revenues were in the $1.5 billion range and yet it had no modem standards, systems or procedures and no balance sheet or general ledger in place.
The management team had to put these into place to improve and expand service and break even financially while business was proceeding full speed ahead.
In its bleakest year, Canada Post cost taxpayers around $600 million. That was more than nine years ago. Since then the corporation has moved from that deficit to a profit of $96 million in the fiscal year 1988-89, which was the first in over 30 years, and to $149 million profit in the fiscal year 1989-90. That profit allows Canada Post Corporation to invest in new equipment which will improve postal services.
The biggest story, which you do not see in the headlines, is that at the same time Canada Post has improved the reliability of and accessibility to its services, increases in the basic letter rate have been limited to less than the rate of inflation. In real terms, the price of a stamp has actually decreased. Canada Post is committed to giving Canadians more reliable, accessible and affordable service.
Let me explain what the people at Canada Post have been doing to improve postal service in each of these areas. With respect to reliability, Canada Post has set up a program of operational improvements for collecting, processing and delivering mail. Uniform standard systems and procedures were introduced at all processing plants so that mail would move in a co-ordinated, predictable way across the country.
For example, a special system for colour coding the mail has been instituted. This allows employees to designate which mail should be treated with priority within a postal facility in order to maintain service standards.

The corporation's National Control Centre is linked to nine divisional control centres, and its role is to monitor mail flow 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Corporation management meets every morning at the control centre to evaluate the results of the past 24 hours and measure them against projections. This procedure is essential,
Madam Speaker, because in this way, Canada Post can evaluate its performance in terms of meeting its commitments and take specific action to make it even more competitive on the market.

This state of the art technology has won the corporation international acclaim. Canada Post is vigorously marketing the management system on the international scene with success in New Zealand and the United States.
One may recall news articles announcing a multi-million dollar contract with the United States Postal Service and Systemhouse, based on technology used by Canada Post. Clearly defined standards for the delivery of properly prepared letter mail were established, and an independent firm of auditors, Ernst and Young, was hired to measure Canada Post's performance regarding those standards and publish the results every quarter.
Canada Post is one of the first postal administrations in the world to have its performance independently measured and the results published. Other postal administrations such as USPS have implemented a similar procedure and the results show that they have a long way to go to achieve similar results to Canada Post.
The delivery time standard here in Canada for properly prepared letter mail is within two business days within the same urban centre, within three business days between major urban centres in the same province, and within four business days between major urban centres in different provinces.

In fact, Madam Speaker, the results have confirmed Canada Post's progress. For instance, Canada Post is the first postal administration in the world, as I said earlier, to have its performance measured by an independent auditor and to have these findings made public.
The last report by the firm of Ernst & Young for the quarter ending in March 1991 shows that, at the national level, 97 per cent of local mail was delivered in accordance with the standards to which Canada Post is committed. These performance standards were met, Madam Speaker, while setting a priority on outstanding customer-oriented service. Three factors are involved in providing this service and maintaining this priority:
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reliability, accessibility and reasonable cost of products offered.
To achieve this, Madam Speaker, the Canada Post Corporation embarked on an operations enhancement program for mail pick-up, processing and delivery. It has put in place the requisite standards, systems and procedures in all its facilities, to ensure that the mail is routed across the country in a manner that is co-ordinated, controlled and predictable.

The people at Canada Post are constantly looking for ways to improve service performance to those set standards. By using resources more efficiently, better service to customers can be provided and costs for providing the service can be managed more responsibly.
Another indication of reliability is the greater volume of mail delivered. That volume has increased by 38 per cent since 1981. By trusting Canada Post to deliver more of their mail, people are showing confidence in its ability to provide efficient and reliable service.
Canada Post promised to make its products and services more accessible. The corporation's goal is to make it easier for customers to buy stamps, mail letters and receive packages. That is why Canada Post is extending its century-old traditional partnerships with local businesses and setting up retail postal outlets with the people who best understand retail sales: the small businessman or, as I should say, the small business person.
This program will increase the number of outlets by more than 25 per cent over the next five years. This is only the beginning. Canada Post has one of the most extensive delivery networks in the world, serving over 11 million addresses throughout the country. Over each of the next five years, an estimated 225,000 new addresses will be added to this network.
One of the biggest demographic changes in Canada over the past 20 years or so has been the growth of sprawling suburbs around our major cities and towns. The community mailbox is one method used here as well as in the United States to extend service to suburban areas. One of the advantages of community mailboxes is that they have special compartments for packages.
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At the present time, the corporation has approximately 27,400 community mailbox sites across the country serving approximately 712,000 customers. Under the Community Mailbox Implementation Program, a further
6,000	sites are scheduled to be opened in the fiscal year 1991-92, which will serve about 157,000 additional customers.
Retail postal outlets located in communities across Canada offer extended hours, giving customers greater access to products and services Monday to Friday and on the weekends.
Canada Post business is increasingly meeting its competition, not only private courier companies, but the avalanche of electronic message transmission technologies. In order to stay in business, it must provide its customers with products and services which meet their needs. Canada Post is doing just that. A system for letters and parcels which allows both customers and commercial customers to choose the best speed/cost combination for their needs has now been introduced through various parcel products.
Canada Post wants to regain a significant part of the parcel delivery market. It is making parcel products more competitive and attractive to commercial customers, providing both regular and expedited services.
In meeting the challenge of the electronic age, Canada Post offers customers electronic mail, Telepost, Intel-post, Envoy Post and volume electronic mail, which usually provide next day delivery. For an added cost, Telepost and Intelpost can provide same-day delivery for top priority messages. Priority Courier will deliver urgent documents the next morning, guaranteed. Canada Post provides timely information on delivery status and location via the track and trace system. Special letter products offer unfeatured courier service which also guarantees delivery within the purchased time frame as early as the next day, or the customer receives a new special letter envelope of equal or greater value, free.
The corporation has also made significant inroads in the commercial market with its own unique advertising medium called Ad Mail. Using the postal code in combination with demographic and socio-economic data allows Canada Post to compile a variety of data on any targeted market. Adding this to the extensive network and flexibility makes it possible for mailers to distribute

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advertising material in areas as small as one carrier route or as large as an entire region, to all the rural communities in a given area or to all of Canada.
Another commitment to Canadians is affordability. When Canada Post became a corporation nearly nine years ago, Canadians were promised they would get their money's worth. Since then, basic letter rate increases have been kept below the rate of inflation. Comparisons are often made between postal rates in Canada and other countries without taking into account the different wage rates, geographic sizes and population densities involved.
Canada is the second-largest country in the world and our relatively small population is widely dispersed. By comparison, all of Great Britain would fit into an area the size of the maritimes. The basic letter rate when measured in terms of the minutes of labour required for the average worker to earn the price of a stamp is lower than in many countries. In comparison to the major OCE countries, Canada ranks second only to the U.S. In Canada, mail is moved from St. John's, Newfoundland to Vancouver, B.C. for the same price as between Ottawa and Hull.
By any yardstick, that is value for money. Canada Post is delivering on its promise of better service to its customers.
In 1989-90, as was indicated earlier, the profit was $149 million. While this amount may appear large in absolute terms, on revenues of $3.6 billion it is small. It represents a return on equity of 10.5 per cent and is a step toward the industry norms of 14 to 15 per cent. The corporation has made its second consecutive profit and for the first time has paid dividends of $60 million to its shareholder, the Government of Canada. That means that Canadian taxpayers are no longer subsidizing postal operations. They now only pay once for their postage stamp.
To Canadian businesses, which provide approximately 80 per cent of the postal volume, the availability of reliable, accessible and affordable postal service is essential. Inefficiencies in the postal network mean higher costs for businesses, increasing their vulnerability in the highly competitive marketplace.
To build the postal service for the future, Canada Post must maintain its profitability. The corporation must maintain its profitability and invest those profits into
revitalizing its aging plants and equipment, while continuing the improvement in efficiency. It must continue to increase volume by providing services which meet market needs and focus even more on serving its customers well.
Through the 1990s and into the 21st century, Canada Post will continue to improve upon its success by providing Canadians with reliable, accessible and affordable products and services specifically adapted to the needs of the Canadian consumer.
It is clear that the opposition, through its statements, would have the government direct Canada Post to move itself backward to those dark days when it was a main drain on the Canadian taxpayer.


Jerry Pickard: We had good service.


Pierre H. Cadieux: I do not have much more to say. I will finish soon and you will have your chance to address whatever issue you want to address.
The responsibility of Canada Post is to collect and move the mail efficiently while at the same time maintaining self-sufficiency. It has done it. It is doing it and it will continue to do it.


Mr. Len Taylor (The Battlefords-Meadow Lake):: Madam Speaker, in listening to the hon. minister's speech, I could not help but think about how hard the Canada Post public relations people must have been working last night to prepare.
That was an incredible statement of statistics supporting the national objectives of the corporation. Not once in the minister's speech did I hear him talk about the needs of the Canadian people.
He talks about the market needs, but whose market are we talking about? Are we talking about the market needs of Canwood, Marcelin, Gallivan and Edam, which are communities in my constituency? The market needs of those communities are directly related to the service component of Canada Post.
I did not hear one word from this government or from this minister about commitment to the policy of serving the needs of rural Canadians.
My question to the minister in the short period of time I have is twofold: First, is there a commitment from this government to needs of rural Canada? Second, when I listened to his speech, he talked about colour coding and
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the way in which colour coding speeds the process of mail delivery. Is the minister aware that in colour coding blue is for Monday, yellow is for Tuesday and red is for Wednesday? If a red box arrives on Monday, it sits in the goldam post office until Wednesday until it goes out.
That mail is not being processed to service the needs of that community. It is being serviced to meet the needs of Canada Post. I would like to know if the minister is aware of that and if he is prepared to do anything to correct it.


Pierre H. Cadieux: Madam Speaker, in his introductory remarks, my hon. colleague said that he could not help but listen to the speech. I suppose that is flattering and I thank him for listening, even if he could not help it.
On the other hand, I think perhaps that my hon. colleague, when he eventually gets the "blues", will re-read the speech very carefully and perhaps reassess his statement in general.
It is always odd to hear the opposition members of this House bitch about statistics when they are not in their favour.
Whenever a statistic comes up, regardless of the subject, if it happens to be damaging to the government they quote them every hour of the day.
In this case we have statistics which demonstrate that not only does the service improve but that the customers are happy with the service, including those in the rural areas.
Why should we not use those statistics? We cannot expect the opposition to acknowledge or even underline en passant that the majority of Canadians are happy with the improvements brought about by Canada Post which are directly for customers in general, including those individual customers in rural areas and not just the commercial customers as my hon. friend tries to demonstrate.
A little bit of clarity and honesty in statements in this House with respect to what the Government of Canada is doing for Canadians would be appreciated once in a while.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: It being eleven o'clock, pursuant to Standing Order 30(5), the House will now
proceed to statements by members pursuant to Standing Order 31.


STATEMENTS PURSUANT TO S. O. 31
Mr. Bill Casey (Cumberland-Colchester):: Madam Speaker, strawberry growers in Nova Scotia have recently been advised that the application of federal sizing standards will be enforced more rigorously than in previous years. The variance standard will require strawberries to meet standards within one-eighth of an inch in diameter. This precise measurement would prevent our growers from being competitive and will result in much of the crop being left in the fields and many part-time jobs being lost.
In March, the horticultural council passed a resolution increasing the allowed variance to one-quarter of an inch and although it has been approved in principle, the department has advised that the change will not be implemented in time for this year's crop.
I ask the Minister of Agriculture to address this situation and ensure that any unnecessary obstacles are removed and that this change be implemented as soon as possible.


MYANMAR
Beryl Gaffney: Madam Speaker, this week marked the first anniversary of the democratic election in Myanmar, formerly Burma, during which the National League for Democracy won a landslide victory. Yet these newly elected government members are not allowed to take their seats in Parliament. The transfer of power seems no closer today than it did a year ago.
By April of this year, the military junta has arrested almost 80 of 457 elected NLD members. There are over 500 party officials now in detention. Reports of torture abound, and at least three parliamentarians have died while in prison.

May 31, 1991
I call upon the Government of Canada to demand the following on behalf of all fair-minded Canadians: First, the immediate transfer of power to the democratically elected government of Myanmar, the immediate release from prison of all members of the National League for Democracy, and that Canada officially recognize the duly elected government of Myanmar.
The Government of Canada must then bring all its influence to bear at the United Nations so that the rest of the world can also begin to do what is right for the people of Myanmar.


PEPIN-ROBARTS COMMISSION
Hon. Alan Redway (Don Valley East):: Madam Speaker, it is interesting and significant to note that in 1979 the task force on Canadian unity, commonly known as the Pepin-Robarts commission, said that our Frenchspeaking minorities will make more headway as a result of social consensus and provincial legislation than they will from constitutional guarantees.
That commission went on to recommend that each provincial legislature should have the right to determine the official language or languages for that province. Some are now suggesting that this 1979 task force was ahead of its time.
If, as the Prime Minister says, this House of Commons is the real constituent assembly, should we not dust off the Pepin-Robarts report and openly debate its pros and cons?


HAMILTON HARBOUR COMMISSION
Mr. Stan Keyes (Hamilton West):: Madam Speaker, the mayor of the city of Hamilton has written me a letter advising me that at the City Council meeting of May 14, 1991, a resolution was passed condemning: "the actions of three local Conservative MPs in refusing to meet with the Finance Administration Committee to discuss the composition of the Hamilton Harbour Commission".


Some hon. members:: Shame, shame.


Stan Kazmierczak Keyes: As most members will know, Canadians have the right to demand that members of Parliament must be accountable, not only to their constituents, but also to their communities and institutions. When a
member fails to even meet with officials of their own city, town or region, there develops a lack of trust and confidence.
The resolution also stated that the Prime Minister would be made aware of the dereliction of duty by the three Ibry MPs and that the City Council would instead meet with the Liberal MPs from the area. One Hamilton alderman summed up Hamilton's frustrations with the members of Lincoln, Burlington and Hamilton-Wentworth this way: "When our local MPs adamantly refuse to talk to City Council, we have a real serious problem."


TOBACCO INDUSTRY
Ms. Barbara Greene (Don Valley North):: Madam Speaker, documents filed before the Quebec Superior Court indicate the insidious, pernicious and unethical tactics used by tobacco industry advertisers to sell death to youth and other targeted consumers.
A 1988 advertising plan notes that very young starter smokers choose Export A because it provides them with an instant badge of masculinity, appeals to their rebellious nature, and establishes their position among their peers.
Similarly, we know young women of child-bearing age are manipulated into smoking by advertising which associates smoking with slimness, attractive appearance and popularity. What incredible gall do these poor corporate citizens have, to challenge federal legislation banning their obscene advertising and recently to ask smokers to protest tax increases on cigarettes that certainly do not compensate for either the public cost or private suffering caused by tobacco addiction and the poor societal values they propagate? I urge a complete ban on advertising and promotion of cigarettes in Canada and exemption from copyright legislation for educators and critics of such advertising.


FISHERIES
Mr. Brian L. Gardiner (Prince George-Bulkley Valley):: Madam Speaker, fishermen in Cheticamp, Nova Scotia, are occupying the Fisheries and Oceans office today to protest the federal government's mismanagement of the fisheries resource in their area.

The problems facing east coast fisheries have been wreaking havoc on the economy and the social fabric of maritime communities. Years of Tory and Liberal fiddling has done nothing to provide for a stable and prosperous fishing industry in the Atlantic and the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
I spoke to the fishermen this morning and they told me that they are being squeezed by declining stocks, inequitable quotas and increasingly Draconian UIC requirements.
The government has to sit down with all sectors of the inshore fisheries to work out a fair and equitable distribution of quotas and plan for a fisheries with a future.
Express your support for the fishermen. Phone them in Cheticamp at 902-224-2017. Tell the fisheries minister as well. Call him here in Ottawa at 613-992-3474.


HUMAN RIGHTS
Mr. Bill Attewell (Markham-Whitchurch-Stouff-ville):: Madam Speaker, last week I rose to protest the human rights violations against Jews in Syria.
Today, I rise to protest the bizarre and inhumane treatment of two particular Syrian Jews, Selim Swed and his brother Elie.
They have been imprisoned without charge for three and a half years. They were beaten and tortured during this period and were ultimately brought before a tribunal last week.
Their in camera trial lasted only a few minutes. They were not allowed to speak or have a lawyer. They were sentenced to six and a half years in prison, even though no charges were ever made public.
I call upon the Secretary of State for External Affairs to make an urgent representation to President Havez Al-Assad on behalf of the Sweds before the 15 day clemency period expires on June 5, next week.


EMPLOYMENT AND IMMIGRATION
Mr. Peter Milliken (Kingston and the Islands):: Madam Speaker, the Department of Employment and Immigration recently handed out scores of lapel pins to its employees in Kingston. The pins were stamped with the logo "C-21", a reference, of course, to that pernicious piece of legislation which reduced unemployment insurance benefits for thousands of Canadians and drove up premiums for millions more.
The pins are in recognition of work done by public servants to learn and implement the new act. The employees were not amused. Over 60 pins have been delivered to my office in protest. With the government claiming the cupboard is bare, it is hard to understand how the department could spend money on pins, bells and whistles and not on salaries.
To add insult to injury, this government, which is supposedly doing all it can to alleviate the losses being caused by cross-border shopping, did not even adhere to its "buy Canadian" policy. Stamped on the back of the hooks of the pins are the words "Made in the U.S.A.".


ROYAL CANADIAN MOUNTED POLICE
Mr. Lyle Dean MacWilliam (Okanagan-Shuswap):: Madam Speaker, the decision by the Solicitor General to reinstate contracts to provinces and municipalities for the provision of RCMP services must be applauded.
So must the efforts of my New Democratic colleagues, as well as representatives from municipalities across Canada, who fought together to convince the government of the error of its ways.
Extending RCMP funding provisions, initially terminated on March 31, demonstrates that the government has finally listened.
While the Solicitor General has indicated the contract extension is only for one year, it provides provinces and municipalities an opportunity to properly negotiate a new agreement.
It also provides further opportunity for my colleagues and I to press our position that the federal government should not renege on traditional funding for provincial and municipal RCMP services.
Speaking on behalf of B.C. municipalities, the Solicitor General's decision demonstrates his good judgement. Speaking on behalf of my B.C. colleagues, it is proof positive that things can happen when you have an effective voice in opposition.

May 31, 1991


HOUSING CO-OPERATIVES
Mr. Scott Thorkelson (Edmonton-Strathcona):: Madam Speaker, tomorrow I will officially open the Artspace Housing Co-operative in Edmonton East. This will be the first Edmonton housing co-operative to operate under new CMHC guidelines which will house more lower and moderate income families than previous housing co-operatives.
A surcharge will come into effect if a family's income is or rises above $54,000. This will ensure government funds are targeted to those most in need.
I congratulate the government on implementing its new guidelines.
In another co-op in Edmonton East, the Sundance Housing Co-operative, there are 30 families on the waiting list. There is an NDP MLA and an NDP member of Parliament living there, the member for Edmonton East, both high income individuals. They are shutting out these families from affordable accommodation. This is a travesty perpetrated by two free-loading politicians and they should have the decency to get out.


THE SEVENTEEN DAYS OF JUNE
Mr. John Harvard (Winnipeg St. James):: Madam Speaker, beginning on June 8 in Winnipeg, the largest gathering of aboriginal people in North America will begin a major convention entitled "The Seventeen Days of June".
First peoples in Canada are wondering what will be the federal government's recognition of this event. Organizers have asked the government to support their efforts and the Secretary of State has said no.
Distinguished Canadians, including Peter Gzowski, David Suzuki and nearly 500 chiefs from across Canada, will be participating. The Assembly of First Nations will be meeting to elect a new grand chief. Will the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development be there?
A children's program has been planned, as well as an arts and cultural show, an elders' forum and an international pow-wow.
Canadians would like to know why the federal government would have a portfolio to supposedly support events of such historical proportion when ministers cannot find the will to participate. The international pow-wow may even have to be cancelled without help from the Secretary of State. This is truly indicative of how the federal government really treats matters important to aboriginal peoples in Canada.


TOBACCO-FREE CANADA
Mr. Lee Richardson (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Transport):: Madam Speaker, this morning in Montreal the hon. Jean Corbeil, Minister of Transport, is speaking at a ceremony where the Canadian Council on Smoking and Health is presenting Air Canada with an award for its leadership in helping to create a tobacco-free Canada. Members may be aware that today is World No-Tobacco Day.
On January 1, 1990 the Non-Smokers Health Act came into force. On that day, all inter-city buses became totally smoke-free at the owner's request. Smoking on trains was reduced to one-third of every third car and terminals and stations were limited to one-third of the area accessible to the general public.
With respect to airlines, the minister banned smoking on all Canadian registered aircraft on flights of six hours or less. For longer flights, a progressive reduction in the number of seats reserved for smoking passengers is still in effect. These numbers will be reduced by 25 per cent each June 30, until all flights become totally non-smoking on July 1, 1993, making Canada a world leader in the elimination of smoking in air travel.


QUEBEC'S REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Mr. Gilles Rocheleau (Hull-Aylmer):: Madam Speaker, more bad news for Quebec! Ministers Michel Page, Andre Bourbeau, Marc-Yvan Cote, Lucienne Robillard, Claude Ryan and Gilles Remillard have had reason to criticize the federal government, and now Yvon Picotte, Minister of Regional Development, is up in arms against Ottawa's intrusion in the area of regional development.
May 31, 1991

At a time when it is generally agreed in Quebec that the province should have exclusive responsibility for regional development, Ottawa once again wants to insult us by interfering.
Quebecers will no longer let themselves be manipulated in this way. We don't want a federal department for regional development. We don't want a patronage machine in Quebec.
This is blatant provocation on the part of Benoit Bouchard, who dares to call himself a Quebecer and a defender of Quebec's higher interests.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I am sorry, but the hon. member's time has now expired.


CHESS CHAMPIONSHIPS
Mr. Jim Hawkes (Calgary West):: Madam Speaker, over 7,500 students coming from more than 400 schools participated in a series of chess tournaments earlier this year leading to the national championship. School teams went to 50 regional championships and the best players from these went on to provincial championships. On the Victoria Day weekend, the winners from each province played off in the finals in Montreal and national champions were declared:
Grade I, Jonathan Gottlieb of Hampstead, Quebec; Grade II, Andrew Ho of Vancouver, B.C.; Grade III, Roman Golts of Willowdale, Ontario; Grade IV, Erez Davy of Windsor, Ontario; Grade V, Darryl Kong of Vancouver, B.C.; Grade VI, Anthony Castillo of Lon-gueuil, Quebec; Grade VII, Matthew Grabove of Quis-pamsis, New Brunswick; Grade VIII, Nicolas Soudre of Pierrefonds, Quebec; Grades IX and X combined, Howard Wu of Victoria, B.C.; Grades XI and XII combined, Peter Olszewski of Oakville.
The winner over all was Quebec. Congratulations to the participants and the good work they do for the disadvantaged children of the world.
Oral Questions



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Hon. Lloyd Axworthy (Winnipeg South Centre):: Madam Speaker, I have a question for the Deputy Prime Minister.
On May 15 the Prime Minister said in this House that he was only advised of the Al-Mashat affair on April 30. It is now public knowledge that not one, not two, but three senior officials in the Prime Minister's Office were informed of this affair on April 8.
I want to ask the Deputy Prime Minister if he is in communication with the Prime Minister to ask if on his return the Prime Minister will be acknowledging that he knew of the Al-Mashat affair much earlier than the April 30 date that was given to this House.


