1991-06-12

Mr. Jack Iyerak Anawak (Nunatsiaq):: [Editor's Note: Member spoke in Inuktitut.]
Mr. Speaker, yesterday the chiefs of Canada gathered in Winnipeg to choose their new national chief. Six excellent candidates had sought this honour in a fine campaign. Early this morning, the chiefs made their final choice.
I want to offer my congratulations to all the candidates and to the new national chief, Mr. Ovide Mercredi. In these crucial times, a heavy burden lies on this country's leaders, both aboriginal and non-aboriginal.
As we seek the constitutional renewal of this country, as we strive to make Canada an even better country for our children, let us all work together with open-mindedness, generosity, truth and honesty. Canada is big enough for all of us.
The Minister of Indian Affairs and this government will be well advised to listen to Mr. Ovide Mercredi, and his acceptance speech when he talked about growing up in his early years.
Best wishes to the national chief.


PARLIAMENT OF CANADA
Hon. Alan Redway (Don Valley East):: Many Canadians who have lost faith in our political system and its
leadership want to change not only the politicians who represent them, but our system of government as well.
Our present Canadian parliamentary system that has existed for 150 years is based on the union of the executive and the legislative branches of government. This means that every cabinet minister must have a seat in one of the Houses of Parliament and in theory at least that the cabinet as a whole is responsible to the House of Commons. In practice, however, the House of Commons is now actually responsible to the cabinet since the Commons enacts only legislation chosen by the cabinet within time limits set by the cabinet.
If we are to restore Canadians' faith in our political system, we must not only ensure that MPs reflect the views of those they are elected to represent, but also that the cabinet is responsible to those MPs in practice as well as in theory.


Mrs. Shirley Maheu (Saint-Laurent-Cartierville):: Mr. Speaker, last week was the anniversary of the storming of the Gold Temple in Amritsar.
June 4 to June 7 will stay in the memory of Sikhs throughout the world for generations to come. The desecration of the holiest shrine in Sikhism was a devastating event for Sikhs in Canada.
We share the grief of the Sikh community on the seventh anniversary of Operation Blue Star, the Indian government's code name for the storming of the Gold Temple.

Sikhs all over the world will never forget these events, this assault on their identity and their spirit. I share the memory of these tragic events with the Sikh community, and I hope all members will join me in commemorating that day.

June 12, 1991


THE ECONOMY
Mr. Guy Saint-Julien (Abitibi):: Mr. Speaker, last April, the unemployment rate reached 15.4 per cent in Abitibi-Temiscamingue. This was mostly due to the fact that more people were looking for work because of the economic slowdown.
If we compare April 1990 with April 1991, we see that the number of people in the labour force rose from
66,000	to 68,000. Economist Marie-Josee Marcoux sees some positive points in this year's statistics for April. She said that compared with last year, the region gained 1,000 new jobs. This is a recent development, since according to her, the Quebec economy recorded an increase in employment during the past three months, a trend that is expected to continue, which is something to look forward to.
The worst of the recession seems to be over, although the region's economy still has a number of problems, especially in the forestry industry. However, since all the cuts were made in this sector, the forestry industry will have to catch up.
The Quebec Minister of Forestry, Mr. Albert Cote, should listen carefully to demands coming from the industry in Amos, Senneterre, Barraute, Malartic and Matagami.


ASSEMBLY OF FIRST NATIONS
Mr. Rod Murphy (Churchill):: Mr. Speaker, as was mentioned earlier, last night the Assembly of First Nations elected Ovide Mercredi from northern Manitoba as their new national chief.
On behalf of the New Democratic Party, I would like to extend our sincere congratulations. As a result of this election, Ovide will be a significant voice in the upcoming constitutional debates which must include aboriginal issues and representation.
The new national chief, because of his education and experience, is especially qualified to provide this leadership. Yet, ironically, for most of his life the Government of Canada refused to recognize him as an Indian. After last night, that recognition can no longer be questioned.
This House congratulates Ovide Mercredi and the other candidates and expresses its hope that the government will deal positively with the new representatives of the First Nations of Canada.


