1991-12-06

[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Thursday, December 5, consideration of the motion of Mr. Loiselle that Bill C-4, an act to revise and amend the law governing federal trust and loan companies and to provide for related and consequential matters, be read the third time and passed.
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[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Thursday, December 5, consideration of the motion of Mr. Mazankowski that Bill C-19, an act respecting banks and banking, be read the third time and passed.

[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Thursday, December 5, consideration of the motion of Mr. Loiselle that Bill C-28, an act respecting insurance companies and fraternal benefit societies, be read the third time and passed.

[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Thursday, December 5, consideration of the motion of Mr. Loiselle that Bill
C-34, an act to revise and amend the law governing co-operative credit associations and to provide for related and consequential matters, be read the third time and passed.
Mr. Cooper:: Madam Speaker, I have just been informed that there have been discussions and there is an agreement to instead proceed very quickly with Bill C-5. I just want to confirm that, but that certainly has been my understanding, that we would proceed first with Bill C-5 and then go back to Bill C-4.


Mr. Angus:: Madam Speaker, things are moving a bit fast. Having been party to those discussions, I was not aware that one of my colleagues who is scheduled to speak on the Financial Administration Act has a time problem. Perhaps I could ask both the government and the Official Opposition how much time they anticipate taking on Bill C-5-for myself, five minutes maximum-just so I can get a sense before we do agree to whether or not we have time to get into Bill C-20 before eleven o'clock so that my colleague can make his speech and then move back to his riding.


Mr. Gagliano:: We have an objection to that. The minister is not in the House. Maybe we could start with the financial package. We also have one member who has to put some amendments who is not in the House. Maybe we can start as scheduled with the Order of the Day and agree that as soon as the minister is here and our member arrives, we can to go to Bill C-5 and finish with C-5 after lunch.


Albert Glen Cooper: Yes, Madam Speaker, I think that makes good sense and it shows the co-operation that all of us are trying to demonstrate in working with one another. Let us go back to Bill C-4.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Resuming debate on Bill C-4. We do agree on Bill C-4.


Mr. Ray Funk (Prince Albert-Churchill River):: Madam Speaker, I appreciate the indulgence of the House in permitting me to proceed with my speech in order that I can attend to duties in my riding later on today.
This is one of the rare occasions in which I stand in this House as a member of the New Democratic Party oppo-

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sition to compliment everybody involved with this bill, including government members and the government itself, on a job well done. It is a bill that is long overdue. The government, the finance committee and the civil servants involved in drafting the legislation took the time and had the understanding to incorporate in this bill what the people whom it most affects want to see in it. There were extensive consultations with the Canadian Co-operative Credit Society and other credit union organizations and these people were listened to. As a result, I think we have a bill that takes us a long way forward in the area of regulating credit unions and, in fact, giving credit unions new opportunities in this country.
This act applies to credit union centrals that are federally incorporated. Many of the major credit union centrals in this country fall into that kind of category. The B.C. Credit Union Central, Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Ontario and Nova Scotia Centrals, are all federally incorporated and thus this Bill C-34 that I am speaking on this morning applies to them.
What it does is give credit unions a level playing field with other financial institutions. I know the concept of level playing fields, along with the concept of competition, and other words like that has been debased in some people's minds, perhaps by some misuse by the government, but nevertheless it is appropriate to note that what this in fact does do is give the credit unions a level playing field with other people who are in the financial services business. It has strengthened some governance provisions that will protect the members of credit unions, such as creating new procedures for handling conflicts of interest and self-dealings within credit unions to make sure that some of the unhappy experiences which have occurred in credit unions will not repeat themselves.
Also in legal terms, it vests credit union centrals with the rights and powers of natural persons which enable them to engage in activities which the previous legislation did not.
As well, it broadens their powers to diversify into other financial sectors through subsidiaries so that they can build the type of networks and services that are necessary to compete with other financial institutions that are operating in our country, both domestic and foreign.
Furthermore, it allows them to build up their equity base through the issue of preferred shares to non-members. Certainly the need to increase the equity that is available to many of the credit unions is absolutely essential if the credit unions are to play the role that is expected of them in the community and to realize their true potential.
I have been a credit union member since 1971.1 have had very few dollars to put in the bank but those that I have had I have put in credit unions. I would hope as a credit union member that this particular provision would not cause a dilution in the control by credit union members of their credit unions and I know that is fully the intention of the credit union centrals that so badly wanted this provision in the legislation.
I want to compliment the government for listening to the credit union sector. As the co-operative critic for our party in the House of Commons this means a lot to me. I hope it creates a precedent because we still have the problem of the co-op retail sector trying to get the understanding of finance department officials with respect to the GST application and direct charge co-ops in the dealings between different levels of the co-op system. It really seems that the nature of the co-op system is not understood there. There is a longstanding problem with respect to the co-op housing sector which has never got the 5,000 houses per year which it was promised and which it was built up to handle.
There has been a problem with worker co-ops getting proper recognition under the new labour force development legislation. Worker co-ops are not given equal opportunity with other kinds of business organizations for which people might use those funds.
Then there is the problem of the prairie pools, which represent a vast number of farmers on the prairies, not being listened to when it comes to the formation of agricultural policy.
I hope this means that the careful attention and the really good understanding which were demonstrated with respect to Bill C-34 and the credit unions are indicative of a new government attitude toward co-operatives.
The co-operatives, and in this case the credit union sector, is a story of success. For example, a credit union like the VanCity Credit Union, which I believe the member to my left, the member for Mission-Port Moody might well belong to being from that area, is a

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hugely successful venture which is not only a great credit union with huge assets but also one which has branched out into other successful enterprises and has created a foundation using its own capital to stimulate community development and to give a financial boost to those who are at the low end of the economic totem pole in our country and really need this kind of vehicle to help bring themselves out of poverty.
I should also mention the Saskatchewan credit unions and the Saskatchewan Credit Union Central. It should be noted that while many of the banks, in fact I think all the banks, are contracting their services in Saskatchewan, especially in rural Saskatchewan, the credit union system is expanding to give a guarantee virtually that every community in Saskatchewan will have financial services through their credit union system.
There is my own credit union in Prince Albert, the caisse populaire in Albertville, and the new Buffalo Narrows Credit Union in northern Saskatchewan, where the need to find ways to accumulate capital and do business in a remote situation has been addressed by the local community by forming its own credit union.
There is also the Arctic co-operatives' venture into the credit union movement. We shall soon see a network of credit unions throughout the Northwest Territories which will be a model of how to accumulate capital and run financial services in remote areas.
I should also make note of the Desjardins Credit Union movement in the province of Quebec. It has shown that not only can the credit union movement have significant local impact but that it can become a major player in the economic development and the economic strategies of a whole province and region.
I will move on to speak a little more about credit unions and the role they have played in our society. People often envision credit unions as being church basement shoe box operations, perhaps somewhat quaint, antiquated and very friendly but somewhat limited. Although that is not true, it is the image that a lot of people have of credit unions.
Many credit unions did start that way and many of them carry on that way. It was an appropriate way for people with no money and no other resources to get
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started. It is also true that the credit unions have pioneered many of the innovations and advances in the financial services industry in this country which many people now take for granted.
For example, credit unions were the first financial institutions to introduce consumer loans. Consumer loans are now widespread and taken for granted but credit unions were the first to introduce them.
They were the first to introduce automated tellers in this country. They were the first to introduce daily interest savings accounts. Fifteen years ago, they were the first to introduce debit cards, which are just now starting to catch on in the general market.
They developed weekly and bi-weekly mortgage options more advantageous to wage earners and their other customers.
They have a strong tradition of direct assistance in helping their members to manage their money and of training them so they can get involved in the financial world. For example, the Rosetown Credit Union recently sold computers at a group rate to the local fanners in its community. The credit union's staff trained these people to use farm business management software packages to ensure they were able to manage every dollar properly during very tough times in the farming community.
Many credit unions have trained high school students in classrooms in the system of financial management.
The caisse populaire in Quebec has been quite innovative in offering a debit card system for prescription drug claims under the drug plan. That means that 2.5 million members only have to pay the deductible portion. Their insurance claims are handled by the debit card system through their credit union. This is a huge benefit to the members of credit unions in the province of Quebec.
Credit union centrals have taken on a new role. They are now undertaking social audits, as well as financial audits, to ensure that their policies fulfil societal obligations such as employment equity, service to visible minorities, and access for the physically disabled.
Again the credit unions are showing the direction in which the financial world and the corporate world as a whole need to go.
There is also a point to be made in looking at credit unions in the larger Canadian picture. Credit unions are

December 6, 1991
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a sleeping giant whose true capacity to influence the Canadian economic system has barely been realized.
When we look back at the last several years it is quite clear that this government has decided for better or for worse that it is not going to enhance or ensure Canadian control of the economy by negative or punitive measures.
We have seen things like the dismantling of the foreign investment review procedures and the review board. We have seen the dismantling of the national energy policy and other mechanisms that were in place in order to ensure Canadian control of the economy. That is a choice that this government made. As an opposition member neither I nor the Canadian public has not been able to do much about it.
However, there is also a positive role that can be played by this government. In recognizing the role of credit unions through this particular piece of legislation perhaps the government is starting to realize the positive role that it can play. There is this financial sector in this country that is 100 per cent controlled and owned by Canadians where you can be assured that prosperity in that sector will accrue only to the Canadians. The money that is made through the co-operative and credit union system will not leak out through dividends or R and D payments or whatever interest payments go to foreign parents in other countries. The credit union system and the co-operative system keep their money at home.
I think this represents a challenge to many of us and to many people in this country who claim to be economic nationalists but have not seen the link between economic nationalism and the co-operative sector. I would like to challenge those people to get involved with the co-operative system, find out about it and put their money where their mouth is. This is something positive that all Canadians can do to ensure that the control of our economy and the development of our economy remain in Canadian hands.
A second feature of co-operatives that I think needs to be noted is the training and the ability that they give to local people to get involved in financial management and financial planning in their community. The credit unions have approximately 15,000 volunteers on their boards, as do the caisses populaires. That is about 30,000 Canadians
who are learning about the financial system and how operations work and who are making financial decisions on behalf of their communities. This gives us a huge wealth of talent in our communities on which to base further economic development.
Creating a strong credit union sector also permits other co-operative sectors like co-op housing, co-op health centres, retail co-ops and worker co-ops to expand and prosper in their communities. It is very true that in many communities, certainly in the hinterlands and in the inner cities where big capital is fleeing, there are no other alternatives but the co-operative alternative toward capital formation and the creation of new jobs and opportunities in those communities.
This does not have to be small scale stuff we are talking about here. We are talking about ventures as big the co-op Enerco upgrader in Regina that grew out of the co-op refinery and with the involvement of the pools, the credit unions and federal and provincial governments, created a co-op upgrader that now permits the upgrading of the vast pools of heavy oil in that province so that they no longer need to go to Minneapolis, Minnesota, to be refined but can be refined in our own country with the type of value added activity that creates prosperity for all of us.
Credit unions as well are different from the banking institutions in the role that they can play in their local communities beyond just the financial role. I know when you talk to service organizations and different volunteer organizations in the local communities, they do not usually even bother going to the banks in their communities for donations for hockey trophies or different charities. Normally the banking institution or the huge institutions run their charitable contributions through their central offices. There is very little money if any that is available to be used in the local community.
The credit unions are not like that and the co-operatives are not like that. Co-operatives are there for local community enterprises. The co-operatives are there when it is time to pitch in to finance a community project, a community festival and the local arts or whatever. The credit unions are a community development tool that is of significant potential in many of our local communities.

I would like to sum up. The credit union sector offers us an alternative in the post-free trade economic world that we live in. It offers an alternative to local communities to ensure that the capital and the wealth that they generate in their communities stay in their communities for their own benefit. It offers an alternative to Canadian society as a whole which feels that it is losing its grip on its economic destiny.
I would like to compliment the government on this legislation. I would also like to say in conclusion that, in contrast to what my friend and colleague, the member for Nickel Belt, fears will happen with other financial institutions, we are not creating a new sumo wrestler.
The credit union system is not a sumo wrestler. When we give new strength to the credit union system we are creating a stronger team that is growing all the time. This is a situation in which when the team wins, we all win. All Canadians win when the co-operative sector gets stronger.
I would like to compliment the government and all who are involved with this bill in having the foresight to bring it forward.


Mr. Eugene Bellemare (Carleton-Gloucester):: Madam Speaker, the hon. member for Prince Albert-Churchill River is to be commended for his speech and for having spoken so eloquently about the credit union system. I noticed that he said a great deal in favour of credit unions and then casually mentioned his caisse populaire in Albertville, Saskatchewan, and the caisse populaire in the province of Quebec.
I wonder whether the hon. member realizes that in Ontario, for instance, there is a huge Federation des caisses populaires. Did he know that in Ontario the legislation regulating the caisses populaires applies both to the credit unions of Ontario and the caisses populaires of Ontario? Did he know a Mr. Desjardins from Levis started the Mouvement des caisses populaires and, at the turn of the century, travelled across Quebec and Canada, and in Ontario visited the unions in Niagara Falls and Hamilton, for instance?
Did the hon. member know that in the National Capital region, on the Ontario side of the river, in Ottawa, we have caisses that are extremely solid financially, such as the Caisse populaire Laurier and the Caisse
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populaire d'Orleans! Does he know that in my own riding we have at least half a dozen caisses, each of which has deposits worth several million dollars? Their total deposits would probably be worth several billion. Does the hon. member know that the caisses populaires are not peculiar to Quebec or Albertville, Saskatchewan, but are established across the country?
In concluding, I want to congratulate the hon. member for his comments on both the caisses and the credit union movements.


Raymond John Funk: Madam Speaker, I certainly appreciate the opportunity to pay special recognition to the caisse populaire movement in this country. The history of it has been of interest to me for a long time. My grandfather, as a matter of fact, studied co-operatives in Germany in the early part of this century. Our family has been involved actively in the development of credit unions for many decades.
As the member points out, the caisse populaire sector operates not only in Quebec but in many provinces. I personally have communication with ones in Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and New Brunswick. There are 1,400 caisses populaires in this country with 4.4 million members. They are huge. They have 34,000 employees and $44 billion in assets. In fact they are the largest non-government employer in the province of Quebec.
I do want to make special note of the caisses populaires outside Quebec-


An hon. member:: And as in Essex County.


Raymond John Funk: -and as in Essex County, as my colleague points out, and also in my own constituency. They are often the rallying point of the francophone communities outside Quebec which as we all know have often had to struggle to survive. Their caisses populaires have played a role not only as financial institutions but have been significant in cultural and community development.
I know from my own experience that while the credit unions were sometimes still grappling with their social role and their community development role, caisses populaires, at least in western Canada where I knew them, were going full speed ahead with community development staff as part of their staff complement. I think they were showing a real visionary approach and deserve real credit not only for the job that they do as financial institutions but for the way that they have

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underpinned the francophone communities outside the province of Quebec.


Mr. Jim Karpoff (Surrey North):: Madam Speaker, I appreciate very much my colleague's speech.
I come from Surrey which is one of the fastest growing areas in Canada. Of course we have one of the fastest growing credit unions, the Surrey Metro Savings, which has just recently changed its name from Surrey Credit Union. It is now the second largest credit union in Canada next to Van City. Its growth has been based on its community service such as the fact that it did extend mortgages to families in our community to allow them housing. It helped finance many small subdivisions by local builders so that local jobs were created under local companies.
It has certainly moved in the area of commercial loans so that people could buy new cars and extend renovations on their kitchens. These are all things that were locally going to assist.
The other point made by the member that I was particularly interested in was the involvement from the board. The board is made up of local residents and therefore it acts in what is the best interest of that community. That has been the strength of Surrey Metro Savings over the years that I have been a member. Regrettably, I may be one of the older members. I joined when I first moved to Surrey in 1967.
One of the real things that I would like the hon. member to comment on is the community control and how that varies so differently from the banks and trust companies and how that has benefited the community. They have focused on community businesses, community projects and on the needs of families within their membership.


Raymond John Funk: Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Surrey North for his very good question. I would also like to compliment him and the other people involved in the Surrey Metro Savings Credit Union for the excellent job they have done. As he says, they are the fastest growing credit union in the country. I had the opportunity to stop in at one of their branches this
summer. Certainly you could tell by looking that it was an efficient and well-run organization.
I should also make amends for an omission that I made earlier in my speech when talking about the Van City Credit Union. I neglected to mention the ethical growth fund, which is one of the pioneering efforts in this country to channel investments through vehicles like RRSPs into areas where people care about these things. They care about ethical concerns like the environment, employment equity, labour laws and so on. They can be sure that their money is being invested the way they want it to be invested.
I would like to turn just briefly to the point that the member for Surrey North made. Certainly community control makes a huge difference and sometimes it makes all the difference. When he spoke about his own community he gave some excellent examples of where that was true. It permitted local people to control development in their area rather than to be inundated and flooded by big developers from outside the area. That means that almost in perpetuity that community will have been built by its own residents for the needs of its own residents rather than by outsiders.
When it comes to things like small business lending, which is important in my constituency and many others, credit unions make a huge difference. What happens unfortunately is that when there are some articles in The Globe and Mail that there are tough times and slow growth predicted in Saskatchewan, the head office of the Royal Bank or the Toronto-Dominion or whoever in Toronto says: "Whoops, we have got to pull in our credit and tighten our belts in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, because there are tough times".
That means that perfectly viable companies suddenly have their lines of credit cut off. That means that the only people who can borrow money are those who do not need it, as the old saying goes.
On the basis of a few little articles in the paper, the whole financial structure of a community like Prince Albert, with 35,000 people, can suddenly go into decline as a result of a few head office decisions.
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That does not happen with a credit union. The credit union knows the tough times and it can respond to the tough times. It can build up those it knows can pay and it can provide help and counselling to those in trouble.
In a province like Saskatchewan it is the credit unions and co-ops that are surviving in those communities in tough times, and there is a good reason for that. It is because they know how those communities operate and they have a commitment to those communities.


Mr. Dennis Mills (Broadview-Greenwood):: Madam Speaker, I want to begin by congratulating the New Democratic Party member for Prince Albert-Churchill River because I share most of his views toward co-operatives.
I am a member from an urban area where we do not have the real thrust and support of co-operatives in the manner with which rural members, and I think mostly members from western Canada, are familiar. I know that caisses populates are very strong in the province of Quebec, and of course in Ottawa. However, in Toronto we seem to be surrounded by the five major banks. The basic reality, and I do not think my colleague the member for Mississauga South shares my view on this, that I tend to see, and I listen to my constituents, is that small and medium-sized businesses are constantly telling me that if they are turned down at the Royal Bank, chances are that is all for them. That is the end of the line. I do not just mean to say the Royal. If they are turned down at one of the five big banks, that is the end of the road.
Talking about the co-operatives today will hopefully provide some new competition and some new exposure to the co-operatives in the urban areas.
It is interesting that the member for Prince Albert- Churchill River talked about the sensitivity and the participation of the co-operatives in the community. I tend to share his view. This has happened to me directly. When you go into a local bank, a branch of one of the big five, and ask it to sponsor or participate in a particular event, and I am not talking about a political contribution here but anything from a child's baseball team to a single parents' event, the branch has to go to head office.
There tends to be an impersonal approach in the branches of the five major banks. Possibly, with the advent of this new thrust for co-operatives in the urban
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areas, we can get some competition going and those local branches will be given more entrepreneurial power.
It is not that the individual branch manager has the desire to be restrictive in his attitude. It is so often the central bank policy that limits his ability to move and react with the regional or local sensitivities.
Again, I congratulate my colleague from Prince Albert-Churchill River for his comments on the co-operative credit and associations act.
I want to briefly discuss the amendments to the trust and loan companies act. The government is doing a good thing by expanding the mandate and allowing them to have more opportunity to participate fully in the financial institutions' instruments arrangements that go on in our community.
As I said earlier, any legislation that we amend here which will promote a more vibrant competitive spirit among our financial institutions without jeopardizing the financial stability of our over-all financial system at large has to be applauded. Therefore, I commend the government for making these changes.
When I look at the Bank Act portion of this series of bills I get a little nervous because I do not really see anything substantive in this legislation that is really going to rattle the conscience or force a review of the procedures, systems and attitudes of the major banks in this country.
Again, I am going to report to this House the reactions I am getting from my constituents, and they are not just small businessmen. There are some large businesses. They feel that when times are tough and strained as they have been in this country in the last 16 months, our major financial institutions seem to be drawing in on credit lines and seem to be restrictive in their tone, attitude and actions. This is precisely the time when our corporate strength in this country, which is ultimately responsible for our job creation, needs that added support.
I realize the member for Mississauga South has added an amendment for consumer complaints. I think that is a good thing. I wish there was some way we could let the people of Canada know that this new consumer complaints amendment is part of the new Bank Act. It means that if a customer of a bank, whether an individual or a business, believes that he is not receiving proper and fair professional service from a financial institution, he can

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report this experience to the Superintendent of Financial Institutions who upon verifying this complaint is responsible for listing it in the Superintendent of Financial Institutions' report.
I believe that is a good measure. It is a warning light to the major banks. I am concerned about how many of the
900,000	entrepreneurs in this country would know about that amendment. I urge the government and the member for Mississauga South to consider ways to make that particular amendment to the Bank Act more widely known. It would add a lot of credibility to the over-all thrust and basic intent without jeopardizing the financial stability of our financial institutions. At the same time, it would bring them into some form of public accountability.
We as members of Parliament cannot check up on every complaint that comes to us from an individual or a business that does not feel it is getting a fair shake from its local, regional or central banker. However, I think that these banks might be a little more reflective in dealing with their clients if they knew full well that their name could be listed in the financial report of the superintendent of banks.
I want to say to the banking community of this country that we are going through a particularly difficult time right now. A lot of people in the community do not understand the reason we have the lowest interest rates we have had in 18 years. The headline in one of the newspapers today was: "Bank rate lowest in 18 years". That sounds good and inspires a little bit of hope. However, I realize that the only reason it is so low is that our economy is dragging so much. The member for Mississauga South has so rightly indicated the two-edged sword that it symbolizes.
However, I want to advise the people operating financial institutions to be careful not to mislead the public, because other than mortgages it seems that the 8 per cent bank rate is almost like false advertising. I am hearing from many businessmen that the bank rate is at 8 per cent but lines of credit or new loans for emerging businesses are very tough to get.
The member for Mississauga South shakes his head in disagreement with me and I know he will speak a little later. If he can provide some new and different hope that
will suggest otherwise, the 900,000 entrepreneurs in this country will welcome it.
If there is one thing I would say to the lobbyists who tend to orchestrate this banking legislation and to the agents of the bankers, and the bankers themselves, it would be that this country is going through a very difficult and trying time. We realize that because of some rather large leveraged buyouts that have failed, some large real estate loans that have gone into default-some of them in the billions of dollars-and some massive refinancing packages out there, their capital has to be reviewed and examined very closely these days. As a result they tend to be a little less progressive with some of their smaller individual loans. Somehow the banking institutions have to cushion this period that we are going through. Otherwise, I am afraid that this so-called recovery, which I cannot quite see or feel yet, is going to be a lot longer than any of us in this House really want.
The attitude of all our financial institutions can go a long way in creating a kind of hope that will send confidence to the community and get consumers spending again. That will ultimately put our retailers in a more active state.
I am a little nervous that if over the next two to three weeks, which is a natural spending period, we do not somehow get more aggressive spending occurring then the first two months of the year are going to be lonely and tough for a lot of retailers in this country. Even in good times it is natural that there is a curtailment of spending in January and February. As a result of this apprehension with the general state of our economy, the natural Christmas spending patterns are off dramatically. By the way, banks are partially responsible for that.
There are a lot of businesses that continue to hold back on their own spending. Whether it is equipment or hiring practices, they are saying they will wait until spring, and that in turn causes a chain reaction which affects the entire marketplace.
The banking institutions of this country, the financial institutions of this country, can go a long way in the next two to three weeks in making sure that the first quarter of next year, which will be tough and is usually tough in the best of times, is cushioned by letting the economy heat up for the next three to four weeks.
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I want to finish off by saying that like the New Democratic Party I support these amendments for the co-operatives. I support the amendments for the trust and loan companies. I applaud the member for Mississauga South for putting the amendment on the consumer complaint section.
I want to finish off by saying to the major banks of this country to go easy, deal in hope for the next three to four months until we get ourselves back on track in terms of a better economic strategy.