Hon. Don Mazankowski (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance):: Madam Speaker, first and foremost I am pleased to note that the opposition are now acknowledging the fact that there was no ministerial involvement in the Al-Mashat case prior to his entrance into Canada on March 30.1 think that is a very significant development, and perhaps the information that has been provided clearly states that.
Ministers and members of the Privy Council Office and members of the Prime Minister's Office are making themselves available to the committee to deal with all of these particular issues. That is why the committee process was utilized to get to the bottom of this issue. I invite the hon. member to participate in that process. All the witnesses they have asked for will be there and all of those areas can be clarified.


Lloyd Axworthy: We
are talking about who will appear before the committee. It may well be that the Deputy Prime Minister should appear before the committee because we have also learned in the public reports made yesterday that the Deputy Prime Minister's own office was informed of the Al-Mashat affair, again on April 8, and we would like to know whether the Deputy Prime Minister's office told him, and did the Deputy Prime Minister in receiving this knowledge from his office inform the Prime Minister?

Oral Questions
The whole point is this: This is a government that knew what was going on but did not acknowledge it publicly in any way.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Madam Speaker, just to clarify the point the hon. member is making, I was first apprised of this issue on May 7 or May 8 and I heard it in a television report. It was also drawn to my attention at that time by the Minister of Employment and Immigration, at which time he took the necessary action to deal with this particular issue.


Lloyd Axworthy: Madam Speaker, it is absolutely incredible that it was a whole month from the time that his own office and his own political assistants were seized of the matter, were given information, were given a memorandum, and the Deputy Prime Minister himself says he did not find out for another month.
Is that any way to run a government, when you don't know what is going on and your office won't even tell you?
It is clear that there are so many contradictory, differing versions of what happened, what did not happen, who did what, who did not do what, that the only way we can get at the truth is to see the original sources ourselves. We have been asking since last Monday for the tabling of the essential documents, including the memos that went directly to the Prime Minister's Office and the Deputy Prime Minister's office.
I want to ask the Deputy Prime Minister this: Can we be given assurance that there will be no more foot-dragging, no more puck ragging, that they will proclaim and table those documents first thing Monday morning in this House so we can begin to get to the truth for ourselves and get rid of all these false reports?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Madam Speaker, it is quite obvious that the hon. member is not interested in the truth because when the truth is stated they will not accept it. They want their version and not the correct version. There is no cover-up. There is no ministerial involvement. There is no contradiction.
If he wants to have all the information, why does he not participate in the committee process, read the documents, ask the proper questions, call the proper witnesses and he will get his answers.



Hon. Herb Gray (Windsor West):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Deputy Prime Minister as Minister of Finance. Perhaps he will be willing to take responsibility for that part of his duties.
Today, Statistics Canada reported that the economy began shrinking again in March. Today the government's made-in-Canada recession is 12 months old.
The minister has been saying that the new r word is recovery, but Canadians say the new r word should be resign.
I ask the Minister of Finance: Will he produce immediately a new economic recovery budget and, if not, will he and other ministers produce their resignations?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, after all these years of being in the House of Commons, one would have thought that the hon. member might be a little more original than that. That is an old trick.


Mr. Tobin:: You're trying to sell a used budget.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: If this is a used budget, it is much better than the budgets we saw when his party was in office. They failed to deal with-


Lloyd Axworthy: This budget is a lemon.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Madam Speaker, the hon. member from Winnipeg was there as well and he knows very well that in those days they failed to deal with the fundamentals.
There is nothing new in what has been reported. My predecessor, when he tabled the budget in February 1991, indicated that the economy would begin to stabilize by mid-year, after a total decline of about 2.5 per cent in output. He also indicated that the unemployment rate would exceed 10 per cent.
This is all part and parcel of the projections in the budget. We are taking steps to ensure that we can bring interest rates down if we deal with the inflationary pressures, the inflationary expectations. There are signs
May 31, 1991

we are making some progress and we stand by our projections that there will be growth emerging in the second half. That has all been outlined in the budget.
I ask the hon. member to reread it and particularly pay attention to page 4.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Madam Speaker, I ask the Minister of Finance in turn if he will read today's Statistics Canada release which said that after the economy ceased shrinking in February, it began shrinking again in March. That may be the Tory version of recovery. That is not what Canadians say.
The Minister of National Revenue yesterday made a remarkable confession, a death-bed confession for this government, when he said and I quote:
We have moved too far in the taxation area, and we're in the
process of reviewing the whole thing.
Madam Speaker, the Minister of National Revenue is half way there. He has admitted the government has gone too far in raising taxes 33 times, including the GST.
I ask the Minister of Finance: Will he go all the way and bring in new, fairer tax policies that will stop killing the Canadian economy?

My question to the minister is this: When will he introduce new tax policies that will not destroy our economy?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Madam Speaker, I think in fairness the hon. member would acknowledge that the weakness in the first quarter largely centred around the month of January. Since that time there have been a number of positive indicators in terms of improvement in business confidence, improvement in employment, and interest rates have continued to come down. There has been an improvement in terms of housing sales and starts. That was taking hold in April and I think the hon. member would recognize and acknowledge that that turnaround has in fact started to emerge.
Insofar as the comments of the Minister of National Revenue, I think he was making the point that taxes are but one component and clearly the taxes on liquor,
Oral Questions
gasoline-let us talk about taxes at the provincial level for example. That is part and parcel of this issue. The whole cross-border shopping issue is a matter that involves more than taxes. It involves marketing, the costs of doing business vis-a-vis the United States, important new methodology and practices of marketing which are employed in the United States and are not employed here.
Furthermore, in terms of Canada's overall position in the G-7, we are about number three in our level of taxation vis-a-vis the other G-7 countries.
We do not stack up as bad as the hon. member-


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I think we are getting into a speech now.


Ms. Audrey McLaughlin (Yukon):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Deputy Prime Minister. This morning, Statistics Canada confirmed that the recession is still with us and that it is getting worse. A few days ago, we heard that the number of people on unemployment insurance continues to rise and that in two years, Quebec lost 124,000 jobs in the manufacturing sector. As for the human factor, today in Montreal more than 20,000 young children will have to be fed at school, because they are undernourished and unable to learn. What is the government going to do to deal with this situation and put the country back to work?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Madam Speaker, the hon. member may be aware that last week as well Statistics Canada reported that the worst of the recession was over. In fact it indicated at that time, according to its statistics, that there was a turnaround emerging. As I indicated in response to her question last week, the April employment figures indicate that the worst of the recession is over and that we are optimistic and confident that growth will re-emerge in the second half. That is what we said in the budget. That is what we indicated in our economic statements in 1990, and what is really developing is holding true to form for the projections that we advanced at that time.

May 31, 1991
Oral Questions


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: Madam Speaker, those Canadians who are unemployed and their families cannot eat projections, projections by this government that are usually wrong.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: Yesterday the Minister of National Revenue admitted that Canadians are over-taxed. Today Quebec unions and the Quebec Manufacturing Association are denouncing the high-dollar policy that is making it very difficult for Canadian exporters.
If the Minister of Finance will not resign, will he repent and bring in some fair taxation policies so that Canadian businesses can compete and Canadians can buy goods?


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Madam Speaker, all I will do is tiy to respond to the hon. member with some facts which are very simple. The United States and Japan extract about 30 per cent of their Gross Domestic Product in the form of taxes. Canada extracts about 34 per cent; the U.K. and Germany, 37 per cent; France, 42 per cent; and Sweden, 55 per cent-that one country that is held up as a model by the members of the New Democratic Party.
I realize that that may not provide solid comfort, but the fact of the matter is that until we deal with the fundamentals, as the former Minister of Finance indicated, the key to growth and prosperity is to bring down interest rates, and the way to bring down interest rates is to remove the inflationary pressures and deal with the deficit problems throughout the country, and indeed all the provinces have to join in that effort. That is what is going to bring about sustainable growth. That is what will bring about price stability and that is the tack we are on. I am convinced it is the correct tack in this matter.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: A supplementary, Madam Speaker, for the Minister for International Trade. If the government wants to make some fundamental changes and to reverse policies that are costing Canadian jobs, we better take a look at the trade deal because we know how many jobs that cost Canadians.
We understand that on June 10 the government will begin talks with Mexico and the United States here in Canada on an action plan around the trade deal. Yesterday the Minister for International Trade admitted that Canadians will not be able to compete with cheap Mexican goods because of low Mexican wages.
The U.S. Congress spent months discussing the trade deal with Mexico. It had a long debate, as did the Senate. It was an opportunity for the American population to hear some of the views on this, while this government has not allowed this opportunity for Canadians in this House.
Given the serious consequences of the Canada-U.S. trade deal, would the Minister for International Trade postpone his talks and put into action a plan that will include a full debate in this House on both the effects of the Canada-U.S. trade deal and the projected effects by this government of the Mexican trade deal? Workers out there know what the effects will be, and they want to hear answers.


Hon. Michael Wilson (Minister of Industry, Science and Technology and Minister for International TVade):: Madam Speaker, I know it is difficult for Canadians to understand the beneficial impacts of the free trade agreement.
As we have been implementing the free trade agreement, we have had a serious recession. If my hon. friend will be fair and look behind the numbers, she will realize that the free trade agreement has softened the impact of the recession on the country.
Let me give her three specific statistics on this. Our trade surplus with the United States in 1988 was $14 billion. It increased to $17 billion in 1990. That represents increased jobs. Exports to the United States were up 12 per cent comparing 1990 over 1988. We had seen a swing of direct foreign investment between Canada and other countries going from a negative to a positive position, the first in 16 years. That swing was in the order of $6.5 billion. That also is a positive element and had a positive impact on the economy.
In those three ways, we can demonstrate that the free trade agreement has softened the impact of the recession on this country. My hon. friend is talking-
May 31, 1991


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I think the hon. minister is now getting into debate.


AGRICULTURE
Mr. Lyle Vanclief (Prince Edward-Hastings):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Agriculture.
The Minister of Agriculture knows that the National Farm Products Marketing Council held hearings last year regarding the feasibility of the establishment of a national apple marketing agency for fresh apples. The minister knows that the report has been in the hands of his predecessor and himself for a few weeks, even a few months. The recommendation was to set up such an agency for Canadian apple growers.
Will the minister today stand in his place and announce to Canadians and Canadian apple producers his acceptance of that report so that the next step can be taken, the establishment of a national agency for Canadian apple producers?


Hon. Bill McKnight (Minister of Agriculture):: Madam Speaker, as I am sure the hon. member is aware, the philosophy of this government is to support national marketing agencies when they are supported by the producers. Once that is shown, we will be very pleased to support that outcome and that effort on behalf of apple producers in Canada.


Lyle Vanclief: Madam Speaker, a supplementary for the same minister.
The minister knows that he has to give approval to that report before the producers can be asked for their approval. The ball is in his court and he is fumbling it. He is not responding to the producers and giving them the opportunity they are requesting.
The minister also knows that American producers and the United States government do not like Canadian agencies and organizations such as the Canadian Wheat Board and supply management organizations. Will he admit that it is pressure from the United States government and United States producers of these products that ship a lot into Canada that is causing his and the government's heel dragging and the further steps that need to be taken to put this agency in place?
Oral Questions


William Hunter (Bill) McKnight: Madam Speaker, I expected a statement such as that to come from a little to my right, from the New Democratic Party. The hon. member is seeing his blatant anti-Americanism come forward in a strange way.
The apple producers, and the member knows several, rely on their ability to compete in the United States so that they can derive profit from their efforts. If the hon. member is suggesting that we should not be sure, and the apple producers themselves should not be sure that they will still have the ability to take advantage of export markets along with the domestic market, these are questions that have to be addressed and these are questions that will be addressed.


Lyle Vanclief: They have been.


William Hunter (Bill) McKnight: The hon. member says they have been.
I can read to the hon. member letters from several large apple producers who question the report. What we will go through, and I am sure the hon. member supports this, is the process of the council. We, on behalf of the producers, will support the outcome. But the hon. member has to remember that the outcome is in the hands of the producers.


PUBLIC SERVICE
Mrs. Marlene Catterall (Ottawa West):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the President of Tfeasury Board. It concerns the damage that his slashing of jobs in the Public Service is doing to the health and welfare of Canadians.
This memorandum, sent by the deputy minister of health and welfare to all employees, says that the government's policies mean cuts to health promotion, cancelling the campaign against drinking and driving and even delaying approval of life saving drugs.
With health care costs skyrocketing and medicare in danger, how does the government justify cutting services that help keep Canadians healthy?


Hon. Gilles Loiselle (President of the Treasury Board and Minister of State (Finance)):: Madam Speaker, because of the fiscal situation that we have explained time and again in this House, we have to take difficult measures. In the budget, for example, we did not target the Public Service, but we had to ask them to be part of the solution, among others. These cuts, of course, have their impact, but what is the alternative? The alternative is that we can go out and borrow more money, keeping services beyond our capacity to pay, disregarding com-

May 31, 1991
Oral Questions
pletely the result that in a few years' time it will not be a reduction, it will be massive cuts.
Of course these cuts may have some impact. We want to contain them as much as possible. This is why we are proposing a freeze to the unions to give them some comfort because we want to maintain the number of public servants, even to increase it.


Marlene Catterall: Madam Speaker, my supplementary question is for the same minister.
It seems to me we have money for pins so that employees can advertise the GST, but no money for health care.

Madam Speaker, the Deputy Minister stated that instead of producing more with fewer resources, everybody will now have to do less with fewer resources.
Is the minister at all concerned that his Preston Manning agenda implies that the elderly will have to wait even longer for their pension cheques and for the drugs that relieve their pain and suffering? Does the minister have at least some concern for the sick and the elderly in this country?


Gilles Loiselle: Madam Speaker, the government is fully aware of the importance of effective service delivery.
That is why-and I believe my opposition colleague is fully aware of this, since we are constantly in touch on this matter-we are proceeding with a thorough reform of the public service, our purpose being to try to do more with less. We all have to go this route, both industry and government.
It would be unthinkable to keep evading the problem. It would be irresponsible. We must learn. And I can inform the hon. member that after travelling across the country from Vancouver to St. John's, I found to my delight that public employees are ready. They have come up with some extremely positive recommendations and I am delighted.


IMMIGRATION
Mr. Svend J. Robinson (Burnaby-Kingsway):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Deputy Prime Minister.
Members of this House learned yesterday for the first time, in the government's version of the report on the Al-Mashat affair, that on Tuesday, April 30, the Clerk of the Privy Council sent a memorandum to the Prime Minister based upon suggested responses by two senior ministers of this government on the Al-Mashat affair. What ministers were instructed to respond if they were asked questions in the House was that Al-Mashat was processed under normal standards and was not accorded preferential treatment. That came out of the Prime Minister's office.
Will the Deputy Prime Minister explain to this House and to Canadians why the Prime Minister's office and the Privy Council office were prepared to have ministers deliberately mislead this House on the fast tracking of the Al-Mashat application?


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I think the hon. member knows that such language cannot be accepted in the House. I do not think that anybody wants to deliberately mislead anyone. The hon. minister may want to answer the question.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Madam Speaker, my understanding is that the Clerk of the Privy Council is prepared to appear before the committee and the hon. member can ask him that very question.


Svend Johannes Robinson: Madam Speaker, we also learned yesterday for the first time that on April 8, not only the legislative assistant to the Prime Minister, but the deputy press officer to the Prime Minister, the Privy Council Office, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Secretary of State for External Affairs, and a member of the Conservative caucus, all knew the circumstances of Al-Mashat. Yet the Prime Minister says he knew nothing until April 30. My question-


Madam Deputy Speaker:: The hon. member is bringing to the floor of the House of Commons something that is before the committee. He is not, in my view, referring to
May 31, 1991

things that belong in this House but questions that can be asked in committee.
I will give the floor to the hon. member, but I would advise him to be very careful with his questions. This has gone a little too far.


Svend Johannes Robinson: Madam Speaker, I want to ask the Deputy Prime Minister a supplementary question.
In view of the glaring inconsistencies in this report which point to either a massive cover-up or a massive screw-up, will the Deputy Prime Minister assure the House that the Prime Minister will appear as a witness before this committee to come clean with Canadians on his role in this affair?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Madam Speaker, there is no cover-up. There are no contradictions. What the government has attempted to do is provide all the information that is available, to update that information, and to refine it. The document that was tabled yesterday was a refinement of the earlier information. There are no contradictions. There is no cover-up.
PCO officials, PMO officials have been invited to appear before the committee. They will appear before the committee and the hon. member can have his fun at the committee, get the answers, and get the truth. The truth is going to hurt the hon. member.


REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Alan Redway: Madam Speaker, I have a question for the Deputy Prime Minister if he is not too busy talking to the opposition.
Southern Ontario is now the only part of Canada which lacks a regional economic development agency. At least one minister has said that if Ontario does not like it it should complain.
Well I am here this morning to complain. I want to ask the Deputy Prime Minister if he will immediately have the government establish a regional economic development agency or department for southern Ontario, bearing in mind that some 42 per cent of all of the job losses in this country recently have occurred in the greater metropolitan Toronto area.
Oral Questions


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Madam Speaker, Ontario companies benefit from various policies of the federal government in a number of ways. They are one of the largest beneficiaries of the defence industry productivity program. They are major beneficiaries of the trade policies that we follow, the program to help people sell into border states, to sell into the rest of the United States. They are also major beneficiaries of the EMDP, the Export Marketing Development Program.
In addition to that we do have a regional development program in northern Ontario called FEDNOR. There are a number of research and development programs that assist companies across Canada, and the companies in southern Ontario are large beneficiaries of this.
It is important to realize that the effect of the announcement by my colleague from Quebec on the change in the regional development programs in Quebec is simply an administrative change. There is no change in the funding. It is designed to put the delivery of the program closer to Quebec companies and closer to the people who are receiving it.
If my colleague wants to review the basis for these programs, going back in the past, western diversification is to help companies diversify-


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I think the question raised by the hon. member has been answered.


EDUCATION
Mr. Ronald J. Duhamel (St. Boniface):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Deputy Prime Minister. Last year the Prime Minister attempted to set up a task force on education. It did not get off the ground. It was a complete failure. This House will know that this year in the Speech from the Throne the Prime Minister talks about doing more or less the same thing.
Why should Canadians believe the Prime Minister in this particular initiative? Why should they believe that he could launch a successful educational initiative when in fact he failed a year ago, when it was an utter, complete, total failure?

May 31, 1991
Oral Questions


Hon. Kim Campbell (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada):: Madam Speaker, if the hon. member will read the Speech from the Throne carefully he will see that the pledge to develop a learning culture also is a pledge to respect the constitutional jurisdiction of the provinces.
The government is attempting to build on a constitutional responsibility to provide equal opportunities for Canadians and to provide regional economic development or the reduction of economic disparities. The implementation of that kind of strategy and that kind of leadership requires consultation and co-operation with the provinces because their jurisdiction is essential for the delivery of these programs.
My colleague, the minister for industry, will be producing a very important component of this in terms of the competitive strategy. My colleague, the Minister of Employment and Immigration, will be part of this very important component.
The most important thing that the Prime Minister stated in this was the need to bring all levels of government in Canada together, to commit ourselves mutually to use all our powers, whatever they are, at all three levels of government to create a culture of learning so that Canadians can be world leaders in the 21st century.


Ron J. Duhamel: Madam Speaker, my supplementary is directed to the same minister. The Speech from the Throne contains no specific measures indicating how the Prime Minister and the government intend to proceed with this initiative and get good results. I have here a confidential paper prepared for the government, following the Speech from the Throne, and it does not contain any strategies for this purpose. Canadians wonder whether this initiative is a sincere proposal or whether it is simply a ploy to enhance the government's popularity.


A. Kim Campbell: Madam Speaker, the Speech from the Throne described the main themes of the government's policy. Further details concerning training and the creation of a learning culture in Canada will be given next month. I am sure Canadians will be very happy with
the specifics of this policy and will be reassured as to its authenticity.

[English\


CANADIAN FORCES BASES
Hon. William Rompkey (Labrador):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Deputy Prime Minister. Yesterday in Germany the Minister of National Defence said that before he closes Canadian forces bases that he did not have to get permission from anybody. He has to get permission from the people of Canada, who put him where he is.
He also said at the same time that he would be making a statement on defence this coming summer.
When hundreds of thousands of Canadians all across the country depend on Canadian forces bases for their livelihood, and have serious anxiety about the future of those bases, why is it that the government refuses to do what other major countries are now doing, and that is to have full and public discussion on national security and national defence in this country? Why does the government refuse to do that?


Hon. Paul Dick (Minister of Supply and Services):: Madam Speaker, it is unfortunate that the hon. member has misquoted the minister who has been in Germany the past week and who was quoted as saying: "It is not done in isolation. At the end of the process it is a decision of the Canadian cabinet".
We have already said the decision will have to be made right here in Canada. When decisions are going to be made and when it is time for a discussion, which we are looking at as a possibility, we will open up and tell the people what decisions the government has made at that time.


Bill Rompkey: Madam Speaker, by that time it will be too late.
I understand that the House of Commons committee is the master of its own fate, but for two years I have been asking that the House of Commons committee be the vehicle for that public discussion of defence policy.
Will the minister, or will somebody on behalf of the government, undertake to write to the chair of the House of Commons defence committee requesting pub-
May 31, 1991

lie hearings across Canada on defence policy before decisions are taken by cabinet that are irreversible? Why not do that?


Paul Wyatt Dick: Madam Speaker, if a cabinet minister wrote to a committee, that member would be the first one to say we are interfering in the independence of the committee. Obviously, if he cannot get more than one person to voice the same concern he has not got a majority to get his own way.


PORNOGRAPHY
Bill Attewell: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Justice. Many violent crimes including wife battering and the sexual abuse of women and young children can be traced to the hard core pornography which is so readily available today. Moral values and the vital role which the family plays in our society have been under attack because of the cancerous effect of hard core pornography.
Will the minister address this urgent issue by introducing legislation soon?


A. Kim Campbell: Madam Speaker, I am pleased to respond to the hon. member. The government does intend to introduce legislation during this session of Parliament aimed at child pornography.
We will also be very interested to review a decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in a case known as Butler that will be argued before the Supreme Court of Canada in June and will help to elaborate the guidelines with respect to other forms of pornography.
I would also point out to the hon. member that from June 10 to 12 of this year I am convening a symposium on Women, Law, and the Administration of Justice in Vancouver which will address this among other issues and will, I hope, provide some very useful guidelines to the government on a broader approach to the question that he raises in the House today.
Oral Questions THE ENVIRONMENT


Ms. Dawn Black (New Westminster-Burnaby):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of the Environment.
Twenty thousand truckloads of toxic soil are being trucked from the Expo land sites in Vancouver to environmentally sensitive lands at the mouth of the Fraser River. This is being done without any consultation, without any notification, and without the mandatory environmental assessment review that this government is supposed to hold. This contaminated soil will be one kilometre from the Fraser River. It poses a risk to fisheries, to farmland, and to the residents in that area.
The Minister of the Environment will be in Vancouver this week. Will this government finally take its obligations to the environment seriously? Will the minister announce in Vancouver a halt to the dumping of this toxic soil? Will the minister institute the environmental review process which is supposed to be mandatory?


Mr. Lee Clark (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of the Environment):: Madam Speaker, I am pleased to have this opportunity to inform the House that the Fraser River Harbour Commission during the course of this week has been conducting an initial assessment on the proposal to move the landfill in question.
I am advised that steps will be taken to ensure that no environmentally significant damage is done and that if there are mitigating circumstances, the remedy will be put in place.
Furthermore, I can inform the House that the Minister of the Environment will be in Vancouver later today and I know this will be an item of concern for him in terms of his consultations with the appropriate officials.


Brian L. Gardiner: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Justice.
On May 16 the Federal Court ordered a full environmental review of the Alcan project in British Columbia. This House also knows that a management plan for the Fraser River basin will be incomplete without such a review.

May 31, 1991
Oral Questions
Can the minister tell this House if lawyers in her department have reviewed this issue and the decision of the Federal Court? Will she tell the Federal Court that this government will finally do the right thing and order a full environmental assessment of the Alcan project in British Columbia? If not, why not?