NEW DEMOCRATIC PARTY
Mr. Felix Holtmann (Portage-Interlake):: Mr. Speaker, this past weekend the New Democratic Party issued a new, revised New Democratic Party dictionary at its convention in Halifax. Here are the changes: the word "profit": profit is no longer a taboo but indeed is now an acceptable, allowable, result of business.
The dictionary includes "capitalism". Capitalism is no longer a dreaded disease but now is a method for achieving excellence in creating new wealth.
"Free enterprise" has a definition as well. It is not the systemic destruction of humanity by robber barons in the form of corporate executives. It is now the method for expanding our economy, increasing our standard of living and generating new prosperity.
The New Democratic Party should have contacted me long ago. I would have sold them a Progressive-Conservative Party dictionary at a discount price.


ASSEMBLY OF FIRST NATIONS
Mr. Bill Casey (Cumberland-Colchester):: Mr. Speaker, I too would like to congratulate the new grand chief of the Assembly of First Nations on his election to office. It was a hard way to do it, but he did it.
Chief Mercredi takes on the daunting task of continuing building and improving the relationship between almost 600 First Nations and the various provincial and federal governments in Canada.
In dealing with the three native organizations in my riding during my brief experience as a member of Parliament, I have come to realize just how different the cultures are and how they do not mesh together, but still must function in concert in the interests of all parties. Even at this level I can feel the frustrations and this is only a hint of what Chief Mercredi faces.
June 12, 1991

I have had the opportunity to witness Chief Mercredi in action at committee and in interviews and I have great confidence that he and his approach will be successful in resolving many of the outstanding issues between natives and governments. I wish him the most sincere good luck in his endeavours and hope that maybe I might be able to assist him in some way.


GASOLINE ADDITIVES
Mrs. Marlene Catterall (Ottawa West):: Mr. Speaker, today Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and the Canadian Environmental Law Association banded together to condemn the export of a lead additive for gasoline.
Ethyl Corporation plants have doubled its production of this highly toxic tetra-ethyl lead for export to Asia, Africa and South America. In Canada, leaded gasoline is virtually banned because of the devastating effects of lead poisoning on young children. This double standard is morally reprehensible. How can we justify protecting the health and lives of our own children while profiting from poisoning the lives of children in developing countries?
Canadians want to know what this government has done since it was told about Ethyl's plans over a month ago. Will it serve notice that the export of this poison will be banned or does it perhaps believe that Canadians want jobs even when the cost is the lives of children.


FAMILY VIOLENCE
Mr. Larry Schneider (Regina-Wascana):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to endorse a decision made last month by the two country music television channels.
The stations banned a music video which vividly depicted family violence.
Family violence is a problem with tremendous proportions throughout North America and, in my opinion, its depiction numbs us to the terror and pain it inflicts. How can we hope to overcome this problem if every medium of communication continuously bombards us with it?
5. ft 31
The Nashville network and country music television have refused to be part of this desensitizing process any longer. For this I will applaud their courage and initiative. It is my hope that this will become a trend in Canada.


GROUP OF 22
Mr. Howard McCurdy (Windsor-St. Clair):: Mr. Speaker, the matter is settled. There is no need for a constituent assembly, and certainly no need to get others involved.
We have the Group of 22, an elite group from the "old Canada" based upon two founding peoples, unperturbed and undiluted by participation of first peoples, ethnocultural or racial minorities, or the rest of the hoi polloi.
Speaking, ex cathedra of course, on behalf of all Canadians after heated debate among themselves, they have pronounced their vision of Canada. It is a Canada where the federal government withdraws from health care, education, and social programs.
Most Canadians say this will destroy Canada. Maurice Sauve says the Prime Minister was impressed. No wonder. The Group of 22 wants him to finish his job.


ILLICIT DRUGS
Mr. Bill Attewell (Markham-Whitchurch-Stouff-ville):: Mr. Speaker, drugs and the illicit use and illegal trafficking associated with them are straining the resources of our police forces. I want to highlight two legislative changes which should be made to assist police forces in dealing with this problem.
Currently all moneys and/or goods confiscated must be submitted to the federal government and none of it is returned to the municipalities which bear the enforcement costs. As a result, they cannot afford to devote enough resources to drug related investigations.
Second, as a result of the Duarte case, it is illegal for police officers to use audio/visual devices as safety precautions during undercover drug trafficking investigations. This greatly hampers the work of the police and endangers their safety.

Oral Questions
I spoke with Don Hillock, the chief of police for York Region this morning. He is very concerned about both of these issues, particularly the safety of his officers.
Let us support the fine men and women serving in our police forces.
I call upon the Minister of Justice to address both of these issues.