Mr. Jesse Flis (Parkdale-High Park):: Madam Speaker, as always the hon. member makes very meaningful representations in this House.
Right now many of my constituents and I am sure many of his are doing a lot of Christmas shopping and pulling out their credit cards. He talks to a lot of bankers and so on. I wonder if he could explain to this House why there is such a spread between the going interest rate and such a high interest rate on the credit cards. Credit cards in a way are a loan also and you are buying on credit.
Why is there that fantastic spread which is hurting so many Canadians?


Dennis Joseph Mills: Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague, the member for Parkdale-High Park, for his question. Being a member from Toronto, he feels right now the nervousness of the consumer and the difficulties that many of his small businesses are having. I know that along Bloor Street, which is right in the heart of his riding, there are many stores feeling very nervous about the up and coming season.
One of the reasons the consumers are not really being aggressive is because they feel these credit cards are becoming a real gouge. We had a private member's bill in this House earlier this week. I believe it was on Monday or Tuesday. It was put forward by the member for Mississauga South, the chairman of the finance committee on the government side. He put forward a private member's bill asking his government to amend the action that we have going with the credit card system in this country right now.
He and other members put forward logical arguments why those credit card rates could be reduced substantially with absolutely no danger to the financial institutions. We went through a litany of companies and their profit performances even in the midst of this deep, deep
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recession. I say to the member that there was no danger of these credit card companies' balance sheets being weakened.
There is absolutely no reason at all. There is another argument and I checked with American Express on this particular issue about three weeks ago because I am hearing this argument from all my constituents too. American Express said: "We need to have these high rates because in bad times we have a lot of credit card loans in default, so we need to have the high rates to cover those defaulting cards, the cards that collapse".
I checked with my colleague, the hon. member from Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. He did some extensive research on this, being our critic for consumer and corporate affairs and he said that was bunk.
There is absolutely no reason why the government could not have accepted the private member's bill of the hon. member for Mississauga South that was put on the floor of this House this past Monday. The government will have to answer for that sort of haphazard, lack of caring approach in the next election.


Mr. Phillip Edmonston (Chambly):: Madam Speaker, what we are dealing with here is a number of bills. We are looking at the government getting its financial house in order. The hon. member for Nickel Belt spoke extensively about the ramifications of these financial reorganization bills. My fellow colleague from the NDP who spoke earlier this morning talked about the co-operative aspect, the caisses populates, how parts of this bill are very good.
On the other hand, the hon. member for Nickel Belt spoke on how this was actually a bill that was in some respects working against Canadian interests. As a matter of fact, the member for Nickel Belt likened it to a cauldron with a wizard who was stirring it up and would not allow us to put anything into the brew in that cauldron that would be of great benefit to consumers. By saying there could be nothing added, what we have is a bill that makes some very minor improvements as far as consumers are concerned but just opens up a tremendous advantage in many areas for the corporate sector.
It is interesting to note that the hon. member for Nickel Belt, and I agree, said that up until the introduction of these bills we were looking at financial institutions being regulated in a sort of symphonic harmony

December 6, 1991
where we had the government as the leader of the orchestra. I will get into that further as we go along.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I will have to interrupt the hon. member who may, of course, continue later on. It being eleven o'clock, we shall now proceed to Statements pursuant to Standing Order 31.


STATEMENTS PURSUANT TO S. O. 31
Mr. Ross Stevenson (Durham):: Madam Speaker, with the demand for municipal land fill sites reaching the crisis stage in many urban areas and dumping costs at an all-time high, it is time to take a serious look at our household waste and sewage residue and see if it can be recycled for agricultural use.
Blue box programs have succeeded in separating glass, metal and plastics from municipal garbage, and what is left is largely biodegradable. Lab tests allow us to determine which sewage sludge is safe for putting on the land. This could be composted with leaves collected in our cities each autumn, and all of this could provide an excellent source of organic matter and nutrients for farming.
This offers us a win, win, win situation for saving money, significantly improving our environment, and for developing a self-sustaining food production system.


VIOLENCE
Mr. Maurizio Bevilacqua (York North):: Madam Speaker, today marks the second anniversary of the Montreal massacre. Two years ago, 14 young women were murdered by a young man who blamed his personal failure on ambitious, confident women. His viciously singleminded attack on those 14 women at Ecole Polytechnique is unparalleled in modem times.
Today is also the last day of the white ribbon campaign. For the first time ever, men everywhere are accepting that the only way to stop the war against women is if every man gets involved.
Finally, today we have a new gun law in this country. After a great deal of debate, we have a piece of legislation that will make it more difficult for people to kill other people. Now we must take the next step. We must begin to educate the next generation of men so that it is a unanimously accepted fact that women deserve the same kind of respect as men; at home, at work, on the street, and in every field of human activity.


HONG KONG VETERANS
Mr. Jean-Luc Joncas (Matapedia-Matane):: Madam Speaker, 50 years ago today, 1,975 Canadians were about to experience the horrors of war. They took part in the defence of Hong Kong, and as we know, there was no hope of being able to repulse this attack by the Japanese which came after Pearl Harbour.
Until Christmas Day, 1941, 290 Canadians died while trying to stand firm against the attackers. In addition to these casualties, many more Canadians died as a result of the brutal treatment they received as prisoners of war.
Canada has done what it could to compensate these valiant soldiers for what they had to endure. In fact, largely as a result of this experience, Canada became the first country to develop a major compensation program for former prisoners of war.
This government introduced legislation to ensure that they receive all the benefits to which they are entitled, both as a result of their war disability and for the time they spent as prisoners of war.
Programs and benefits will never really compensate the Hong Kong veterans for the horrors they experienced.
Next Sunday, members of the association of Hong Kong veterans will-


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member, but his time has expired.


VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN
Mr. Chris Axworthy (Saskatoon-Clark's Crossing):: Madam Speaker, today is the second anniversary of the massacre at the Montreal Ecole Polytechnique, a terrible tragedy, and it is a reminder of the long way society still has to go toward solving the problem of violence against women.
December 6, 1991

One of the themes after the massacre was: First, we must mourn, and then we must make sure this will never happen again. Although we are still mourning this tragic event, Canadians must start taking the necessary steps to fight violence against women. Men must understand that no is a clear answer. Men should object to sexist behaviour. Men should reject pornography. Finally, men should listen to women.
I hope the federal government-


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member, but his time has expired.


THE ECONOMY
Mr. Garth Ttirner (Halton-Peel):: Madam Speaker, many of my constituents are fed up with the process of constitutional renewal because it does not seem to be addressing what concerns most of them, and that is the economy.
This perception is not entirely warranted because among the government's 28 proposals are suggestions to strengthen the economic union in Canada and also to remove costly interprovincial trade barriers.
Maybe we ought to go further. Perhaps the Canadian Constitution should include a clause which would make it against the law for the federal government to run a budgetary deficit.
Deficits are nothing but deferred taxes and Canadians are taxed to the max right now, so I rise to urge the parliamentary committee now studying the government's proposal to give serious consideration to a no deficit clause. This could be our greatest gift to generations of Canadian taxpayers yet to come.


VIOLENCE
Hon. Roger C. Simmons (Burin -St. George's):: Madam Speaker, before that senseless massacre in Montreal two years ago, I had seen incidents of violence against
women as lamentable but I had felt helpless to play any meaningful part in the solution to the problem.
That terrible event and the public debate that followed made me focus on a brutal reality. It is society, our society, my society, which creates the Marc Lepines of this country and this world. We must change society.
What better place to start than with children. The Montreal based organization Coalition Against Violence in Children's Programming said in its recent publication:
If, through television, film, and toys, we glorify violence, we can
expect that, every day, he will play war, a real or imaginary war that
will cany over to the home, the classroom and the neighbourhood.
Today we reflect on those 14 young women and their deaths. We reflect on 130 Canadian females-


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Your time has expired. The hon. member for Don Valley East.


THE CONSTITUTION
Hon. Alan Redway (Don Valley East):: Madam Speaker, for many weeks during this past summer the government debated its constitutional proposals behind closed doors. According to the media, there were some disagreements.
The final package deals with many, but not all of the concerns that were identified by the Spicer commission. Now all Canadians are discussing and debating these issues openly.
Hopefully the government is prepared to consider and accept not only constructive amendments to its proposals, but other constructive proposals as well, perhaps the proposals already debated and rejected without public input behind closed cabinet doors. After all, the Constitution must express the goals and the values of all Canadians, not just those of the government.
The bottom line is a constitutional consensus a majority of Canadians can live with.


VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN
James Capsey (Jim) Karpoff: Madam Speaker, today is the national day of remembrance and action on violence against women.

December 6, 1991
The white ribbon, which many members of Parliament have been wearing this week, has very quickly become the symbol of this day. Just as we wear the poppy to commemorate the many who died in war, the white ribbon symbolizes our continued effort to remember and act against violence against women.
The New Democrats very much regret that television networks, including the CBC, CTV and Global, are forbidding on-air personnel from wearing the white ribbon. It is important that everyone, especially men who must bear the responsibility for violence against women, have the opportunity to participate in this act of remembrance.
I ask the networks to review their decision and give their own on-air employees the right to wear the white ribbon which speaks out clearly against violence against women.


CROATIA
Mr. Ken James (Sarnia-Lambton):: Madam Speaker, I rise first in recognition of Joe Marie, Peter Matuzich, Tom Vlasic, Goran Ivanic and Drago Bigec.
Canadian Croatians from my constituency of Sarnia- Lambton came to Parliament Hill this week to express their concerns for Croatia. They came to Ottawa to demonstrate their desire for a stop to be put to the violence and bloodshed in Croatia.
I believe that Canada should note the European Community's condemnation of the Yugoslavian army's indiscriminate targeting of Croatian civilians and institutions.
We should be ensuring that our federal government is not supportive of any army's aggression that seems to be doing so to perpetuate itself.
All Canadians should heartily approve of the Government of Canada's backing of a UN peacekeeping force to go to Yugoslavia. Our troops are ready.
Canada should also do everything we can to ensure there is full compliance by all parties to a future agreement so a UN peacekeeping mission can be sent to Yugoslavia.
Also, we should all hope that the conditions which will allow Canada's recognition of the independence of Croatia, as noted by our Secretary of State for External Affairs, are met as soon as possible.


VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN
Mr. Mark Assad (Gatineau-La Lievre):: Madam Speaker, today I would like to draw the attention of the House to the tragic events that occurred exactly two years ago at the Montreal Poly technique. It is a dramatic reminder of the daily violence against women in our society.
Psychological, verbal and sexual abuse are harder to detect. However, domestic violence has several faces, and it could not continue to exist without a form of social violence. Social violence is structural and institutional. Prejudice against women and the transmission of stereotypes which see women as subject to male power, tend to keep women in a state of dependence. Domestic violence is found at all levels of our society, in all age groups and all income brackets.
Forty per cent of battered women are attacked for the first time during pregnancy. We cannot remain silent. Together we must fight violence in our society.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Unfortunately the hon. member's time has expired.



Mrs. Louise Feltham (Wild Rose):: Madam Speaker, today represents a significant milestone on the long road to a violence-free society for women. On this national day of remembrance and action on violence against women, we should take this opportunity to pay tribute to the lives of 14 innocent victims. It is important for every Canadian to reflect on the deaths of those young women and ponder their own attitudes and actions in relation to violence against women.
We must now look to the future and I believe our government has by putting in place the following initiatives: The federal response to the committee report

"War Against Women"; the Canadian Panel on Violence Against Women; gun control legislation; the 1991 federal family violence initiative; a network of research centres on family violence and violence against women; and the hon. Minister of National Health and Welfare's announcement this morning of a joint initiative-


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Unfortunately the time has expired.


UKRAINE
Mr. Rey Pagtakhan (Winnipeg North):: Madam Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to take this first opportunity since my return from Ukraine last night to rise in the House today and offer my sincerest congratulations to the citizens of Ukraine on their new-found independence.
It was certainly heart warming to hear the overwhelming gratitude of the Ukrainians for Canada's involvement in this peaceful and democratic process. Indeed, independence was gained, not through bloodshed but through a peaceful expression of the will of the Ukrainian people that serves to strengthen this achievement.
Over 90 per cent of the Ukrainian electorate freely voted for independence.
The history of Ukraine overflows with centuries of war, tyranny and persecution at the hands of its oppressors. Nevertheless, the flame of hope and freedom continues to bum brightly in the hearts of its people.
I am deeply honoured to have witnessed such an incredibly historic event. Indeed, there is much to celebrate both in Ukraine and here in Canada. Canadians must certainly be proud that our government was one of the first to decide to recognize Ukraine's independence. But our role is not yet complete. Diplomatic relations must be extended immediately. The Ukrainian government needs our assistance now to sustain its democracy.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Unfortunately, the time has expired.


VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN
Ms. Joy Langan (Mission-Coquitlam):: Madam Speaker, violence against women in our society goes far beyond brutal beatings and vicious murders. As we pause today to remember the 14 women who died in an unbelievable massacre in Montreal, we must include in our thoughts what their deaths symbolize.
They symbolize for many women a lifetime of anxiety and fear, a lifetime of consciously and unconsciously being worried on the streets, in parking lots, in malls and in our own homes, a lifetime of making sure that we take the safe route, have the right locks on our doors, have someone accompany us to our cars.
Now added to our fear of being attacked by strangers, we are being told that most women who are victims of violence and death are victims of the men they love. Surely Canadian society has to pause today and reflect about how we come to find at least half of our population living in fear.
We must, as Canadians, ensure that among the freedoms we enjoy in a democracy must be the freedom from fear of violence.


MINORITY RIGHTS
Mrs. Sheila Finestone (Mount Royal):: Madam Speaker, as our constitutional dialogue progresses I remind the Prime Minister that minority rights and minority language rights must be protected.
The need for watchfulness is real. Quebec still has Bill 178 which remains an offensive act to all of us seeking freedom of expression as a right. I say to Premier Bourassa as I have many times: removing Bill 178 will tell all Canadians they are at home anywhere in this great land, speaking and communicating, either inside or outside, in the language of their choice. A so-called softening of 178 will not do. Remember, most ordinary Quebecers across our province agree with this view and are not so mean spirited.
With reports that Mr. Bourassa's party will review the shameful French only sign language this weekend, I ask the Prime Minister to send this signal to Quebec City:

December 6, 1991
Oral Questions
Now is the time to withdraw Bill 178. You advance neither society nor its majority by diminishing the rights of the minority, whether this means protecting the right to speak English in Quebec or fighting the perception around the world that we are a racist or bigoted society.

Wipe Bill 178 off the map of Quebec. Long live free speech.


BATTLE OF HONG KONG
Mr. Bill Kempling (Burlington):: Madam Speaker, 50 years ago, December 8,1941, two battalions of Canadian soldiers began the fight for their lives as Japanese forces swept into Hong Kong.
Men of the Royal Rifles of Canada and the Winnipeg Grenadiers never had a realistic hope of repulsing such an invitation. They had no air support. They were out-gunned. Much of their transport had yet to arrive. They had no escape route and they were in fact doomed from day one.
Yet these men, trained only for garrison duty, managed to hold until Christmas Day. Some 290 Canadians were killed trying to achieve the impossible.
For the survivors, the ordeal had barely begun. For the remainder of the war they had to combat brutality, forced labour, starvation rations and illness.
The wonder is that so many managed to stick it out and live to rejoice in VJ Day and liberation. Their strength of character and will to live were unconquerable.
Statistics tell us that 1,975 Canadians sailed from Vancouver for Hong Kong in October 1941 and more than 550 never returned.
On this 50th anniversary of the Battle of Hong Kong let us salute those Canadian troops who were the first group to see action and the last to see freedom. They have earned our everlasting respect.



ORAL QUESTIONS


Mr. Brian Tobin (Humber-St. Barbe-Baie Verte):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Acting Prime Minister. The Prime Minister will know that 1,424,000 Canadians, including 600,000 Canadian women are without work as we approach the end of 1991. These Canadians, we can only conclude, in the mind of this government are an acceptable human loss in the so-called war against inflation.
I want to ask the acting Prime Minister: What hope, what promise of better performance is this government going to offer the 1.4 million Canadians who will spend Christmas this year as unemployment statistics, as stark evidence of this government's economic failure?


Hon. John McDermid (Minister of State (Finance and Privatization)):: Madam Speaker, no one takes delight in the unemployment figures that came out today. However, we might point out that employment has increased in the last six of nine months. The decline that we had in employment in the month of November was primarily in part time. In October and November we have had some
98,000	new full-time jobs created.
The economy is coming out of a very, very difficult period of time. It is coming out slowly but it is coming out. The signals are very, very positive. I can tell the hon. member that we are expecting a good recovery in 1992. With the participation in the labour force, we expect the conditions to be much better in the very near future.


Brian Vincent Tobin: Madam Speaker, that is an incredible answer from the minister who apparently knows what is going on in the Canadian economy. The minister talked about labour force participation. The minister has not told Canadians or members of this House that 45,000 Canadians left the labour force last month, that if those 45,000 Canadians had not given up looking for work or gone on welfare,
December 6, 1991

the unemployment rate today would not be 10.3 per cent. It would be 10.6 per cent.
I want to ask the minister whether he agrees with the words of Doug Peters, the chief economist of the Toronto-Dominion Bank, who said today: "It is time to review the mess we are in and the policies that got us here". When will this government recognize that Canadians are hurting out there in Main Street, Canada, and change the policies that created the mess we are now in?


John Horton McDermid: The best thing that we can do, without yelling and shouting and ranting and raving like the hon. member will do from time to time, is to assure that the economy is on a sound footing. That is the most important thing.
Yesterday, we saw interest rates drop to an 18 year low. We also saw mortgage rates drop yesterday to a level that we have not seen in 23 years.
The situation is that the inflationary pressures are coming down, and that is a very positive sign. Housing starts in October are up over 200,000 annualized. There are some good signals there. The best thing that we can do for the people of Canada is to ensure a strong economy, a good strong recovery, to get people back to meaningful work. That is what we are trying to do.
By the way, Mr. Peters has his opinion. The Liberals like to quote Mr. Peters from time to time. I met with him in Montreal a couple of weeks ago and listened to him as well. But other economists have other opinions. As a matter of fact, in the pre-budget consultations the majority of the people are saying we are on the right track, stick to it, because they can see light at the end of the tunnel.


Brian Vincent Tobin: Madam Speaker, last month, 13,000 jobs were lost in Quebec, and 92 per cent of those jobs were filled by women. When will the minister table specific programs to help these women get back to work and take their rightful place in our society?


John Horton McDermid: I thank the hon. member. This government has been working very diligently to help especially
Oral Questions
that group with the Canadian Labour Force Development Strategy. Under that strategy we have allocated $3.1 billion this year and $3.4 billion next year for training and adjustment programs for Canadian workers and more than $6 billion in two years time. That is working.
As a matter of fact I was in Montreal last night, and I had an individual come up and he said he took that training course and he now has a good full-time job in Montreal. He thanked the government for providing that training program. Those are the results that are happening. The hon. member pooh-poohs that but I am going to tell him something: Those who are taking the training and finding jobs thank the government for it, and the hon. member should as well.