Walter Leland Rutherford (Lee) Clark: Madam Speaker, again I am pleased to have the opportunity to inform the House that this very important but very complex decision which was issued by the courts referred to during the course of last week is under full examination at the moment by the Department of Justice officials and by the relevant departments concerned.
I would anticipate that an announcement will be made in the very near future as a result of those determinations. I am sure the House will be informed of that information as soon as it is available.


Mr. Joseph Volpe (Eglinton-Lawrence):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Deputy Prime Minister.
The free trade agreement is hurting some 70,000 Canadian employees of the printing industry. Free trade was supposed to relax the obligation to mark the country of origin on printed products. It has not. As a result, Canadian products are strictly monitored and turned back at the border. Worse, American clients of Canadian producers are closing accounts because their consumers are rejecting products marked "Made in Canada".
Why is the minister not pressing his American counterparts for a level playing field? Why is he not asking them to end the discriminatory practices of American customs officials?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Madam Speaker, my hon. friend is quite right that the free trade agreement is designed to avoid the problem that he sets out. If he has specifics that he would like to bring to my attention, I would be very happy to look into it right away.


Giuseppe (Joseph) Volpe: Madam Speaker, I already did and I will be pleased to be even more specific. The minister is quite aware that Canadian customs regulations regarding the entry of American
printed matter are both loose and loosely applied. American printers, for example, bidding on Canadian contracts do not have to identify the country of origin on their products. The Manitoba telephone systems directory and yellow pages are an example.
Will the minister undertake to have the revenue department be as tough as American customs officials unless the regulations imposed on Canadian products are relaxed?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Madam Speaker, I appreciate the specifics that my hon. friend has given me just now. This will give me an opportunity to look into it with more precision and I will get back to him.


QUEBEC'S REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Mr. Alfonso Gagliano (Saint-Leonard):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the minister who wants to answer for the new minister responsible for regional development in Quebec. The people of the Gaspe region and the Magdalen Islands are quite disappointed with the empty shell the minister unveiled to them yesterday. Does the government not believe that $340,000 a year is insufficient for the economic development of that region, whose official unemployment rate is 27 per cent? How can you develop the economy in a region where unemployment is 27 per cent with $340,000?


Gilles Loiselle: Madam Speaker, I am amazed at how changeable the hon. member for Saint-Leonard is. For weeks now, the members for Saint-Leonard, LaSalle-Emard and Windsor West have risen to ask what the government was waiting for to act in Quebec, Montreal, etc. We have a structure for action in regional development. For several days, no doubt for electoral reasons, opposition members had fun saying that we should not intervene in regional development. I do not understand his logic very well.
On the other hand, I had the opportunity to speak to the member for Gaspe, who is next to me today, Madam Speaker. He told me the opposite of what the member just said. He said that the government's decision was very well received in the Gaspe. Of course more should
May 31, 1991

be done but the important thing is to start by doing something.


Alfonso Gagliano: Madam Speaker, this amount for the new economic development agency is part of a sum already allocated under the 1988 Canada-Quebec Agreement. Everyone will remember the election announcement that was made then.
Is this new agency another recycled election promise?


Gilles Loiselle: Madam Speaker, I would like to repeat that the government is trying to take effective action within the limits of its budget and is preparing action programs. This is one of them and I would ask the hon. member to take another look at the reaction of people in the Gaspe. To his short-lived shame, he will see that he is not right-we are.


GOODS AND SERVICES TAX
Mr. Ray Funk (Prince Albert-Churchill River):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance.
As the minister well knows, the question of whether co-operatives should have to pay the GST on their share capital has been kicking around his department for over a year. Co-op people are getting very irritated by being told that investment in a co-op is no different from buying a membership in a country club.
Therefore I would like to ask the minister: Why should this 100 per cent Canadian owned sector continue to be the only business sector in Canada that has to pay the GST on its investments?
Could he tell us, since this situation can be rectified by either the stroke of a pen by the Minister of National Revenue, or by a legislative amendment, which I am sure we would all support, which one we can expect and when we can expect it?
Oral Questions


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Madam Speaker, the hon. member and other members have made representations to me with respect to the treatment of co-operatives under the GST.
My predecessor and myself have been trying to make the necessary refinements and administrative changes to ensure that the GST works smoothly. We are looking at that at the present time, but I am not in a position as of now to indicate precisely whether in fact we can take action on it.
I think the hon. member knows we have to examine it in detail to ensure that it does not create demands for other concessions in other areas. However, I can assure him that we are looking at it very seriously.


AGRICULTURE
William D. (Bill) Casey: Madam Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Agriculture. I certainly appreciate the opportunity to ask it.
Changes have been proposed by the Horticultural Council of Nova Scotia, the Department of Agriculture and the producers. They all agree on changes proposed for the sizing of strawberries. However, the changes are being delayed through the department because of a backlog. This delay will cause berries to be left unharvested in the field and the loss of jobs.
Would the minister commit today to trying to expedite these changes so that they could be made in time for the harvest, or could he instruct the department to accept the standards prior to the paperwork being completed?


William Hunter (Bill) McKnight: Madam Speaker, as the member knows, any changes have a regulatory process. Although there is widespread support for those changes, the regulatory process must be observed.
I can tell the hon. member that we will work on it as efficiently as we can. I am sorry I cannot commit to him that I will bypass the well established regulatory process even though I recognize the importance to him and to his constituents.

May 31, 1991
Point of Order PRIVILEGE


COMMENTS BY MEMBERS
Mr. Albert Cooper (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons):: Madam Speaker, I will be very brief. My question of privilege arises out of yesterday's exchanges after Question Period. As you well know, Madam Speaker, although you were not in the chair and Mr. Speaker was, there were several points of order, somewhat heated and at times very aggressive. My point of order arises from what happened in the exchange between the hon. member for Saint-Denis and myself and my point of privilege is this: Beauchesne's citation 234.(1) says in the final part of it that:
A point of order cannot be raised on a point of order.
I take that to mean that a point of order cannot be interrupted by another point of order. What happened, if you look at yesterday's Hansard, was that I was speaking on a point of order and was interrupted by the hon. member for Saint-Denis on a point of personal privilege which turned out, if you continue to read the arguments, not to be a point of privilege but rather a point of order.
My request is that the Chair review Hansard, have a look at that exchange and relay back to me whether I was, in fact, interrupted by another point of order.


Mr. Prud'homme:: On a point of order.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: The hon. member for Saint-Denis on a point of order.


Marcel Prud'homme: Madam Speaker, first, I think it is really childish to raise this today.
Second, it was a question of privilege because motives were imputed to members. When Mr. Speaker in his wisdom reviews the debate he will conclude this, I am sure. If not, I will take note. If Mr. Speaker is to render a decision I would hope that he would not communicate it to the member privately. I would hope that, as he just mentioned, he will make his judgment public because I am interested in following that.
I repeat that I find it rather childish to raise that today, but it is in good spirit. I will be waiting for Mr. Speaker's
decision on the point of order raised by the hon. member that was not a point of order.


Mr. David Dingwall (Cape Breton-East Richmond):: Madam Speaker, just to reaffirm what my colleague has said, I do not believe the intervention made by the parliamentary secretary is in fact a point of privilege. It is a bogus point of privilege. If anything, it may fall within the definitions of a point of order. I think the hon. member for Saint-Denis has carefully put to the chair both the circumstances as well as some of the motives which were being attributed to him. I believe the hon. member for Saint-Denis was quite appropriate in rising when he did to respond to the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader.
I submit that it is certainly not a point of privilege.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I thank the hon. member for Peace River, the hon. member for Saint-Denis, and the hon. House leader for the Official Opposition.
Having heard all sides, I will of course take the matter up with the Speaker, who will then act according to his usual very wise judgment.
On a different point of order, the hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond.


POINT OF ORDER
David Charles Dingwall: Madam Speaker, I just wish to bring to the attention of the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader-and I am certain that he is aware of it-some of the deliberations that have taken place in one of the standing committees of the House. I do not wish to get into what was said or what was not said, but I refer of course to the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs.
I believe the parliamentary secretary and the appropriate ministers have been informed of some of the statements attributed to one of the members of that particular committee. I would just ask the parliamentary secretary if he would review those circumstances to make certain that our committees can run well and run effectively without having that kind of provocation, I suggest, being touted about.

I just raise that as notice for the parliamentary secretary or, indeed, the chief government Whip who might want to take it under advisement. That was the intent of raising it here this morning.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Madam Speaker, I missed the very early part of that point. As the House will know, Whips are commonly charged with the responsibility of suggesting membership for committees. Throughout my 3 years of experience, I think all of us attempt to take the seriousness of the responsibility of committee membership as a primary concern as we begin to exercise that responsibility.
I guess part of what bothered me yesterday was the number of press people who called. It was interesting to me. In each and every case when the press called I asked if they had ever seen a transcript of remarks, and not a single press person had seen a transcript. Some of them had talked to native people. I asked them if the native people had seen transcripts of the total situation, of the total set of remarks.
All of us in this Chamber from time to time develop a public perception based on something a newspaper headline writer does, or a 10-second clip, and all of us feel the unfairness of that from time to time. We feel we are misinterpreted, and difficulties are created for ourselves and for our families.
I guess the best advice I have to the House is to accept a couple of principles.
We are all elected democratically to come to this House to represent our constituents. What is being called into question here, particularly by the media and I hope not by the Liberal Party, is the reputation of a member of this House who has been returned or re-elected by constituents to serve in this House on behalf of all of the people in the riding. The riding we are talking about obviously has a number of people of aboriginal descent. They are certainly a well-known group in the country.
We might all simply say that this House unanimously approved that committee report. We have a member on
Point of Order
the committee. The member will have a chance to both teach and learn and to live through some very difficult times. The nation might indeed be very well served by the reality of the experience that member has had to undergo over a period of time.
I just hope that we are not moving in this Chamber to the point where we think that something a newspaper says about us or something we are supposed to have done would be a factor in this Chamber in excluding somebody from accepting the responsibility and the role to serve to the best of their ability on a committee. If somebody does things on a committee, perhaps we could-


Madam Deputy Speaker:: This was to be my suggestion, if I can interrupt the hon. member. The Speaker has been very patient and has listened very carefully to the question.
Perhaps the hon. member for Saint-Leonard will allow me to make a comment and then, if he still wishes to rise,
I will of course recognize him.
I think this is a very important matter, but it really does not belong in this place. It belongs in either the House management committee or the aboriginal committee. It really does not belong in the House.
I have listened to the hon. government Whip. Of course I will listen to the hon. member should he still insist on having the floor, but I still do not feel that it belongs in the House.


Alfonso Gagliano: Madam Speaker, I will be very brief. I simply wanted to point out that first of all, I don't think my House leader wished to impute motives to the member on the committee.
The important thing here is that our committees each have certain areas they are supposed to consider. It is all a matter of credibility, and I think my House leader was merely making suggestions to the parliamentary secretary and the chief government Whip. Perhaps we should take the trouble to become familiar with all the issues; we may have to review our whole committee system some day.
This is only a suggestion, and it is certainly not my intention to impute motives to anyone in this matter.

May 31, 1991
Routine Proceedings



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


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



BANK ACT


[Stage Direction]
Hon. Don Mazankowski (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance) for leave to introduce Bill C-19, an Act respecting banks and banking.
Motion agreed to, bill read the first time and ordered to be printed.

Donald Frank Mazankowski: for leave to introduce Bill C-20, an act to amend certain statutes to implement the budget tabled in Parliament on February 26, 1991.


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


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: for leave to introduce Bill C-213, an act to amend the Canada Elections Act and other acts in relation thereto.
He said: Madam Speaker, I am pleased to introduce this bill today. I had introduced it during the last Parliament, so this is a reintroduction.
This voluminous bill is a reprint of Bill C-79 introduced before the last election, which the Deputy Prime Minister will be very familiar with. I know he will want to support this bill.
I have made some modest changes to it to reflect what I believe to be the wishes of most hon. members. This bill should be dealt with promptly by the House and referred to committee so that changes can be made to the Canada Elections Act before the next election.
Like other hon. members, I am apprehensive that the report of the Royal Commission on Electoral Reform and Party Financing expected in October may come too late to be enacted before the election and we will be stuck with the Elections Act we now have.
I am bringing the bill forward in that spirit, and hope for co-operation on all sides.


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


Mr. Tom Wappel (Scarborough West) moved: for leave to introduce Bill C-214, an act to amend the Criminal Code (human being).
He said: Madam Speaker, this is a bill which is identical to a bill I introduced in the last session. I regret that I have to do it again, because it is an awful lot of paperwork for nothing.
We could have, perhaps, taken the suggestion of my colleague the hon. member for Scarborough-Rouge River and simply reprinted these matters.
However, this bill is an attempt to come to grips with the very difficult question of the personhood of the unborn child. It adds in the Criminal Code of Canada a definition of human being which would thereby extend personhood to the unborn child and give it the same protection and rights that we all have in Canada, the primary one being the right to life.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the first time and ordered
to be printed.
May 31, 1991


Thomas (Tom) William Wappel: for leave to introduce Bill C-215, an act to amend the Narcotic Control Act.
He said: Madam Speaker, this is a very short bill. Its purpose is to amend section 16 of the Narcotic Control Act and it is very specific. The idea is that when the police forces of any particular jurisdiction seize the ill-gotten gains of drug dealing, specifically cash money, after due process of law that money will not go in to the Consolidated Revenue Fund; rather, the money will be sent back to that police force, dollar for dollar, to fight drug-related activities in the municipality where the cash was seized.


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


Thomas (Tom) William Wappel: for leave to introduce Bill C-216, an act to amend the Consumer Packaging and Labelling Act (nutritional value of food).
He said: Madam Speaker, again this is a bill that was before the House previously and I am bringing it forward again. I hope the government will see some merit in this bill particularly. It is an attempt to provide for legislation to ensure that the nutritional value of all packaged foods is stated on the package. Included would be certain vitamins and minerals, the carbohydrate content, the fat content and the caloric content of each individual portion.
Most members will know that many foods have some of this information on the package, but it is completely voluntary. This bill would require that it be compulsory for all packaged foods in Canada.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the first time and ordered
to be printed.
Routine Proceedings
Albert Glen Cooper: Madam Speaker, I wonder if I may have the consent of the House to revert to the tabling of committee reports, concerning Private Members' Business.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Is there unanimous consent of the House for the hon. parliamentary secretary to present his report?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


An hon. member:: No.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Consent has not been given.


PETITIONS
Mr. Nelson A. Riis (Kamloops):: Madam Speaker, my petition today includes signatures from various parts of my constituency regarding the proposed cutbacks to RCMP funding coming from Blue River, Avola, Little Fort, Barriere, Clearwater, Blackpool, Birch Island, Vavenby, Monte Creek, Monte Lake, Darfield, Chase, Westwold, Pritchard, Logan Lake, Savona, Deadman's Creek, Kamloops, Pinantan, Paul Lake, Cherry Creek, and Kamloops Indian Reserve, as well as rural areas, and neighbourhoods and communities within the city of Kamloops. The petitions ask the government to restore proper funding to the RCMP.
Now it has been done. On behalf of all of these literally thousands of petitioners, I want to say thank you to the minister responsible for the RCMP for listening to these people and restoring funding, at least for the next year, so that a contract can be negotiated that is fair to the provinces, municipalities, and rural areas, as well as to the Government of Canada.
Again, I think it demonstrates clearly that petitions can be very effective from time to time.


Brian L. Gardiner: Madam Speaker, I have the pleasure to introduce a petition to the House today signed by residents from Prince George, Robson Valley, Vanderhoof, Bums Lake, Fort St. James and the Houston area of my riding of Prince George-Bulkley Valley.

Routine Proceedings
It is an important petition because it calls upon Parliament to reform the taxation system so that there is an effective minimum tax on wealthy individuals and corporations.


Mr. Jim Karygiannis (Scarborough-Agincourt):: Madam Speaker, I rise today to present a petition of well over 5,000 signatures by my constituents of Scarborough-Agincourt calling on the government to present fast changes to the Young Offenders Act, because they feel that the need to protect society is far more important than the need to protect the young offender.


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk)
Albert Glen Cooper: Madam Speaker, Question No. 21 will be answered today, and I ask that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.


Mr. Althouse: For the year 1990, did the Consumers' Association of Canada receive funding from Agriculture Canada to take part in the agri-food policy review and, if so, (a) how much money did the Association receive (b) how was the money disbursed (c) what was the amount allocated for each task force that the Association participated in (d) was any money used to fund the study entitled "The Reform of the Canadian Supply Management System of Agricultural Commodities", and, if so, did the Department request the study from the Association?


William Hunter (Bill) McKnight: (a) During 1990, the Consumers' Association of Canada received funding from Agriculture Canada to take part in the agri-food policy review, in the form of two contracts: December 1, 1989 to March 31, 1990 for $40,000.00 and April 1, 1990 to November 6, 1990 for $80,000.00.
(b)	The money was disbursed to the Consumers' Association of Canada directly for work completed on the basis of the requirements of the contracts. In the first instance, it was through four payments of $10,000.00 each to cover costs of participants in the Dairy, Poultry
and Competitiveness Task Forces and for Secretariat support. In the second instance, there were payments of $35,000.00 on September 17, 1990 and of $45,000.00 on November 6, 1990 to cover costs of ongoing participation in the Task Forces and of Secretariat support and costs of preparing a report on a new generation of supply management.
(c)	There is no breakdown available in regard to the amount allocated for each task force in which the Association participated. However, payments were made against agreed overall estimates of costs for participation and support to the Dairy, Poultry and Competitiveness Task Forces and the Supply Management study in order to ensure the Department's arms-length relationship with the Association.
(d)	The Consumers' Association of Canada study "The Reform of the Canadian Supply Management System of Agricultural Commodities" was financed in part by the second contract as indicated above. The specific deliverables included consultation by the Association's team with agri-economic experts and other stakeholders, the organization of regional workshops and preparing their report and analysis.
The Department responded with financial support to the Association's request.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: The questions as enumerated by the parliamentary secretary have been answered. Shall the remaining questions be allowed to stand?
Some bon. members: Agreed.


Mr. Karpoff:: Madam Speaker, in the last Parliament I had questions on the Order Paper from February 26 for 77 days until the House prorogued. These were starred questions and should have been answered in 45 days. I have now resubmitted these questions and they are now 63 to 67 again on the Order Paper.
I have a couple of questions to the government as to why it is not answering written questions expeditiously and why these could not be dealt with immediately, seeing they have already been on the Order Paper and expired once for 45 days.
Why did the government, if it saw fit to roll over its own legislation to this House, not do the same thing with written questions on the Order Paper?


Albert Glen Cooper: Madam Speaker, I will take the hon. member's intervention as a representation and see what I can do for him.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Pickard (p. 863).
Beryl Gaffney: Madam Speaker, I hope I still have the opportunity to question the minister on this issue.
In the minister's comments he consistently said that any increases Canada Post had were particularly within the rate of inflation. If my memory serves me correctly, from last year to this year we went from a 39-cent stamp to a 40-cent stamp and then the GST put us up to a 43-cent stamp. Therefore, the cost for purchasing a stamp to mail an everyday letter in this country has gone from 39 cents to 43 cents within one year which is an increase of 10.25 per cent.
If my mathematics is correct, that is well beyond the rate of inflation within that same period of time. I do not know how the minister can stand in this House and say that any increases by Canada Post have been certainly within the rate of inflation, because, in my estimation, this is not correct.
I would like the minister to respond, please.


Pierre H. Cadieux: Madam Speaker, again, what I think the hon. member and all hon. members should do when they are using numbers is to apply the appropriate numbers to the appropriate places and in the appropriate comparisons.
If I were to follow the logic of the hon. member to every increase in the cost of any product in this country we should add the GST. Obviously, if that logic is "logical", we come up with a bigger increase.
On the other hand, we are talking about increases imposed by Canada Post. If the hon. member looks at
Supply
increases imposed by Canada Post, it is not 39 cents to 43 cents, but Canada Post administers the GST, which is a tax applicable to all products and services including the services given by Canada Post and any other competitor to Canada Post in the country.
[Translation\


Mrs. Lise Bourgault (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Supply and Services):: Madam Speaker, I would like to ask the minister whether he would care to provide some clarification in connection with a number of myths that are doing the rounds about Canada Post's services. They say that residents in rural areas are thoroughly dissatisfied with mail services. It is a myth that people do not like the kind of service being offered by Canada Post in rural areas. The second myth is that Canada Post is getting out of rural areas and that people doubt services will still be offered in small communities. However, as far as I know, the people in my riding who live in small rural communities are still getting their mail, so perhaps this is one myth the minister could debunk.
Finally, Madam Speaker, could the minister comment on the notion that Canada Post is destroying the economy and the social fabric of small towns and villages across Canada?


Pierre H. Cadieux: Madam Speaker, although opposition members have repeatedly tried to make Canadians believe that people in rural areas are dissatisfied, their attempts have obviously been unsuccessful, since after consultation with people in rural areas the statistics clearly show the vast majority of rural residents are satisfied with the service offered by Canada Post and with the changes and improvements made in rural areas in recent years.
As for Canada Post withdrawing from rural areas, Madam Speaker, it is not; except perhaps in the minds of certain opposition members. Of course, changes are being made, positive changes, which have in fact improved services in those areas. As for destroying the social fabric, I think the hon. member was correct in calling this a myth. It is another myth created by opposition members, because there has been no withdrawal of service. The service is better, and postal communications are continuing. So there has been no

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destruction of the social fabric in rural areas as a result of the service offered by Canada Post.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: On a very short question, the hon. member for Essex-Windsor.


Mr. Steven W. Langdon (Essex-Windsor):: Madam Speaker, the minister has suggested, in his answer to the last question, that in fact local communities affected by the shutdowns which have taken place have supported it.
I just want to indicate that in my constituency there is a new town being formed this very weekend by the name of LaSalle. They have written to the person responsible for the post office saying: "Happy Birthday, LaSalle. By the way, we are closing your post office. Yours truly, the federal government". They go on to say precisely what damage this is going to mean for LaSalle and its hopes to be able to develop itself as a good, small town serving its areas.
I want to ask the minister if he is prepared and if this government is prepared to put into effect a mechanism for consultation with local communities like LaSalle.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I am glad the hon. member understood when I said I would recognize him on a short question. The time has expired. I will allow he minister a minute to comment.


Pierre H. Cadieux: Madam Speaker, first of all, I am not personally aware of the specifics of the case with respect to this new town of LaSalle, not that I doubt that my hon. colleague would quote accurately. If he would provide me with a copy of that letter which allegedly was sent by Canada Post, I presume, and not the Government of Canada, I am sure the department or the minister will get back to him with the facts and appropriate responses.