PROJECT HAVEN
Ms. Mary Clancy (Halifax):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister responsible for the Status of Women.
The time frame for Project Haven is nearly at an end. Workers with abused women across Canada are still wondering just where the money went. Will the minister tell us how much of Project Haven's dollars have already been spent, and will she also tell us how many transition house units have been built with this money?


Hon. Mary Collins (Associate Minister of National Defence and Minister responsible for Status of Women):: Madam Speaker, yes indeed I would be pleased to respond to my hon. colleague.
As I understand it, and this program does come under CMHC, basically the full allocation under the old Project Haven has been used up or has been committed and 499 new units have been established for women and their children under that project.
As the member knows, there is now a new project which commences this year and which will be focusing specifically on second stage housing, although there will be some components still related to emergency housing as well.


Mary Catherine Clancy: Madam Speaker, we are happy for the 499 individuals who will be helped. We hope that the government will see its way clear to see the million or more women who are still in great difficulty.

December 6, 1991
Oral Questions
Madam Speaker, the Micmac Family and Children's Services of Nova Scotia is still waiting for a final decision on Project Haven funding. This has been approved by the department, but to date no Project Haven dollars have been spent at all in Atlantic Canada.
Will the minister commit today to funding which has already full departmental support for the Micmac Family and Children's Services of Nova Scotia?


Hon. Thomas Siddon (Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development):: Madam Speaker, I have personally looked at this application. As members will recall, the application came in after the expiry of the existing program funding period. I met the proponents of the project and indicated that I would take every possible measure to find means to funding the additional requested units.
I might point out that the funds requested per unit are twice as high on average as we would fund under the Project Haven component program for aboriginal peoples, but we are looking for a way to fund this project in the next fiscal year.

['Translation\


VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN
Hon. Audrey McLaughlin (Yukon):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Acting Prime Minister. Today, the entire country remembers the massacre in Montreal, but this day of remembrance can also be a day of action.
Madam Speaker, the Minister of Finance says that he is preparing his budget. I would like to tell the minister that women are sick and tired of begging for shelters for battered women. We are sick and tired of organizing garage sales and bake sales so that our children can have a safe place to sleep. In Quebec alone, 12 shelters are threatening to close down. Will the minister tell women that in his next budget there will enough money for these shelters?


Mary Collins: Madam Speaker, I know that the Minister of Finance already has been consulting with representatives of women's groups in preparation for the budget next year, and I think in quite an important and quite a new approach to consultation. I am sure that he will hear some of those same concerns that will be brought forward in the preparation of the next budget and I look forward to many of these being addressed.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: Madam Speaker, women's groups across this country have told this government time and time again about the need for core funding for women's programs and shelters for battered women. This is the time to end the consultation and to take some action.
The Minister responsible for the Status of Women and Associate Minister of National Defence, I suppose, could ask the army to have a bake sale and give core funding to women's programs. That might change something for the women in this country.
I would also like to ask the Acting Prime Minister this: We had 45,000 more Canadians last month who have gone from unemployment insurance on to the welfare rolls. This is families. One of the causes of violence against women is the breakdown in families caused by unemployment-


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Will the hon. member put her question, please?


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: Madam Speaker, I want to ask the Acting Prime Minister or the Acting Minister of Finance what this government is prepared to do to give women real options. What is this government prepared to do to get Canadians back to work?


John Horton McDermid: Madam Speaker, our programs to get the economy going again are beginning to show some very positive results. Interest rates are down and inflation is down.
The hon. member and members from her party have for many months told us to get interest rates down and that is what we have done. We have also brought inflation down to a level that is permitting us to lower interest rates in this country. We are going to see results from that. There is no question about that.
As far as helping women to obtain gainful employment, the programs that have been put in place are
December 6, 1991

starting to bear fruit. There is no doubt about that. The results indicate people are joining the labour force, or entering the labour force for the first time, or being retrained where their jobs have become obsolete. We are spending $6 billion this year and next year on training alone, and that is very important. A large component of that goes to women.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: A supplementary, Madam Speaker. The government continues to talk about maybe a recovery in 1992, maybe in the middle of 1992. It used to be the church that asked us to wait for the afterlife and now it is this government.
Every day there are women and families in this country just struggling to get through the day. On this day of action and remembrance, what is the government prepared to do to make economic options available for women, both young women trapped in abusive relationships and older women who have fewer and fewer options because of the economic policies of this government?


Mary Collins: Madam Speaker, perhaps I could respond to the leader of the NDP because I think a lot is happening.
As my hon. colleague has already mentioned, we look at the focus within the Labour Force Development Program to ensure that women have opportunities for training and retraining. We are focusing, of course, on a wide variety of initiatives on education and information, on issues relating to violence to assist women.
The family violence program itself, of $136 million, is focusing on a wide range of activities and supporting women throughout the country. Indeed, this very morning, the Minister of National Health and Welfare announced a program in co-operation with the YWCAs across the country, as a community-based model of education and public awareness to assist women dealing with issues relating to violence against women.
We do not have all the answers but I think in this sort of co-operative spirit which has developed on this issue in this House, we jointly are truly trying to search for them.
Oral Questions GUN CONTROL


Hon.   Warren@: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Acting Minister of Justice.
Bill C-17, the bill on gun control, was passed by the Senate and given royal assent yesterday. However, as you know, it will not be operative until the regulations are tabled and the law is proclaimed by Order in Council.
Canadians, especially women, want quick action on this matter. When will the regulations on the gun control bill be tabled and when will the law be proclaimed? What is the government's timetable?


Mary Collins: Madam Speaker, on behalf of my colleague, the Minister of Justice, I can assure all members that she is committed to moving this process ahead just as quickly as possible.
In fact, I understand her officials will be working through the Christmas period in order to get those regulations developed and bring them back to the House just as quickly as the House resumes. As you know, there is provision for them to go back to committee. However, it is our hope that those regulations can be in effect as early in the new year as possible.


Hon. Warren Allmand (Notre-Dame-de-Grace):: Madam Speaker, that is not enough. We want a veiy specific timetable.

Last year in Canada, 234 women were killed-74 by their husbands. In Quebec, there has been an 8.3 per cent increase in violent crimes against women. Although Bill C-17, the gun control bill, was adopted yesterday, there are still some serious gaps in our legislation.
Does the government intend to keep monitoring the situation to find out whether the legislation is truly effective against these violent crimes? What are the government's plans in this respect?


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, as my colleague pointed out a few minutes ago, in the other language, the bill was

December 6, 1991
Oral Questions
passed by the Senate yesterday, and I think all members of this House should be very pleased that the bill has finally been adopted.
The regulations will be tabled as soon as possible in the new year, and there will undoubtedly be room for improvement as there is in the case of any piece of legislation, especially this one. The government, and especially my colleague, the Minister of Justice, will be monitoring this very closely. Furthermore, appropriate amendments will be introduced, as required.


UNEMPLOYMENT
Alfonso Gagliano: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Acting Prime Minister. According to Statistics Canada, the unemployment rate in Quebec is nearly 12 per cent, and 13,000 more people were without work in November than in October. Twelve thousand of the 13,000 who lost their jobs were women. How does the government intend to reverse this trend, which is disastrous for Quebec and for Canada?


John Horton McDermid: Madam Speaker, in looking at the figures, the hon. member is right, but most of those were part-time jobs, not full-time jobs that were lost.
What we are doing not only in Quebec, but across this country is concentrating a great deal of money into the training and retraining of individuals who are on unemployment insurance, who have lost their jobs, whose jobs have become obsolete, to train them with the types of skills they will need to face the next number of years in this highly competitive country that we live in.
We are concentrating on that. We are spending some $6 billion, which is a tremendous amount of money for training, and women will be the large beneficiary of those funds being expended.


Alfonso Gagliano: Madam Speaker, Montreal has the highest unemployment rate of all major Canadian cities-nearly 12 per cent. Why does the government not realize that its policies are not
helping the Montreal area? When will it do something to get Montreal out of this economic slump?


Hon. Jean Corbeil (Minister of Transport):: Madam Speaker, the hon. member for Saint-Leonard surely knows, or at least he should know, about the efforts this government has made in recent years to create jobs of the future in the Montreal area, jobs in high technology, aviation and pharmaceuticals. They are the result of laws passed and action taken by this government.
As for the situation of the unemployed in Montreal in general and the east end in particular, I think that the programs we created by changing the Unemployment Insurance Act to be able to spend much more on job training, in co-operation with the Government of Quebec, are concrete measures taken to correct the situation.


WHITE RIBBON CAMPAIGN
Ms. Dawn Black (New Westminster-Burnaby):: Madam Speaker, yesterday I wrote a letter to the minister responsible for the status of women urging her to use her powers in her other capacity as the Associate Minister of National Defence to allow members of the military to wear white ribbons this week, just as they are allowed to wear a thistle for St. Andrew's Day, a shamrock for St. Patrick's Day, a leek for St. David's Day and poppies on Remembrance Day.
I want to ask the minister if she acted on this issue and, if not, why not?


Mary Collins: Madam Speaker, I received my hon. colleague's letter this morning when I returned to Ottawa. Perhaps if she could have spoken to me about it a bit earlier it would have given us a bit more time.
I can advise my hon. colleague that there are, of course, regulations and rules which govern uniforms and appropriately so. If any changes are required there is a process of decision making with the Armed Forces Council that we go through.
December 6, 1991

I have suggested to the organizers of the white ribbon campaign, and I assume that they will be continuing this campaign in the future, that certainly I would be very supportive of a submission to the council. I hope this matter will then be resolved before the campaign commences next year.
One more thing, Madam Speaker. Because today is a Friday the members of the armed forces in Ottawa do not wear their uniforms and many of them are wearing white ribbons.


Dawn Black: Madam Speaker, it is my understanding that the Associate Minister and the Minister of National Defence have the authority to issue a declaration indicating that it would be permissible to wear a white ribbon honouring violence against women and the women who have been killed, on this national day of remembrance and action on violence against women.
We also learn that reporters on TV are barred from wearing the symbol, a white ribbon. The reason given is that: "We don't use any overt signal to detract from our neutral position". What neutral position? There is no neutral position on this issue. This is not a political campaign. What is the other side of this?
Will the minister act to encourage greater freedom and participation in this white ribbon campaign? Will she write to the national media and give them at least her opinion on this and encourage them to allow the reporters the opportunity to show their solidarity with women?


Mary Collins: Madam Speaker, as I understand the origins of the white ribbon campaign, it was a group of very distinguished men from all walks of life who indicated they wanted to show their commitment to the issue of violence against women. I commend them for that. I think it is a very important part of creating the kind of understanding that is required to address these issues.
If we really want to make this grass roots, I think they are the ones that should provide for that interaction. Certainly I offer my support. However, I would also suggest that those men who are involved in this move-
Oral Questions
ment, in this campaign, will also want to ensure that they make their concerns and their views known to national institutions, to broadcasters and to all in society.


BLUE WATER BRIDGE
Kenneth Albert James: Madam Speaker, I want the Minister of National Revenue to know through you that the International Blue Water Bridge is receiving ever increasing vehicular traffic. He should also know that this traffic make-up is a mix of ever-increasing truck and business traffic, tourism traffic and so on. In fact the volume is quickly reaching the point where a second span will have to be built.
We are having traffic back-ups caused in part by primary customs inspection. The Blue Water Bridge Authority is ready to build new primary booths and stations.
I would like to ask the minister if he will commit his department to immediately put in place training and availability of customs personnel to facilitate the clearance at the Blue Water Bridge. He has been helpful in the past and I ask for his help in the future.


Hon. Otto Jelinek (Minister of National Revenue):: Madam Speaker, I appreciate the hon. member's interest in this very important matter.
As a result of his previous representations to me, many improvements at Blue Water Bridge have already been made, including the employment of additional personnel.
However, if the Blue Water Bridge is indeed proposing to expand the number of booths or lanes, we will have a look at that. If additional people will be required to man those booths, we would take that into consideration in a positive manner.


UNEMPLOYMENT
Mr. Sergio Marchi (York West):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Acting Prime Minister.
While the official unemployment rate in metropolitan Toronto remains virtually unchanged at an alarming 10 per cent, the real figure is actually much higher since
14,000	Torontonians have left the labour force in Novem-

December 6, 1991
Oral Questions
ber. These 14,000 people are either not looking for work or are now on welfare or have left Toronto all together.
Given that the Toronto economy is crucial to any national economic recovery and given that it is now both sputtering and shrinking, when will this government introduce measures to stimulate and kick-start an indispensable component of Canada's economic machinery?


John Horton McDermid: Madam Speaker, all the advice that the government has received from groups across this country has been that the best way to get the economy going is to get our basics in place and that is low inflation rate and low interest rates.
I recently had discussions with a number of individuals in the real estate industry in Toronto and the metropolitan area. The type of house selling that is going on now is first time home buyers that are getting into the market. That is a good sign. That is a good sign that the economy is picking up, that people are purchasing their homes in the Toronto area.
As a matter of fact, in my area of Brampton in the last very short period of time there have been hundreds of new homes sold primarily to first time home buyers. He looks surprised but I can take him out to the new Springdale development and show him where they have sold 500 homes in one week.
Things are beginning to happen in the metropolitan Toronto area. Of course the training programs that we provide through the community colleges are helping to train and retrain. We see some great signs of the economy recovering in early 1992.


Sergio Marchi: Madam Speaker, my supplementary question is for the same minister.
The chronic unemployment crisis of metro Toronto not only paints a dismal economic picture but it also paints a very troubling social picture. Over 50,000 people are homeless in metro Toronto; 250,000 on welfare and
160.000	collecting unemployment insurance. There are
150.000	relying on food banks and the story goes on and on and on.
I ask the hon. minister when the government will recognize that metropolitan Toronto is really suffering from a tale of two cities and that it is in need of a serious economic blueprint in order to revitalize what is essentially a stagnating economy when it was once a very
dynamic and bursting economy for Toronto and for the nation.


John Horton McDermid: Madam Speaker, I come from that area and am very proud of that community and its role in the Canadian economy.
The hon. member stands up here with a doom and gloom scenario which does nothing to further the economic benefits of the metropolitan Toronto area. It is a vibrant city. The economy is starting to come back. We are seeing some very good signs and Toronto will be the beneficiary of the growth that is estimated by those outside groups-not by the government-of some 3.5 per cent to 4 per cent growth in 1992.
Toronto naturally will benefit. It is a very vibrant city. I am extremely proud of it and I am sure that these people will find meaningful jobs in the not too distant future and the city will be back operating again as a city that we all know and love.


INTEREST RATES
Mr. Don Boudria (Glengarry-Prescott-Russell):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs or the acting minister, and it is about the other interest rates, credit card interest rates.
At a time when consumers are being gouged by credit card rates the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs has no help for Canadians except telling them to shop around. Here is the shopping list, Madam Speaker: Bank of Montreal MasterCard, 19.25 per cent; Toronto-Dominion Visa, 19.75 per cent; National Bank, 19.75 per cent; Scotia Visa, 19.25 per cent.
I want to ask the government if this is Tory fairness.


Otto John Jelinek: Madam Speaker, what is Tory fairness is our efforts to bring interest rates down. All Canadians, whether they are borrowers on credit cards or mortgage loans, should be delighted with the fact that the prime rate yesterday dropped to 8 per cent, the lowest level it has been in 18 years.
This, Madam Speaker, is good for everybody. As a result, interest rates on credit cards are going down and the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs has very rightly said that now is the time to start shopping for
December 6, 1991

better rates as they become available to both consumers and businesses.


Don Boudria: Madam Speaker, I just read the shopping list. The rates are 12 per cent above prime. Only a Conservative would think that is proper.

Why does the government allow the chartered banks to bleed Canadian taxpayers with usurious credit card interest rates?


Otto John Jelinek: Madam Speaker, the hon. member obviously cannot get it into his mind that people can, whether businesses or consumer, borrow money from their financial institutions at the lowest rates they have been for 18 years.
This is good news for consumers. This is good news for businesses. This is good news for Canadians and the Canadian economy. The hon. member should be applauding this government instead of standing up and posturing on statements he keeps making.


VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN
Ms. Margaret Mitchell (Vancouver East):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Acting Prime Minister.
He will recall that in 1982 male parliamentarians laughed when I stated that one in 10 men battered their wives. Although men in this House wear ribbons today, violence has escalated and we now learn that one in eight women are battered by their partners. This violence must end. The government must act now.
I want to ask the Acting Prime Minister if the government will lift the ceiling on the Canada Assistance Plan so that one in every two women will not be turned away from shelters and that they and their children will have the help they need.


Mary Collins: Madam Speaker, I think my hon colleague is as aware as
Oral Questions
other colleagues are that we are all working together to try to put an end to violence against women. It is not just one level of government that can decree it. It is going to require some fundamental changes in the attitudes so that women have equal respect in our society.
Just commenting on the final part of the hon. member's question, I am sure she is aware that it has been estimated that perhaps 25 per cent of $1.5 billion of the transfer payments to provinces do, in effect, go to support a whole variety of services for women and their children who have been victims of violence. This is a very significant contribution.
As my colleague is also aware, the Canada Assistance Plan contributions continue to increase to all provinces and the limit of 5 per cent to the three most prosperous provinces is well above the expected inflation rate this year of only 2.6 per cent. Progress is being made and I am working with my provincial colleagues so that we can be sure that we get our priorities right, act in a concerted manner and that our moneys can be used as effectively as possible to end violence against women.


Margaret Anne Mitchell: Madam Speaker, this kind of complacency is pretty hard to take. The minister must know that violence against women is highest in the provinces where CAP has been capped and shelters are being closed. Not very many are being opened.
My supplementary is for the Minister of Employment and Immigration or the acting minister, as the case may be.
Visible minority women, immigrant women and domestic workers often suffer violence in silence because they are afraid of being deported, loss of employment and rejection by their family and community.
What steps will the Minister of Employment and Immigration take to ensure that women immigrants have full protection from violent situations, that they are fully informed of this so that their silence will end?


Hon. Monique Vezina (Minister of State (Employment and Immigration) and Minister of State (Seniors)):: Madam Speaker, our colleague knows very well that we

Oral Questions
already have programs within the department to help integrate immigrant women into society.
I might also mention the Employment Equity Act that we implemented in 1986. We all know that a legislative committee has already started to review it. We can improve the law that we have had for five years. Progress is slow, but we are making progress. I concur with my colleague responsible for the status of women, who said that if we all work together, visible minorities, women, native people and the disabled will have their place in a well-balanced society.


EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS COLLEGE
Mr. Len Hopkins (Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke):: Madam Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of National Defence.
Following the passage of the Emergency Preparedness Canada legislation in 1988, the then Associate Minister of National Defence announced during the election campaign that a new building would be constructed at the Emergency Preparedness College in Amprior, Ontario.
The building was to be occupied by students from municipalities and other levels of government and organizations from all over Canada by December 1990. To date a shovel has not even been put in the ground. Why has the government not kept its commitment to this very important process of training people for crisis management?


Mary Collins: Madam Speaker, my colleague the Minister of National Defence has responsibility for emergency preparedness and I will be glad to bring this to his attention.
My understanding is that in a climate of fiscal restraint all priorities need to be addressed. We have not been able to proceed with all the things we would like to be able to do. The activities we undertake at Amprior are very important activities. The training that is provided for municipalities and people across the country will continue and I am sure will ensure that we have effective
emergency measures preparedness throughout the country.


Leonard Donald Hopkins: Madam Speaker, the Emergency Preparedness Canada Act was introduced in this House with great fanfare by the Minister of Communications when he was Minister of National Defence. The concept was reasonably well received at the time.
In view of this support and in light of the government's announcement, will the concept that the government is planning be the same and will it come forward for the college at Amprior where thousands of Canadians are trained in crisis management? It is very important when problems arise: fires, storms, and even civil disobedience. I think this is very important for Canadian safety.


Mary Collins: Madam Speaker, I can assure my hon. colleague, yes, the government is committed to the maintenance of the high level of preparedness and training for people with respect to emergency measures.
I know, coming from British Columbia, the whole issue of earthquakes is a very important aspect of emergency measures preparedness. We passed that legislation, we have the commitment and we are following up in ensuring that it occurs.


PUBLIC SERVICE
Mr. Jean-Robert Gauthier (Ottawa-Vanier):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the minister answering for Treasury Board.
Through Public Service 2000 the government proposes giving managers more power to contract out services. In his report, the Auditor General criticizes the sloppy management of operations and human resources in the contracting out that is already going on.
After a devastating Public Service strike brought about, by the way, by this government's policies, why is the government giving managers more powers to contract out without giving them clear, precise guidelines? Why this policy leading to conflict rather than one leading to harmony?


John Horton McDermid: Madam Speaker, as the hon. member
December 6, 1991

knows, project 2000 is designed to streamline the Public Service to bring them into the 21st century, to ensure that the services that are being provided to the Canadian public who are, after all, paying for them, are responsive to their needs and requests.
The suggestions made by the Auditor General in his report will help in designing those plans for the future for the bureaucrats. We look at the Auditor General as someone who helps us with the management of government. As a matter of fact, if the hon. member was fair, he would also point out that the Auditor General said that this government has made great progress in the administration of government over the past number of years.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Madam Speaker, to give only one example, 64 per cent of those who left the Translation Bureau in the last five years resigned. I would ask the minister if the government is prepared today to meet with the unions and discuss seriously an acute problem that is affecting the workers' morale and the stress they are under, namely job security. Is he prepared to meet the unions and hold discussions with them to solve this very serious problem?