Leonard William (Len) Taylor: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today and speak on this motion, a motion presented on an opposition day in reply to the motion of supply.
The motion on the table today reads very simply:
That this House call upon the government to institute policies that
would require that service to Canadians be a priority of Canada
Post.
I have been the post office critic for the federal New Democratic Party for quite some time. Earlier this year I sadly turned it over to the member for Churchill, who is now serving as the federal New Democrat Party's post office critic. I am now serving in environmental areas, areas I am also very concerned about.
On behalf of the member for Churchill and my colleagues in the New Democratic Party, I want to say a few words about Canada Post, the service coming from Canada Post and the motion before us today.
I believe this is a very appropriate motion with very appropriate timing. It is a time when Canada Post is actively engaged in closing rural post offices. Canada Post has been acting over time in the way it deals with post offices; it started to close post offices in 1986 and just prior to the federal election in 1988, it slowed down; and then stopped closing post offices.
Shortly after the election in 1988, after the people had returned members of the government to their seats, post offices began to close again. Now we are seeing an escalation during the summer, the summer before what should be a year prior to a federal election.
In 1986, Canada Post came out with a plan which indicated that all rural post offices in Canada would eventually be closed, probably by the year 1996. Here we are engaged in a furtherance of that plan. We are seeing that the plan Canada Post talked about in 1986 is coming to fruition.
One of the hon. members just a few moments ago talked about the myth of commitments to rural Canada. We know that since 1986, 1,028 rural post offices have been closed or privatized and out of those 3,000 full or part-time jobs have been lost. Three thousand full or part-time jobs have been ripped out of the heart of rural Canada, jobs which have served those communities very well and which quite often have provided income for people who were engaged in helping with the church, the school and the business community in many forms other than just simply selling stamps to members of that community.
The motion is very appropriate because these closings are continuing. This year they have been stepped up. In
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Canada this year, I believe, there are close to 250 post offices under attack and scheduled for closure, 24 of which are in my own province and four in my own riding.
I have just returned from Saskatchewan where I have already met with Canada Post in the communities of Canwood and Marsden. Next week, during which Parliament is sitting, Canada Post will be visiting the community of Edam to tell it that its post office will be closed. I mentioned that there were four in my riding. The other community is Gallivan, Saskatchewan. Its meeting with Canada Post has also concluded.
Canada Post's closing of these post offices in the three month period-the announcements were made at the end of March-of April, May and June has been greater than it has been for any equivalent period of time since 1986, when the Prime Minister and the cabinet approved the policy of Canada Post which allows for the closings to take place.
I want to quote briefly from Cynthia Patterson who is Rural Dignity's national co-ordinator. Cynthia Patterson has been working diligently on behalf of rural Canadians for many years. In my mind, she is doing a very admirable job.
Rural Dignity and Cynthia Patterson have to be congratulated for the work they have been doing.
Cynthia Patterson says: "Rural Canada's back is up against the wall with Canada Post at this time. We cannot afford to lose our post offices. The federal policy attacks the rural infrastructure, rural service and rural jobs. The Prime Minister promised in 1984 to support small towns with big dreams, but what he has done is make us small towns with big nightmares."
Very appropriate. As I said, I have just returned from my constituency where these community meetings proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the members of those communities are experiencing the nightmare of having their post office taken from their midst.
The mandate of Canada Post is indeed one of service. That this motion addresses service is most appropriate. When the Canada Post Corporation was created, the mandate that Parliament gave to Canada Post was very simple and very clear.
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I want to just state for the record, one more time, so the government understands the mandate and what the Canada Post Act says about the mandate. Section 5(2) of the Canada Post Act reads:
(2) While maintaining basic customary postal service, the
Corporation, in carrying out its objects, shall have regard to
(a)	the desirability of improving and extending its products and services in the light of the developments in the field of communications;
(b)	the need to conduct its operations on a self-sustaining financial basis while providing a standard of service that will meet the needs of the people of Canada and that is similar with respect to communities of the same size;
(c)	The need to conduct its operations in such manner as will best provide for the security of the mail;
(d)	the desirability of utilizing the human resources of the Corporation in a manner that will both attain the objects of the Corporation and ensure the leave as is commitment and dedication of its employees to the attainment of these objects; and
(e)	the need to maintain a corporate identity program approved by the Governor in Council that reflects the role of the Corporation as an institution of the Government of Canada.
Every single one of those clauses indicates the desire of Parliament in 1981 to ensure that Canada Post was delivering a service to the people of Canada, doing it in such a way that its employees felt a part of that needed service to the Canadian population, and ensured that the corporation knew that it was meeting the needs of the people of Canada and not the needs of its corporate structure.
What has happened since 1981 when this act was passed by Parliament is that a government changed. We have now a corporation that is attempting to meet the financial needs of the corporation rather than the needs of the people it is serving.
I am very committed to the needs of all Canadians and particularly to the needs of rural Canadians when it comes to getting the postal service they deserve.
One point in that regard-I want to make it very clear-is that I want the people of Canada, those who are reading the Hansard of today's debate and those who are watching on their television screens today, to rest assured that when this government changes so will this policy against Canada Post services.
No longer will rural or small communities have to pay the price of this corporation's profits. Rest assured that when this government changes, so will this polity. I am

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committed to that from now through until this party forms the government and has to adopt the policies that we know will work in rural Canada.
When the Corporation Act was established in 1981, the second thing in the mandate was self-sustainability. The first element of the mandate was service, but the second was self-sustainability. We on this side of the House agreed that self-sustainability was a goal that we should be working toward within Canada Post and we proposed many different ways of dealing with it, ways in which the government and the corporation could utilize the creative ability to increase revenues and not decrease expenses, which could only come at the expense of service and the people of Canada.
The government has ignored all requests and flexibility within the network to help increase the revenues for Canada Post except when it comes at the expense of employees, people of rural Canada and the services that are provided to the Canadian population.
We must know Canada Post went beyond self-sustainability and has run into the realm of profits: two years ago, $96 million; last year, $143 million; and well on its way to its goal of a $250 million profit this year, about 60 per cent of which is supposed to be earmarked to return to the federal government. We have gone from the point whereby the users of Canada Post were being subsidized by the taxpayer to a point where the taxpayer is now subsidizing the government through Canada Post.
The corporation has taken self-sustainability to new limits and it is astounding to hear members opposite stand over there and talk about how good all of this is for Canada in general. We might note that the way in which Canada Post describes self-sufficiency is that there must be a 14 per cent return on its investment. Canada Post will not feel that it is self-sufficient until it has a 14 per cent return.
In my mind, in a government agency self-sufficiency means you do not cost the taxpayer any money and you do not take any money from the taxpayer for other purposes. Self-sustainability is a very simple concept: you simply break even on operations. Canada Post is quite able to become self-sufficient without closing a single post office in Canada.
A couple of years ago the government recognized that the Canadian population was quite concerned about the operations of Canada Post, and in trying to meet the
needs of the Canadian population it set up a committee, something called the Postal Services Review Committee. It staffed the committee and provided it with about $1 million in funds to travel around the country and listen to the concerns of people and to report back on what was happening within Canada Post. The report in November 1989 was particularly interesting. I will quote from the recommendations to the Canada Post Corporation from the Postal Services Review Committee and I think it will enlighten all members of this House, particularly government members on this issue: "The committee is deeply concerned that these changes," talking about rural post office closures, "which have reduced the level of service for some rural residences continue to be implemented. Canada Post has acknowledged that the savings to date from all 319 rural conversions," and it is almost three times that number now, "have not been material. "The corporation could, therefore, readily modify its planned activities without adverse impact on its goal of self-sustainability." In other words, according to the Postal Services Review Committee, Canada Post could become self-sustaining without the closure of one rural post office in Canada.
The report's conclusion is that: "The corporation's commitment to the objective of financial self-sufficiency and what appears to have been the corporation's concentration on improved service to large volume mailers has and continues to cause service reductions primarily affecting households and small businesses. There is room for eliminating service inequities and for improving service without putting undue strain on the corporation's financial requirements."
The group of people that this government hired to look at Canada Post operations says that this can be done without closing rural post offices and, more importantly, that what is being done is cutting services to the people who rely on the post office.
How did the government respond to this report which was tabled in the House of Commons and debated here both on the floor of the House and in committee? The government fired the committee and refused to give them any more funds to continue the work of investigating Canada Post operations. By firing the committee, it put back the entire evaluation of Canada Post operations on to the corporation itself.
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Now we see the corporation hiring public relations firms and polling organizations to give us statistics which tell us that Canadians are happy with the service.
The government's own committee found out that Canadians are not happy with the service. We, who come from rural Canada, know that the people are not happy with the service that is being provided by Canada Post in any of this conversion closing or privatization policy and practice that is taking place out there.
In the meantime, what is Canada Post doing while it is closing operations and putting 3,000 rural Canadians out of work? We find out that Canada Post has just spent money to ensure that Canada Post Corporation has a box at Skydome so it can entertain its business clients while watching the Blue Jays play baseball.
The minister responsible for Canada Post in this House on May 24, just a couple of days ago, supported Canada Post's decision to buy a box at Skydome by saying that from time to time the corporation has to entertain its business clients. In the meantime, I have got a postmaster who has put in 14 years of service, has never been declared a full-time postmaster, has served her community for the last three years, and is being put out of work so that Canada Post's corporate management can entertain business clients at a ball game in Toronto. It is just a shocking indication of how much time, money and thought the government spends on the large corporate structure in this country while ignoring the needs, wishes and will of the ordinary Canadian people, the people who live in, enjoy living in and want the quality of life provided by rural communities. It is something that I am not going to forget for a long time.
I also want to indicate one thing in terms of service that I alluded to earlier in a question to the minister who was responding so well for the public relations department of Canada Post. When the minister talked about the corporation providing new service qualities for mail delivery, he talked about the colour coding delivery requirements so that you can put priority on mail. Even in my own community, a small community, the boxes arrive at Canada Post from sorting depots in some other part of Canada marked with a red tag for Monday, a yellow tag for Tuesday, a green tag for Wednesday. "Hiose are boxes of mail that are supposed to be
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delivered on those particular days based on Canada Post's new schedule of efficiencies.
Sometimes the mail arrives in North Battleford with a purple tag on a Monday. Purple tagged mail is not supposed to be delivered until Wednesday so the letter carriers are told: "Don't touch that box of mail, leave it until Wednesday", even though he has only got half a bag to deliver, a half-empty bag. He could take that purple box, sort it into his bag and deliver it on Monday. But no, Canada Post corporate efficiency structure requires him to keep that mail on the side of his sorting table until Wednesday when he can pick it up, take it out and deliver it. I know that there is some first class mail in those boxes that is being held for days.
The general public doesn't know that. When the general public gets its mail it says; well, today was the day I was supposed to get my mail because the letter carrier delivered it today. But, in fact, the mail the letter carrier should have got today may not be arriving until tomorrow, because that is the way Canada Post operates its new efficiencies and proclaims so well that everything is going fine and dandy, it is meeting its schedules-schedules that it has established.
The one other point is that Canada Post changed its schedule of delivery in rural Canada, whereby the postmaster was in the past required to ensure that the mail was sorted to rural boxes within an hour and a half of the truck arriving. The truck arrives now and the postmaster is not required to put the mail in the box within any period of time. It used to be, before they cut the subsidy and the Western Producer had to be reduced in size and lay off some of its people, the farm publication used to arrive like clockwork on Thursday mornings in every one of these rural communities. Now, some of these communities don't get their Western Producer until-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I regret the hon. member's time has expired. Questions or comments, the hon. member for Eglinton-Lawrence.


Giuseppe (Joseph) Volpe: Mr. Speaker, I want to compliment my colleague on outlining the deficiencies and anomalies of both Canada Post and its operations.
I am glad that he is concentrating on the rural area. From the point of view of someone from a city, I just wanted to draw to his attention the fact that Canada Post

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is at least as negligent and at least as shoddy in its operations on the urban side.
For example, the Armour Heights area in the riding of Eglinton-Lawrence used to have a post office that had been at that location for 20 years and served an elderly population that is growing in numbers. They have moved that post office from a pharmacy, previously Leonard's Pharmacy, down the street a kilometre and a half to an area that has no parking, no accessibility. It just staggers the imagination that instead of making the service much more accessible to the clients, we are moving it into an area where it is less accessible, less efficient, causing further aggravation and strain to the people who depend on it.
In addition to that-and I know my hon. colleague will agree with me-what we are doing as well is putting two people out of work. At the same time we are ignoring the fact that 1,100 people have signed a petition asking the post office to review the reasons that led to this kind of decision. Just imagine the kind of operations and the kind of management techniques that are being applied in Canada Post.
While rural Canada is a very important component in the importance of the post office to the economy, those of us in the cities-and I would ask the hon. member to make a quick comment or an observation- are being given short shrift as well on post office matters.


Leonard William (Len) Taylor: Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his question.
There are probably two to three hours worth of observations that any member of the opposition could put on the record concerning Canada Post's deficiencies in service and quality. Certainly I was not ignoring the urban side in my remarks, there is simply not enough time allocated to any one member to deal with the inequalities that exist.
In my former capacity as the postal critic for my party, I did travel extensively in Canada and visit quite a number of urban postal stations and discuss urban postal needs as well.
The member is absolutely correct in his description of the way in which Canada Post is operating in urban Canada. I can give a couple of examples from my travels, one of which is just down the street here in the
centretown area of Ottawa. Over the last four years the Canada Post retail outlet has existed in three different locations. If you happen to live in the centretown area of Ottawa, you do not know where to get your mail any more because the post office has moved from one location to another, as each retail postal outlet operator has found that the contract they were provided by Canada Post has not met their personal needs and, therefore, have given up on the contract.
This is also one of the major concerns that we have in rural Canada, that when a post office is established in a rural community in a retail outlet, when the retail outlet closes or ceases to exist or the owner retires, there is no place left for the post office to go and the community loses its post office.
The one other thing I wanted to talk about on the urban side was quite simply the inequalities that exist when new developments are brought on stream. In Halifax, for example, where they have built a new subdivision in one part of the city, the letter carrier will deliver the mail on one block. He or she will not deliver mail for the next block and begin delivering again in the subsequent block. It is quite simply because the block in the middle has been considered a new subdivision in downtown Halifax. It is a most discouraging situation.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The hon. member for Kingston and the Islands on a question or a comment. I am afraid that will be the only one I will be able to entertain.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Mr. Speaker, I rose because I had a particular problem in my own riding that the hon. member may be familiar with and perhaps he would care to comment on it.
There are two rural post offices located fairly close to one another. One is still a post office and the other is now a retail outlet, because a few years ago Canada Post closed this post office and moved it in to a video store. I understand they now sell postal supplies in the video store.
I am told that when the video store orders new supplies from Canada Post, the delivery time is approximately one week. When the post office a few miles down the road orders similar supplies, the delivery time is three to four weeks.
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It appears to me that what Canada Post is trying to do is to lower the level of service in the post office so that they will be able to stand and say: "Well, the post office is losing business. Nobody goes there. Everyone is going to the new retail store because it is so wonderful and convenient". Of course, everyone knows that is claptrap.
I wonder if the member who has just spoken, who has had some considerable experience as critic in this area, could say whether this kind of practice on the part of Canada Post is, in fact, commonplace. Are the actions of Canada Post designed to make the figures that the minister responsible cites with such glee and enthusiasm in this House, saying how wonderful things are at Canada Post, if those figures are not cooked by the kind of policies the post office is pursuing in denigrating service in rural post offices and trying to force customers to use their new retail operations contained in stores, which obviously are not providing the same service to customers of the post office?


Leonard William (Len) Taylor: Mr. Speaker, to my colleague from Kingston and the Islands I want to say thank you again for pointing out a very important part of this Canada Post debate.
The hon. member from Kingston and the Islands is absolutely correct. It is not just a problem that affects his constituency, but is one that has been brought to my attention from communities across Canada. In particular, it has been voiced in my own constituency, where we also have retail postal outlets operating near rural postal stations.
Before I forget, Canada Post likes the term RPO, retail postal outlets. But for us, the only RPO that we want is the rural post office. That to us is the real RPO we have to be working with.
But to get back to the point that the member for Kingston and the Islands raised, I know of many situations where the retail postal outlet receives supplies weeks in advance of the rural post offices. In fact, rural postmasters have had to borrow from each other in order to get enough stamps, money orders, priority post envelopes, to have enough security mail envelopes, and the paper required to keep notes on the registered mail, the security mail going out.
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In fact, several of the postmasters in my own constituency have even resorted to the practice of buying their own staples, their own pens, their own paper, because they simply cannot get it from Canada Post in time for-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Questions and comments are now terminated. Debate, the hon. member for Stormont-Dundas.


Mr. Bob Kilger (Stormont-Dundas):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today on this motion, moved by my colleague from Essex-Kent, that this House call upon the government to institute policies that would require that service to Canadians be the priority for Canada Post.
We are at a point now where Canadians are wondering just how far this government will permit Canada Post Corporation to go before it steps in, if at all, to restore full national postal service for the people. We have been witnessing the disintegration of postal service throughout the country. Rural and urban residents are realizing that the Canada Post of the future will not reflect its past motto of service to the people. Instead, it has taken up a bottom line corporate mentality. This policy has been particularly hard on rural communities across Canada.
Over the last month I have been involved with the people of Avonmore, which is in my riding, who have been fighting to keep their post office open. Canada Post has indicated on June 27 that Avonmore will join the hundreds of other rural communities across Canada without a post office. In fact Canada Post has made no secret of its plans to eliminate over 5,200 post offices in rural Canada by 1996.
In many cases this means that the only federal presence in these communities will be removed; the Canadian coat of arms will be taken off the wall, the flag pulled down and the building sold. At a time when Canadians are wondering about the future of Canada, it is truly amazing that the government is content to sit back and allow Canada Post to close up shop in rural Canada. What is particularly unacceptable is that the people living in these communities do not have any say in the matter. They cannot veto a decision by the corporation to close a post office. In April 1987, the second report of the Standing Committee on Consumer and Corporate Affairs and Government Operations recommended to the government that: "No closure of a post office or change in postal service be undertaken without meaningful consultation and the consent of the commu-

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nity affected". Obviously the government and Canada Post did not think much of this recommendation.
In the case of Avonmore, Canada Post sent a letter to the residents informing them in no uncertain terms that a traditional post office would not be maintained in Avonmore after June 27. It invited the people to attend a meeting with Canada Post and the community to discuss total service for Avonmore after the closure.
At this meeting the people were bluntly informed that their post office was going and there was nothing they could do to reverse the decision. The so-called 90-day consultation period with the community is a joke. How can you have reasonable consultation if one party is told what is going to happen and you must accept it? This is not constructive dialogue. This is dictatorship. The people of Avonmore left their meeting angry, upset, and naturally resolved to fight this closure every step of the way.
I have received numerous letters from the people of Avonmore on their meeting with Canada Post. Each one clearly outlines the disgust felt at the manner in which Canada Post conducted the meeting and their frustration and helplessness over the lack of participation in the decision to close their post office.
One of my constituents in Avonmore wrote me asking how in the world did these people get so much power. She went on to say: "I can appeal the decision of a judge. I can appeal the decision of Revenue Canada taxation, but Canada Post can tell me that is just how it is as they devastate my small community and I cannot appeal the decision taken by people who clearly know nothing at all about rural communities".
The people of Avonmore are steadfast in their resolve to save their post office because after it closes there will be no retail postal outlet to provide postal services to the community. There will be no conversion in Avonmore, just straightforward elimination. There is only a limited number of businesses in the community and no one wants to operate an RPO.
As a result, Canada Post has indicated that it will install mailboxes somewhere in Avonmore. However, to buy a stamp or register a letter, residents will have to
travel 24 kilometres to the nearest available post office. Imagine, 24 kilometres to obtain such a basic service as purchasing a stamp.
This is outrageous in a country such as ours. There are a lot of elderly citizens in Avonmore. How are they going to get to the post office in Finch? What happens if they do not have transportation?
Is postal service in Canada going to be available to only those with a car? This is incredible. Rural Canadians are being made second-class citizens by a second-class Canada Post. We should be getting a rebate from Canada Post. It is not improving to meet the challenges of the next century, it is going back to the pony express and the people of rural Canada better own the pony.
Canada Post has promised to provide equal or better service to any community which loses its post office and where an RPO is established. However, the corporation is strangely silent about its promise when an RPO cannot be provided. Canada Post, like the government it represents, likes to brag about how successful and popular its RPOs are. It simply chooses to ignore the many cases across rural Canada where residents have no mail service beyond a mailbox by the side of the road.
In the Postal Services Review Committee's recommendations to Canada Post, in November 1989, the committee stated that some of the corporation's customers have been undeniably disadvantaged by the rural conversion program. The committee stated, and I quote: "There are households in small rural communities where a post office closure has resulted in a requirement for local residents to travel to a neighbourhood community, as much as 58 kilometres distant, in order to obtain counter service".
According to the committee, at the time some 66 communities representing 3,500 households were affected by this form of reduction in postal services.
The committee went on to state that this decline in service was in contravention of Canada Post's commitment to its rural customers. The committee stated that the corporation initiated the rural conversion program, in its own words to, and I quote: "increase in the most cost effective manner access by customers to services". In contrast to this declaration, postal services in 66 rural communities were dramatically reduced. This is not good enough.
May 31, 1991

The damage being inflicted on rural Canadians by Canada Post has not abated since 1989. Right now the residents of Mabou, Nova Scotia, are fighting alongside Avonmore and other communities to keep their post office open, thereby maintaining at the same time the single most important federal symbol in their community-
Mabou is located in the constituency of my colleague for Cape Breton Highlands-Canso. The hon. member cannot be here today for this debate, but I know of his strong commitment to the efforts of his constituents in Mabou who are trying to save their post office.
Last Thursday, the people of Mabou expressed their solidarity with the people of Avonmore who had come to the steps of the House of Commons to protest the impending closure of their post office. It is rather ironic that the callous actions of Canada Post to close both of these post offices has forged a common bond between people in rural Nova Scotia and people hundreds of miles away in rural Ontario.
This is the unity Canada needs now. I am only sorry for the circumstances in which this friendship and common cause has been created. Why then has Canada Post refused to keep these post offices open?
One can only conclude that it is afraid it would set a precedent and the whole master plan of rural conversion would be ruined. If this were to occur, it would be difficult for the government to sell Canada Post to private interests. Like Air Canada and Petro-Canada, the government is trying to mould Canada Post into top financial health so it can sell it.
The government does not care about people. It does not care about rural Canada and it does not care about how it implements the master plan, as long as it is successful. Canada Post and the government should review its policy on the future of the corporation and its privatization.
I believe most Canadians would firmly support the comments made by Professors Brian Osborne and Robert Pike in the December 1990 issue of Policy Options. They adequately summarized the serious problem the privatization of Canada Post would create for Canada and our postal system. The professors stated, and I quote: "to delegate postal services to private sector actors-without any central control and direction-is to
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pose a major threat to the underpinnings of social and regional integration which are, after all, the foundation of a modern nation state".
To many rural Canadians, it will always be the quality of mail service they receive which will be the most primary concern. An RPO will not provide the mail with the priority that a post office does. The argument that RPOs are opened longer than post offices and, therefore, people are receiving better service just does not satisfy rural residents.
They are, however, concerned about the security of their mail. They are concerned about the dismissal of acting postmasters and postmistresses and the part-time staff of a post office and the lost jobs in rural regions that are already economically depressed. As well, the symbolic loss of a post office reinforces the alienation rural residents feel for a cold and distant federal government, a government which is ignoring rural Canada.
Finally, what of those 66 communities which had their postal services clearly downgraded when their post offices were closed, as a result of not being able or willing to provide an RPO. Canada Post is punishing them by still going ahead and closing their post offices. The traditional post offices in all these communities should be restored.
Even the postal review committee said that such a move would "not impinge negatively on the corporation's goal of financial self-sufficiency."
The people of Cornwall are also concerned about the fate of their own post office. The main post office is located in a building that requires considerable repairs. Rather than allocate the funds to fix it up, the Department of Public Works has declared the building surplus. As it appears Canada Post will have to vacate the building, a number of my constituents believe that the corporation will use this occasion to close down this post office. To do this would have a serious negative impact on the city of Cornwall and it will also eliminate several jobs.
Cornwall wants its post office and the postal employees want to stay at work in their own community.
I trust the minister responsible for Canada Post, the corporation and Public Works Canada will endeavour to provide a similar postal facility to that currently in Cornwall located in the downtown area.

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Canada Post and the government have embarked on a carefully staged selling scheme which glosses over the flaws in the rural conversion program. The corporation and the minister responsible for Canada Post never miss an opportunity to sing the praises of RPOs and how its surveys show a 90 per cent approval rating from customers who have an RPO established in their community. I doubt the value of these surveys.
Canada Post refuses to divulge the questions on the surveys. In addition, how can we give credibility to surveys which ask postal customers questions when the customers are actually in or near the RPO? Not very many people in rural Canada will bad mouth their neighbourhood storekeeper, whom they have known for years, in front of a Canada Post pollster.
One thing I can definitely say about the results of these surveys is that the 90 per cent approval figure would be somewhat lower, I might add drastically lower, if the survey was conducted in Mabou or Avonmore.
I urge the government to take the initiative and put a stop to the rural conversion program and re-evaluate the direction it has set for Canada Post. The corporation does not need to be sold off and the people of Avon-more, Mabou and all of rural Canada do not want to be sold out.
In conclusion, I join with my colleagues in the Liberal Party in calling upon the government to support our motion that the government institute policies requiring that service to Canadians be the priority for Canada Post.


Mr. Alex Kindy (Calgary Northeast):: Mr. Speaker, I agree with the member who just spoke. I think postal service to communities in Canada is very bad right now.
I would like to point out to the member that I made a statement in 1986 requesting a new postal station in Calgary Northeast. After a long study, which cost the postal service a lot of money, a service was established in the Marlboro shopping centre. At that time, I had received a letter from Mr. Lander, President and Chief Executive Officer of Canada Post, dated April 17,1986. He said: "I am unable to give you a positive undertaking at this time. However, you will be interested to know that the Canada Post Corporation has contracted with
Thome, Stevenson and Kellogg to undertake a study of the postal network of the city of Calgary."
I have here that study. The study recommended that a postal station be established in Calgary Northeast in the Marlborough shopping centre. My constituents have written a petition and in answer to this petition, it was stated, and I quote: "As well, Canada Post is committed to opening 19 new direction outlets across the country as part of an experiment to improve customer access to retail postal service and to improve the quality of in-store service."
A site was chosen and an outlet was established in the Marlborough mall. This happened and everybody was quite happy. They spent $1 million to establish it.
Now they are closing it down and putting it again in a private store that cannot service that area. I would like the hon. member to comment on that.


Robert (Bob) Kilger: Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member from Calgary Northeast for his comment and question.
I think it just reminds us, once again, that the government is not listening to the people. Whether it is in rural or urban Canada, Canada Post is delivering a second-class service and making citizens second-class citizens. In communities like Mabou and Avonmore, we are not talking about a conversion, we are talking about the total elimination of a post office.
In urban centres such as Calgary, and other large centres across the country, some housing developments have door-to-door delivery, others have supermailboxes. There is just no consistency. There is no equity of service across the country.
I should have taken the time to add a few other comments with respect to the Avonmore post office. It sits physically at the centre of the village and, as such, has always been the focal point of the entire community. Now we are going to take the flag down. Not only that, the cenotaph is located on the same physical land as the post office in Avonmore. Now they are going to be asked to remove the cenotaph and put it elsewhere. I think it is a total disrespect to Canadian veterans who have served their country.
May 31, 1991

Last week we had the visit of 60 residents of Avon-more who presented me with over 700 names on petitions on a day they designated as "Avonmore's Drive for Dignity."
I hope the government, through the corporation, will re-evaluate its position.


Jim Karygiannis: Mr. Speaker, I want to share with my colleague from Stormont-Dundas something that is very particular to my riding, a city riding in Scarborough.
The post office in my riding did a study and it wanted to take away something like 15 boxes. It did not notify the residents of the area. All of a sudden, one morning, those boxes vanished. These were boxes from in front of seniors' buildings, boxes from areas where the seniors cannot walk more than two blocks to deposit their mail. You know, Mr. Speaker-because I know you are reaching that golden age-it is very important for grandparents to communicate with their children and grandchildren. If they do not have the opportunity to go and deposit their letter in the mailbox, they lose that.
I presented to the corporation a petition of 400 signatures from the area in my riding of Pharmacy and Huntingwood asking it to bring back a very important mailbox.
My question is as follows. Does my colleague from Stormont-Dundas also realize that we in the city also face the same dilemma with the corporation and it is about time that the government stands up, the minister responsible for the corporation, and listens to the people of Canada? They are fed up with being second-rate citizens. They want the post office the way they used to know it.


Robert (Bob) Kilger: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to respond to my colleague from Scarborough-Agincourt. I certainly want to detach myself from his introductory remarks. You look fine in your middle-age, sir.
I think the point should be made very briefly. I would say that profits are put ahead of people. These notices go out to every community and their citizens when finally Canada Post is going to take action. Here is the last paragraph, "We look forward to meeting and working with you on the changes to be made to your postal service". I wish they would start working with them and listening to them.
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The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Questions and comments are now terminated. Debate.


Jim Karygiannis: A point of Order, Mr. Speaker.
I just want to clarify very much that I hold you in great esteem and in great honour. I want to say, sir, that you are a fine individual and a good grandfather.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Well, I did not cut
the hon. member off just because of his statement. His time did expire. Thank you very much for the comment.
The hon. member for Edmonton-Strathcona and the hon. member for Carleton-Charlotte will be splitting their time, 10 minutes each.


Scott Jon Thorkelson: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today on this motion.
Canada Post has come a long way since the days of the traditional post office. It has had to adapt to new methods of providing services in order to respond to the evolving needs of its customers. In other words, Canada Post has had to change, as Canada has changed, and the members opposite refuse to recognize that.
In order to meet these changing needs and expectations, Canada Post has worked hard to improve the reliability and accessibility of postal services in Canada, particularly as they have related to rural customers in rural areas. In fact, there are 4,000 more outlets today than there were when Canada Post became a corporation. Four thousand more outlets out there to serve Canadians.
It has had to manage the operations of its services in the most cost-effective way and the services must be managed effectively. At the same time, the corporation has the responsibility of eliminating postal deficits that have burdened the Canadian taxpayer in the past.
As you know, 10 years ago, all three federal parties agreed with the legislation to change government policy and make Canada Post into a postal corporation. There were a number of reasons for this.
Canada Post had been faced with a great number of debilitating strikes that had resulted in Canadians being denied postal services for periods of over 40 days, and there were many of these strikes.
The reputation for service and reliability had gone out the window. It had been lost. A department that had once achieved surpluses on a regular basis, was reaching annual deficits of more than $600 million. Some of these

May 31, 1991
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were threatening to reach $1 billion. A $1 billion deficit. Outrageous.
There was a new management team put in place and it began to operate the Canada Post Corporation on a model of efficiency and service to Canadians. It improved reliability, accessibility and affordability. Canada Post has met all of these services.
Uniform standards, systems and procedures were introduced to ensure that Canada Post operated as a fully integrated distribution system. It delivers an average of 34 million pieces of mail every day to almost 11 million addresses coast to coast. That is an enormous amount of mail it moves to a great number of addresses in a very short time.
It has established a national control centre which is linked by computer to airlines and trucking companies that carry the mail. It is also linked to the plants that process the mail.
This centre monitors the movement of mail 24 hours a day, seven days a week, so that situations that threaten the delivery of mail can be dealt with immediately. Because of this, the reliability of Canada Post has been much improved.
Canada Post also measures its performance. Ernst and Young sends 50,000 pieces of properly addressed mail through the system four times a year and publishes the results.
Today these reports show that Canada Post's on-time delivery performance is almost 97 per cent, compared with an average of below 85 per cent when monitoring began in the fall of 1987. In fact, other countries and other postal systems have emulated this model which Canada Post put in place.
Canada Post is working to make it more convenient for people to buy their products and access their services, whether they live in cities or in rural Canada. With the largest retail network in Canada, larger than all the banks and all the financial institutions together, in order to meet the needs of Canadians, they are making it even larger.
However, Canada Post must do this in a cost-effective manner in order to achieve the objective of affordability. If costs are high, then these costs are passed on to post office customers.
Canada Post is readjusting its retail network in urban Canada to ensure that customers have access to postal products and services at times and locations which reflect the changing shopping patterns of the majority of Canadians.
I would like to give you an example of what has happened in my own constituency of Edmonton-Strath-cona. Two years ago, a person named Mr. Eugene Baravash took over the Maurice Pharmacy which housed the McKemon postal outlet in my constituency.
Canada Post soon approached him and said: "We would like to turn your post office from a post office outlet into a franchise." Mr. Baravash said: "I cannot do it now. I do not have the money to come up to buy a franchise. I would have to expand the space requirements in my pharmacy and I will not be able to do it."
Canada Post at that time was a little heavy handed. It threatened to close down and take out the postal outlet to put it somewhere else.
I intervened with the post office and I asked the post office to give him a bit of time, to wait a year or two until his cash flow became positive. He had just taken over this store. He had heavy debts and so on.
Canada Post sat down with him and came to an agreement that in a couple of years time they would review this.
Canada Post has now reviewed it and I understand that the Maurice Pharmacy which houses the McKernon postal outlet is on its way to becoming a full-fledged franchise. What this will mean is greater service, greater numbers of hours, and a greater number of services in the post office.
Canada Post, in order to meet its goals, has been sometimes a bit heavy handed in all members' eyes. Over all, Canadians are experiencing greater service, and this is very important.
One thing we have to realize is that, according to inflation, the price of postage stamps is a better deal today than it was before. I would like to give an example

and compare basic letter rates of the major OECD countries.
To contrast the cost of a stamp with how long it takes to earn that stamp in minutes of labour: In the United States it takes 1.6 minutes of labour to buy a postage stamp; in Canada, it takes 1.68; in Sweden, 2.02 minutes of labour and so on down to France where it takes 3.09 minutes of labour to buy one postage stamp for an ordinary first class letter. In Italy it is 3.61 cents.
Canada is ahead of Sweden, Australia, the United Kingdom, Japan, West Germany, France and Italy.
Not only that, according to surveys of Canada Post many people are very satisfied with the service. On conversions that occurred between the years 1987 and 1989, there was a 91 per cent over-all satisfaction rate. Of course there has been an adjustment, and sometimes adjustment and change are uncomfortable, but once they have been made Canadians are generally satisfied.
I must commend Canada Post. There are glitches, yes, and there are complaints from time to time, as hon. members have mentioned. However, Canada Post is willing to work with members of Parliament. It is willing to work with Canadians. It is turning a profit now, two years in a row. It is taking this profit and reinvesting it into capital equipment, which is badly needed, and into mechanization. This is good for Canada Post, good for Canadians and good for Canada.
I would just like to close with one other statistic, which is that Canada Post has 97 per cent on-time delivery,
4,000	more outlets and, again, 90 per cent satisfaction. I believe that is very good.


Thomas (Tom) William Wappel: Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the remarks of the member. I noticed that he of course quoted many statistics and I do not necessarily disagree with some or all of them.
However, I heard another speaker today talk about one of the decisions of Canada Post. I listened very carefully when he talked about the problem that his constituent had and the apparently heavy-handed approach that Canada Post had for this poor gentleman who was struggling in a business, like many people in Canada are struggling in business.
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However, we heard another member raise the fact that this same corporation which is heavy-handed-and we all know of instances where it has been heavy-handed- apparently purchased-and I stand to be corrected, beg to be corrected, if I am wrong-a box at the Skydome in Toronto. Those things do not come cheaply.
Does the member know anything about the following? If it is a fact that Canada Post Corporation purchased a box at the Skydome, allegedly for the purpose of entertaining their clients, first of all, does he agree with it? Second, has his constituent been invited by Canada Post to attend a ball game in its skybox?


Scott Jon Thorkelson: Yes, I believe Canada Post did get involved in renting a skybox. That was raised in the House last week. At least 80 per cent of the mail, and it could be 85 per cent of the mail, delivered by Canada Post is business mail. There is a large volume of business users. Canada Post is like any other corporation that needs to keep good relations with businesses which provide it with the bulk of its mail and the bulk of its revenue. A large amount of this revenue which is obtained from business users is used to offset some of the services it provides to Canadians. I think that is important.
The corporation is involved in several major Canadian sporting and entertainment facilities, including the Toronto Skydome. It purchases tickets to sporting events in other parts of the country, not unlike businesses.
The member also mentioned heavy-handed. The corporation tries as best as it can to negotiate with Canadians and with businesses, and I applaud it for that. Sometimes for their own interests business, outlets or people are resistant to change. Canada Post at some point in time has to make a decision. We all realize that. It is just like in the House of Commons: we debate and we debate and debate, but the day comes when we have to make a decision. Canada Post is not inflexible. It will change its decisions. At the end of the day it must make a decision and it must move forward.


Mr. Greg Thompson (Carleton-Charlotte):: Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to take part in this debate. I welcome the opportunity to do so in response to the opposition day.

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I guess some of the mistakes of Canada Post in the past are legend. There is no question that before it was made a Crown corporation by this government, the corporation was running into all kinds of difficulty. In fact when we took office in 1984, we made a commitment to the Canadian people that we were going to take the $500 million deficit and turn it around. Him it around we did. We have taken that $500 million deficit and turned it into a $150 million profit. I do give the minister of the day responsible for Canada Post some credit for doing that.
The down side of that, and there is always a down side to any cost-cutting measure, is that rural Canada has paid the price for that turnaround. It is almost the story of the city mouse versus the countiy mouse. If you listen to all of the debate on Canada Post in this House, you will notice that most of the criticism of Canada Post is coming from rural members of Parliament like myself who have numerous communities within their rural ridings. That is where the heart of the problem lies with regard to Canada Post.
I want to give some examples. They are not exaggerations but facts. Drivers who drive their own vehicles to deliver mail to rural parts of my riding and many other ridings in this country are getting paid at a rate far less than the mail delivery service in cities. Where a letter carrier service is provided by Canada Post, the letter carriers have a contract, a fairly strong union, and are actually paid more to deliver mail in town without the cost of an automobile than these poor drivers in rural Canada. This is an example of the absurdity of situations within Canada Post.
Drivers in my riding have delivered the mail for years. In fact I was speaking to one of them yesterday. They have decided they are not going to go after the contract, in other words put a bid in or retain the contract to deliver mail in their particular area, because they can no longer afford to do it. It is as simple as that. They are working for less than minimum wage. It comes down to the absurdity within Canada Post of two different situations, two different unions, no union, one working for less than minimum wage, the other working at a far higher wage with fewer expenses.
It is the same with rural post offices. We have had numerous post office closings and conversions in my riding. Rural post offices were in themselves not totally responsible for that $500 million that we inherited when we took office and took over Canada Post. Far from it. The postmistress or the postmaster in those post offices in many cases is working for slightly above minimum wage. Compare their wage scales with the wage scales in the city post offices. There is a vast difference.
That is why members of Parliament on both sides of this House, like myself, get very irritated when they hear of the closing of some of these rural post offices. Granted, sometimes it makes sense and I am sure we can document that. If I have time I will document cases where conversions have worked. In many cases it does not work and it is not working. That is another example of some of the policies that Canada Post forced on the people with no discussion, no dialogue at all. They simply arbitrarily did it.
The best example I have of that is the mode of delivery. Each Canadian is entitled to one free mode of delivery in this country.
In rural areas it usually means a rural mailbox. If I have a rural mailbox, I am entitled to free delivery. For some reason, and it usually comes down to age and a problem of inaccessibility for a rural Canadian to actually walk to the end of the driveway-sometimes driveways in rural Canada are 200 feet long, 300 feet long and sometimes longer, sometimes shorter-but some Canadians, because of a handicap or whatever, cannot get to their mailboxes. They choose, instead of getting mail in a mailbox, to pick it up in town or have a relative pick it up.
Do you know what Canada Post did, Mr. Speaker? The rental of a box in a post office went from $26.50 to $50 in one year. Many residents phoned me about that, wondering why their rental fee went from $26.50 to $50 in one year. I could not explain it.
Name one corporation in this country that can raise prices by 100 per cent and get away with it, where the consumer would actually allow them to get away with it. I do not know of any. Canada Post did, as the member on the other side is nodding, and did get away with it.
May 31, 1991

Those are the types of things that just turn rural Canadians off when we are speaking of Canada Post. It is very negative. Canada Post has no thought at all for rural Canadians.
There is a little community in my riding called Fredericton Junction. This one is the most absurd case of all. There was a surplus of lock boxes in this particular post office in Fredericton Junction. Canada Post arbitrarily decided that anyone farther than .4 kilometres from this particular post office would be forced to erect a mailbox. In other words, they would be getting rural delivery once they were beyond the bounds of that post office by .4 kilometres, just a little less than half a kilometre. Many of the residents in that community are elderly. Many of them obviously are not. They are still working Canadians like you and I. They preferred to walk down to the post office and get their mail. Canada Post arbitrarily threw this decision at them. They are outside that .4 magic number that Canada Post invented. What they are forced to do now, if they want mail in that little post office, is pay the $50 to walk down to get their mail which yesterday was free. Absurd. To top it off, in this particular post office, most of the residents could not, even if they wanted to, erect a mailbox.
Some of the points I have raised have been taken care of by Canada Post, by just getting in there and fighting tooth and nail to make sure that some of these minor changes take place. Why does Canada Post not start listening?
Members of Parliament have just about zero clout when it comes to Canada Post, as everyone here will nod their head to just about zero, a big fat zero.


An hon. member:: Some members.


Gregory Francis Thompson: All members. The parliamentary secretary to the minister responsible for Canada Post might have some clout but the little country mouse in rural Canada does not have any clout with Canada Post, none at all. If you can embarrass it publicly, sometimes Canada Post will respond to complaints by members of Parliament. That is the only tool that I have, to stand up on my hind legs in this place and complain.
It is always the urban members of Parliament who get up and defend Canada Post, because no one from rural Canada in their right mind can get up in this House and
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defend it. Monday through Friday, there is not one who could get up on his or her hind legs in this House and defend Canada Post. Its decisions are mostly arbitrary. Canada Post has actually lied to members of Parliament.
This morning a senior member of Parliament told me of a situation in his town where a staff person at Canada Post simply fell asleep at the switch, did not inform his office as to what was going on and then attempted to cover up. That is a recurring theme with Canada Post. It is one that I do not want to see continued.
That is why I will stand up on my hind legs in this House any day of the week and defend my rural Canadians.


James Capsey (Jim) Karpoff: I have listened to a number of speakers who have been focusing on the plight of people in rural Canada as it relates to the post office and I wholeheartedly agree with them.
I want to say that the situations are no different in the metropolitan areas. I would like the member to comment on a couple of things that have been happening in the metropolitan areas.
For example, in my riding of Surrey North, there has been a privatization of post offices, particularly in the drugstores. We have had an incident where the comer drugstore had been running the post office for a number of years and a new owner came in. There were nine women working there, earning between $7 and $8 an hour doing the postal work. He immediately informed them that they were taking a reduction in pay, losing their seniority and that he was cutting back their hours. They finally formed a union and went on strike.
The post office assisted that employer every way it could to bust the union. It brought mail in. It kept the post office going, which was simply being ran by the employer as a loss-leader. The community was disrupted. The people who had served that community well were out of work. Finally, the whole drugstore, because it was owned by a big chain and did not want to allow adequate wages in one store because it might have to have it in another store, shut it down. That is being repeated over and over in this whole thrust of privatization.

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I would like the member to comment. I appreciate the difficulty in the rural, but what about us in the metropolitan areas?


Gregory Francis Thompson: Mr. Speaker, I cannot comment as effectively and as passionately on urban areas because I am not a member of an urban area and do not represent an urban area, but I know they are not without their difficulties.
I would like to point out something, although it is not directly answering the question: One of the things Canada Post does very effectively with regard to public relations is send out information notices to the communities. It does it through the community's member of Parliament as if the member could change it. Canada Post offers to meet with the mayor or the council in the cities and villages concerned and explain the process as to how the mode of delivery will be changed. Taking the post office out of that community would be a more accurate way of stating it.
It encourages the community to get involved. It will send out a questionnaire, which is a totally loaded questionnaire because it only gives three options. I mention this for a particular reason and I hope I have time to explain thoroughly.
Canada Post will give three options: a green box, rural delivery or a retail outlet. In most cases, if the communities had a choice it would be number four; maintain the service they presently have. That one certainly is not mentioned. The third one, the retail outlet, is sometimes not available.
It makes it sound as if in this vast country of ours there are retail stores in every community in Canada just waiting, begging to take over the post office. That is not the case in my riding. There are many communities in my riding that do not even have a store. They are very, very rural. The houses are five and six miles apart. I will finished in a moment Mr. Speaker.
In my community of Castalia and Grand Manan, there is a very good example of that. A business person went out and actually took over the old post office and put his own neck on the line simply to bring service to his own people, with a very strong chance of not succeeding in the marketplace. Rural Canadians deserve that service, one which Canada Post simply ignores.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I have two further questions. Do I have unanimous consent for two small, short questions-Don Valley North and the hon. member for Stormont-Dundas?


Some hon. members:: Agreed


Barbara Greene: Mr. Speaker, I just want to say that there is a very large file in my office on postal complaints. I have had things happen such as Fairview Mall's only postal outlet being shut down with no alternative. I think there are 4,000 to 5,000 employees in that particular complex. In addition, there have been other areas in which postal outlets have been shut down without notice.
I also have letters to the minister and to the authorities with regard to a request for an inquiry into the post office's firing of an employee over an issue of drugs in the work place.
In terms of urban Canada the post office is a major issue. I think we all need to have more information and better service.


Robert (Bob) Kilger: Mr. Speaker, I have a quick comment to the intervention by the member for Carleton-Charlotte. He repeatedly used the words "standing on his hind legs". In my books that member stands tall in this House and his frankness and candour will lead Canadians, not only rural Canadians but Canadians all across the country, to have some hope that members of this House will continue to give the best representation to all Canadians on postal and other matters.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I do not think there is any reason for you to answer that. I think it is pretty well self-explanatory.
Questions and comments are now terminated.