John Horton McDermid: Madam Speaker, in the last round of negotiations, as I understand it, the unions agreed to contracting out and privatization in the settlement that they came to with the federal government. In fact, Daryl Bean has talked widely about how an employee is protected if contracting out or privatization goes on.
Those negotiations and discussions have gone on. I believe now, because of those negotiations, that PSAC recognizes there is contracting out and privatization that can and should go on.
Sometimes the private sector can do jobs and provide services much more economically and better than the civil service. That has been proven in the past and I am sure will happen in the future.


SHIPBUILDING
Alan Redway: Madam Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Transport.
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Some three months ago a Canadian designed icebreaker reached the North Pole. It was recently built at a cost that was less than one-half of the money currently being spent by the government to overhaul and refit an old and less powerful ice-breaker.
Why did the minister choose to spend all this money overhauling a 21-year-old ice-breaker when it could have built a new and a more powerful one and saved some $85 million at the same time?


Jean Corbeil: Madam Speaker, I would like to inform the hon. member that despite claims from competitors in the shipbuilding industry, a replacement vessel for the Louis St. Laurent, with the same capability had been estimated at approximately $250 million, assuming that the vessel would be built to Canadian standards, Arctic pollution prevention regulations and by a Canadian shipyard.
Any prices and costs mentioned by designer-builders at this stage for a replacement vessel for the Louis St. Laurent are totally speculative.


CANADIAN ARMED FORCES
Mr. John Brewin (Victoria):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Associate Minister of National Defence on the issue of gays and lesbians in the Canadian Armed Forces.
In October the minister told a committee of this House that the current discriminatory policy was wrong, that the Chief of Defence Staff said it was wrong, that the Department of Justice said it was contrary to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and was thus illegal, and that the policy would be changed well before the new year.
Why has the policy not yet been changed? Will it be changed before the new year? Has the government, according to reports, caved in to the neanderthals in the Conservative caucus?


Mary Collins: Madam Speaker, I would not want to share the sentiments of the latter part of my colleague's questions.

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A decision has not yet been finalized on this issue. As soon as it has been, obviously we will make the appropriate announcements. I can assure my colleague that a great deal of work has gone into this. I recently met with my new committee on social change and asked it, not to examine whether we should change the policy, there has been some misinterpretation about that, but if a decision is made to change the policy how we can make sure that it is implemented most effectively.
I think that is the kind of thing that my hon. colleagues and others would applaud. It is the kind of leadership we will need to take to ensure that any change is implemented effectively.


John F. Brewin: Madam Speaker, the minister clearly avoided the opportunity to make the commitment to this House today that the policy was going to be changed before the new year which she made before the committee.
This House can take it therefore that the minister has backed away from the word she gave to that committee. I ask the minister and her colleague the Minister of Justice how they can continue to sit in a government that practises systemic discrimination against gays and lesbians in one of the major public institutions of Canada.


Mary Collins: Madam Speaker, as I advised my colleague and as I have indicated in the committee, there are many different aspects of this question that have to be addressed. I indicated that I hoped we would have a decision before the end of the year. That decision has not yet been finalized. As soon as it is my hon. colleagues will be advised as will other members of the House.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: We will finish with one question from the hon. member for Parkdale-High Park and one question from the hon. member for Halton-Peel.


SLOVENIA
Jesse Philip Flis: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Secretary of State for External Affairs.
As she knows, on December 2 Canada recognized Ukraine as an independent state after 80 per cent of the Ukrainian people voted in support of the independence. Slovenia declared its independence on June 25 after 93 per cent of Slovenian people voted in support of independence in a free and democratic referendum. On October 8 Slovenia began issuing its own currency and passports, and on October 26 the last Yugoslav federal army soldiers left Slovenia's soil and Slovenia is now in full control of its borders and defence.
I would like to ask the minister, in view of Slovenia's de facto control of its own country, is she prepared to recognize Slovenia as an independent state?


Hon. Barbara McDougall (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Madam Speaker, as I told the Slovenian foreign minister while he was here, and we had a very illuminating meeting which was very helpful to me, recognition will come to those Yugoslavian republics wishing it. The question is how to receive it and when.
The difficulty is that with the nation in a state of war at the moment it is important that all parties negotiate the solution together in terms of the republics and then-relationship with each other.
We want an end to the bloodshed. That is our first and most important priority. We also are very active in promoting a UN peacekeeping force in Yugoslavia in which we have said we would take an active part. Our efforts are directed toward that end and will continue to be. However, to recognize independence at this time in our view would fundamentally alter the nature of the negotiation process or the potential for a negotiation process and would suggest that the negotiation process may not take place.


Garth Turner: Madam Speaker, the future of the North American free trade deal looks somewhat cloudy after the American decision to pull back on talks. It is my understanding that Canadian officials are continuing to work with their American and Mexican counterparts.
My question is for the Minister of International Trade. If the Americans do shelve their participation, will Canada continue to be part of the negotiations? I want to
December 6, 1991

ask him if he could give us in general an update about where these talks stand at the moment.


Hon. Michael Wilson (Minister of Industry, Science and Technology and Minister for International Trade):: Madam Speaker, the hon. member has used the phrase that the U.S. has pulled back. To the contrary, the U.S. has not pulled back. There has been-if I can call it this-some conventional wisdom in the media to the effect that the Americans are slowing down, but that certainly is not our experience at the negotiating table.
We are in the course of exchanging draft texts to help us move the process along. The Americans have been fully engaged in that. In conversations which I had quite recently with Mr. Mossbacker, who was here earlier this week, and Mrs. Hills, whom I have talked with on this matter two or three times in the last month or so, the administration is fully committed to moving the NAFTA process ahead.


PRESENCE IN GALLERY
Madam Deputy Speaker:: I draw the attention of hon. members to the presence in the gallery of the Hon. Dwain M. Lingenfelter, minister of economic diversification and trade and Government House leader of the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.



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's response to 15 petitions.
[Editor's Note: See today's Votes and Proceedings]
Routine Proceedings POINT OF ORDER


Albert Glen Cooper: Madam Speaker, may I ask that the Speaker review the "blues" of the question placed by the hon. member for Victoria. I believe within his question were assertions that were out of order.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I thank the hon. member. I will certainly do that and if there was something said which was not correct I will come back to the House.
I thank the hon. parliamentary secretary for bringing this matter to my attention.


Mary Collins: Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak today on this first National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence against Women.
I would like to mention the presence in the gallery today of representatives of women's groups who, with many others, worked on the front line in the community to solve the problem of violence against women.
On December 6, 1989, fourteen young women were murdered at the University of Montreal. It was a tragic moment in our history. We will never forget the shock, horror and anger; our sympathy went to the victims' grieving families and friends. Neither will we ever forget the sorrow we felt for society in general.

The commemoration of this day ensures that the murders at Ecole Polytechnique can never be discounted merely as an act of a solitary madman. It serves as a reminder of the violence that many women experience daily in their homes, in their work places and on the streets.
December 6 marks not only a day of remembrance but also a day of action on violence against women. The memory of the countless women who have been victims

December 6, 1991
Routine Proceedings
of violence demands no less than a commitment from all of us to eradicate that violence from our society. The Prime Minister has said one Canadian woman suffering violence at home or elsewhere is too many.
Our government has made the ending of violence against women one of our major priorities and our goal, pure and simple is zero tolerance. To achieve this objective of zero tolerance we must recognize the plight and the difficulties experienced by the victims of violence and their families.
We announced last February the federal family violence initiative to which we are committing $136 million over the next four years for programs in the area of health and social services, criminal justice, community action, housing and support for services in aboriginal communities.
Through this initiative as well the government is working closely with its partners in society to promote community-based projects, to create new emergency shelters for women and to help train police and the judiciary in understanding the depth and the breadth of violence against women.
I would like to mention in particular the initiative announced this morning by the YWCA's national awareness program on violence against women. My colleague the Minister of National Health and Welfare announced in Toronto this morning that the YWCA will receive funding in the amount of $1 million over the next four years to undertake a community based-awareness campaign that will involve local YWCAs and community partners right across the country.
To achieve zero tolerance we must also seek to more fully understand the underlying attitudes and values in our society that allow violence against women to flourish. To that end we have instituted a $1.5 million program to establish three research centres. These three centres of excellence will encourage the promotion, the co-ordination and the communication of Canadian research efforts in the areas of family violence and violence against women.
To achieve zero tolerance we must also encourage women to speak up and share their experiences and their solutions. Therefore we have established the Canadian panel on violence against women. As part of their work
they will be meeting and visiting with men and women from all walks of life in all parts of the country to hear from them their experiences and their solutions for violence against women.
Throughout this comprehensive national grass roots dialogue we hope the panel will raise awareness and document the incidents, the causes and the effects of violence. For the first time we will develop a national plan of action which will be the the first in the world. It will help make Canadian society safer and more equitable for women.

To achieve zero tolerance, the judicial system must recognize that crimes committed against women and children are as serious as those against property or against men.
That is why we are considering ways to make the legal system more effective in protecting women's right to live without fear of violence. To this end, we have passed a new firearms control law and we will replace the Criminal Code provisions dealing with protection for victims of sexual assault.

Finally to achieve zero tolerance we must also make the public more aware of the stereotypes and attitudes that encourage violence against women. As part of our response to the subcommittee report War Against Women we have announced our intention to co-ordinate new prevention oriented public education programs to involve the business community, labour movement, professionals, women's groups and other non-governmental organizations to build on the collaborative efforts currently under way with provincial and territorial governments.
I would also like to applaud the initiative taken by men's groups across this country in launching the white ribbon campaign to confront male violence against women. It commits men to the full equality of women and actively encourages men to be part of the solution to violence against women.
May I say that I am heartened by the expressions of support for this initiative that have been shown by members on both sides of this House this week and right across the country as I have travelled throughout the country.
December 6, 1991

There are no easy answers or simple solutions or magic ways of dealing with it. It is going to take the concerted effort of all Canadians to change the ways that we women and men alike regard and relate to each other. It is going to take the concerted efforts of all of us to change the attitudes that have perpetuated violence and stopped women from achieving full equality in our society.
I ask members on all sides of the House to join with women and men across the country to say today that we reaffirm our goal of zero tolerance of violence against women.
Today we make a pledge to those 14 young women whom we mourn and to their families and friends. We make a pledge to build a society in which women have the right to live without fear in their homes, workplaces and communities. We make a pledge to build together a society in which women and men are truly equals.


Mary Catherine Clancy: Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. minister for her comments. I wish that I could share more in her feeling of being heartened by what we have done. I do and will appreciate many of the steps that have been taken. But December 6 for me and I think for all of us is a day in which a feeling of depression and a feeling of sorrow overwhelm almost any other.
Two years ago today 14 young women were killed by a man shouting his hatred of women. They were 14 young women who just wanted normal lives but because those normal lives entailed education in a non-traditional area those normal lives were denied to them.

These women did not want to become symbols; they wanted to be engineers. The tragedy that we do not grasp is that all women are in danger, whether they are "traditional" or "modern".

Some people still think it was an act of an ordinary psychopath, whatever that may be.
Publicity, public awareness and the actions that have been taken have still not made changes in the attitudes of the general public and, with the greatest of respect, changed the attitudes of many men, which is necessary.
We have for example the response by some to the report of the subcommittee on the status of women
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entitled War Against Women. It was not a response that really reflected the views that were expressed in the paper that came from the hearts of women on the front line across this country.
The response to the white ribbon campaign both in the armed forces and in the CBC is not a response that any of us is particularly happy about nor is the continuing refusal of the government to institute mandatory gender sensitivity training for federally appointed judges. These are the things we still need desperately.
I received this clipping just before I came into the House. The bodies of two women, one beaten to death and the other stabbed, were discovered by Montreal police today which is the second anniversary of the killing of 14 women at the University of Montreal.
One of the victims was discovered in a lane way behind a series of stores in the city's north end at about 7 a.m. She had been beaten to death. Four hours earlier a woman was found dead in an apartment in the city's east end. She was stabbed several times.
No arrests have been made and no motives for the slayings have been established yet.
There are no motives, just a general motive that says women are not safe in this country and that we cannot seem to do anything of significance that can make them safe.
Consider women in poverty, women in job ghettos, women frustrated by glass ceilings, women mocked, women marginalized and women maltreated. Emotional, psychological, and physical abuse are all violence. All of this is abhorrent and all of it must stop.

This violence must stop. It must stop now!

We have to act. There are more things we can do. We want to do it. For God's sake let us do it.


Dawn Black: Madam Speaker, today is the second anniversary of the horror that is indelibly stamped in the minds and in the hearts of Canadians. Today is the second anniversary of the massacre of 14 young women in Montreal. They were young women who dreamed their dreams, shared their

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hopes and aspirations, set their goals and worked toward achieving those goals.
They were young women who loved and were loved. They were killed simply because they were women.
Parliament has declared December 6 to be a national day of remembrance and action on violence against women. It is one small step taken to acknowledge that violence against women is real, longstanding and epidemic in proportion.
Let us consider these facts. Between 1984 and 1988 over 100,00 sexual assaults were reported to the police in Canada. Many police officers estimate that this number represents only 10 per cent of the actual sexual assaults. Forty per cent of wife assaults begin during the woman's first pregnancy.
In 1988 over one-third of homicides in Canada were domestically related. Sixty-four per cent of women murdered were killed in their own homes. Thirty-six per cent of men who beat their wives also abused their children in their homes.
A report was released in October by the U.S. Surgeon-General who said that wife battering in the United States injures more women than automobile accidents, muggings and rapes combined. Over 100 women are killed in Canada each year. They are killed by the men with whom they live or have lived. They are killed by the men they trusted.
Small steps are being taken by Canadians. Caring men have demonstrated their solidarity with women by launching the white ribbon campaign which commits men to working toward social and economic equality for women and toward ending violence against women. These men want to be a part of the solution.
The media has also focused on the issue of violence against women all week. This will help to educate the public and to heighten awareness of the depth of this very real social problem.
Women continue to struggle to raise funds for shelters for battered women and for rape crisis centres. They continue to staff these shelters and crisis centres. They are underpaid and they are overworked. Women continue to lobby all levels of government for adequate funding for services to women.
Some of these women are here with us in the gallery today. I would like to pay tribute to their dedication, hard work and commitment to our battered sisters.
The minister spoke of her government's family violence initiative which is $136 million for eight different ministries over the next four years. In fact the government plans to spend only $49 million before the next election. At the same time her government has slashed transfer payments to the provinces freezing both the Canada Assistance Plan for Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia and Established Programs Financing for all provinces.
The cap on the Canada Assistance Plan, which provides among other things funds for shelters for battered women and spaces for child care and welfare services, will cost Ontario alone in one year four times more than the initiative's entire $136 million in one year alone.
The minister spoke of a multimedia awareness campaign announced by the Minister of National Health and Welfare today. The previous minister said that his government hopes to educate Canadians about the importance of recognizing oneself as a victim and then seeking help.
What if the public does do exactly that? We have heard nothing about new services nor recognition of what front line workers have been demanding for years, which is a better delivery of services. Right now thousands of battered women and their children are turned away from overburdened shelters because of a lack of space. Research on this issue and a media campaign are an important part of the long-term solution. However, we need action now, action today that will help the women who are being beaten right now, the women who are battered, the women who are bruised, the women who are being turned away from shelters every day in this country.
It is simply not good enough to say we are working toward changing our society and that is the situation for our daughters. We must ensure that those women who are suffering now receive the support and services they so desperately need. We know that there is a crying need for more shelter spaces, for second stage housing and for counselling services.

December 6, 1991

We cannot wait for the report from the panel on violence against women, which I know and the minister knows will make recommendations for increased shelter spaces. The time that it takes for the panel to consult, report and recommend must never be viewed as a grace period for this government. The grace period is over. No grace period should ever have been expected or given.
In every region of Canada women and men are gathering to remember all of the victims of violence against women, to share their grief, to gain strength from one another. They are taking action. They are resolving to change our society, to ensure that women walk safely in our streets, that we may live securely in our homes, and that we may participate fully in our society as equal partners with our brothers. Women and men working together will bring positive change to our society.
I want to close with a quote from Judy Chicago in which she expressed her vision of a future without violence, a world in which both women and men are valued and respected. She said:
And then all that has divided us will merge
And then compassion will be wedded to power
And then softness will come to a world that is harsh and unkind
And then both women and men will be gentle
And then both women and men will be strong
And then no person will be subject to another's will.
We remember. Who could forget?


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Albert Glen Cooper: Madam Speaker, I think this is the appropriate time for me to put forward this motion for unanimous consent, which I move on behalf of the hon. member for Lachine-Lac-Saint-Louis:
That the House of Commons endorse the White Ribbon
Campaign by encouraging all men to wear a white ribbon to signal
their support in the campaign against violence against women.


William Warren Allmand: Madam Speaker, on behalf of the Liberal Party I am pleased
Routine Proceedings
to endorse this important motion condemning violence against women. Serious cases of violence against women are continually reported from all parts of Canada: cases of murder, rape, battering, harassment, forced prostitution, incest, pornography and repression.
Yesterday Parliament passed a stricter law on gun control, but stricter gun laws are not enough. There is a need for more shelters for threatened women, more effective family crisis intervention and more counselling for men prone to violence. In addition, we must do more to combat the easy distribution of violent pornography and the trivialization of violence against women in films, television and magazines.
The purpose of this white ribbon campaign is to show the solidarity of men with women in combating this growing wave of violence. However, members of Parliament and ministers wearing white ribbons in this House are not enough. If we are really serious we have to put more money into the shelter program and we have to provide more resources to combat violence.
Violence against women, no matter what form it takes, can never be tolerated.


Iain Francis Angus: Madam Speaker, on behalf of the New Democratic Party caucus and the party itself I want to indicate our support for this motion.
I think that what we have seen this week from coast to coast to coast are men who, for the first time, are really standing up and saying they are concerned. However, they are saying more than that. They, along with the women of this country who have been voices in the wilderness for many, many years, are coming together to say that we all must act.
It is not just a day of remembrance. It is not just a campaign for one year. It is a commitment by all Canadians that their governments-federal, provincial and municipal-take action to look after those who are victims, and more important, to make the changes necessary to ensure that we can eradicate the need for future campaigns so that women or children are not violated by those who love them, by males. We must take this as a signal-I would hope the government does-

December 6, 1991
Routine Proceedings
that the people of Canada support a change in attitudes, support a commitment to funding to ensure that the protection is in place, and also to work to eliminate the problem itself.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
Jean-Robert Gauthier: Madam Speaker, I rise to ask for unanimous consent to present the following motion:
That, notwithstanding any Standing Order and usual practices of the House, Bill S-6, an act to amend the Act of incorporation of Metropolitan General Insurance Company in order to authorize its continuance under the laws of the province of Quebec, be referred after second reading, to a Committee of the Whole instead of to Legislative Committee H; and
That, unless otherwise disposed of, at the end of the time provided for the consideration of Private Members' Business this day, any proceedings then before the House shall be interrupted and every question necessary to dispose of the said bill at all stages shall be put forthwith and successively without further debate or amendment.
That Bill S-6, an act to amend the act of incorporation of Metropolitan General Insurance Company in order to authorize its continuance under the laws of the province of Quebec, be selected as a votable item.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

Mr. Don Blenkarn (Mississauga South):: Madam Speaker, it is with great honour that I present a petition on behalf of a number of Ukrainian Canadians in my riding calling for the recognition of Ukraine. More important, because this has not been done as yet, the petitioners call for the establishment of full and complete diplomatic relations between the governments of the people of Ukraine and Canada. I would also hope that air traffic between Canada and Kiev could be established as soon as possible.


Rey D. Pagtakhan: Madam Speaker, I stand today and put on record pursuant to Standing Order 36 the petitions of over 250 constituents of Winnipeg North led by the metropolitan Maxim Herma-niuk which were received in my office the day I left for Ukraine as a member of the official Canadian delegation to observe the referendum vote for independence in that country.
The petitions pray and call upon Parliament to urge the Government of Canada to give genuine support to the people of Ukraine by officially recognizing Ukraine's independence and establishing full diplomatic relations with the government and people of Ukraine immediately following a positive confirmation vote in Ukraine's referendum on December 1, 1991.
I am proud to realize that Canada has now decided to recognize Ukraine and I hope that the Government of Canada would extend full diplomatic relations on behalf of my constituents and these petitioners as here humbly submitted.


Albert Glen Cooper: Madam Speaker, if Question No. 107 could be made an Order for Return, this Return would be tabled immediately.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the House that Question No. 107 be deemed to have been made an" Order for Return?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Mrs. Gaffney: For the fiscal years (a) 1988-89 (b) 1989-90 (c) 1990-91 (d) 1991-92, what is the amount of dollars approved for the government youth employment programs (i) Business Drive for Jobs (BDJ) (ii) Work Orientation Workshop (WOW) (iii) Summer Employment/Experience Development (SEED) for each federal riding?
Return tabled.
December 6, 1991


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


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Shall the remaining questions stand?


Some hon. members:: Agreed


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I would like to inform the House that because of the ministerial statement Government Orders will be prolonged by 19 minutes.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of Bill C-5, an act to amend the Aeronautics Act and to amend an act to amend the Aeronautics Act, as reported (with amendments) from the Standing Committee on Transport.

Madam Deputy Speaker:: There are three notices of motions in amendment to Bill C-5. Motions Nos. 1 and 2 standing in the name of the hon. member for Scarborough-Rouge River will be debated together. A vote on Motion No. 1 will apply to Motion No. 2. Motion No. 3 standing in the name of the hon. member for York West will be debated and voted upon separately.


MEASURE TO AMEND
Mr. Derek Lee (Scarborough-Rouge River) moved:: Motion No. 1
That Bill C-5 be amended in clause 12 by striking out lines 12 to
20 at page 7.
Motion No. 2
That Bill C-5 be amended in clause 13 by striking out lines 24 to
32 at page 8.
He said: Madam Speaker, I rise today to address an issue that I believe is of great significance to our legal and justice system. We note that the bill here involves the Aeronautics Act. I have no quarrel with the broad principles of this bill. Most of us are anxious to see it passed subject to the amendment that my friend and colleague wishes to present later.
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In any event, the legal framework in which we enforce our statutes and laws in Canada is not all that complex. We start off with a statute in which we can prohibit certain things or require certain things to be done, and quite often under the terms of the statute we permit the making of regulations, orders or other statutory instruments by the cabinet, the Governor in Council. These secondary regulations and orders are then published in the Canada Gazette and become a part of our law.
In the Aeronautics Act we have fines stated for breaching regulations and terms and provisions in the requirements of the Aeronautics Act.
The proposed section 6.2 in this case permits the minister to restrict the use of any airspace or airport. I do not quarrel with that. Sometimes for security and many other reasons it is necessary to restrict access to airspace around airports and to portions of the airport property itself.
Under this section the minister would do that by passing a regulation through the Governor in Council. Ordinarily in our law that regulation or order would be published in the Canada Gazette and made public for all the world to know.
In this particular case, and it happens in some other statutes, it is not intended that this regulation under 6.2 be published. We will not tell all of the world that there is a prohibition, for example. As a result it is quite likely that order or regulation will not come to the attention of a lot of Canadians.
Under our Canadian law I submit that it is repugnant that an individual might be convicted of contravening a law that he did not know existed and the existence of which he had no means of ascertaining. I think all Canadians agree with that. In fact, the current section
6.2	inserts a subsection which basically codifies and states that repugnance. It states that you cannot convict a person of contravening a regulation which has not been published unless all reasonable steps have been taken to bring the purport of that regulation or order to the notice of the persons likely to be affected by it.
We have accepted that in our law and that position is codified in it. You cannot convict a person unless the government has taken all reasonable steps to bring the order to the attention of the person affected.
I have seen that in several statutes. Just last week the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development

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confirmed that in another statute involving the Indian Act in which the orders or instruments made by band councils were not published in The Canada Gazette.
However, in this particular amendment the government has gone much further. It changes the balance. Subsection (3) of this new section says:
A certificate purporting to be signed by the Minister or the Secretary of the Department of Transport stating that a notice containing the regulation or order was issued is, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, proof that reasonable steps were taken to bring the purport of the regulation or order to the notice of those persons likely to be affected by it.
This is a situation in which to prosecute for a breach of the order all that is required is that the secretary or the Minister of Transport file a certificate with the court. Rather than proving that the government took reasonable steps to bring it to the attention of the person it simply has to say that "we issued the order".
That provision clearly places administrative convenience before the interests of justice and fairness to an accused. Here is a hypothetical situation. The minister decides that access to the stairwell in a particular airport or the stairwells on the north side of the airport in any particular city shall be restricted to authorized persons. Some unfortunate individual who was not aware of this decides to take a short-cut through the airport and uses the stairwell and is caught. He or she is charged and the person goes to court.
Keep in mind that the individual involved never knew that this stairwell was restricted. There does not have to be any sign posted. There is simply an order issued by the minister saying that you cannot use this stairwell. This person goes to court, though he or she did not know it was an offence, and is faced with a situation in which the government files a certificate saying it took all reasonable steps. It issued the order and the subsection says that it shall be deemed that the mere statement or certificate that it issued the order is proof, not evidence, but proof that the government took all reasonable steps to bring the order to the attention of the person who has been charged.
What does the accused person have to do? I submit that person is in a situation in which he or she must prove a negative. That person has to prove that the government did not take the steps. How could that person ever know what the government does in bringing
such things to the attention of the public when the order was never published in the first place? It was issued, but never published. That is patently unfair and it places the burden on the accused.
Sections 6.2 and 6.41 remove the judge from deciding whether the accused is properly charged, based on the facts. There are no facts. The minister has simply filed a certificate and said that the individual used the stairway. It is a bureaucrat who has made the decision that the stairway should not be used. This shifts the onus on to the accused, contrary to our common law principles under which you are presumed to be innocent until proven guilty and the burden is on the Crown to prove guilt. The burden is now shifted on to the accused.
The accused, who does not necessarily know anything about transport policy or how government works, must prove a negative in order to be found not guilty. That is very unfair.
The proposed sections 6.2(3) and 6.41(6) both enact this very unfortunate principle. It purports to alter a fundamental principle in our justice system, which I have already explained. It crosses the line. I think that citizens in this country have to say: "You may not cross the line. Our justice principles cannot be altered for administrative convenience. We will hold on to the principles of justice and fairness as they exist in our criminal law and our quasi-criminal law".
As well, because this will be carried in the parliamentary record for a long time, I submit that there are charter implications with regard to the putting in place of a mechanism which will convict a Canadian of an offence he or she never knew about, never was able to find out about by reading the government Gazette or other publications, and places a burden in court that most Canadians could never discharge.
That is unfair. That is why I oppose this provision. I do hope the minister has an explanation, at least for the record.


Iain Francis Angus: Madam Speaker, while I appreciate the intent of my colleague I think we have to recognize that in the industry we are talking about there will be situations in which the government, having decided to impose an interim order on a carrier, is actually unable to serve that carrier because of the nature of the business. He is flying from one point to another.
December 6, 1991

In this case the government does need that ability. If the interim order is to shut down business and it has to done by radio communication it can be verified with a tape recording that the government has sent that instruction by voice to the plane to order it to land at the nearest airport and cease and desist. I think we have to allow that flexibility.
This is not an onerous clause. Whoever the government of the day is would not use it frivolously. Therefore, I would still feel more comfortable if it had that power in the legislation.
Perhaps the minister in her remarks might want to give a very clear indication as to the kind of circumstances where this would be used by today's government.


Hon. Shirley Martin (Minister of State (Transport)):: Madam Speaker, this particular issue is one that has been discussed quite thoroughly in committee and by officials with the hon. member who brought it forward.
We feel that it is in the best interest of the public as well to enable us to do the work that is necessary in this area if we leave those two clauses within the bill and not delete them.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Is the House ready for the Question?


Some hon. members:: Question.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: The first question is on Motion No. 1 and the vote on Motion No. 1 will be applied to Motion No. 2.
Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.


Some hon. members:: On division.
Motions Nos. 1 and 2 negatived.


Sergio Marchi: Motion No. 3.
That Bill C-5 be amended in clause 15 by adding immediately
after line 29 at page 9 the following:
"(1.1) Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act or any regulation made thereunder, the Minister shall cancel a Canadian
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aviation document on the grounds that the holder of the document or the owner or operator of any aircraft, airport or other facility in respect of which the document was issued has contravened three times any provision of this Part or any regulation or order made under this Part dealing with noise."

He said: Madam Speaker, the reason that I moved this motion on behalf of my colleague for Scarborough- Rouge River and members of the Liberal caucus is that the whole question of noise abatement and noise pollution with regard to communities that abut major international airports like the one at Pearson International Airport in metropolitan Toronto is a very serious one.
It is also a very responsible one. You do not hear these communities suggesting that somehow Pearson International Airport is going to shut down or that we are going to go back to the horse drawn cart rather than have the noise of modem aircraft.
Whether you live by an airport or very far from an airport you obviously understand that air travel is not only here to stay but is on the increase because life is increasingly in the fast lane despite the fact that the numbers of travellers are down because of the economic recession and the problems that the airlines face as a result.
Therefore, the purpose of Bill C-5 is to try to come to grips with controlling and managing this because there needs to be a recognition of the vitality of any airport, the multiplier effect that an airport clearly brings to metropolitan Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver, and the needs of a Canadian domestic and international travelling public. We need to balance all those factors with the need for communities to be communities, to allow those neighbourhoods to continue rather than forcing people to pick up and move because of the airport situation.
We have tried to put an amendment through today that speaks to the fact that airlines would be pleased to pay or chance the penalty for violating a noise regulation as part of doing business. It might be profitable for them to simply absorb the penalty or try to appeal the situation because there are many more fines levied than there are actual fines paid.
It was brought to our attention by officials of the Department of Transport that some of the more flagrant abusers are foreign air carriers coming to and going from

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Pearson International Airport and other airports across the country.
My amendment would suggest that we try to stop and disallow any pattern of behaviour by any airline that wishes to pay the penalty costs regularly as part of doing business at Canadian international airports and therefore run roughshod over the regulations we have to protect the surrounding communities. Specifically my amendment would suggest that on the third noise violation by that one airline, it become mandatory for the minister and the department and indeed the government to simply remove that aviation document from that airline. This would effectively preclude that airline from doing business at that airport in Canada.
We feel that this would be in fact some tough medicine and would send out a very direct and clear message to particularly the foreign aircraft carriers whose regulations may differ with those they may find in Canada. The message is that we want to respect the balance between the vitality of an airport and the vitality of the communities which surround that airport. The minister has the option now to withdraw that document. It is not a mandatory one. It is an optional one.
What we would like to do is simply crystallize that, make it mandatory and begin to discourage any airline from thinking that rather than complying with our noise regulations and our time curfews, it should go ahead, pay the penalty and take a chance because it has a full load and some money in the bank anyway.
What my amendment does is to go beyond simply the minister or the government having the option to exercise some toughness. Obviously there are some special powers that all ministers have over their departments in very special or emergency cases. But we would like to make it part of the new stricter noise regulations that will be flowing from Bill C-5 if it becomes legislation. We would like to take it one step further and remove the potential systematic abuse of noise regulations by airlines which is to the detriment of surrounding communities. According to the evidence of the department this particularly concerns foreign aircraft.


Iain Francis Angus: Madam Speaker, I rise in support of my colleague's amendment. Veiy briefly, I just want to point out that as he has
already said the monetary fines tend to be more like a licence fee.
We have given the judiciary the power to impose fees of up to $25,000 because of an amendment that was accepted by all parties in committee. I think looking at the record we whl find that there were 2,599 complaints received between April 1, 1988 to March 31, 1989. Of these, 1,783 were handled administratively, 78 by judicial action and 738 were concluded with no investigation conducted.
Administrative monetary penalties were assessed in 347 counts with the average penalty being $215. Fines were imposed in 157 counts heard in court. The average fine per count amounted to $314.
In the initial case, $215 is considerably less than the price of almost any ticket flying into Tbronto, Mirabel or Dorval. Three hundred and fourteen dollars maybe will be around the cost of a one way ticket flying into or out of any of those three airports. Even where we see a number of $500 fines imposed-this seems to be the more popular number-it costs me more than that to fly from Thunder Bay to Toronto to Ottawa and return.
Clearly the monetary fines that have been applied, even though the ceiling is nowhere near the amount of the fines, have not been sufficiently strong enough to convince the airlines to change their ways.
I think my colleague's amendment is a good move. It would make it mandatory to pull the ticket of an offending airline after it has offended the noise violations on three separate occasions.
The amendment does not say pull the ticket for life. It is not shutting down the airline. The government has the authority to do this now should it wish but it has not. If a ticket is pulled for a day or two I do not think there would be any problem whatsoever down the road.
I believe the airlines would think twice. Whether they are domestic carriers, those that survive, or whether they are international carriers coming into Canada, I believe they would think twice. This would be much the same way I might suggest that the zero tolerance laws regarding drugs allows governments to seize aircraft that have been found carrying drugs or illegal immigrants or what have you into various countries. That quickly puts a stop to that kind of illegal activity.
December 6, 1991

I would therefore encourage the government to give careful consideration to this power that parliamentarians want to give them so that they can show that they are prepared to get tough with noise polluters at Pearson International Airport, at Mirabel, at Vancouver, at Thunder Bay or at any of the airports where it has been a problem.


Shirley Martin: With respect to this particular amendment, my hon. colleague from Thunder Bay-Atikokan was just mentioning the fines that had been paid and how low they were. Of course this was done because the current threshold is only $1,000 as a maximum.
Under the new legislation, as was pointed out, the fines are going to go up to $25,000. The ability will be there to make them much more of a penalty than what they are today.
The minister now does have the authority to pull the ticket if that is the action that needs to be taken. We feel that leaving it as it is and not putting a three-flight or three-occasion clause in there gives us the ability to do it on the first offence if we find it so necessary. We would prefer to leave it that way.


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


Some hon. members:: Question.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Moore):: The question is on motion No. 3. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. members:: No.


Some hon. members:: On division.
Motion No. 3 negatived.


Shirley Martin: that the bill be concurred in.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Moore):: When shall the bill be read the third time? By leave, now?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Mrs. Martin (for the Minister of TVansport) moved: that the bill be read the third time and passed.
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She said: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have this opportunity to address the provisions of Bill C-5, an act to amend the Aeronautics Act and to amend an act to amend the Aeronautics Act.
At the outset I would like to extend my sincere thanks to the chairman of the Standing Committee on Transport and all the committee members for their diligence shown throughout the sittings and for their proposals to amend this bill in response to the representations that were made to them.
Some of the proposed amendments can be summarized as follows. The maximum penalty for the breach of a designated provision such as noise abatement procedures will be increased both for corporations and for individuals. A new section will be added to authorize the Minister of Transport to make interim orders that will immediately implement urgent safety recommendations received from bodies such as the Transportation Safety Board of Canada. In addition, the Minister of Transport will be given the power to withhold, suspend or cancel a Canadian aviation document when of the opinion that the document holder's past record justifies that action. This closes a loophole that existed in the previous legislation.
Another amendment to the original bill was unanimously agreed to by the members of the committee after representations from several concerned groups. This was ably proposed by my hon. friend opposite, the member for Thunder Bay-Atikokan. This amendment will add a new regulatory authority to the Aeronautics Act to set out the hours of work of crew members, including flight attendants. This move goes some way toward recognizing the important safety functions performed by flight attendants on commercial flights.
Other amendments will correct and update existing provisions in the Aeronautics Act.
The passage of this legislation has been eagerly awaited by the residents living near Canada's major airports, particularly the neighbours of Lester B. Pearson International Airport. In fact, the section of the legislation pertaining to increased fines for noise abatement or flight track infractions stems from extensive consultations with Pearson's neighbours. Municipal leaders and community groups told our officials that a

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maximum fine of $1,000 was not enough by way of deterrent and we have listened to them.
This bill, as amended, now calls for a maximum fine of $25,000 for corporations and $5,000 for individuals. The corporate ceiling recommended by the standing committee as moved by my colleague the member for St. Catharines is higher than the initial one proposed in Bill C-5. My officials at Pearson advise me that the subject of increased fines is a topic frequently raised at the public meetings that they hold regularly. But increased fines are only part of the solution. At Pearson the most advanced noise-monitoring and flight-tracking system in the world has been installed and is already providing important information. The system will be fully operational when the new air traffic control system is completed.
Pearson's noise management office will have an automatic link between 14 new noise monitors installed in neighbourhoods around the airport and the radar system that tracks aircraft flight paths. In the past we relied primarily on complaints of nearby residents. With the new system, any deviation from approved flight paths or failure to follow the noise abatement procedures will be readily apparent.
I trust that we have also allayed the concerns of those representing the interests of the general aviation field with respect to the transfer of certain zoning authority from federal jurisdiction to provincial jurisdiction.
Another issue that we are pleased with is the support of Canadian air carriers and the Airline Pilots Association for the proposed amendment respecting the making of interim orders to give immediate effect to any recommendation necessary for aviation safety or the safety of the public following an accident or an incident investigation.
One of the concerns raised at the standing committee was the wording and intent of certain amendments proposed in clauses 12 and 13. This is also the subject of the further amendments that were presented to us today and put on the Order Paper as we heard by the member for Scarborough-Rouge River.
It should first be understood that these particular subclauses in Bill C-5 are consequential amendments of what has been in the original Aeronautics Act since its
passage in 1985. In these particular clauses the last subclause provided for a shift in the evidentiary burden to the accused where the regulation allegedly violated has not been published in the Canada Gazette. These subclauses address the situation where the department has taken other steps to bring the regulations to the attention of the accused. My friend from Scarborough- Rouge River gave notice to the amendments to C-5 to delete these two subclauses.
The department has well established practices for communication with the aviation community on regulatory provisions that are legally exempted from the publication requirements of the Statutory Instruments Act. It is the aviation community, as a very specialized and identifiable public, to which these provisions apply and not to the general public.
The primary vehicle for these communications is the notice to airmen, or NOTAM, which is distributed regularly to all licensed pilots and operators and is also made available through air traffic services facilities. The law requires that pilots familiarize themselves with all information appropriate to their intended flights. This includes familiarising themselves with all relevant NO-TAMs.
If an accused has a special and unique reason to believe that longstanding government and industry practices which have support in law were not appropriate in the particular case, it is only reasonable that the accused explain what these are.
It is for these reasons that the subsections in question shift the evidentiary burden to the accused. This is in our view entirely appropriate. If evidence exists to demonstrate that reasonable steps were not taken in respect to the accused, he or she would be in the best position to show this and would accordingly be found not guilty of a regulatory violation.
In conclusion, I would once again like to thank the committee members and the associations that appeared before the committee for their very valuable contributions to Bill C-5. I am hopeful that all members of the House will offer their support for this bill as we continue our endeavours to enhance the already commendable level of aviation safety in Canada.
December 6, 1991


Sergio Marchi: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of of the member for Hamilton West and all of my caucus, I am pleased to respond to third reading of Bill C-5.
Essentially it is a bill that has obtained a fair amount of support from all sides. The main feature as the minister noted is the question of increased fines for airlines that abuse our noise regulations. The fines have been increased substantially. That needs to be said. Previous to Bill C-5 the fines stood for both individuals and the major corporations at $1,000.
Through the work of the committee, in conjunction with consultations within the constituency, including community groups, fines for individual small operators were raised to $5,000 and fines for corporations were raised to $25,000.
It is hoped this will discourage airlines which continue and seek to abuse our regulations. It is important to major airports of this country, as it is to airports around the world, for us to strike a balance. We cannot simply close our eyes or plug our ears in the name of advancing the question of air travel in our country or the question of expanding airports or the question of the jobs that come from airports. The fact is airports are here to stay.
Air travel is increasingly becoming popular with more Canadians from coast to coast to coast. That is well understood by communities around the airports and communities not close to the airports. There needs to be a balance to the other aspirations that are also equally important: the families, businesses and residential communities that are located and operate adjacent to international airports.
It is simply unfair for us to respond to those individuals by saying: "If you do not like it and if it is too noisy, just move". That is a glib answer which solves nothing for anyone.
We have to ensure when we plan for our transportation infrastructures, including airports, that those communities have every right to be viable communities like the rest across the country and that those families have every right to enjoy their local parts without being drowned by the constant flights in metro Toronto eveiy 30 seconds. These people have every right to enjoy the aesthetics that are part of our neighbourhoods.
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Let us face it, at the end of the working day as the pace of life quickens and as the pace of life becomes more hectic, going home is a moment that people relish. Our homes are our castles. Our homes, on average, are the biggest investments that Canadians will ever make during their working lives. It is more than simply a place to stay; it becomes an escape. It becomes an opportunity for one to go home with one's family, with one's children and relax and enjoy and be prepared and get ready to face the world the next morning. Therefore, we need to be cognizant of and sensitive to those very real and needed aspirations.
When we talk about communities in metropolitan Toronto, we are not only talking about a few small neighbourhoods. The member for Broadview-Greenwood will be seeking the floor in a few moments and is going to tell of his riding which is far east of the airport, but from which complaints are coming that the aircraft are coming in regularly along the Don Valley and causing problems there.
There are problems in the south end of my riding in North York. There are problems in Mississauga. There are problems in Etobicoke. There are problems in Brampton. Pearson International Airport is the flagship airport of our country and is a major player internationally and therefore, quite properly, attracts major clientele from around the globe.
We are not talking about an isolated pocket. We are not talking about being parochial. We are talking about a real live phenomenon which has frustrated many individuals in and around Pearson International Airport.
I believe that when we talk about expansion, when we talk about privatization and when we talk about runways, we also need to talk about and be cognizant of the situation that those neighbourhoods will have to put up with. That is the cost of increasing air travel in and out of Pearson airport.
The airport noise situation and the whole question of the increased fines toward airlines that break those regulations are the centrepieces of Bill C-5.
The minister mentioned that there are a number of applications, for instance, better clarifying the zoning procedures in and around airports for the purpose of the aeronautics bill. It is going to be interesting to see what we do with the new hotel at terminal 3 at Pearson, which is four-stories too tall for the safety of airport travel.