Mrs. Sheila Finestone (Mount Royal):: Mr. Speaker, I am quite delighted to join in this debate today and speak to the motion that was put by my colleague, the hon. member for Essex-Kent, who has really studied this dossier in a very thorough manner and has brought this to the attention of our caucus enabling us to have this discussion on the motion which reads:
That this House tall upon the government to institute policies that
would require that service to Canadians be the priority for Canada
Post.
I agree with that statement. I would personally like to add, not that it would have been acceptable in this kind of a motion, that service to Canadians be the priority not
May 31, 1991

only for Canada Post but also for the government opposite.
The member for Essex-Kent worked very hard on the Canada Post file, ensuring that postal services are in the interest of all Canadians. I believe he has been quite instrumental in arranging to have some help extended through Canada Post and the Department of Communications to weekly newspapers for a short period of time, particularly in the code 2 category, which I will come to a little later on. I think we can all appreciate the Minister of Communications having extended this amount of money. I have the sense that it was the 13 weekly newspapers in his own riding which might have had some impact.
I suggest to all weekly newspaper owners and all citizens who live in all parts of Canada to go and talk to your member of Parliament. Bug them so that if they are on the government side, they will bug the minister and if they are on this side they will insist that the minister do something about it. Sometimes it works, not always.
The daily newspaper in your constituency is a very important asset to keeping you in touch with what is going on in the world around you. Putting that moratorium on for nine months may be fine right now, but how are we going to keep up to date and know what is going on in the future? I think we have some very shortsighted policies which do not take into account the nature of Canada, the fact that we are a country with enormous geography. This has to be thought about when we look at public policy.
Since this government has come to office it has done nothing but see to the dismantling of the ties that link Canadians across this land from coast to coast to coast and the national symbols that help us identify as Canadians. It seems to fail to understand that in order to develop this immense country, services were established to link the regions to create a sense of national unity. The need for transportation led to the birth of Air Canada and the railway.
As our fundamental communicating link, Canada Post was put into place to serve individuals, unite Canadians and enable businesses and communities to be helped nation-wide.
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I know there is the argument that that continues under the privatized Canada Post. I would suggest that they did not have to privatize Canada Post in order to have an efficient service. Believe me, it is not only the private sector that is known to be efficient at all times.
I tell them to take a good look at Teleglobe under Jean-Claude Delorme and tell me that it was not functioning as well, if not better. If it was not, how come they named him to head the Caisse de depots. Don't give me the argument that only the private sector knows how to work, because it does not. There are plenty of fine public servants in the public sector. I can see one who was in the public sector before. They gave a great deal to their country and to their province and to the land internationally. They did not have to be in the private sector to be good. There is lots of reason to be very proud.
The need for transportation across this vast land, whether it was Air Canada, whether it was our bus transportation system, whether it was VIA Rail, was important to maintain that sense of Canadian identity, that linking of business and individuals across this land and to keep Canadians informed.
The CBC was also created to become a vital source of news, information and entertainment. That too was a celebrated cultural institution until this government started to cut it to pieces.
There are a lot of things government members have done that make me wonder if they really are Canadians. Canadians have long been associated with all these links. Therefore, the privatization, the closures and the downsizing that have taken place give everyone in this country a sense of abandonment, a sense of not belonging. As everybody knows, if we look at some of the cartoons, we need a sense of belonging. That loss of symbols, the loss of identity, the loss of national unity and the lack of sense of identification have led to and exacerbated the constitutional discussions we have had up till now.
I think one has to realize that in the privatization of Canada Post its business plan of action-the organ-o-gram and that it will do this, that and the other in these number of steps-may be fine and dandy, but it forgot a few human dimensions. One example is that we now have two classes of Canadian citizens: Canadian citizens who get door-to-door service and Canadian citizens who have to walk in snow, sleet, rain or ice; it does not matter what the temperature. It seems to forget that we live in the northern hemisphere. Senior citizens find it a little

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bit difficult to walk down to the comer or over the icy, bumpy street to their green postal boxes, those friendly little boxes that the dogs like but not people. I would also suggest that that was not taken into consideration.
Since 1986, Canada Post has been following its corporate plan to close or convert rural and small community post offices. In 1986 there were 5,221 such post offices employing 10,000 people. Today, more than 900 have been closed or have been converted, with over 3,000 jobs lost.
What is most interesting as we look at ghettos in which people work, is that most of the workers in these rural post offices were women-83 per cent. I wonder if that had anything to do with the corporate plan.
In the coming summer there will be 156 more post offices closed in rural Canada, 12 of them in Quebec. Cela ne fait aucune logique.
The government tells me that postal rates did not really go up. All I know is that when I speak to people in my riding, when I walk into the post office and there are people standing there buying stamps, they are complaining. They lay out 43 cents for the stamp. They are not standing there calculating that the stamp was 39 cents, which was exorbitant in the first place, and that the GST has added the additional amount. They now pay 43 cents, which is a 10.5 per cent increase.
All they know is that they are paying more money. I do know that the GST is something they hate. All I would have to do if I want to fan the flames and be very partisan-I often do-would be to say: "Just blame the GST and blame those Conservatives who had such a wonderful fiscal plan for Canada. They are bleeding us dry".
Last Saturday, The Toronto Star carried a story which led off with the following words: "Every 11 days since the beginning of 1990, a Canadian magazine has folded its covers and winked out of existence." In fact, here is the story. It did not have to be on the floor, but it sure floored a lot of people in the magazine industry.
The Great Depression, two world wars, a small, spread out population, recessions, inflation, overwhelming competition from the United States; none of these killed Canadian magazines in total, but this government's lack of action is going to do that.
Why is this happening? First, because the government cut $110 million from the traditional postal subsidy that was created at the time of Confederation. We created things in this country, and the first thing you did within eight years is that you killed it. What went on here is absolutely disgraceful. For more than 100 years, governments believed it was important for all Canadians to have access to magazines, books and newspapers. Why? Because I would suggest to you that words represent ideas, transmit values and are the cornerstone of democracy.
What have we done? We have cut the postal subsidies, we added GST and we are taxing knowledge. We are taxing brains, the Bible, the Koran-what does it matter-and we have added a postal subsidy that is just going to be the final straw on the camel's back.
Studies have demonstrated the necessity of postal subsidies over decades. From the 1961 Royal Commission on Publications which is often referred to as the O'Leary commission report, to the special Senate committee on the mass media to the government's own independent studies in the 1980s, they have come to the same conclusion, that Canadian magazines face harsh economic realities. They have a very small market and very stiff U.S. competition.
We know we do not own our cultural market, that which enables our children to grow and learn for the future and remain identified strongly as Canadians.
Second, they said Canadian magazines foster in Canadians a sense of themselves in a way quite different from other media. It is true that what you see on the television screen has great impact and that an image carries 1,000 words. If you want to have that integrated into your thought process, have food for thought or sort of mull matters over in your mind, when it says: "You do not have to do it, you have a choice," and things like that such as philosophic ideas too, you have to read it and be able to re-read it.
May 31, 1991

It was interesting to note that there is no concern on the part of this government about keeping its population educated and informed through the kind of reading material that often is easier than the thick tome book or no access to a public library. They got this through their magazines.
In the pre-election period, it is very interesting with this government. In 1988, the government sort of changed its mind. I would suggest that the former communications minister Flora MacDonald had finally to admit that postal subsidies had helped to develop the publishing business and she rightly argued for the maintenance of the postal subsidy. She acknowledged that the ultimate beneficiaries of magazines and newspapers, community newspapers, trade newspapers, those newspapers which touch on ethical values, religious values, all had a good Canadian readership and were especially important to readers of small publications, readers in remote areas and readers with little access to other means of distribution.
On April 14, the minister announced: "My cabinet colleagues agreed with me that the postal subsidy is well worth preserving. Therefore, I am pleased to announce today that, for at least the next five years, the program's funding will be maintained at approximately its current level of $220 million annually."
But with the election won and the free trade agreement passed, the government broke its promise and axed the historic over-100-year-old subsidy by $110 million.
Add to this the drop in demand because of the government's 7 per cent goods and services tax. Just imagine the damage on an industry that had never been taxed before and which only had a 2 per cent profit margin. Magazines were exempt from federal manufacturers' sales tax, which the GST supposedly replaced. Therefore, there was no trade-off for the magazine industry, it was just a new tax. It was a fresh tax burden on an industry that only works on a 2 per cent profit margin.
Canadian magazine editor Doug Bennett says that the impact of this has been "the folding of 47 magazines". The industry has predicted that as the pre-GST subscriptions expire, the picture will get much worse.
You can add to that, as the article says so eloquently, the other threat that is posed by the GST, says Mrs. Keechy who is a director in the magazine industry, the inadvertent advantage it gives to the American maga-
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zines which dominate the Canadian market. Strictly speaking, American publishers are supposed to collect the GST from Canadian subscribers and then remit that sum to the Canadian government. In the case of large magazines that are well known, I am sure they are doing that. But for hundreds and hundreds of smaller foreign publishers, the GST is something they just ignore and government enforcement is a complete joke. The net effect is that the Canadian magazines pay the GST while many American magazines get around it and can do business much more cheaply than we can. That certainly has not helped the industry.
With the closing of post offices, with the cutting of the postal subsidy, our cultural industries have been impacted in a very negative way. The O'Leary Royal Commission on Publications observed in 1961 that periodicals can provide "the critical analysis, the informed discourse and dialogue which are indispensable in a sovereign society". Other support mechanisms were also created.
Bill C-58 amended the Income Tax Act to encourage advertisers to use Canadian media to reach the Canadian public. Its intent is to encourage advertisers to use the Canadian media to reach that Canadian public. As a result, the measure discourages foreign ownership in Canadian periodical and newspaper publishing. To be defined as Canadian, a publication must have at least 75 per cent Canadian ownership, and 80 per cent of its material must originate in Canada. That is very helpful for our artists and our creators and many other industries in Canada. Canadian publications attribute a great deal of their success to the effects of this legislation.
There have been rumours of late from American trade officials that they would like to see the removal of Bill C-58. They find it an irritant. Well, there are so many irritants going on here that we don't need the Americans to add to the irritants, so the Americans should stay at home, mind their own business, and we will do what we need to do here, which includes putting back the postal subsidy. Mr. Treasury Board, Mr. Finance, Mr. Dollar Bills; put some money back in, and take the tax off books.
My conclusion, with respect to this whole issue and situation, Mr. Speaker, is the following: When you have postal rates that have gone up-just let me put this into the hopper-for the average newspaper weighing 107 grams, the yearly average postage costs were $2,000 up to June of this year. Costs after June will jump to $10,500 from $2,000. That is this government's wonderful way of encouraging our community newspapers, our weekly

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newspapers, the ethnic papers, the church papers, the trade papers, the small daily papers. Enough is enough! Put the post offices back in rural Canada. Allow the people to have equal service. There are not two sets of citizens in this country. And, for goodness sakes, reinstate their postal service.


Alfonso Gagliano: Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would like to congratulate my colleague, the hon. member for Mount Royal, on her excellent speech. For years, she has looked after communications and cultural issues on this side of the House, Mr. Speaker, and she does an outstanding job. She understands the real problem Canadians have at this important time in our history.
But I would like to raise a question. In her speech, she referred to the closing of rural post offices. Yesterday, my colleague from Papineau-Saint-Michel presented petitions here. I still have a whole packet of them-they will be presented during the week. What happened in February to the people of Sainte-Blandine in the Ri-mouski region, Mr. Speaker? They learned that Canada Post Corporation had decided to close their post office. We well know how Canada Post consults. I was postal critic before the last federal election and if we had not had that whole debate on free trade, Mr. Speaker, I am sure that Canadians would have taken account of the bad job this government was doing.
But let us get back to the situation in Sainte-Blandine and the whole Rimouski area, Mr. Speaker. They made representations to the Minister of State for Employment and Immigration and the Minister of State for Seniors, who is their member of Parliament.
I even have a letter here from the Archbishop of Rimouski. The hon. member opposite just accused us in the opposition of creating the myth that closing a rural postal office kills the rural way of life. It is not a myth we are creating. I would like to read a letter that the Archbishop of Rimouski wrote to the government member. the MP for Matapedia-Matane. It reads as follows: "Dear Sir, You are no doubt aware of the concern raised by the Canada Post Corporation's decision to close its
facilities in three of our rural parishes. With your deep knowledge of the area, you certainly realize the implications of such a decision. Our rural communities have over the years been built around three main institutions: the church, the school and the post office. Each of them gives its identity to the community it serves. Needless to say, eliminating a post office, even if comparable services are provided, is a significant loss for the community's identity. Having a post office in each of our rural communities is an immediately visible sign of the federal government's presence."
Mr. Speaker, it is not a myth of the opposition's making. Msgr. Gilles Ouellet, Archbishop of Rimouski, says the same thing. In that same region, the television station in Matane was closed, while yesterday, the new minister of regional development in Quebec created an economic development agency.
Mr. Speaker, this government is destroying the country. I will leave my colleague time to answer how she sees this situation in which the country is being shut down, while in this important debate on national unity. We need means of communications that do not exist now. They close post offices and we cannot go on that way.
I would like to hear what my colleague has to say. [English]


Sheila Finestone: Mr. Speaker, I think that the Archbishop spoke eloquently about the post offices. I know my colleague, Madam Cote, when I joined her in Rimouski to talk about the closing of Rimouski and Matane speaks very eloquently and so did the 5,000 people, who talked about the cutting of the CBC stations.
This government has done nothing but destroy the infrastructure. I was on the VIA Rail train. I saw what it meant to close down the trains too. The post office, the train, the plane, everything, the government has closed them all down. Why does it not just close down the government and let us go to the people and see if they want to be shut down?


Lee Richardson: Mr. Speaker, if we had continued
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with the previous government, the country would have been shut down by now with their free spending ways.
I am grateful for the speech of the hon. member for Mount Royal because she is usually so responsible and articulate in her comments, but I think she would want to give some credit to the new Minister of Communications with respect to publication mail. I think she is aware that through her efforts and those of a number of members on this side that the Minister of Communications did announce an extension to May 1, 1992, for the rate implementation for small community weekly newspapers.
In addition, they continue to have the first 2,500 copies delivered free. That is exactly what the Canadian Community Newspaper Association was asking for and the Minister of Communications and the government responded. I think it is fair to say that even the Canadian Community Newspaper Association, with whom I met several times-I know that the hon. member who just spoke has met with them as well-understood that the government cannot continue to give free postage services to all the newspapers in the country. They understand and they have asked for a transition period. The minister has responded to those requests with $3.8 million available to help offset those rates and to maintain the 1990 levels for another year.
I just wanted to point that out, but I am sure the member is aware of it.


Sheila Finestone: First of all, I am really very pleased to respond to the hon. member's question. You may not have been in the room when I first mentioned the fact that the minister had been very open-minded, I thought, somewhat influenced, perhaps, by the 13 newspapers that are in his own riding, and that is the way it should be. I am glad to hear that he listens and that he responds.
I also got carried away and became so partisan, it is so nice to do that occasionally when you get upset.


Lee Richardson: But unusual.


Sheila Finestone: But unusual? Well, I do not know whether to take that as a compliment or if my leader will take that into consideration in a negative way. But be that as it may, I do really believe it is important to remove anything that is in the way to access to reading
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material. It is so important for a country. If we were a small country it would not matter but because of our geography, because of the distribution of our population, we really do not have much choice but to be sensitive to the reasoning behind a public policy. If a public policy no longer needs to be in place, then change it.
The hon. member mentioned that we were bad managers. I would find it very interesting, if we were such bad managers, how Canada did so well over a 20-year period that this government, when it came to office in 1984, kept the budget that had been developed by the Liberal Party. My final comment is that we have a deficit that is somewhat higher than when you took office, like double.
[Translation\


Lise Bourgault: Mr. Speaker, I am glad to have this opportunity to express my views on the services provided by Canada Post in my riding. I will also let you know what I think of the remarkable progress this corporation has made since 1984.
While supporting the overall plan of Canada Post, I agree that, as a government agency, it has social responsibilities of a nature other than philanthropic, cultural or sports related. Canada Post could, for instance, offer very special rates to community newspapers delivered by mail to their suscribers so that people living is remote rural areas have access to quality information at a reasonable cost.
Of course, I was very happy to hear that the subsidy has been reinstated until 1992 to allow the Community Newspapers Association to determine with Canada Post how to ensure that they can go on mail delivering their weekly newspapers at a low cost. In my riding, in Lachute in particular, it was a question of life or death for the Watchman, a newspaper serving the anglophone community.
With the assistance of the Revue de la Petite-Nation, in the regional county municipality of Papineau, we were able to prove, through a rather elaborate process, Mr. Speaker, that the service was too slow in our area because of transfers made at the sorting stations. So, the Papineau area was particularly disadvantaged by this. It is much better than it was, but there is still room for improvement there. Unjustifiable delays can still be

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experienced, Mr. Speaker, as I did myself last week. A letter took 10 days to get from Lachute to Mirabel.
Mr. Speaker, another major change took place. The sorting that used to be done in Lachute is now done in Saint-Jerome and Montreal, not without some backlash. I was told once again that this was a further step towards improving the service. This is a new policy. People expect mail to be delivered very quickly. Users are no longer concerned about where the sorting is handled. What they are concerned about is the cheques and letters they are expecting and they want to get them quickly.
Mr. Speaker, Canada Post is supposedly making profits now. It should consider reinvesting some of this in mail boxes. The green boxes are pretty ugly. As I was travelling through my riding I noticed, particularly in the Huberdeau area, in Harrington, these horrible green boxes on the side of the road. I think that, if Canada Post is serious about wanting to keep improving its image, that is definitely something that should be changed. Some changes are expected and more money should be put in there. Initially, the super boxes were unpopular, but I think that since people started using them the demand has grown.
Mr. Speaker, we have been advised that the Pointe-Calumet post office will close down. It was built in 1985. I think it is slightly premature to close it, considering it has just been built. However, I know the local people are working on it, and I personally advised Canada Post of my concern about this transfer which I don't think is necessary.
On the the other hand, in Saint-Colomban, things went according to plan; the office is now operating very well.
Before discussing the many improvements Canada Post has introduced, I would like to again state my support for the Association des editeurs de la press hebdomadaire regional et francophone and its fight against Admail. The association claims that Canada Post is competing unfairly with Quebec's weeklies, because Canada Post has access to over 10 million addresses across Canada, has direct access to the mailboxes of private citizens, uses its own facilities for delivery and makes a substantial profit in areas where it has a monopoly.
Personally, I think the director of the federal Bureau of Competition Policy should deal with this matter once and for all and conduct an investigation to see whether this Crown corporation is unlawfully competing with regional weekly newspapers.
Perhaps we could now look at the progress made by this corporation which today has annual revenues of nearly $4 billion. Every day, about 40 million items deposited at 750,000 points of mailing are processed and then delivered to any of more than 11 million addresses in this country or sent to countries all over the world.
Contrary to what is commonly thought, Canada Post does not have a monopoly on mail delivery in Canada. Letter mail, which is only 50 per cent of its business, is the only area over which it has a monopoly, by law. Even in that market, Canada Post has to compete with fax machines which have now become a direct and very effective means of communication. You get your mail in minutes, not days. So the fax machine has become a serious competitor for Canada Post. There is also electronic information and fund transfer networks and, of course, the telephone.
Other products and services, like priority post and parcel delivery, are areas where competition by courier firms, bus or truck companies, airlines, advertising media and other businesses involved in delivery of communications is very fierce. However, that is how the free enterprise system works, and Canada Post is now part of that system. So now they have to act like a company, and not like a Crown corporation that can knock on the door of the Minister of Finance to get some money because it didn't make enough the year before. It cannot operate like that anymore. So, the company has to make its products competitive and meet the market demands.
Canada Post also has to fight every inch of the way to keep its share of the market and it may be that, in part, that irritates and brings opposition from the community newspapers. On the other hand, it must be said in its defence that Canada Post is a company and must act as such.
At the Ottawa headquarters, a national control centre was set up to ensure the proper operation of the entire system and monitor the daily mail flow. It is from that centre that Canada Post coordinates the activities of its
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57,000	employees and 12,000 suppliers with those of the contract carriers, large volume mailers, small businesses it deals with as well as all its clients.
In that centre, screens allow the continual monitoring of air transportation and weather conditions throughout the country. In fact, all members of this House and anyone interested to see how it works should go and visit the center. It is great to see how mail flow is controlled in Canada. Other terminals are used to analyse the volume of mail entering or leaving of the system. On another wall, twelve screens provide an up-to-the-minute picture of the progress of mail through the company's network of handling plants.
The national centre is linked to nine regional control centre from coast to coast by state-of-the-art telecommunication and data processing systems. There, a Canada Post senior management team meets every morning and, there also, inquiries regarding the operation of the network are relayed instantly for the appropriate person to respond to immediately.
The history of the modern-day Canada Post Corporation started in 1981. So, when we hear the Liberals and their great philosophies, we must remember it started under them. They know very well that, were they sitting on this side of the House, they would be saying the exact same things as I do today. That is the beauty of the parliamentary system. Because they are sitting on the other side, we can do nothing right; but if they were sitting on this side, then I would be in the opposition and perhaps I would be doing the same thing. The fact remains that they started this in 1981. Because we set up the new postal corporation, it does not work since the Liberals did not do it. Anyway, things are much better when the Conservatives do it. Is that not so, Mr. Speaker?
Postal service had become less and less reliable. Strikes deprived Canadians of postal service for weeks; the deficit had grown to $600 million a year and was on its way to $1 billion. Listen, a deficit of $1 billion in 1981! Imagine how much it would cost to mail a letter today if we had done nothing. It would be frightful!
It was a completely unacceptable burden for taxpayers. I hope that those listening to us today agree with me.
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Many postal establishments were inefficient and much of the equipment was becoming obsolete. Obviously, with a billion-dollar deficit, how can you buy new equipment? It is impossible, is it not? You have to pay back the deficit. But successive governments had other more urgent needs to meet with their limited resources than investing in capital equipment for the Post Office.
In that context, a quarter of the Public Service suddenly became a commercial business. What a change! The new corporation had more than 63,000 full-and parttime employees, but no infrastructure like labour relations, legal services, finance, purchasing and so on-indeed, everything that a normal business or any company needs to run properly.
All those functions were performed by all kinds of other departments. The new company had an annual volume of over $1.5 billion, but-get this-no bank account! It carried on its activities all across Canada but it had no control over them. The nine years since that shaky start are divided into three phases: in the first phase, from 1981 to 1985, the corporation built up the infrastructure essential for any business. Just to let my colleague on the other side know, we were elected in 1984. Things had begun to deteriorate four years earlier, even if you would want us to believe otherwise. Canada Post was restructured according to business management principles. Of course, they had to get competent people from the private sector. Financial statements had to be prepared and all the support services a big business would need had to be put in place. New goals were defined, resources were assessed, prepared, and a five-year plan established, just to name a few innovations.
In 1985, we were in office when Canada Post management realized they were dead wrong in believing they knew how to operate a postal service. After all, that is what they had been doing for over a hundred years. They were wrong, Mr. Speaker. That year, they lost control and did not know how to react. Consequently, the second stage of the restructurization was never planned, it just happened out of necessity. Between 1986 and 1989, Canada Post did not release any public statement. They closed down their marketing service. What they wanted was to start to standardize their operations throughout the country. That is when they implemented a system-

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ized process, with national standards of service they could control and measure.
To regain some of their credibility and prove their reliability, they made some fundamental changes in then-system, Mr. Speaker, and I insist on the word "fundamental". First, they eliminated their first-class, second-class, and third-class mail service, as if there could be different classes of customers. They are all first-class users. A business must have only first-class products.
The corporation negotiated some flexibility in its collective agreements, to improve service efficiency. I believe that most of the people now working for the Canada Post Corporation are proud of what has been accomplished and I am not sure that, should you ask them, Mr. Speaker, they would agree to return to the old Post Office Department.
Productivity has improved greatly. The Corporation asked for guarantees of performance from its suppliers of air and road transportation. It was an obvious choice. It is not insignificant, since Canada Post is the largest buyer of transportation services in Canada. It is perfectly logical to ask for quality service. It put in place preferred rates for large volume customers who agree to prepare their mail and deliver it to the carrier. It invested in the best equipment and technological system. It consistently sought to integrate this system with the ones used by companies, since 80 per cent of the mail it processes comes from corporate customers.
Mr. Speaker, Canada Post is the first postal administration in the world to have its productivity measured by an independent auditor and to make public the results of such an exercise. The quarterly reports show a constant improvement in the performance of the corporation from an average of less than 85 per cent, according to the first reports issued back in 1987.
I regret that my colleague from Glengariy-Prescott- Russell, just the other side of the bridge from my riding- Usually, when I speak, he is in the House. I wish he were here for I could have given him the results of a mini poll carried out in Hawkesbury. People in Hawkes-buiy were asked: Is the mail service any better? I said it in English, because that is the way it was reported in the paper. One person answered:

"I am happy with the mail delivery here in Hawkesbury. I have not noticed much of a change. It is always the same. The service is good."
Another wrote: "Yes, the service has definitely improved. I use the post office quite a lot and I am pleased with the service. I think they are doing a fine job".