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It was also suggested giving the minister, in terms of reacting to calamities that unfortunately befall us from time to time, a quicker response. Rather than waiting for the regulatory process to kick in, a minister on a two-year basis can issue an intermediate response. This is good because I think in times of emergencies and in times of tragedies it is reassuring for a public, a government or a minister to be able to have the tools and the wherewithal to react quickly and succinctly to not only rid ourselves of that problem in the future, but to re-establish confidence and safety among the travelling public.
The question of increased fines is but one factor in a multiplicity of factors that contribute to a complex equation in terms of noise abatement. I appreciate that the minister is here in the House. I put a number of different measures forward at report stage and during committee, amendments that were thought to be outside of the purview of the bill, but I wish to put them back on the agenda as we speak today.
I do not think we should simply forget about these ideas because I do not think we have licked the noise problems with just this one piece of legislation, notwithstanding the fact that it is an improvement in terms of the fines.
One amendment I put forward is a noise insulation program that has worked very well and very effectively in the Denver community. The problem there was becoming quite acute. The situation there was very similar to that of the residents in Mississauga and in my riding where the houses, doors and windows would rattle when aircraft were flying low.
The Denver airport, in conjunction with government officials, basically applied state of the art technology in terms of insulation against the rattling and also abating the noise penetrating these homes and buildings. It has established an insulation program which is an incentive for the local communities to take advantage of.
I read an article in terms of the success the Denver- Stapleton International Airport had. It allows for funding from the government of upward of $7,500. There is a meeting half way between government and community
in terms of increasing and adapting technological insulation programs in keeping with the challenges.
In this country in the past we have had incentives in insulation programs. I would suggest that it would not be too far fetched, particularly for communities abutting the major international airports, to take a look at the experiment in Denver and see if we can adapt it. If we could, it would be a win situation. It would be a win for the government which is bombarded constantly with noise problems from communities that have nowhere else to turn.
It would be a win situation for the resident who would be assisted in purchasing that new insulation because the government would come in with some financial assistance. It would also be a win situation for employment and some activity, particularly in the trade sector in and around airports like metropolitan Toronto. We could get some of these contractors working again.
It is a situation which we simply should not just read about in a magazine and forget about. If it works in Denver, and it has had some success and there is going to be some financial commitment, I think there would be rewards for the government in terms of the work related activity and noise reduction. I think the government should seek to take advantage of the situation.
It is a program I recommend to the government to at least consider and study to see if it is something we might be able to adapt to our situation. If the Americans can make it work in Denver then I think Canadians can make it work in Toronto, Vancouver or Montreal.
I also had an amendment at report stage. I thought it would be good to have in our books on a mandatory basis the situation that would preclude an airline from thinking that it can simply run roughshod over our noise regulations and simply charge it as a price of doing business. For some major airlines or individuals perhaps $25,000 or $10,000 is a huge sum, and I do not want to belittle that.
For major international corporations, American or others, travelling around the clock to every comer of the world, perhaps it is not as big a bottom line as it is for individuals. Therefore there have been occasions, according to answers provided to us in committee by officials of the Department of Transport, in which

airlines have taken the attitude of simply ignoring the fees or charges that would be levied against them for that violation and would simply charge it up as part of doing business, assuming they have a full load and are making a good profit which means they will simply take it off the top.
I was suggesting that if an airline committed three violations against our noise standards and regulations, it would trigger a loss of its travelling document, its right to operate in and around our Canadian airports.
I think that would provide some teeth and a signal to send to aircraft carriers, particularly to foreign carriers which are the bulk of them, as we were told at committee. It would show that we are not taking things lightly when talking about the important balance between airports and communities around those airports. Some of these carriers operate in countries where there are no environmental or noise standards, and we ought to have them respect the decisions that we have taken for our own citizenry and respect them in a way that we will not be having a flagrant systematic abuse of our laws.
The minister right now, without Bill C-5, can obviously remove one's document after the first violation. The minister made mention of that. There is a great difference between an option and a mandatory reaction to an action. I was hoping that the minister and the government might see fit, in order to strengthen the teeth that we have in order to get these foreign air carriers to comply with our standards, to make it mandatory. I am hoping that the minister and government are serious that if there are airlines that make it a practice to break our laws, we will be tough with them. The reality is that very few of the airlines that been fined have paid for those fines. The people who pay for that in the end are Canadians who live around those airports and have to put up with a lot of noise and air pollution which they feel is absolutely unfair.
Another issue that I put forward comes from consulting with communities in Brampton, Etobicoke, Mississauga and North York, for which I give them credit, and that is to use the moneys or part of the moneys that we will be getting from these fines and channel them back into the local communities in order to come up with better noise abatement procedures or to basically reinvest them in the fight against airport noise.
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It was very similar to the efforts of our colleagues on this side of the House in terms of the many petitions that we are gathering, myself included, and in terms of the confiscation of drugs. Not all those moneys go back to general revenues in Ottawa where you never see them again, but they somehow find themselves rechannelled back to the local police and the local organizations responsible for the real fight against drugs.
Taking a page from that book, we are advocating that if we are going to increase the fines levied against the airlines, and if we are serious about having those airlines pay those fines, it would be a novel idea to somehow, with proper accountability, use some of those moneys that have come from noise violators to advance the cause for a better system at the airport to monitor and to fight those noise violations.
I thought it was a novel idea. I thought it showed good faith on behalf of the communities, and I thought it would have showed good faith on the part of the government to say: "Those moneys are not going to go in some black hole, but because of the fact that they have been raised through noise violations, we will be pumping those moneys, or part of those moneys, back to the problem so that hopefully with the passage of time the situation will be ameliorated rather than aggravated".
A further point that we advanced in terms of an amendment was one that we also had recommended as part of a metropolitan Toronto Liberal caucus task force several years back, two years to be precise. The Liberal members of Parliament from metropolitan Toronto and area came up with what I thought was a very articulate and creative set of recommendations for the government in terms of combating and managing the problem of not only airport expansion but airport noise. One of the central recommendations that we put forward was the creation of an airport ombudsman, for lack of a better title.
The frustration we have right now is that when there is a noise violation and when a constituent or an individual homeowner wishes to complain, they usually pick up the telephone and one of two things happens. Either the line on the other end is busy or they get to talk to a tape recorder or an answering machine. That obviously causes a great deal of frustration because once again the complaint goes nowhere, the frustration and anxiety of a community increase, the confrontation therefore be-

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tween that community and the airport or the airport manager is heightened and you have a situation that obviously spells some doom and gloom.
What we are talking about is the management of the problem, managing the reality of the noise complaints that invariably will come with the likes of an operation with the capacity of Pearson International Airport.
What we are talking about is being realistic. We did not wish to create titles for the sake of creating titles or spend money for the sake of spending money. What we wanted to do was improve the system. We wanted to improve the response. We wanted to let people know that somehow there was someone on the other end of the system cognizant of that frustration who could react to it. We wanted to systematically put something in place that would respond to it generically, rather than a tape recorder taking the distraught message at two o'clock in the morning that the windows were shattering because some airplane from Jamaica was coming in once again at Pearson International Airport.
If you are talking into a machine what is going to preclude another airliner, the next morning at two o'clock, from doing the same thing?
You have a situation in which there is a sense of helplessness out there. It is not only in this problem. It is basically rampant across the country in terms of that one citizen saying "What can we do in face of the system? Why should I vote? Does it make any difference?"
This ombudsman position would be symbolizing that the complaints are important because they will be monitored and become part of something or a pattern that we need to analyse and dissect in order to make life a little easier for those surrounding communities.
We talked about that in a task force report two years ago and I reintroduced the amendment at committee stage. It was ruled out of order in terms of being outside the purview of the bill, but once again I appeal to the minister and to the government benches not to lose sight of that role. It would not only help the people living around the airport but it would improve the administration and the headaches that the airport manager at Pearson International Airport has to deal with each and every day.
The other fact of life is the whole question of curfews. In a letter to me dated October 25 the Minister of State for Transport responded to my letter which I had raised on behalf of constituents in York West in terms of the noise problem. She said: "I must stress that there are no curfew hours at Pearson airport. However, large air carrier jet operations are restricted between midnight and seven in the morning".
There is a debate on whether curfews should be mandatory at an airport like Pearson. I fall on the side that they should. The line is that certain kinds of aircraft generation, the more modem ones, are more silent or quieter than the large DC-8 stretches. They are.
An average homeowner living around an airport has not seen an airplane yet that does not make a lot of noise. That is a fact of life. Because of the different generations of planes some are permitted to land between midnight and seven o'clock in the morning. Therefore it causes problems on a practical basis.
Individuals are awakened in the middle of the night on a regular basis by aircraft for one reason or another coming in at all the wee hours of the night. If we put ourselves in the shoes of those homeowners who need to get up at six in the morning to go and make an honest living, it would not be too much of a pleasure to get up at two, three, or four o'clock in the morning because of a number of aircraft coming in.
I ask the minister once again to take a hard look at the whole question of night curfews.
Canadians living around the airport understand situations such as an emergency landing, an extraordinary situation in which a plane is unable to take off from point a or needs to land in point b, or a situation involving the Red Cross. What they do not understand are situations which sometimes become more than the exception. To some of them aircraft travelling at all hours of the morning looks like the rule more than the exception.
I stress that we need to re-examine the whole question of curfews and whether they ought to be more strictly applied. I believe that the evidence points toward a much stricter enforcement of a curfew at the major international airports.
December 6, 1991

Another method of trying to manage the noise is the fair alternation, particularly at Pearson International Airport, of planes landing and taking off at the various runways. If I could take a moment to simply localize the problem, it is one that is particularly felt in the south end of my riding.
Whenever planes use runway 24L-06R as opposed to 24R-06L it means that the aircraft only fly over the Humberlea community, which is the whole south end of my riding. Those residents have not been asking for the elimination of 24L, the elimination of planes landing there when wind conditions are such that they have no other alternative, or the elimination of emergency landings on 24L. They are asking for a more or less equal alternation between 24L and 24R so that we are sharing the burden of the noise, rather than simply localizing it over one area.
There is no secret why a lot of aircraft use 24L. It happens to be the runway that is closest to the terminal. I know that aircraft wish to reduce their fuel consumption by taxiing for two minutes rather than 15 minutes. I understand that aircraft want to provide maximum convenience to their passengers by getting them into the terminal in under five minutes rather than taxiing for 15 minutes.
What the airport, the department and the airlines also have to understand is that if we are always going to land predominantly over one runway it means that one section of the entire affected area has the problem. That is unfair.
It is like taxes. Why is there a tax revolt? It is in part because taxes are a bit too high, they are up to here and we are living to pay government. However, there is also a feeling that some people are not pulling their weight and that some are pulling more than others. We are all prepared to pay our fair share, but when someone or some group does not that is when you get a revolt. Some of the shoulders of the working middle class are feeling inordinately heavier at this time.
It is the same in this situation. Why should the community of Humberlea in North York be saddled with most of the problem when we can to try share the problem of airport noise?
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I have written the minister a number of times. I am pleased that she has responded, but the problem still exists. We need the minister and the department to strictly enforce the requirement with air traffic controllers and airline captains that there be an alternation between our runways and that planes not necessarily get to the terminal by the quickest and cheapest way. That is only one side of the equation. The other side happens to be the people who are burdened with the by-product of that noise problem.
I wish to thank the community groups that have come forward and testified. I would particularly like to thank Mr. John Doherty of the Council of Concerned Citizens, the Etobicoke Federation of Residents and Ratepayers Association, and acknowledge the concern that also has been expressed by groups in Mississauga and Humberlea, Mr. Gilbert Parrotta from the Humberlea Community Association, as well as Jack Sweet and Ted Wray from the Oakdale Residents Association. They have been vigilant in the face of a parliamentary secretary who dishonoured himself with a constant barrage of questions to these community groups, questioning their legitimacy or credibility, as did some officials of the department.
There was an article in The Mississauga News on October 16 in which the Director of Communications for Pearson International Airport, Mr. David Austin, basically inferred that it is: "Only a small clique of people who have problems with respect to noise", inferring that the majority around the airport are happy.
I can say that both the parliamentary secretary, with his cavalier attitude, and Mr. Austin, with this kind of allegation, are dead wrong. These community organizations have no vested interest other than that of representing the views, on a voluntary basis, of their neighbours and their communities. They have come forward in good faith to represent those individuals and get a fair shake. That is all they ask; no special treatment, just a fair shake.
On the Liberal side we not only accepted their testimony but asked them to testify. For a parliamentary secretary to question the credibility of community organizations at every turn does not do justice to a govern-

December 6, 1991
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ment that says that it wishes to consult the public about all issues and decisions it has to take.
In summing up, I would like to say that Bill C-5, concerning the fines levied against airlines for noise violations, is good. However, that is only one aspect of a much wider battle we must wage in the war against airport noise for the benefit of Canadians who happen to have their castles in the communities that make up the hinterland of an airport.
We also need to take time when discussing airport expansion, management and transportation to be cognizant of those taxpayers. They are being fair and are being responsible. They are not asking for the demise of air travel. They are not asking for Pearson to close. They are simply asking us where we can, in whatever way we can, to balance the needs of a very complex society between the users of the airports and the residents who happen to live them.
I do not think that it is not an unfair request nor does it mean that it is impossible to come up with a solution. I think we are talking about the elements of a solution. It behoves Parliament and the government to look at them.


Iain Francis Angus: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak on third reading of Bill C-5, an act to amend the Aeronautics Act and to amend an act to amend the Aeronautics Act.
I do so as a member of the Standing Committee on Transport which had the responsibility to review this legislation. At the outset I would like to echo the comments of the Minister of State for Transport and compliment my colleagues from all parties on that committee. I think we proved once again that Parliament and the parliamentary system can work.
The government brought forward a piece of legislation that was good to begin with. It had some flaws. We were able to correct one of those flaws by agreement of members of the committee. A clause that would have reduced the amount of notice for objections was returned to the original time period of 60 days to deal with the realities of northern Canada for the benefit of aviation operators up there who needed the extra time to find out what changes the government was making.
As has been pointed out, we also increased the level of fines for corporations that violate, among other things, noise pollution guidelines. We attempted to reduce the
fine to the individual because so often the individual is really just following company policy. If it is a pilot who is being told to ensure on-time delivery or being told by the company: "We do not care what the rules are, you have to land after a certain time or land more quickly" we did not feel that the level of punishment was appropriate. However, the government rejected that change. It did agree to increase the fine to $25,000.
The one change that really proves that this place can work is the one in which we, by unanimous consent, agreed to consider an amendment that was beyond the scope of the bill but was wanted by all parties, the government, and certainly by airline employees. That is a decision to give the government the right to regulate the hours of work of flight attendants. Currently the government has the right to regulate the hours of work of the front-end crew-the pilots, the engineers, the people who drive the plane-and it does that. It has prescribed a maximum work day of 15 hours.
Unfortunately flight attendants are not currently regulated. As we have found out, the flight attendants' prime responsibility is not the serving of food and drinks but ensuring our safety during take off and landing, both in terms of the in-cabin requirements of baggage stowage so that we have proper egress in the event of an emergency and making sure that we are wearing our seat belts, but also during an emergency landing and evacuation when it is their job to get us out of that plane safely.
I want to put on the record two examples that show why regulation is needed and why we cannot leave it to the collective agreement process to decide on these matters.
The first is the case of Nationair 10. On December 3, 1990 Nationair flight 680 left Mirabel at 0900 hours. It arrived at Fort Lauderdale at 1230. This aircraft and its crew were scheduled to begin the return flight to Mirabel at 1430 and finally arrived at Mirabel at approximately 1730 on the same day. This would have meant a total duty day of about 9.5 hours.
The return flight was boarded in Fort Lauderdale at 1400 hours. The captain then announced a 45-minute delay because extra meals had to be brought aboard as there were more passengers than expected. It was not long before passengers noticed mechanics working on one of the engines. This began a series of events that led to the flight attendants determining that they were too fatigued to handle safety situations properly. This was

partially due to the extreme agitation and stress symptoms being exhibited by the passengers as well as by their own physical state and exhaustion. It was aggravated by the pilot's own lack of understanding of the situation and his state of mind, probably brought on by his extremely long duty day.
The crew had spent the entire day on duty dealing with concerned and agitated passengers. The passengers were boarded and deplaned three times in total and they were kept for most of the time on board an aircraft that had no air conditioning. They were also not informed of the real reasons for the delay.
As a result, the passengers were extremely agitated on a number of occasions. Some became so overwrought that they were literally screaming to be let off. Some, in their eagerness to get off, left without their luggage. Others waited on the jet way, smoking. By the time the captain ordered the crew to shut the doors and leave behind any passengers not aboard the aircraft this particular pilot had already been on duty for at least 16.5 hours. He had a further three to four hours ahead of him. He was in a very stressed condition. Some flight attendants were so concerned about his ability to make decisions that this became a major reason for their refusal to operate the flight.
It subsequently was revealed that the flight was not mechanically fit to leave in any event. The mechanical problem was serious enough that specialized help was needed and the engine could not be fixed until the next day. The departure would have also violated security regulations specifying that luggage had to match the passengers on board. A number of passengers had already left the airport and the pilot wanted to leave others standing on the jet way while their luggage was still on board.
After exercising their right to refuse when they were ordered by their pilot to work a total of 18.5 hours, and possibly more, in a single continuous duty period, the 10 flight attendants were fired. Nationair is now suing each of them for the amount of money it claimed to have lost because of their refusal to work, over $120,000 each.
That is one example of the realities of the industry that demonstrates why it cannot be left to the collective agreement process to provide protection, not just for the
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workers but for all who travel, whether it is on Nationair, Air Canada, Canadian or what have you.
The second example I want to read into the record is dated January 1990. It is a letter addressed to the Canadian Union of Public Employees and the Ministry of Transport, as well as to another individual.
To Whom It May Concern:
I am writing to you with safety concerns of a flight I operated earlier this month.
On January 8, I was scheduled to work Vancouver to Honolulu, check in was 8.15 a.m. At approximately 2030 on January 7,1 received a call from Crew Scheduling informing me that I would now be deadheading to Winnipeg, working Winnipeg to Vancouver, then Vancouver to Honolulu, and that the flight was departing at 3.15 a.m. January 8. Briefing at 2.15, less than six hours notice. By the time I packed and made two phone calls it was 2130.1 fell asleep sometime after 2230, and had to wake at 1 a.m. The Winnipeg flight was two hours and twenty minutes of which I dozed for, at the most one and a half hours.
When landing in Vancouver, and finding out that the company had no intention of replacing us, my thought was that I would not make it. We took off from Vancouver at 11 a.m. I almost fell asleep in my jumpseat. Three hours into the flight, I felt like I was in a dream, everything was in slow motion. If there had been a fire, or a medical emergency, I really don't know how fast I could have reacted. By the time we landed in Honolulu, I had at the most 4 hours sleep in 32 hours. I thought to myself: "Please get us down safely". It was all I could do to stay awake.
It is frightening to experience feeling totally useless when you know that a lot of lives could depend on you. What is even more frightening is knowing that the front end crew were also in the same situation. After the flight I asked them how much sleep they had, the flight engineer said 2 hours.
I feel we were lucky this time, but when will our luck run out? At what cost are we placing our passengers' lives? I'm sure you will recognize this situation as a potential safety hazard and do everything you can to prevent it from happening again.
The transport committee and this House has acted. I say thanks on behalf of all of those men and women who look after our safety in the skies and on the ground for the work that they do in protecting us. I say thanks to the House of Commons, the minister, her staff, the department and the Official Opposition for accepting my motion to give the government the power to regulate hours of work of flight attendants. It is in our own best interests.
I have one final comment. The next step in this after the other place considers this bill is the drafting of regulations. I know that will be a matter of negotiations

December 6, 1991
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between the Air Transport Association, Canadian Union of Public Employees and the Government of Canada.
I would urge the other place to give speedy passage to Bill C-5.1 would urge the minister and her staff to give speedy consideration to the negotiation of the hours of work of the flight attendants because it is in all of our interests that that law be put in place as quickly as possible and the regulations that implement it be drafted and gazetted. We know that will take some time but the sooner we get at it the better it will be because we do not want this question at the bargaining table. I have already been told that Air Canada is planning on trying to negotiate a longer length of day at the next round in September.
The clock is ticking. I urge the government to act very quickly.
Once again I say thanks. It has really been a good day for Parliament and an even better day for airline employees.


Dennis Joseph Mills: Mr. Speaker, I want to assure the House leaders that I will be very brief. I will try and make this less than two minutes because I respect the fact that we are trying to get this bill through the House of Commons by 1 p.m.
I do want to support everything that the Minister of Transport has said today as well as my colleague for York South-Weston and the member from the New Democratic Party. But I must put on the record that the problems with noise abatement are not just with our major airports in this country.
In my particular riding the problem that we are having now is that planes are coming to the Island Airport and they are using the Don Valley Parkway which is a body of land almost right through the centre of our city. Many residents are complaining that there is a lot of attention given to the noise problems at Lester B. Pearson while the problems in terms of noise and hours of work at some of the smaller airports are being forgotten. I would appeal to the minister who has put this bill through the House so efficiently to not forget the smaller airports such as the Toronto Island Airport where we are getting an overabundance of planes early in the morning and late at night. As you know, that artery goes right through the centre of a heavily populated urban area. So I am going to be happy to report to my citizens' group this weekend that thanks to the efficiency of this House the
bill went through in one day, a couple of hours. That should make a lot of people veiy happy.


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


Some hon. members:: Question.


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


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


An hon. member:: On division.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the third time and passed.

[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Loiselle that Bill C-4, an act to revise and amend the law governing federal trust and loan companies and to provide for related and consequential matters, be read the third time and passed.

[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Loiselle that Bill C-19, an act respecting banks and banking, be read the third time and passed.

[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Loiselle that Bill C-28, an act respecting insurance companies and fraternal benefit societies, be read the third time and passed.

[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Loiselle that Bill C-34, an act to revise and amend the law governing co-operative credit associations and to provide for related and consequential matters, be read the third time and passed.
December 6, 1991
Philip Edmonston: It is with great pleasure once again that I return to the four bills which are before us. The bills of course are C-4, C-19, C-28 and C-34. They are bills which relate to the regulations and rules which will redefine the powers and ownership structures of Canadian financial institutions.
We are looking at some major legislation here which had a beginning back in 1985 through the report of the McDougall green paper, in 1986 with the Hockin blue paper, the draft trust bill which was in December of 1987 and furthermore the Canadian Senate report of 1992 which was titled Towards a National Market and Finance Services.
Previously I had said that this is a bill where we put our best minds together, supposedly where we worked on the studying of 2,428 clauses relating to these four bills and where we had a great deal of potential to actually create a major improvement in the way we regulate financial institutions.


An hon. member:: We did.