And I could go on and on, Mr. Speaker.
So, about three years ago, Canada Post Corporation turned a profit in accordance, of course, with its corporate plans. Any business who does not turn a profit has to close shop. It's a fact. Since becoming a business concern, the corporation must show a profit. There's no getting around it. Only the New Democrats do not understand that a business must earn money.
It was the first year in the black, and the first time that Canada Post made a profit in 30 years. With that started Phase III. The corporation was now able to show a different image to Canadians. So, in 1989, it had its first profit of $96 million dollars. The corporation had gone from a $600 million deficit, almost one billion, to a $96 million profit. They must have thought: Good, now we can buy ourselves some machinery.
The next year, the corporation did even better: profits of $149 million, at the same time as it improved service, let us not forget! Surveys were done. People do not complain about the service. When a change is made, it takes two or three weeks. Of course, Mr. Speaker, we are always attached to our services and reluctant to change-that is quite normal. But after three weeks or a month, people realize that it is not so bad. People go to pick up their mail at any time of the day. People work today, both partners in a couple work and it is not always convenient to go to the post office by one o'clock or between three and four- Today, they can pick up their mail much longer and take advantage of the services.
Imagine, Mr. Speaker-this must be horrible for any socialist-Canada Post Corporation paid the federal government a $60-million dividend! You, ladies and gentlemen, you taxpayers, after paying through your taxes for years to subsidize a deficit, received a $60-million dividend paid to the government! The corporation invests $400 million a year on average in equipment,
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training, new technology to improve services and Canada Post has thus become a world leader in postal high technology. This is possible because the corporation is profitable; if it were not, it could not invest in new technologies.
The new postal system comes into play from the very beginning of the development of a marketing or billing concept in any of the businesses which provide Canada Post with 80 percent of the volume of mail it handles over the year.
Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt about it-I have encountered it myself, as all members of this House have, I am sure; I encounter it every day in my riding- there is a normal resistance to change in services from our constituents. Just a little while ago, a meeting was held in Pointe-Calumet and people went and said maybe we should have done things this way or another way. At least, Canada Post takes the time to consult the people and to listen to them. There is a 90-day period set aside for consultation. In the end, the people come to realize that the corporation's plans are not all that bad. It takes a little time, but in the end they are satisfied. And the superboxes, Mr. Speaker, they are just great!
I would like to say, in closing, that I too, as a taxpayer and a member of Parliament, am happy to see the corporation paying us dividends, allowing us thereby to improve services and, of course, to apply that money toward the reduction of the deficit and finally to increase the services provided to Canadians.


Alfonso Gagliano: Mr. Speaker, I found the hon. member's speech somewhat confusing, because at first she said she supported and agreed with Canada Post's corporate plan. That she started to say: You know, this doesn't work very well, and that service could be improved- Although she agreed with this plan, she was against letting Canada Post operate in areas where it would be competing with private businesses, such as regional weeklies.
Mr. Speaker, the hon. member does not understand the real problem. Today, we are talking about Canada Post, but we could just as well be talking about Air Canada, the CBC, VIA Rail- It's the whole philosophy of a government that says the market is always right. It is a matter of making money, making a profit, and the government isn't interested in the citizens of this country
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or in providing a service for Canadians. Earlier, the hon. member mentioned auditors who were supposed to measure the performance of our postal services. We all know about the surveys at Canada Post, Mr. Speaker. I was a critic for two years.


Marcel Prud'homme: And a very good critic!


Alfonso Gagliano: Every time we took a closer look at the figures, we realized it was all planned so they could say: We conducted a survey, the people agree, and now we can close the post office in their community.
Mr. Speaker, I think we should look at the real story. In 1984, when this government came to power, the first thing the Minister of Finance told Canada Post was: As of 1985, you will have to balance your books, but you can't compete with private enterprise. Now listen, it doesn't take a genius to realize that the only thing they could do was cut services.
So they went and closed a whole bunch of post offices in rural areas. They installed superboxes before they put up the green boxes, and now, of course, as the hon. member said, people prefer the superboxes. Mr. Speaker, of course they are better than the green boxes, which are a real disgrace, as the hon. member said.
However, in urban areas, people keep asking us for home delivery, not those superboxes. Mr. Speaker, I live here in Gatineau and I have a superbox. Every morning when I open my box, it's full of junk mail. That is what we have now, Mr. Speaker!
We have a mailbox for all the advertising they sent us. And what do people want? They want service. The government can talk about money and profits-of course Canada Post is making a profit. The government also says everyone is satisfied with the service, but, Mr. Speaker-and I refer now to the Rimouski area-I could show the hon. member hundreds of thousands of petitions these people are sending in. If you want to see people who are against Canada Post- Earlier I mentioned the Archbishop of Rimouski, and I could read a few more names: I have here Father Pascal Parent, the parish priest; the parish of Sainte-Blandine; the Association feminine d'education d'action sociale- You want to hear some more names of people who don't agree? Gilles Roy, vice-president of the Urgence rurale coalition. You want more names? Well, I will give you some more: the Ficelle organization, MPPs, Mayor Daniel

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Cote, MPP Michel Tremblay, all from a rural area around Rimouski.
Thousands of people are up in arms, Mr. Speaker. The hon. member says everybody is happy with the service they are getting. Mr. Speaker, the truth is, we are not getting any service in this country. Everything has been cut.


Lise Bourgault: Mr. Speaker, I understand that the archbishop of Rimouski is interested in what is going on in his community, but I am also sure that the archbishop would be the first to realize that Canada Post must ensure that the customer who wants service has to be dealt with efficiently.
They say that post offices have been shut down. Granted, some post offices have been shut down, but service was transferred to small businesses in the same community. Yes, the post office has been closed, but the service was transferred elsewere. The guy to whom you address a letter as "John Doe, St. Blandine, County of Rimouski" will get his letter, his mail.


Marcel Prud'homme: At the archbishop's palace!


Lise Bourgault: Mr. Speaker, I do not know if it is going to be the archbishop who will receive it, but, as the member for Saint-Denis said, Joe Blow, Sainte-Blan-dine, Rimouski County will get his mail.
So, when they say that post offices were closed, they are exaggerating a little. The services were transferred, and I can tell you that in several small communities, there are businesses like convenience stores that are open until 11 at night where many constituents go to get their mail and buy a few things at the same time to encourage those small shopkeepers.
Sure, before that, we used to have post offices with postmasters and all that in every community. You know, Mr. Speaker, in some municipalities, when the Liberals formed the government, post offices were built everywhere. There was one on this side of the road, and another on the other side. The postmaster on one side said hello to the one on the other side. They even asked questions of each other to know at what time they would-That really happened in a community, the name of which I have forgotten.
If it was politically rewarding, post offices were built. It was like during the Duplessis days, bridges were built where there was no water. So, let us not exaggerate. The service was upgraded. I understand people who are against it, but, once again, everyone gets his mail, though in different ways.


Marcel Prud'homme: Mr. Speaker, when the hon. member says that everything is fine today, I cannot help thinking about my responsabilities towards my riding. I want to tell her, for example, that in the new modem life, perhaps in the new big developments, and I say only perhaps-But she knows my riding very well, since, under the previous government, from 1984 to 1988, she was the hon. member responsible for the riding of Saint-Denis, to see who could defeat the member for Saint-Denis. But I must admit that she is an excellent friend.
It is absurd to see that in the Bois-de-Boulogne, which is very well known, in Montreal-I am not talking about the Bois-de-Boulogne in Paris, but the one in Montreal, which is a residential area-there are people in the north, the east, the west and the south; so they are completely surrounded, but there are also a few developments in some streets. For example, I am thinking of Marcellin-Wilson Street. I am thinking of a whole new estate belonging to Mr. Fiori. I am thinking of the new estate of the people she knows well, like Mr. Musto. In the heart of the city of Montreal, new streets were built to connect with others, and superboxes were installed. In the winter, there is a lot a snow and ice. Older people are now scared to go there. Well, it is the people who bought estates at $400,000 or $500,000 who get all the promotional mail that they do not want. This is the new way for Canada Post to manage a good department, always in the name of sound management! I find it is sad. I must admit-this is a rare occurence and I want to soothe my colleague, Mr. Cooper, with whom I had an exchange that I regret a bit-that there were some exaggerations. II you tell me that everything is fine, I think that you do not believe it. I point out that the member seems to be of the same opinion. But there were some unfortunate incidents.
As the member for Saint-Denis, I simply wanted to submit a case that happened in my riding, in one of the completely or almost completely built areas where,
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between two streets, they built a half-street on which people cannot even find the services that are available to their neighbours.
So, it is not a new area, a new development, a new city, or a new village. It is right in the middle of Montreal between two streets, because it was built later.
Therefore, I would hope that she joins with me to make representations to Canada Post to begin correcting what appears to me to be great anomalies.


Lise Bourgault: Mr. Speaker, I did say at the outset that I do not agree completely with all the corporation's restructuring plans. Clearly, a major change cannot come about without a few ups and downs and I fully understand the problems that the residents of the area may have since there is also a problem where I myself live, that is Lachute. The postman goes only so far even if he could have gone a few steps further to deliver my mail, but the corporation decided to draw the line there. Certainly, residents have a problem. I understand very well what my friend is saying but the corporation must go through a complete restructuring process. Now that it is making money it may be able to do it.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Questions and comments are now terminated. The parliamentary secretary on a point of order.


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, earlier today I asked for unanimous consent to revert to committee reports so I could table the fourth report of the management committee.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present
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the fourth report of the Standing Committee on House Management, which is the report that deals with the Private Members' Business of the House.


CONCURRENCE IN THIRD REPORT OF STANDING COMMITTEE
Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if there might also be unanimous consent to concur in the third report, which we tabled on Wednesday.
The House will recall that we were also denied consent by the same member at that time.


Alfonso Gagliano: Mr. Speaker, in a spirit of cooperation, I wish to inform the parliamentary secretary that we agree.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Pickard (p. 863).
Brian L. Gardiner: Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to have a chance to join in some debate today on this very important motion that we have before us regarding postal service in Canada, dealing with Canada Post.
I just want to read the motion into the record:
That this House call upon the government to institute policies that
would require that service to Canadians be the priority for Canada
Post.
That is a very important motion for us to be debating today. As is evidenced by the debate we have had in this chamber today, there are members on all sides of this House, on this side and on the government side as well, who have some very specific and important concerns about the way Canada Post is operating.
There is, as well, a particular interest among those members who represent rural ridings about some of the problems that we have had in our dealings with Canada Post in those communities.

May 31, 1991
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Before I start my comments, I would just like to say a couple of things. First, I would like to pay credit to two of my colleagues who have done a considerable amount of work in this particular area.
Our previous post office critic, the member for The Battlefords-Meadow Lake, did a great deal of work in this area. He gained some recognition by producing a major report for our caucus. The member for Churchill, who is our current postal critic-I thank him for providing some notes-is unable to be with us in the debate today. Given the size of his riding, he also has some particular concerns about Canada Post.
There are two other groups of people who I hope are watching and listening to the debate today. The first is ordinary Canadians. Almost all Canadians have the opportunity to interface with Canada Post and to deal with that Crown corporation. I hope Canadians are listening today to see some of the concerns being raised by members of Parliament and to see, as well, that even on the government backbenches there is concern about how the corporation is running.
There is one other group, too, that I hope is paying attention. These are the people who are watching in the control room at Canada Post headquarters right now. I hope they are watching this debate, that they are taking notes on all of the concerns that have been raised here.
I trust that as a responsible Crown corporation Canada Post will take the effort to follow up on those concerns that were raised and attempt to address them and help us to assist our constituents.
I would like to take a brief look and make some comments about what this government has allowed Canada Post to do nationally and the direction in which it is going. Then I would like to make some comments about my dealings with Canada Post in my riding and, to conclude, make some comments on some of the recommendations that the New Democratic Party caucus has made and some that I have made, to ensure that Canada Post is a successful Crown corporation.
Clearly, the record speaks for itself; the main focus of Canada Post under the Conservative government has been to close or to turn over and privatize retail postal outlets and post offices in Canada.
In fact, a lot of the information that I have been provided with comes from an organization that has arisen in the past couple of years and which deserves some credit from this House. It is an organization called Rural Dignity. It has done an outstanding job across Canada raising concerns, primarily about post offices, but as well about VIA Rail and other services as it impacts on small communities.
I did not bring it with me today-I should have-but Rural Dignity is raising funds by selling a poster depicting a rural scene. That is a plug for anyone who is interested in picking up one of those posters. I have ordered one. I think the importance and contribution that rural Canada makes is an important part of Canada and one that we have often missed in this debate in this Chamber.
The figures are incredible. Over 1,000 rural post offices have been closed or privatized since 1986 and some 3,000 full-and part-time jobs have been lost. Over 200 communities are now without any kind of replacement postal service. In many cases, this has meant a reduction of the federal presence in Canada.
Many in my province of British Columbia are familiar with a position called "the government agent", someone who in a smaller community is really a catch-all for provincial government services and a very important person. Often in many small communities that was what the post office was. It was the federal government agent, the place people could go to get their income tax forms, GRIP forms and other paperwork when people need it from the federal government. The closing of these post offices has meant that we have lost that.
That is not even to mention the economic impact these closures have had on many small communities. Magazines and other publications have commented on the large number of people who are now running small businesses out of their basements on the side, who quite often depend on the post office to deliver their product or service. We are seeing a great deal of that now and the loss of many of these rural post offices has really hurt them.
As well, there is the absolute lack of consultation with those communities by Canada Post. One example that struck me, which was an important one, and it goes back, if I have my timing right, to last summer to a major debate in, I believe, the Westwold area of British Columbia. Canada Post usually moves pretty fast if a
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postmaster dies or retires. I hope the postmasters in my riding do not choose to pass on soon. Then you can really get the mail moving fast, because Canada Post moves like greased lightning as soon as a postmaster dies or retires. It moves in very quickly, either to close the operation down or to try and privatize it.
A revealing comment was made in a discussion I had with Canada Post officials in Vancouver-and I am not suggesting in this case that they lied to me, but it is as bad as if they had. I phoned and this person said: "Well, since we"-meaning Canada Post-"eventually won this battle with the community of Westwold"-where they chained up the Canada Post vehicle, wrote letters and raised a great deal of concern, with the help of the member for Kamloops-"since the management of our corporation did not back down and since the government did not step in to make a decision, we figure we can go ahead and do anything we want and we know we have the backing of our management". It was a very revealing comment. It says that in many cases, when these staff members are doing what they are told, which is to close or privatize a post office, they are likely to go all the way.
I know in talking to my colleague, our previous postal critic, that you win a few but you wonder just how much you have won.
In today's paper there is a report of many letters that we have received from people of Mabou, Cape Breton who feel they have won an interim victory in getting the post office to back down. I hope that is right. I hope they have won a victory over Canada Post. If they have, I think we should circulate their letters and these articles in the newspapers to everybody so that all members of Parliament, when Canada Post is moving in to close down a service, can use the experience of these courageous people in Cape Breton, who have fought and, so far, have won. I suppose we will have to wait and see just what the final outcome of this particular fight will be.
The final outcome may be the next federal election, when we get rid of the Conservatives and elect the New Democrats and bring in a postal policy that will be relevant in this country.
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One of the problems that has arisen in the postal service as it is being run by Canada Post now, with the turnover to the retail postal outlets, is that they say: "We are not closing the post office, we are going to turn it over to an entrepreneur to run in their drugstore or their motel, or what have you". That has resulted in problems. A woman phoned my office this morning, knowing I would be rising in debate today on the post office, just commenting on a few things such as the lack of universal hours, something we know we need when dealing with the post office, and different advice on mailing. This woman was particularly upset. She wanted to write a letter to the Prime Minister to complain about the Prime Minister's partisan attitude while abroad. The person to whom she went to mail her letter did not know that one could still mail letters free of charge to the Prime Minister and other members of Parliament.
It is an inconsistent service that we have. The need for a professional service has been one of the most important messages that I have received from officials in Canada Post when I travelled throughout my riding. I have done that as I am sure have many other members of Parliament.
As a new member I have visited just about all of the postal outlets in Prince George-Bulkley Valley, talked to staff, management, employees and others to get a sense of where they are going and to introduce myself. It has been a learning experience because in most cases the staff in the postal outlets are dedicated people, especially in the rural communities. They are dedicated to their jobs. They want to provide good service, but they certainly wonder what the control room in head office is doing. I wonder what the control room in the cabinet offices and the Government of Canada are doing right now.
I told the letter carriers and the inside workers that I would be going on a postal walk with a letter carrier this summer and doing a bit of work inside the post office to get a better understanding of what they have to deal with. That is important, I have learned from some of my discussions with postmasters and postal employees. In particular, I discussed this with some postal workers last night, knowing I would be speaking today.
One example in Prince George is a new program Canada Post is bringing in called the "Lead Hand Program". It will essentially take out the management

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and supervisory person and generally turn over the paperwork which always has to be done to the lead hand person. Such persons also have a job at the counter or the wicket. They should be spending a third or half of their day at the wicket serving customers, but they will have to sit down, fill out and complete all the paperwork.
It is my view, which I think is shared by a lot of people, that it is a deliberate move by Canada Post, especially in my case in Prince George, Station A, Fifth Avenue, to have the service deteriorate to the point where Canada Post will have to say that it has many complaints, that service has gone down hill, and that there is nothing to be done except either privatize or close the post office and let the drug store nearby serve the area.
There is an overtime ban now so that the mail which should go out that day does not always do so. It gets bumped to the next day or perhaps even to the following day. There is a good deal of concern when people do not get their mail on time. That is another reason why that would happen.
There are around a hundred grievances alone out of the Prince George area. I get anonymous letters about once a month from staff who work in that area and are concerned. Of course I pass these on to both management and union for them to pursue.
I have had my own experience in my riding with the closing of post offices in two cases. First, the community of Endako assumed it was going to happen and there was not much it could do. The second was the community of Longworth where I met with a number of residents very concerned about losing their postal service. That community does not have phones either, and in this case I offered to try at least to pass some information on to Canada Post so that it would know where Longworth was. We did not suspect that anyone from Canada Post had ever actually been to Longworth. With no telephones, we also told Canada Post that if it is going to have its community meeting, it is going to have to write a letter to tell the community when it is going to come, because Canada Post does not know that community very well. It is someone in Vancouver who is making the decision to close this outlet, because a postmaster in that particular postal service is retiring. As I said, if you are a postmaster and you die in office or you retire in office,
you can be assured that Canada Post will move with lightning speed.
What should be done? We have to maintain Canada Post as a public Crown corporation at the very least. I have a great deal of fear, and I think a lot of Canadians do, that this government is fattening up Canada Post so it can privatize the whole operation.
Then you will see how much it costs to mail a letter from Granisle to Vancouver. You are going to be charged about $5 just to mail a letter if it is privatized under the Conservatives.
We want to make sure that we do not exclude letter carrier service from recently developed communities, in particular older areas that are being rebuilt. Canada Post moves very quickly. You get a superbox thrown up in your face as soon as a new area is developed so that it trims back the letter carrier service.
In Britain, I understand the post office has had a different history. It has provided many more services. Our Canada Post has experimented with some services with, I believe, some degree of success, and not so with others. I think it could do a great deal more in terms of not just its fax business, where you fax something and it gets mailed the next day, but in terms of becoming much more of a business-type centre, and most important, in terms of maintaining the full kind of postal service to all Canadians that we have come to expect and deserve.
Some have alleged that the profit figures for Canada Post are bogus profit figures. It we are to take at face value that they are honest figures, I think it is important for Canada Post to perhaps rebuild some of the infrastructure that it has allowed to be destroyed and to return some of the integrity to the system.
I visited a motel operation which is now the postal outlet in Topley. I do know that Canada Post pays $100 or $200 a month and then a commission on stamps and postage. But I felt bad when I was leaving their little operation. I felt I should come and buy all my stamps at this location because of the meagre amount of commission the postmaster in Topley was likely to get. It was the usual case of the postmaster retiring: "Do we give it to this other business?" "No, it is not worth my while", so someone picks it up and eventually it is going to get to
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the point where as an entrepreneur they cannot continue and they are going to have to close.
Certainly a review of the return of the benefits to some of these smaller outlets is one of the important things that Canada Post should do when it is reviewing the service. How do we get Canada Post to make these changes? One of the government members made the point that it is very independent now as a Crown corporation. It takes a lot to move it.
I would say that if Canada Post is not interested in returning the kind of rural service that we need in Canada, we should fire the president of Canada Post. If need be, I think we should renationalize Canada Post and bring back the kind of post office we need in Canada.


Mr. Lyle Dean Mac William (Okanagan-Shuswap):: Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate my colleague, the member for Prince George-Bulkley Valley, for his address and the particular concerns that he has outlined regarding the situation with Canada Post.
As B.C. members, my colleague and I have talked about the issue of Canada Post closures.
He is also well aware of the fact that there are postal closures occurring not only in his riding but in many ridings and constituencies throughout Canada. One of the more recent closures occurred in the town of Enderby in my constituency.
I should point out that Enderby is actually one of the largest of rural postal closures to date. There have been hundreds of rural post offices closed. If the government continues to get its way, eventually all post offices will be closed and privatized. The one in Enderby is of particular interest because of the fact that it is a very large one.
I want to address my comments to my colleague to see if he would support me in my request to the government. When the initial news of this closure came down, I wrote to the post office to request whether it would consider holding a public meeting with the residents of the Enderby area in the Okanagan-Shuswap and consider the various options.
I was really surprised, quite flabbergasted by the return comments made by Mr. Doug McClelland, Manager of Media and Community Services out of Vancouver. He essentially said: "We are not interested in the views of the community; we will make the decision and
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then tell the community afterward what that decision has been."
It did make a decision: close the post office. It came up and held a public meeting. It was interesting that one of the suggestions that came out of the meeting, which was strongly supported by the community of Enderby as well as the retail community and the residents, was that a couple of Enderby residents would take over the retail operation of the post office in its present location and would continue the operations in the building which people have come to know and trust as the centre for postal services in Enderby. This was an option that Canada Post had not even thought about. I am hoping it is still pursuing that option because it makes sense to the city of Enderby in terms of the availability of service.
I am just asking if my colleague will support me in my request to the government that it seriously consider this request coming from me as well as from the residents of the community of Enderby.


Brian L. Gardiner: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to respond to the question or comment from the hon. member for Okanagan-Shuswap. My grandparents lived there for a while and so I know Enderby a bit.
It came as a surprise when he mentioned that Canada Post was trying to close an outlet there, a standard post office, because it is not the size of community in which you would expect Canada Post do something like that.
It seems to me it is a bit of a hidden agenda that Canada Post has. It goes through the routine, it is pro forma: "have a community meeting, yes, yes, we will listen to you. Say your bit and we will consult and figure out what we want to do." We know what it is going to do anyway, so it is a bit of a phoney dance we go through.
Perhaps what we have to do is try and make that phoney dance a little more real. Perhaps we should have the president of Canada Post attend these community meetings where it is closing post offices so that he would get a real example of just what these communities have to go through.
If the member is asking for support for a backup plan which the community might have for running a retail outlet in the post office building, I would endorse it. Canada Post has an obligation to run that service. It would seem to me that given the comments of the corporation in the past, this is something it would and

May 31, 1991
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should consider. I would be quite surprised and disappointed if the corporation were not prepared to do that.
I would certainly support the member. I know he has done a great deal of work in his riding, in Vernon, in Enderby and in other areas on the postal service. I would support whatever efforts he has made in that area and we hope that Canada Post will listen intently to the needs of the residents of his community.