Philip Edmonston: I hear already from the other side from the hon. member for Mississauga East, I believe, that we did. I disagree. I think we did not. I think we had a great chance to show average Canadians that we were on their side. Unfortunately we came up with mediocre legislation. As a matter of fact I was referring to how my colleague, the member for Nickel Belt, had referred to the member for Mississauga. The member for Mississauga had been the chairman of the committee. He was dressed-I am speaking rhetorically-in his wizard's costume with his wizard's hat. He churned the cauldron in order to make this brew for financial regulations. He said that we could not put anything more into it and that these changes would not be allowed. "We do not want to have pro-Canadian consumer type legislation".
I am sure my hon. colleague will say: "Now wait a minute, Phil, it is a question of who you consider to be consumers. Trust companies and banks and such institutions are consumers and we have to look out for their interests as well." To a certain extent I would say that is true but I believe that the interests we are looking out
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for mainly are not the consumers' interests but in a very large sense-larger than necessary-they are the interests of the large corporations.
It seems that the elephant has given birth to a mouse and the mouse is a very mediocre one at that. I do want to say some positive things though about the bill because there are some things that are good in it.
We welcome Bill C-34 which is an act to revise and amend the law governing co-operative credit associations. Coming from Quebec it would be unthinkable to be against a bill which would improve the situation of our caisses populaires for example.

I was quite surprised and pleased that a few of my colleagues pointed out that the caisses populaires are not limited to Quebec. The caisses populaires movement and Mr. Rouleau's group also exist in all the other provinces.


An hon. member:: There are also the Caisses Populaires Desjardins.


Philip Edmonston: Yes, I know. But for the caisses populaires in general, I understand that 1,400 branches hold assets of nearly $44 billion. Moreover, the caisses populaires are the largest employer in Quebec.
It is for that reason I congratulate the government on its efforts to regulate the caisses populaires so as to better harmonize their activities, and make them more deeply rooted in the community.
We support the clauses of the bill that deal with consumer protection and the way that the review committee or the protection committee, which is called the audit committee, was set up. It is good that some regulations stipulate that the majority of the members of these committees must not be affiliated with the company's directors.
We are especially pleased to see that the members of this review committee or shareholders interest protection committee are independent individuals, because that is extremely important. Madam Speaker, I do not know if you ever attended a board of directors meeting as a shareholder and were not overly pleased with the information that you got from so-called independent individuals, from people who could have informed you

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on the financial condition of your organization-maybe it is a caisse populaire, I do not know-because the people who provided you with the information and the organization itself were not independent or open enough.
I believe that we have really taken a step forward with this bill in that the people who will inform us of the true condition of these financial institutions must have a certain independence.
There are some good things in these four bills that deal with financial institutions, but there are also certain flaws. My political party and I, as a member of Parliament, are not at all pleased that this reform plan contained in the four bills fails to deal with the harmonization of our domestic markets and our regulatory authorities, which are fragmented.
I think that because of deregulation, we are seeing a kind of wheeling and dealing between jurisdictions. Madam Speaker, I know you are aware of the differences between the way federal and provincial jurisdictions approach financial institutions. Sometimes the companies end up totally confused. Federal regulations are so strict that these companies do not know what to do, and sometimes they practically have to seek the protection of various provincial jurisdictions. For instance, in Quebec the regulations for insurance companies are not the same as the federal regulations.
This is not to say that one is better than the other, but there are differences. There is no harmonization, and it is because of this lack of harmonization that insurance companies or other companies may face a lot of problems. I find that intolerable, especially considering the increased emphasis on sensible consultation. It is quite simple, really. We just put our heads together and say: Well, how can we accommodate the companies? Can we accommodate the wishes and the needs of the general public and at the same time protect the public?
I think we can, but in this bill-actually we are talking about four different bills-we have failed to harmonize what should have been harmonized. I think we could have done better. For instance, in addition to the bills that have already been introduced, this government could have introduced a bill that would allow banks to sell insurance. This is no big deal! In Quebec, they have been doing it for ages at the Caisses Populaires Desjardins. They sell insurance.
As a former president of the Automobile Protection Association, I supported the Mouvement Desjardins in this respect because I thought it would make the industry more competitive in Quebec and, as a result, reduce the cost of insurance-yes, competitive-and also make all parties in the insurance industry more responsive to their customers.
That is exactly what happened. It didn't happen overnight, but for almost ten years, the Caisses Populaires Desjardins have been competing in the insurance industry because in Quebec, they are allowed to sell insurance contracts, including automobile insurance, to their customers. A number of my constituents in Chamb-ly wrote to tell me they felt prices were very competitive at the Caisses Populaires Desjardins, and they were also very satisfied with the service they received. Even when they compared the Caisses Populaires with insurance companies elsewhere, they felt it was very healthy to have the caisses populaires compete in the insurance sales field.
Interestingly the predecessor of these four bills was Bill C-93, which ended up being split into the bills now before the House: C-4, C-19, C-28 and C-34.
I may have given the wrong number for the bill, and the hon. member for Mississauga may be able to help me shortly. Originally there was a clause to allow banks to sell insurance, and I hope that my colleague will agree with me, because I read it. They had the right to sell insurance. But today, I do not know, maybe because of our sorcerer's apprentice with his sort of soup made in a cauldron, we do not have this clause to allow banks to sell insurance. I am disappointed, because people often say that is plain common sense. Even we in the NDP would like to see competition and we found it was an excellent suggestion from the federal government, from this government, to have a clause in this bill allowing banks to sell insurance, because the Caisses Populaires Desjardins have not abused their right to sell it. Service has improved as a result of this competition. But unfortunately somewhere, for some reason, I do not know, this government which advocates and wants to promote competition and to protect consumers has refused to allow banks to sell insurance to their customers.
December 6, 1991


An hon. member:: Fortunately.


Philip Edmonston: One of my Liberal colleagues says "fortunately". I think that it is unfortunate. If it works well in Quebec, it can also work well in other places. It is plain common sense, no more and no less.
We could have done better, as one of my colleagues already pointed out. We could have required credit card issuers to calculate interest differently, in the way that the hon. member for Mississauga suggested to us in his Bill C-236, I believe. This bill would have credit card issuers calculate interest only on the unpaid balance rather than on the whole amount borrowed. This means that if you owed $500 on a credit card and paid $250, the issuer could charge interest only on the unpaid $250.


An hon. member:: They wanted to do that!


Philip Edmonston: No, they did not want to do that. It is too pro-consumer, too revolutionary, if I may say so. It may have been too NDP for this government, I do not know. I would say that their approach does not make much sense, since most of our constituents are in favour of our proposal. I am sure that most hon. members agree that when the government proposed these four bills to protect us, to help us, to regulate financial institutions, it forgot to protect the people at the bottom. Is it an oversight? I prefer to say that it is. I am not talking about the banks and other financial institutions; I am talking about people like us who use credit cards.
Even if we pay $250 on a total of $500, we still have to pay interest on that $500 today. That is disgusting, unacceptable, anti-consumer, illogical and unfortunately, it is really sad to see a government omit or overlook such a thing.

I am disappointed by these four proposed bills. I compared rhetorically my hon. colleague, to the grand wizard putting into his cauldron, his soup, all these different resolutions, all these 2,400 and some clauses, supposedly harmonizing the system, which it does not. I believe it creates a more favourable atmosphere for the large corporations to merge. Rather than making the system work better, I think it is going to work less so.
The government could have done better. It could have done much more to protect both institutions as well as
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everyday Canadians. I am sad because I think the bill had great potential. We could have done so many things and we did not.
The government is always asking: "NDP, Edmonston, Audrey McLaughlin, give us some examples. What would you do?"
Initially I said I would lower interest rates. I would lower interest rates on credit cards. Take a look at the credit cards. The minister said he had. He did no such thing. Take a look at the prime. The prime has hit an 18 year low. It is low. What are credit cards at?
When the minister of consumer affairs is asked what he is going to do about the difference in credit card interest rates and the prime rate, which is over 10 percentage points, the minister says-now follow me because this is logic which I am not quite sure I understand; it is very short, I am just giving a resume here-"The costs associated with their use are varied and complex and consumers should consider other more favourable forms of credit".


An hon. member:: Like what?


Philip Edmonston: Is that not throwing in the towel? Is that not saying: "I am sorry, I am the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs but really I am the minister of corporate affairs". That is what he is saying. "I cannot help you. Go someplace else".
Finally what I am saying, Madam Speaker, is that the government could have done much more. It could have been much more evolutionary. I am not even asking it to be revolutionary. When we look at Bill C-4, Bill C-19, Bill C-28, and Bill C-34, unfortunately the government elephant laboured long and hard but it gave birth to a mouse and a mediocre one at that.


Mr. Mac Harb (Ottawa Centre):: Madam Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague from the riding of Malpeque on her hard work, along with other members of the committee from all sides of the House, as well as her work with the government side in order to make sure that this bill will become a reality.
For the record I would like to give her credit for her work, especially in the area of consumer protection, to ensure that there is a complaint mechanism put in as part of this bill. I would like to congratulate the government on adopting this proposal in their bill.

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As a result, we have a fairly good bill that, hopefully, the House will approve and send to the Senate as quickly as possible.
Having said that, Madam Speaker, I discussed with the hon. member her views on this proposal and asked her about some of the amendments she tried to introduce. She brought to my attention a fairly impressive amendment. I would like to say that I was somewhat surprised that the government would decide not to proceed with her proposal.
The amendment deals with the use of plain language when it comes to trust companies or banking industries putting out information to the consumers or to their customers. I understand that the government is resisting because it feels it might be a little late to adopt such a proposal.
I would like to suggest that perhaps while the bill is on its way to the Senate the government side could consult with the Senate and make sure that it adopts such a good, interesting and very well balanced proposal.
I would suggest that my colleague from Malpeque, Prince Edward Island does her research very well. Obviously she has looked at other places here in Canada as well as in North America before she made her proposal. She informed me that Alberta already has legislation on the books although there is still a bit of work to be done before it will become an effective law. Also she has informed me that in New York there has been legislation which allows the use of plain language and it seems to be working extremely well.
I am quite surprised that the government decided not to adopt such a proposal in light of the fact that more and more the Canadian public is aware of the need for plain language, whether we are talking about politicians communicating with their constituents or whether we are talking about regulations being put into place.
The reason why that use of plain language is extremely important is because, as you know, Madam Speaker, with an illiteracy rate of approximately 38 to 40 per cent, one could not help but say: "The least we can do, when we are trying to communicate with the people and make their life a little simpler, is provide them with information that is useful and that can be read easily".
Having said that, I would like to move on now to speak about banking and its relationship with consumers and the financial situation that we are faced with here in Canada. I cannot help but address the question of the over-all picture rather than focusing on the narrow end of what we have before us in terms of legislation.
The legislation is good. The proposal is excellent. We would like to see amendments made to it but if that is not feasible perhaps over the next few years we will be able to deal with those amendments in a little more effective way. However, we have to look at what we have before us in terms of the industry and its relation to consumers.
First I would like to say that we should be all very happy and optimistic about the fact that our banking industry is one of the best banking industries in North America, perhaps anywhere around the world. All of the credit should go both to regulators as well as to the industry itself. The industry has played a leadership role in weeding out any kind of potential difficulties. The regulators have been working in conjunction with the industry over the years trying to co-operatively come up with proposals that are not only satisfactory to the banking industry but also protect the interests of consumers.
What we have seen with the government proposal is another good example of the co-operative work that has taken place between both the private sector and the government sector in this field.
Looking at the banking situation or the financial situation I cannot help but look at the people who are using our banking industry over the past few months and indicate that there is a reason for us to stop and take note of the kind of difficulties that exist out in the community.
Going back just a little to November 20,1 would like to bring to your attention a statement made by Canada's chief financial services regulator who appeared to be a little pessimistic about the weak economy. In his speech Mr. Mackenzie, the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, told his audience that due to the situation in housing, real estate and retailing, "there is a deep pessimism going through the banking community that I work with".

I thought at the time it was a rather strange coincidence that if we have to paint a realistic picture of what is going on, if we have to build public confidence, if we have to move aggressively in controlling inflation and reducing interest rates and injecting more life into the economy, that a statement like this would be made.
I put my hand on a piece of information that was published by the Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. It deals with bankruptcies for the month of October 1991. During that month, you will be unhappy to learn, we had a total of 974 bankruptcies. That includes areas such as the manufacturing industry, construction, transportation, storage, communications and other utility industries, the wholesale trade industry, industries that deal with retail sales as well as business service industries, among others. In fact, there is in excess of about 20 different groups.
The annual bankruptcies to date are about 8,000, of which approximately 1,800 have taken place in the retail industries. There is in excess of 1,200 in the construction industry, about 700 in the manufacturing industry, 474 in the business service industry and so on.
I took those figures and I thought well, these seem to be the major areas where we have large numbers of companies going bankrupt. In particular, the bankruptcies are in the construction and manufacturing industries. I compared it to the statement which was made by Michael Mackenzie, the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, that there seemed to be a deep pessimism going through the banking community. I think he was referring to the fact that there are a large number of bankruptcies taking place in those industries that really deal with banking. As you know, Madam Speaker, when an industry manufactures wood or steel or whatever component that is to be used in the construction industry, the construction industry will build homes and the consumer will go out and buy those homes. As a result of that, he or she might go to a bank in order to borrow money.
So the wheel of the Canadian economy in a lot of ways is as good as the wheel of the construction industry as well as industry as a whole. So whenever there is a deficiency in the construction industry, you will know that is a bad indication and is a cause for alarm.
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As I mentioned, I looked at those figures and I went to a fairly recent report published by the Economic Council of Canada to look at the exports and export-dependent employment dynamic services here in Canada. I looked at the export share of total output in terms of the percentage.
To give an indication, when we look at areas such as rail, truck and other transportation and storage industries and combine the total in those areas in terms of employment, in excess of 60 per cent of all jobs are export related jobs.
If we look at bankruptcies in Canada, in the transportation industry as well as related industries, we find that out of about 8,000 industries about 600 have gone bankrupt.
Moving on to wholesale and trade, there is about 11.8 per cent export share of total output in terms of jobs in the export trade. The total number of industries in the retail sector that went under is about 1,800, that is out of about 8,000 bankruptcies so far in the industry.
By looking at those two components by themselves, one can see immediately that many of those companies which trade internationally are creating jobs locally. When those corporations are having difficulties and are going under, automatically the jobs that are provided by those companies are going to disappear.
All I wanted to do was give an idea of the fact that while there are a large number of jobs here in Canada that depend to a large extent on the amount of trade our industries are doing abroad, the better we equip those industries to do well abroad, the more protection we will have for the jobs here in Canada.
The bankruptcy figures show that a large number of corporations are going under and the other book which was published by the Economic Council of Canada, 1990, indicated the vast majority of those jobs actually deal with exports. We will automatically come to the conclusion that in order for us to deal with the socio-economic problem we presently have here in Canada, we have to improve the situation for those very same companies that are trading abroad.

December 6, 1991
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That brings me to the nasty subject of the high dollar value. I would suggest that we could spin our wheels for as long as we want, but unless we come up with a proper policy that deals with or balances the value of the Canadian dollar as well as the inflation in Canada, we are not going to be able in the short term to turn the wheel of the economy in such a way that we can move forward and address the question of high unemployment and the question of slow economic growth.
To that extent there is a direct correlation between economic renewal here in Canada and the reduction of the value of the dollar so we can allow those companies to compete internationally and protect those jobs.
In the city of Ottawa, for example, if we look at the figures from January to October 1990, we had approximately 1,230 bankruptcies.


An hon. member:: That is a shame.


Mac Harb: My colleague from Toronto says it is a shame. It is a shame. The picture gets even more bleak when it is compared to 1991. Here in our region we had in excess of 1,748 bankruptcies. That is an excess of 500 more bankruptcies than we had last year.
In the province of Ontario in the past 12 months, from November 1990 to October 1991, there were a total of 25,414 bankruptcies.
The picture in Ontario is no different from the picture all across Canada. For example, for the same period you will be disappointed to learn that over the past 12 months, from November of 1990 to October 1991, we had in Canada in excess of 64,052 bankruptcies. That is not a good picture.
I do not like to bring bad news always to the attention of the Canadian public or to the attention of my colleagues in the House of Commons, but I want to take this opportunity to say that while the federal government has a responsibility to address the value of the Canadian dollar and balance it with a controlled inflation rate, I want to turn a little bit to the province of Ontario. The government has done a disastrous job when it comes to dealing with a proper strategy for proper economic growth in the province of Ontario.
Last month, for example, Ontario business bankruptcies soared to a dismal 315 after a slight decline in September, and personal bankruptcies jumped to 2,782 from a 2,369 figure a month before. The total bankruptcies have increased by up to 17.4 per cent.
If you ask me why that is, I would say that there is only one simple reason: the NDP government of Ontario has deceived the people of Ontario on two fronts. Going into the election, it promised the world to the people of Ontario, with the hope that the people of Ontario believed it and saw in it an alternative at the time. Were they ever deceived. The government had a majority and as a result of that the business community had a lot of issues, a lot of bones to pick with the government.
The government as soon as it was elected had a look at the situation and said "We cannot deliver". That is fine if it came to the public and told the public that it cannot deliver on promises it made. As a result, the business community could move on with the realization that the NDP government of Ontario, which misled the electorate in the past election, cannot deliver on its promises. The business community could start investing in Ontario.
As it is now, it is a catch-22 for the business community. On the one hand, it is not too sure about what to expect from the province of Ontario and so it is not investing. On the other hand, on a daily basis we are seeing bankruptcy after bankruptcy taking place all across this province.
It is time for the government of Ontario to stand up and tell the people of Ontario that it is not going to be able to deliver on the promises made in the past election: "We fooled you".
The end result is that we could perhaps, as one of the largest provinces in this country and as one of the provinces that used to be one of the richest in this country, get on with our lives, both as the public and as the business community, and start investing in the economy.
I am saying all of this to demonstrate that by no means can we just blame the federal government for the lack of initiative when it comes to the high dollar policy.
I think a big part of the blame has to go to the largest province in Canada and that is the province of Ontario. I
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say the province of Ontario because historically the province of Ontario has been the engine of economic renewal in the country.
Madam Speaker, I notice you are giving me a signal that my time has ended. I would have loved to move on to cover other aspects of the discussion we are having today but I will give in and say thank you very much.


Mr. Steven W. Langdon (Essex-Windsor):: Madam Speaker, I just have a brief comment as somebody who from a disinterested point of view watched the last election in Ontario.
I have just heard some absolutely amazing statements made in this House with respect to that election. If there was any deception in that past Ontario election, it was the deception of a provincial Liberal government which came into that election claiming that there was a surplus in the financial accounts of the province of over $20 million. When the books were opened after the election, even the Liberal minister of finance, the Liberal treasurer of the time, had to admit that there was a massive deficit, not a surplus.


An hon. member:: Shame. Shame.
Mr. Langdon The total for the Liberal mismanagement of that period was $2.7 billion as of that year. As a result of the spending programs which had been put in place by that Liberal government, the deficit was going to come in at over $8 billion this year.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Steven W. Langdon: What happened instead was that the New Democratic Party government of the province did two things. First, it decided that it was important to put some spending controls into effect. There had not been a treasury board under the years of Conservative or Liberal rule in the province of Ontario.


An hon. member:: Shame.


Steven W. Langdon: There had not even been a board to control expenditures in the province. There had been no cap on expenditures of health care outside Canada. Hospitals in the United States from coast to coast used to rip off Ontario residents. The Ontario government put a cap on those expenses.
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Second, the Ontario government said: "We will not be able to do as much as we would like to do because of this massive mismanagement which the Liberal government had hidden. Instead we have established a program to help the economy back on its feet".
It is striking that as the unemployment rates have continued to go up in every other province they have decreased in the province of Ontario thanks to the excellent budget that was put into effect in that province.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I did allow the hon. member for Ottawa Centre to go slightly beyond what was being studied this afternoon. When the hon. member for Essex-Windsor rose and answered part of his speech, in all fairness I let him comment as well. It would useful to the Chair and to the House if the hon. member for Ottawa Centre would find a way to come back to Bill C-4.


Mac Harb: Madam Speaker, that is exactly what I was doing but I ran out of time.
I want to look at the bad situation in Ontario as a result of the provincial government and bring it into the main stream to show how it was part and parcel of the difficult economic situation we are facing in Canada.
Since the hon. member asked me the question, if it was so good in the province of Ontario why would it need someone in Ottawa to apologize for what it has done over the past year? You only have to look at the variety of promises made over the past two and a half years and examine their delivery of them.
I just have one more comment because he made a reference to the deficit. If you look at the-


Don Boudria: And tax on tombstones.


Mac Harb: My colleague from Glengarry-Prescott- Russell is mentioning the fact that the province of Ontario is imposing a tax on tombstones. That is another revenue generating mechanism.
My colleagues talk about the deficit of Ontario. When the government changed from a Liberal government to an NDP one there was a deficit of $750 million. Now there is a deficit in excess of-what is it now?


An hon. member:: Over $10 billion.

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Mac Harb: There is over a $10 billion deficit in Ontario. If you compare it to the national deficit it is perhaps higher than the national deficit per capita. However, to say the least, for my colleague from Windsor to be an apologist for the mistakes and errors of the provincial government-we will leave that for another day.


Mr. Whittaker:: On a point of order, Madam Speaker, if the member is finished his tirade, I am just going to point out that this has nothing to do with the financial bills and I would like to get on with the debate.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: Get after Langdon the next time.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: The hon. member may have heard the Speaker asking the same thing because at one point I really thought we had moved the House of Commons to Queen's Park.