Lee Richardson: Mr. Speaker, it has been an interesting debate this afternoon on the pros and cons. It is clear that the postal service in this country is changing and meeting new demands across the country and trying to stay within the bounds of regional economics rather than create enormous government debt in the post office.
It gives me pleasure to speak in the House today about the Canada Post Corporation and how it is changing to better serve Canadians to meet the challenges of the globally competitive world evolving around us.
I think the members opposite would agree that the business challenges facing Canada Post are monumental. Here is a quick overview of the corporation today and how it is adapting to meet these challenges. In terms of annual revenues, it is a $4 billion operation. With approximately 57,000 employees, it is also one of the largest employers in the country. It processes 10 billion pieces of mail a year and delivers to over 11 million addresses.
Through links with other postal administrations, it keeps Canadians in touch with every country in the world.
Over the past 10 years, this corporation has learned a lot about corporate reshaping. Its management took the government department it inherited, stripped it down to basics and rebuilt it.
This government believes Canada needs and deserves a strong postal communications system as part of its basic economic infrastructure to compete successfully domestically and globally. Equally important, we believe it must provide the Canadian public with the most reliable, cost-efficient postal communications possible.
The modem Canada Post Corporation began in 1981, when the government took some 63,000 employees-one quarter of the Canadian Public Service-and said: "Okay, post office, you are a business. Act like a commercial corporation."
The mail had become increasingly unreliable. Strikes denied Canadians their postal service for weeks at a time. Annual deficits had reached $600 million, which in today's dollars would be close to $1 billion.
Its plants were inefficient, with outdated, if not obsolete equipment. Previous governments had found more pressing needs for their limited resources than investing in capital assets for the post office.
This new Crown corporation had annual revenues of more than $1.5 billion but no bank account. It operated from one end of the country to another but no one knew where the mail was at any given time.
In order to meet the enormous task that lay ahead, Canada Post began thinking like a business. It began to emphasize a corporate culture, stressing such values as customer sensitivity, quality and reliability. These values were not easily instilled but the corporation has worked over the years to ensure that these will be values which its employees live by, day to day.
By 1986, the corporation was ready to regain credibility by providing its service reliably. It standardized operations across the country. It developed a mail processing system that had performance standards which would be monitored and measured on a real time basis.
Effectively, this made everyone accountable so that they all knew when they were doing a good job and when they were not. For the first time, it was able to thank employees for a job well done, or, conversely, talk about the need for improvement. All this was done in the name of providing better service for Canadians.
The corporation also began to demand that all suppliers and contractors meet its new business standards. The corporation now negotiates contracts with its suppliers and contractors that ensure they recognize the importance of meeting the needs and requirements of the corporation's customers.
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The corporation has also hired outside auditors to measure delivery performance, the first postal administration in the world to do so. As mentioned previously by my hon. colleague, the most recent report by these auditors indicates it is now at 97 per cent efficiency.
It is no exaggeration to say that changes the corporation has undergone are staggering. It stood everything on its head, examined every process and questioned every assumption. It has had to challenge its people every day. It demanded their creativity and a complete commitment. The process was tough on everyone, from the executive offices to the plant floors. Some left, but most have soldiered on. This is a tribute to the quality of these people and they have done a fine job.
The changes have been equally tough on the unions which have had to recognize that they are in business with Canada Post. If the business fails then they both fail, but if the corporation wins as a company so does its employees and the unions who represent it. I believe union leaders must recognize that global competition applies to them too. This puts their own attitudes and productivity against those of the unions around the world.
As such, Canada Post has had to negotiate flexibility in its union contracts to increase their efficiency and re-establish management's right to manage the business. That did not come easily.
Clear evidence that the corporation's efforts were beginning to bear fruit appeared in 1988-89 when, as my hon. colleague who spoke previously mentioned, the corporation turned a profit for the first time in 30 years. This point bears repeating as taxpayers are no longer forced to pay for their postal service twice: once when they paid for their stamps and again when they paid their taxes.
This year, total mail volumes will hit some 10 billion pieces of mail. That is an increase of 38 per cent since the first full year of incorporation, and half of that was achieved in the last two years alone. Yet, Canada Post is doing all this with 6,000 fewer employees. Its mail processing efficiency also increased by approximately 6 per cent last year. That compares with the Canadian manufacturing productivity increases of less than one per cent last year.
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It has been through changes such as those outlined above that Canada Post Corporation has held increases in the basic mail rate for Canadians to less than the rate of inflation since 1982-83.
Yes, Canada Post has made progress over the past 10 years, but they can feel their competitors breathing down their necks every day, not just in Canada but from around the world.
Their sales force is slugging it out with the courier businesses and the telecommunications companies. Even the basic letter mail is under threat from fax machines and new technologies such as electronic data transfer. If you have paid any bills lately using your bank machine, Mr. Speaker, you will know what I am speaking about.
To help them successfully compete, Canada Post has invested more than a billion dollars in the company in the last three years. Some of this has gone into new trucks and street letter boxes. About a quarter billion is going into new-generation sorting equipment that is faster, more accurate and more versatile, replacing equipment that is 20 years old. Some of the new equipment can process mail up to 50 per cent faster than its predecessors.
Instead of equipping the Canadian postal system with off-the-shelf technology, as occurred 20 years ago, the corporation went to the manufacturers and told them to adapt their technology to Canada Post's specifications.
For example, they built a national control centre, linked with control centres in nine divisions across the country. These control centres are equipped with the latest computer-based technology. They monitor the collection, processing and delivery networks, transportation carriers, and even the national weather office: they then can pinpoint the movement of mail anywhere in Canada, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and ensure that it moves to meet service standards.
Competition is getting tougher, not only in Canada but globally as well. Although opportunities abound out there, the business streets of the world are getting mean. All businesses have to be globally street smart if they are to prosper. As such, Canada Post has gone global in a couple of ways. The president and chief executive officer of Canada Post is also currently the chairman of the

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board of the International Post Corporation, which was formed three years ago.
The corporate headquarters and operational centre for the International Post Corporation is in Brussels. It groups 23 of the world's leading postal administrations, all of whom own shares. Its primary objective is to ensure competitive service standards are met in the distribution of parcels and courier products among Europe, North America and the Pacific Rim. Even the post office can no longer be restricted by national barriers. Its competitors, the multinational courier companies, certainly are not. As such, when word about the new Canadian postal system got around to other postal administrations, they came to see how we did it. So did dozens of Canadian companies, including Canadian Airlines International, Domtar, Bell Canada, Xerox, Sears, MacLeans magazine and the Aerospace Industries Association of Canada, as well as 23 chief executive officers from major foreign companies.
In an effort to meet the growing world-wide demand for Canada Post expertise, the corporation has created a new subsidiary called Canada Post Systems Management Ltd., which has been tasked with selling its technology and management systems world-wide. I am pleased to say that it has discovered a growing market out there for the systems it put into place in Canada to get operations under control. Indeed, it has already closed a multi-million dollar deal with New Zealand Post and is implementing control systems there.
Canada Post's international reputation is such that it was recently recommended by the World Bank to Venezuela, which had approached the bank seeking assistance in upgrading its postal system. This sort of recognition by a major multinational organization like the World Bank sends a pretty clear message of the high regard in which the corporation is held internationally.
I should also add that proposals worth more than $40 million have been issued to postal administrations in Europe and Central America. This international consulting promises to be a profitable sideline, not only for Canada Post, but for many of their Canadian suppliers and partners as well.
I would like to present just one example of this. A few years ago, the corporation decided it needed a way to track and trace its priority courier parcels and envelopes through the postal system to ensure they did not go astray.
The corporation turned to SHL Systemhouse, a Canadian systems integrator. They delivered a track and trace system on time and on budget, a system that helps Priority Courier achieve its close to 100 per cent reliability for next day delivery.
Systemhouse then used its experience with Canada Post to bid on a trace system for the United States postal service. It won a $270 million U.S. contract, the largest ever won by the company. I am pleased that, through its involvement with Canada Post, this wholly-owned Canadian company was able to win such a lucrative and significant contract in the United States.
This is the sort of success story that could only be possible due to the success of the free trade agreement. It is an example of how the use of new technology by Canada Post and other Canadian companies is helping Canada win new business in information age markets.
Now, and most important, I would like to address how the corporation has been improving the products and services it provides to the Canadian public.
It moves letter mail, advertising mail, publications, courier documents and parcels. It moves facsimiles, electronic messages, or a combination of hard copy and electronic messages called hybrid mail.
It has restructured its products to meet customers' requirements for cost efficiency and reliability. It provides different speeds of delivery on a time-price scale, with add-on options such as insurance and tracing. Customers now have the ability to pick the speed and options needed, and pay accordingly.
The corporation's parcel services are now geared to the just-in-time delivery disciplines of its industrial customers, so it can minimize the capital that is tied up in inventory. It is also working with large volume mailers to show how to save money and ensure timely delivery by presorting their mail and by scheduling its arrival at its mail processing plants.
Canada Post has made these changes because business provides over 80 per cent of Canada Post's volumes and revenues. In meeting the needs of businesses, the corporation is able to generate the volumes needed to support its extensive operations network. This enables the corporation to provide all Canadians with a basic letter mail rate that remains the second lowest, in terms of minutes of labour required to earn the price of a stamp, in the western industrialized world. Indeed, since
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incorporation 10 years go, the actual price of a stamp has decreased relative to inflation.
When Canada Post became a Crown corporation 10 years ago, it faced many problems that some people regarded as being impossible to resolve. It has not settled all of them, but it has achieved a fair measure of success. Direct Marketing Magazine, an American publication, recently stated: "Canada Post emerges as the model for postal services around the world. You would be astounded to see the space age technology in Ottawa which controls the flow of mail throughout Canada and beyond its borders".
Canadian Business magazine recently called the turnaround "a management miracle".
Canada Post is striving to create the best postal system in the world. Its goal is to provide Canadians and Canadian businesses with a postal system that will take it into the 21st century. In the last 10 years, it has developed into an internationally recognized leader in the communications field.
Yet, it has not done all this simply for the sake of international acclaim. It has made these changes and improvements to the Canadian postal system because it wants to provide Canadians with the best postal service in the world.
The opposition would have the government return Canada Post to the days of the pony express. I urge the members opposite to take a closer look at the new Canada Post.
What we have here is a made-in-Canada success story. Canada Post has won international acclaim and respect for what it has achieved over the past 10 years. The new Canada Post is providing Canadians with a postal service for the 21st century. Through experience gained by their involvement with Canada Post, Canadian businesses are winning lucrative contracts abroad. Yet the members opposite appear to be either unwilling or unable to recognize these accomplishments.
I would suggest the opposition stop dwelling on its outdated views of postal service in Canada and recognize
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what this government, fellow Canadians and the international community already know.
The members opposite cannot accept that Canadians and Canada Post can be world leaders in their field. This government has known it all along.


Lyle Dean MacWilliam: Mr. Speaker, the comments made by my colleague from the government side indicate the direction the government is taking in terms of trying to put Canada Post into a more profitable situation. Quite frankly, the situation has turned around in terms of Canada Post's legacy of deficit. In fact, Canada Post made a reasonably healthy profit last year of some $149 million.
I have to ask the member whether or not the decision Canada Post has made, this decision of closing and privatizing the retail postal outlets in virtually every rural community across Canada, is really in the best interests of those communities and the people living in them. It might very well reflect a better bottom line on Canada Post's corporate balance sheet, but what has it done to the nature of those communities?
I mentioned a few moments ago in the House the situation in my riding of Okanagan-Shuswap, the town of Enderby which is losing its post office and how that has affected the nature of community life in that area. Certainly Enderby is not the only situation in my riding, nor is it the only situation in British Columbia; hundreds of communities have lost their post offices. If left unchecked, I am certain that it is the strategy of this government to close all rural and urban postal outlets and basically, sell them off to the private sector.
The real essence of the question is not whether it has improved the bottom line in Canada Post's balance sheet, but what it has done to those communities. It has irreparably damaged some of our communities. In some cases it may have been the right decision to make. I am not questioning the fact that every time a post office was closed, there was perhaps some justification.
I would suggest that Canada Post has been, shall we say, not open to suggestions for alternatives, to comments from the community. It has gone in time after time and has made the decision to close post offices without contacting or consulting the people who will be

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affected. It is only afterwards that those communities have been consulted.
Now we do have an opportunity to reflect on the comments I made earlier, where there is an alternative which has been suggested. For example, in the post office in Enderby, two individual members of the community have suggested that they would like to entertain the challenge of taking on the responsibility of the postal service in the same facility it now holds, rather than closing down the facility and moving it out to the retail sector. They want to be given that chance, and the community is certainly supportive of their suggestion.
I have written a letter in support of this suggestion. I wonder if the member opposite would provide his views on whether this is a viable alternative, because it does keep the post office in the community where it has been, yet it does allow a certain amount of entrepreneurial spirit to enter. These individuals want to take up the challenge. I want to support their efforts in that regard, and I would hope the government would also support those efforts.


Lee Richardson: Mr. Speaker, while many other service industries have left rural Canada altogether, Canada Post has introduced a business formula that allows them to remain in rural areas and usually improve service accessibility at the same time.
The facts speak for themselves. Since April 1, 1989, Canada Post has added in excess of 1.1 million hours of postal access to the rural postal retail network. During 1989-1990 alone, there was a net increase of 320 full service retail outlets in rural Canada.
Canada Post delivers mail to approximately 11 million addresses in Canada every business day. Just under half receive door-to-door delivery. The rest receive other forms of delivery, such as rural route service, post box and community mailbox service. Door-to-door delivery by letter carrier has never been the norm in Canada. In fact, never in our history has everyone received the same method of mail delivery. The diversity is the natural result of the geography and demographics of our country. By providing different types of service, we simply recognize the realities of our nation.


M. Don Boudria (Glengarry-Prescott-Russell):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased today to take part in the debate on the future of the Canadian postal system.
But first, I would like to congratulate the hon. member for Essex-Kent, who moved this excellent motion today on the future of this country's postal system.

Mr. Speaker, I am sure you will remember that in April 1990 the consumer and corporate affairs and government operations committee of the House of Commons issued a report entitled "Moving the Mail- Canada's Postal Service in the 1990s." This was the report of our committee on what to do to improve postal service in Canada.
As an addendum to that report there is a Liberal Party minority report, and I would like to share some of it with you. The fact that I was the author of the report means that I happen to like the conclusions, obviously, but I think that once I read some of these conclusions to you you will like them too, Mr. Speaker.
The government across the way approved the corporate plan of Canada Post. The corporate plan we are operating under right now was approved by cabinet. Therefore, when the government says that it is not their fault if Canada Post privatizes the post office in my colleague's riding of Stormont-Dundas in Avonmore, Ontario, or the one in my riding, or the one in Enderby, or the one anywhere else; it is not so simply because the corporate plan was approved by the government, by cabinet. I mention this to my colleague across the way, the member for Calgary Southeast. The corporate plan that was approved calls for the privatization and/or elimination of each one of the 5,221 rural post offices in Canada over 10 years.
Apart from everything else wrong with that crazy scheme, 83 per cent of all the people who work in rural post offices in Canada are women. Ten thousand people work there. That means that once this process is over, the minister responsible for Canada Post will have been responsible, together with his colleague, for the dismissal of 8,300 women in Canada. Not a bad exercise for a
May 31, 1991

government that pretends to want to improve the lot of women in the country.
In fact that minister alone will be responsible for the largest firing of women employees of any corporation in the history of our country. That is the record of the government across the way.
That is only the first thing that is wrong with the scheme in question. What is wrong further is the way they are going about doing this. I am not one to say that there are not post offices in rural areas that should not be shut down. Perhaps there are some that should not be there any longer. I think all parties have agreed with that. I can remember instances where a rural community has gradually lost its residents, and there are only a few dozen of them left, or something like that, and a full-time post office is no longer necessary. Maybe there is some merit in reviewing the situation in those cases.
But that is not what is happening. What Canada Post does is close down post offices based on what it calls- and watch this for "newspeak" -natural opportunity. Natural opportunity works this way: If the postmaster dies or retires-I suppose growing old is natural and dying is similarly natural-that constitutes a natural opportunity. When a natural opportunity occurs-and these are not my words, they are words in the corporate plan of Canada Post-the government or rather Canada Post may shut down the post office. Of course it shuts down every single one of them. That is just coincidence, mind you, but they may shut down the post office.
What happens then? You could have a community with only 10 people left in it but if the postmaster is not retiring the post office is not shut down. There could be a community of 1,000 people with a post office that is used extensively by a whole group of businesses and they will shut it down anyway just because the postmaster retired.
Mr. Speaker, if you are having a hard time understanding the logic of this, so am I, and so are the majority of Canadians.

But the Conservatives across the floor feel that it is absolutely logical. I see that members opposite agree with this government policy of closing rural post offices.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to tell you that several post offices have closed in my constituency, again according to this Canada Post criterion.

Recently Canada Post shut down the post office in Dalkeith, Ontario in my constituency. There was no natural opportunity in that case. Do you know what Canada Post did? They naturalized an opportunity. There was not one, they just made one up. They are very creative people at Canada Post. The postmistress had not reached the age of retirement. What did they do? They went to see the postmistress and said: "Postmistress, you have been around here a long time. How would you like to retire prematurely for a bonus, a golden handshake?". The postmistress said: "Yes, you are right. I would like to stay at home", and so on. They offered her a sum and the postmistress accepted. I do not blame the postmistress. Of course, she has every right to retire. That is her business.
My criticism is with Canada Post inventing a natural opportunity when it did not have one in order to shut down the post offices faster. Canada Post got greedy with this scheme. They had naturalized this opportunity, as I said previously. Not content with that, after they had done this a few times, they got a little greedier again. They said to themselves: "Selves, we can do better than that".
The following is what they came up with. They decided that some 294 postmasters in Canada had been there for different periods of time, and in some cases for years, but they had never been named official postmasters. When is a postmaster an official postmaster as opposed to a postmaster who is not an official postmaster? I am glad you asked, Mr. Speaker. When the post office says there is a difference. That is the way it works.
They have identified some people as being term employees. In some cases they just had not got around to calling them anything else. Let me describe an instance. The post office in Glen Robertson, Ontario, obviously in Glengarry, had a postmistress who was probably at the ripe old age of 35 or so, if that. She had not quite reached retirement age yet, so there was no occasion to buy her off to make the post office shut down early. They said: "Postmistress, you have been with us six years. Six years working in the same place is temporary". The postmis-

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tress shook her head and said: "Six years is temporary?" How many people do you know that work six years in the same place and are still called temporary?
Canada Post said: "Oh, yes, but we never decided that you were permanent. Therefore, because we failed to decide that you were permanent, that means you are not. And if you are not, you are temporary, and if you are temporary, that means we can fire you at will". That is really naturalizing an opportunity.
This all makes sense if you work for Canada Post. For most of us, this would be hard to understand. I guess for Canada Post you can do almost anything. There is a certain element of "newspeak" in all of this, this kind of Orwellian mentality of Canada Post.
Canada Post wrote to me recently. As a matter of fact I got the letter today, and I will share it with you, Mr. Speaker. It is on the closing of the Glen Robertson post office in Glengarry. Here is what Canada Post says:
I am writing in response to your letter of April 5 to the Honourable Harvie Andre, Minister responsible for Canada Post, which was forwarded to the Corporation, regarding postal services in Glen Robertson.
Translation: The minister did not want to reply to your letter so he asked me to do it for him.
Next paragraph:
As you know, Canada Post is using the resources and expertise of local business in rural and urban areas in order to make postal products and services more accessible.
Translation: Canada Post is shutting down post offices and allowing private businesses to sell stamps on the pretext that it is better.
Next sentence:
Retail postal outlets offer more convenient locations-
Translation: "A more convenient location" is driving 10 miles to pick up your mail.
Let me continue.
-more convenient hours, often including evenings and weekends,
and an expanded range of products and services.
"Expanded range of products and services"? That means that you do not have to walk inside the post office and open your box to get the mail, you can stand outside in the rain and blizzard and try with your key to unlock
the mechanism to get your mail. That is an "expanded service".
Now, let me continue with "newspeak" from Canada Post.
Providing postal services in partnership with other businesses is not a new concept-
That means they have done this kind of thing before.
- the post office has been doing so since it was first established; in
fact, 68 per cent of our postal outlets operate under contract.
They are trying to tell us here that contract employees working for Canada Post is the same situation as is giving stamps to a store to sell.
Our future as a viable business depends on our ability to co-operate with other businesses in serving the Canadian public.
Translation: Canada Post from now on is no longer a service, but it is deemed to be a business and the government is going to privatize the whole thing eventually.
It gets better, Mr. Speaker, as you go along, I want you to know. I continue.
Some communities are also seeing increased participation from local businesses in the provision of postal service when natural occasions for change arise, such as the resignation, retirement, or promotion of the postmaster.
They forgot about death here. They just forgot about that one.
This means that if the postmaster dies or is promoted or is sent someplace else, Canada Post then has the justification to shut down the post office. Let me continue.
1 would like to emphasize that the hiring of a temporary postmaster in a community to provide a continuation of postal service should not be interpreted as an intention to maintain indefinitely the type of service already in place.
That really means that even if your postmaster has been there for a decade, if Canada Post did not call him permanent that means he is temporary and it can fire him or her at any time.
Next sentence:
Indeed, no promise of permanent employment is ever given to any term employees.
That means that a term employee is different than a permanent one if Canada Post has failed to indicate otherwise.
May 31, 1991

Now, we have two pages of that kind of rhetoric from Canada Post. I would like to know how much it cost those people to provide those kinds of excuses, to invent the kinds of words they use on the people of Canada and the constituents of my riding.
A few weeks ago, some wizard at Canada Post decided that it was time to remove the Queen's picture from the post office at Vankleek Hill. Out went a memo to Vankleek Hill, Ontario, to Hawkesbury, Ontario, to L'Orignal, Ontario and other communities, directing the postmaster to remove the Queen's picture. The postmaster removes the picture in front of a group of constituents, who are all irate, wondering what on earth is going on here, who concocted this scheme? The postmaster says: "Well, they are directives from head office." The constituents phoned me and asked me who gave this kind of an order.
We could debate the rest of the day whether our head of state is the head of state we should have, but that is not the point. The point is that the day we decide to change our parliamentary institution-because our parliamentary institution is composed of the Queen, the Senate and the House of Commons in Parliament assembled- I would like to think that it is the elected people of Canada who will make that decision, not some flunkey at the post office who is going to decide who the head of my country and your country is.
That took a few days and finally the pictures went back up in the post office. How much did that cost? How much nonsense went on there to make that kind of a ridiculous decision which had to be reversed?
What is even more interesting is the justification.
Canada Post has these people who are supposed to be media experts. Their job is to tell the right thing. Whenever a media contact phones them and asks them the tough questions that the press asks, this person is supposed to answer the right thing.
One of these people is called Laszlo Szabo. I never met Laszlo Szabo, but it does not matter. Mr. Szabo was contacted by one of the local newspapers in my riding, The Hawkesbury Express, and asked: "Mr. Szabo, why are you doing this? Why are you removing the Queen's picture from the Vankleek Hill post office?"
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Here is his answer. I paraphrase here, but it is quite close to what was said. He said: "As we move from a medieval institution to a modem business, we must modernize and therefore remove the Queen's picture". This is from an expert who is always supposed to say the right thing.
Imagine, if this person had been a dumb ordinary mortal like everyone else, what he would have come up with for an excuse. My colleague from Prince Edward- Hastings quite appropriately said: "What if this person had been loose-lipped?"
He could not have possibly done much worse than he did.

Mr. Speaker, the point that I want to emphasize this afternoon for my colleagues is that one must not listen to the rhetoric of Canada Post and then claim that this is the truth. The people who live in rural areas in my riding, in the riding of Argenteuil-Papineau, and elsewhere, know the truth. Mr. Speaker, they know what is a post office in a rural area; they know what it means to see a building where it says-or used to say-"Canada", with the Canadian flag and armories, the only building in the community where the presence of the federal government could be felt. They also know that all this is about to change. Why? The word "Canada" has completely disappeared from the logo of Canada Post. Now, it says: "Post-Mail-Post", or something like that.
The Canadian flag has been removed, because the post office has been privatized and the postal services are now provided in a drugstore or just about anywhere else. The postmaster is also gone.

The other thing we have to remember about postmasters and the whole institution of the postmaster is that they do not just sell stamps. They provide forms for senior citizens' pensions. They sign their names on passports. They swear in people on these kinds of documents, and they have all kinds of other functions in the community.
The postal institution is such that in rural Canada it is a form of a hub in our community. It is important for us to keep our post office.

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I say to the government across the way: Put an end now to the plan of privatizing post offices. Let us keep the post offices in the community or at the very least let us give a right of veto to the communities to keep the post offices when they want them.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: It being four o'clock p.m., it is my duty to inform the House that
pursuant to Standing Order 81(17) proceedings on the motion have expired.

Therefore, this House stands adjourned until Monday next at 11 o'clock a.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 4 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Monday, June 3,1991