Mr. Jim Peterson (Willowdale):: Madam Speaker, I can understand why the hon. member from Windsor felt it was necessary to come to the defence of his leader in the province of Ontario. He did not do a very good job but he did the best that he could with the subject.
The bill before us is probably one of the most complicated bills with which this Parliament has ever had to deal. It is a long awaited overhaul of Canada's major financial institutions.
I know of no subject which is more complex in terms of the details involved. This is because of the evolving nature of our financial industries.
In the good old days, perhaps a decade ago, there were the so-called four pillars: banks, trust and loan companies, insurance companies and security dealers. Everybody knew what those institutions did more or less. They worked in discrete, isolated areas and they were not competitors. Each sector had a partial or sometimes a complete monopoly in its own field.
Over the last decade or so, the barriers between our four major types of financial institutions have been broken down. They have merged into each other's businesses. The law we see today is a recognition of the breakdown of those four pillars. The point is not whether we want to go back a decade to the way things were when it was more simple because we cannot go back, the barriers have been broken.
The bill we see before us does not eradicate all of the walls. Some of the four pillars are still maintained. Not
all of the financial institutions can go into the business of all of the other financial institutions. That is why there is so much complexity in this law and why it is so difficult for us, as members of Parliament, to say: "My goodness, we have done the perfect job".
We have to be humble in what we have been able to achieve because when these barriers are breaking down there are always going to be some institutions claiming that we were not fair to them, that they were not able to get into certain areas that others can, that they do not have the competitive advantages that other institutions have.
Having approached this bill with a certain degree of humility, because of the difficulty of bringing the law up to date with the economic realities of the 1990s, let us also congratulate the members of the committee who worked so hard to make these bills possible. I want to go on record to congratulate our member for Malpeque who has taken a very hard working and constructive role in this entire debate.
There are three main aims of this new legislation. One is to provide better services to the borrowers and depositors in these institutions, to owners. Second is to ensure the safety and soundness of these financial institutions. The third objective is to ensure that in the global view our institutions can be competitive both domestically and internationally.
Let us look at the first of these objectives, better service. In the time available I cannot go into all aspects of this objective, but I want to touch on a couple of them. Does this bill deal with the interest rates that can be charged to users of credit cards? Today in Canada the prime rate is 8 per cent, the lowest it has been in 18 years. Thank goodness it has come down. Thank goodness the government has brought it down, because it was this government that put the rate up so high in the first place.
Have the interest rates on credit cards come down? They are now in the range of 19 per cent and higher. This is an enormous spread and I have not heard enough evidence in this House to justify why these high rates must be paid by credit card users.
This bill does not deal with it and that is an obvious deficiency in this bill.

Another area in terms of better service to the public is addressed by a bill that was introduced by the member for Malpeque. She was able, with the co-operation of government and opposition members, to have it passed. If customers have a complaint they now have a statutory right to go to their financial institution and make that complaint, and if the financial institution does not respond they can then go to the superintendent. This is now written into the law. It is an empowerment of consumers to help ensure that they are treated fairly by these regulated institutions.
As for safety and soundness, I again want to commend the member for Malpeque who brought in Motion No. 47. This again was agreed to by all members of this House. It is an amendment to the bill at a very late stage which encourages employees to come forward and report on accounting procedures. It says they will not be penalized in any way if they go to the auditors and explain things which possibly management or the institution itself do not want the auditors to know.
This is important in ensuring the soundness of our financial institutions because we had testimony before us that, had the proper accounting procedures been used, we might not have had the Standard Trust disaster. We might have been able to avoid the problems that occurred in our two western banks.
The more that individuals can be encouraged to come forward and be forthright with the auditors, to put the auditors on notice, the more it will contribute to the soundness of our financial institutions, which exist not only to serve their owners but the public as a whole.
We cannot claim total success in terms of updating this legislation because there is still a certain anomaly which exists, and maybe this was inevitable. There are trust and loan companies in this country which are bigger than banks which in effect take deposits and make loans.
However, unlike banks they do not have to be widely held. Parliament in its wisdom said that banks must be widely held in order to avoid some of the conflicts of interest that may arise from time to time.
This was one of the very difficult issues for us to deal with because there are some very large trust and loan companies and they are being very well and soundly
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managed. However, they have sprung up under single ownership.
I am sure that the question we are going to have to come back to within a couple of years is whether, because banks must be widely held, with no one owning more than 10 per cent of the shares, the same requirement should be imposed on trust and loan companies. The bill did not deal with this particular aspect.
Another area which is probably beyond us as the Parliament of Canada, but which is highly regrettable, is the whole issue of regulation of our financial institutions. There are federal loan and trust companies, federal banks, and provincial loan and trust companies. There can be a federal loan and trust company doing business in the province of Ontario. The province of Ontario seeks to regulate under its own laws those trust and loan companies, and the Ontario laws may be totally or somewhat different from the federal laws in certain areas.
In addition to that, Ontario will regulate the federal loan or trust company's business, not only in the province of Ontario but right across Canada.
If we are going to have safety we also need efficiency of regulation. That means harmonization of our federal and provincial laws as they relate to our financial institutions. We are a country of 26 million people. If we want to be competitive does it make sense that we should have .11 different laws regulating these financial institutions? Surely, in the interest of efficiency and competitiveness, as Canadians we could find a way to regulate our major financial institutions at only one level. This is a goal that we as a Parliament and we as Canadians from coast to coast should be seeking to achieve.
The third goal of which I spoke is that of international competitiveness. Here we get into the issue of what foreign financial institutions should be able to do in Canada. What can they do? I have never been completely convinced that by opening up Canada to total competition from abroad for our financial institutions that we were helping strengthen our own financial institutions or that we were better equipping our financial institutions to compete here in Canada or in foreign jurisdictions.
When we changed the Bank Act in the early 1980s to increase the number of Schedule B, Schedule II or foreign banks coming into Canada from a very small

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number to something like 60 I remember wondering at that time what we were doing. Were we allowing these foreign banks to come into Canada to cream off some of the top accounts, the multinationals, the ones with connections outside this country that had lots of security outside Canada, and leaving the homeowners, the farmers, and the small businesses for the Canadian banks? I was quite worried about that.
When Parliament in its wisdom passed the law to allow the foreign banks to come in here we on the finance committee said at that time: "Let us be sure we monitor these foreign banks to make sure they are not just cherry picking, to make sure they are increasing the competitiveness and to make sure they are doing their fair share in terms of small business, farmers and homeowners".
I regret to say that type of monitoring has not been carried out. Therefore, I think one of the expectations, which was greater competitiveness with the benefits filtering down to the smaller borrowers, was denied to us.
Did this opening up of Canada to more competition from foreign banks give us greater access to other countries in the world? The main country we are concerned with is the United States. Did we, by opening up Canada to American banks get a greater right for Canadian banks to compete in the United States? As a result of the free trade deal which took down additional barriers, did we get the same type of rights in the United States that we gave Americans in Canada? No, the member for Burlington is absolutely wrong. We did not get reciprocal treatment for our banks in the United States to American banks in Canada. What we received was national treatment. National treatment is very different from reciprocity. Let me explain this.
By allowing American banks to come into Canada, they get access to nation-wide branch banking. They can set up their branch banks right across this country. Did Canada get that right in the United States? No.
Just recently a bill passed Congress that we had hoped would grant Canadian banks branch banking across the United States. We did not get it. So as for reciprocity American banks in Canada can have branch banks
nation-wide while Canadian banks in the United States cannot. That is lack of reciprocity number one.
Lack of reciprocity number two is that U.S. banks own securities dealers, a company like American Express. We can say it is not a bank but they own large securities dealers. Can Canadian banks go down to the United States and own a securities dealer? No. We have real problems with that.
The third area is that under this new legislation that we brought in we have American banks in Canada that own insurance and trust companies. Can Canadian banks going to the United States own savings and loan or insurance companies or trust companies down there? In other words with this bill the reciprocity gap that existed previous to this bill for Canadian financial institutions vis-a-vis American banks has been widened. How does this lead to enhanced competitiveness?
I am also disappointed that this bill did not deal with what I think is probably the greatest travesty in terms of the administration of our financial institutions and which I think is a blight on our reputation for being an even-handed and fair rule of law nation. With the granting to American Express of the AMEX Bank of Canada licence and breaching five out of the nine guidelines set by this government, Canada showed the world community that friends are granted rights and privileges not available to anyone else.
We have spoken a number of times about what went on and how the pressure came from American Express. Through its massive support of the government in the last election on free trade, American Express lobbied to open up the border for financial services. American Express did not want to qualify as a bank in the United States for U.S. purposes because had it qualified as a bank it would have had to get rid of its major securities company. It was not regulated as a bank in the United States.
It was probably because of the tremendous support given to the government by American Express that this government was prepared to breach five of its own nine guidelines to allow that bank licence to be issued. This is even after our diligent public servants in Canada had held the application up for about 27 months.

Does this bill do anything to deal with this type of issue? No. If American Express were to apply today they would still be in breach of five of the nine guidelines.
All I can say is thank goodness that this bill does not retroactively legitimize what was a terrible breach of trust toward the Canadian people by this government. It was a granting of benefits to friends. It was a benefit which it would not have given to anyone else. Thank goodness this bill does not legitimize retroactively that type of operation. Neither does it go far enough to deal with a government that may choose again in the future to be arbitrary and to favour its friends at the expense of all other people who apply in honesty and good faith and in the expectation that Canada is a country in which the rule of law applies and it will be applied equally and fairly to all applicants.
This bill cannot be considered to be the be all and the end all. There are many issues which have not been resolved. It has been a good human attempt to deal with what I think is one of the most intellectually complex areas in the world. This is because of the breakdown of the old four pillars and the melding of them and our attempt to achieve equity and balance among those four within Canada. We have attempted to deal with the new realities, at the same time ensuring that the needs of customers, borrowers and depositors will be met. At the same time, we have attempted to ensure the soundness and the safety of these institutions because more than anything else Canada's banking reputation must rest on a sound basis and sense of security. That is why we cannot have any more of the AMEX bank licences because that makes us look like a banana republic.
This bill does attempt to deal with the competitiveness issue both within Canada, among these four institutions competing against foreigners and outside Canada with the ability of these institutions to compete abroad.
My feeling is that where we have not made the best of this bill is in this competitiveness area. There are people in Canada who still feel-and I am one of them-that foreign financial institutions have greater privileges in Canada than we are getting in their countries. I will end immediately. We have seen only a decade ago that our banks were among the top in terms of assets on a global basis. We now are lucky to have one in the top fifty. We have a long way to go. Let us as a country take steps to
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ensure that our banks and financial institutions serve the purposes of which we have spoken.


Steven W. Langdon: Mr. Speaker, I am going to resist the temptation to respond to the previous member about the sins and inequities of his brother in power. It probably is not worth pursuing that subject further.
What I would like to do seriously is to congratulate the committee which worked on this legislation. I want to particularly congratulate the member for Nickel Belt who has been our representative through what has been an extremely difficult marathon slog of four pieces of complex legislation. Each piece had many different interested parties which wanted to have their say. It has been a difficult process for all members of that committee. I congratulate them.
Since he is in the House I want to say that the chairman who is the member for Mississauga South did an excellent job in this particular case. He was previously on the finance committee and now he is chair of the subcommittee or legislative committee, I forget which, that took on this bill in this session. He was better known as the terminator from GST days. We have however a set of bills in front of us which put into effect three important philosophies. We have first and perhaps most important a new philosophy which says that we will permit financial institutions in this country to be much more interconnected than has been the case previously. It will be possible for banks to own insurance companies and for insurance companies to own trust companies. There is an attempt to erect supposed walls in the actual operation of these institutions but, frankly, I am sceptical about whether those walls will be as soundproof and as hermetically sealed as the people who brought this legislation forward suggest. I think not. I think we are going to see much more in the way of conglomeration of our financial institutions.
The second piece of philosophy which marks these three bills is much more emphasis on self-policing in the regulation of these institutions. That too is something which the government has defended strongly but something which in my view carries with it considerable risks. There is a risk that the self-policing will not be done. We have seen in this country recently a series of unfortunate events with respect to both banks and trust companies. We have seen the collapse of two of our western banks.

Government Orders
We have seen the takeover and shut-down of the Bank of Credit and Commerce which was a foreign-owned bank which was implicated in a whole series of scandals and fraudulent activities in other parts of the world. We have seen the collapse of Standard Trust. We have seen the teetering on the brink which is taking place with Central Guaranty Trust which just announced this week that it is selling 25 of its branches because of financial pressures.
In the cases that we have been able to probe into in places like the finance committee we have discovered that there have been serious problems. We found in the case of the Bank of Credit and Commerce here in Canada for instance that the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation's rules were not followed in all cases in that foreign bank's operations here in Canada. We found in the case of a number of the trust companies which have been affected by financial pressures in recent years that loans had in fact been made which put into effect investments that could not be justified by the extent of the loan or the riskiness of the venture which was being supported.
In some cases we have been dealing with the collapse of the real estate market. That has been the case especially in Alberta and a major piece of the explanation of the bankruptcy of those two banks in that part of our country.'
That has not been the only problem. There has been a failure to recognize the need for strict financial security. Despite this experience and despite the experience of our cousins to the south, the United States, where the collapse of dozens and dozens of savings and loan enterprises has cost the American treasury and the American people close to $320 billion U.S., we still have a philosophy that says that we can let these financial institutions police themselves. I am sceptical and my party is sceptical.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Steven W. Langdon: There are actually people here listening.


An hon. member:: Very intently.


Steven W. Langdon: It is shocking for a Friday afternoon. The third point which has to be stressed-


An hon. member:: We just wanted to wake you up.


Steven W. Langdon: I put these points forward in all seriousness, despite some of the interplay which has taken place from side to side here.
There is also a commitment on the part of the government, in this case, to have ownership rules that will become progressively stricter as the institutions involved become larger.
I think in practice this is going to become extremely difficult to put into effect. We will find that as an institution grows it is not going to find it easy to suddenly reduce its ownership level from say 30 per cent down to 10 per cent and so the regulators will be asked to give exceptions and those exceptions will be extremely difficult to accept.
The likely results of this set of bills in front of us are first, a much more concentrated set of financial institutions in this country, much more concentration at the top of the financial system.
Second, we have failed to deal with the question of appropriate control of foreign banks like the Bank of Credit and Commerce which did not follow some of Canada's rules.
Third, we are going to see ourselves with institutions much more vulnerable, I believe, to collapse, as we have experienced in the case of banks and trust companies and as I believe we will experience more in the future.
Finally, I think we are going to see that with the emphasis on self-policing there will be too little supervision of these financial institutions. The financial institutions of any country are crucial, not just in the general economic progress of the country, but in the development, in taking us effectively into new areas of growth and new areas of change. That is why we need good financial institution legislation.
I am pleased with some of the advances in this legislation, but certainly my party and I are unhappy that there are areas such as those I have been mentioning that have not been tackled. This was the chance to meet the challenge of tackling those problems. What we have is compromised legislation in front of us which responds to the larger voices of those who represent our financial institutions instead of responding to the logic of economic development in our country.
December 6, 1991


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Is the House ready for the question?


Some hon. members:: Question.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Pursuant to order made Tuesday, November 26, the first question is on Bill C-4. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.


Some hon. members:: Yea.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: All those opposed will please say nay.


Some hon. members:: Nay.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: In my opinion the yeas have it.

And more than five members having risen:


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Pursuant to Standing Order 45(6), a recorded division on the question stands deferred until 6 p.m., Monday, December 9, 1991.

Pursuant to order made Tuesday, November 26, the next question is on Bill C-19. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.


Some hon. members:: Yea.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: All those opposed will please say nay.


Some hon. members:: Nay.
Government Orders


Madam Deputy Speaker:: In my opinion the yeas have it.
And more than five members having risen:


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Pursuant to Standing Order 45(6) a recorded division stands deferred until 6 p.m., Monday, December 9, 1991.

Pursuant to order made Tuesday, November 26, 1991, the next vote is on the third reading of Bill C-28.
Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: All those in favour will please say yea.


Some hon. members:: Yea.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: All those opposed will please say nay.


Some hon. members:: Nay.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: In my opinion the yeas have it.
And more than five members having risen:


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Pursuant to Standing Order 45(6), a recorded division on the question stands deferred until 6 p.m, Monday, December 9, 1991.

Pursuant to order made Tuesday, November 26, the next question is on Bill C-34. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the third time and passed.
Madam Deputy Speaker:: It being 3.20 p.m, the House will now proceed to the consideration of Private Members' Business as listed on today's Order Paper.



Private Members' Business



PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS


Jean-Robert Gauthier: that Bill S-6, an act to amend the act of incorporation of Metropolitan General Insurance Company in order to authorize its continuance under the laws of the province of Quebec, be read the second time and referred to Legislative Committee H.
He said: Madam Speaker, Metropolitan General Insurance Company was incorporated under chapter 51 of the Statutes of Canada of 1956, and it is governed by the Canadian and British Insurance Companies Act.
In April 1987, Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, a major mutual life insurance company whose Canadian head office is located right here in Ottawa, acquired Metropolitan General Insurance Company.
Metropolitan General Insurance Company is a direct underwriter of automobile and home insurance whose agents deal directly with customers without going through independent brokers. The premiums collected by that company all come from Quebec.
In 1990, the total value of the premiums collected by Metropolitan General Insurance Company was $12.2 million, and the company had 26,281 policies in effect.
Following net losses of over $5 million in 1989 and
1990,	the parent company of Metropolitan General Insurance Company announced in January 1991 that this subsidiary would cease operations at the end of March
1991,	unless it found a taker.
On June 4, 1991, the Commerce Group Insurance Company of Saint-Hyacinthe, in your riding, Madam Speaker, which is an insurance company incorporated under federal statutes and one of the two corporations in Commasur Inc., the leader in the field of fire and casualty insurance in Quebec, acquired Metropolitan General Insurance Company. After the takeover, and in order to strengthen the financial situation of Metropolitan General Insurance Company, the Commerce Group Insurance Company bought $9 million of capital stock in Metropolitan General Insurance Company, whose capital and surplus thereby more than tripled.
The Commerce Group Insurance Company does business exclusively through insurance brokers, while Belair Insurance Company, another member of the Commassur Inc. group, like Metropolitan General Insurance Company, deals directly with customers without the intervention of insurance brokers. Belair Insurance Company is incorporated under the Quebec Insurance Act.
Metropolitan General Insurance Company, a direct writer of insurance, wants to continue under the laws of Quebec in order to merge with Belair Insurance Company, also a direct writer of insurance.
The management of Metropolitan General Insurance Company believes that it can offer more competitive products and improve services to policyholders by merging with Belair Insurance Company, a company well-known and well respected among the insurance-buying public in Quebec. With its computer system and its distribution network of 35 sales offices, Belair Insurance Company will absorb an increase of its premium volume at low marginal cost. The synergistic effect of the merger should bring a positive contribution to the Commassur Inc. group's profitability over the next few years. As well, the acquisition of Metropolitan General Insurance Company by Commerce Group Insurance Company Inc. and its merger with Belair Insurance Company will ensure that more than 40 jobs, which would have been lost had the company discontinued operations, will be saved.
In order to be continued under the laws of Quebec, Metropolitan General Insurance Company must be authorized to do so under its basic legislation, and this can only be done through a private bill before the Parliament of Canada. At a special general meeting of shareholders held on November 5, 1991, the continuation of Metropolitan General Insurance Company under the laws of Quebec was unanimously approved.
The proposed transfer of jurisdiction of Metropolitan General Insurance Company is clearly beneficial to its shareholders, customers, and the general public.

In concluding, perhaps I may say that the Commerce Group Insurance Company is located in Saint-Hya-cinthe, in the riding of Saint-Hyacinthe-Bagot, and that I sponsored this bill at your request. I want to thank hon. members for their co-operation, because they agreed to a number of exceptional measures that would allow this bill to be adopted today.


Philip Edmonston: Madam Speaker, it is really with great pleasure that we are able to support this bill mainly because earlier today I had talked in this House on the subject of financial institutions and how there is a problem of harmonizing between the federal and provincial regulations. When you have a company trying to meet the requirements of the federal statutes and regulations and trying to meet the requirements of provincial statutes and regulations, you get a kind of jungle where there is really no clear way to go. I look at the 40 jobs that this bill will save that would otherwise be lost.
I also look at what we call in Quebec gros bon sens. This is a bill of what I consider to be gros bon sens. As a Quebecer and as a consumer advocate and a member of Parliament for Chambly, Quebec I am proud to speak on it today. I think we speak with one mind on the necessity of this bill and also the urgency with which we need to get this bill adopted and passed through this House. Therefore I just wish to tell you, Madam Speaker, and perhaps the people who are watching us today as they do many days that many times this House can do something extraordinary. They can speak with one voice on legislation which it considers urgent and necessary.
I would like to conclude with that.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Is the House ready for the question?


Some hon. members:: Question.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.
Private Members' Business


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and, by unanimous consent the House went into committee thereon, Mrs. Champagne in the chair.
Andrée  Champagne: House in Committee of the Whole on Bill S-6, an act to amend the act of incorporation of Metropolitan General Insurance Company in order to authorize its continuance under the Laws of the province of Quebec.
Clause 1 agreed to.


[Stage Direction]
Preamble agreed to.
Title agreed to.
Bill reported, read the third time and passed.
Madam Deputy Speaker:: It is not often that the Speaker can also assume the role of member of Parliament, but I would be sorry if I did not thank the hon. member for Ottawa-Vanier, on behalf of my constituents of Saint-Hyacinthe-Bagot, for accepting to steer this bill through the House.
I can assure you that there are a lot of people in Saint-Hyacinthe and in the area who are very happy tonight, and I am grateful to you for that.


Albert Glen Cooper: Madam Speaker, may I just take a moment to say on behalf of your constituents that they should be very happy. You have done an excellent job of steering a bill through the House of Commons. It is never an easy task but you did it well.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Since there are no more bills before the House at this time, I think we could call it four o'clock.


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: It being four o'clock, this House stands adjourned until Monday next at 11 a.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 3.33 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
'$* -
[Stage Direction]
Monday, December 9,1991