GOODS AND SERVICES TAX
Mr. Stan Keyes (Hamilton West):: Mr. Speaker, backbench Conservative MPs, such as the member for Hal-ton-Peel, are desperately trying to escape the sinking Tory ship of state and to appear not to be guilty of its demise.
On Monday, the member for Halton-Peel asked of the minister for privatization during Question Period: "Last week we learned the government raised $400 million more in 90 days than it was supposed. Does this mean there is now some hope for my constituents that there will ever be any relief for middle-class taxpayers?"
Has the idea of standing up for his constituents in this House finally occurred to the member? Were his constituents not among the 80 per cent of Canadians who opposed the tax in the first place?
I will remind his constituents that on October 2, 1989, the member for Halton-Peel had this to say about the GST he is now trying to dissociate himself from: "Will some people be hurt? Yes. Will some people benefit? Yes. Is it fair? Absolutely. It is fair".
The member acknowledged back then that it would hurt his constituents, but he voted for it anyway. Now the predicted cash-cow, as he calls it, from the GST has come in courtesy of the Canadian taxpayer. Let us just see how many other backbench Tories jump the ship with the certain approach of the next election.


NATIONAL UNITY
Mr.   J.W. Bud Bird@Fredericton-York-Sunbury: Mr. Speaker, clearly the most challenging task before us in the mission toward constitutional reform and national unity in Canada is to ensure that all Canadians feel the right to be included in the process. While many citizens may choose not to participate directly in the constitutional debate, they must nevertheless be able to perceive that such an opportunity does exist for them. There are many innovative measures which we must initiate and many have already been introduced. The Citizens' Forum on the Constitution, for example, has served to involve ordinary citizens to a much greater extent than may yet be recognized.
Every member of Parliament has a role and a responsibility in nurturing the national consultation dialogue. Many already conduct regular town hall public meetings where constitutional and unity issues invariably come to the fore.
Another potential direction for every riding might be the convening of citizens' committees on the Constitution under the auspices of the local member of Parliament. That is an initiative which has worked well for my constituents on language and cultural issues in the past and I believe it offers similarly good prospects for constitutional dialogue in the future.



ORAL QUESTIONS PERIOD

['Mr. Speaker, I think most Canadians would hope that there are some limits to partisanship in this House and even on this issue.\nWith respect to the particular question, the hon. House leader of the Official Opposition, an officer of this House, knows that responsibility for tracing a document once it became known that it was lost would rest with the minister at the time. He knows that I was not the minister at the time.\nThe question was put to me deliberately. The question was put to me with malice aforethought. I am answering the question to make it clear that was a matter on which I could not take action for well-known constitutional reasons after I was no longer Secretary of State for External Affairs.']
Ms. Sheila Copps (Hamilton East):: My question is for the Acting Prime Minister.
Today the trade ministers of Canada, the United States and Mexico will sit down in Toronto and begin the discussion on a new free trade deal. Six months ago an all-party committee report in this House blasted the government for not doing its homework. The report said, and I quote: "We were frankly amazed by the detailed lack of economic analysis of the costs and benefits of a North American free trade agreement".
I ask the Acting Prime Minister this: Why is the government pursuing these talks when even its own members admit that it has not done its homework?


Hon. Tom Hockin (Minister of State (Small Businesses and Tourism)):: Mr. Speaker, it is perfectly evident why these negotiations are necessary. We want to expand trade throughout North America. We want to protect intellectual property. And we want to improve mechanisms for settling disputes with the Mexicans within that context. That is a very good negotiating position and one
June 12, 1991

that the Government of Canada is very proud to take into these discussions.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, 600 lay-offs this week in Montreal.

Even in my own riding of Hamilton East there was another steel plant closing this week.

Since the United States and Mexico seem to have a good idea where they are headed with these talks, I want to ask the minister this: Why have Canadians been kept in the dark by this government? Why is the government starting these talks at a time when its economic policies are destroying the manufacturing sector in this country?


Thomas Hockin: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member does not ask a question so much, she just makes some allegations.
The purpose of these discussions are clear. What is going to happen is that Canada, by being part of these negotiations, is going to be able to expand its trade further. We believe as a government that no country's economy has ever been hurt by expanding trade. The way you hurt a country's economy is by being protectionist and with restrictions.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, even the President of the United States has committed himself to minimum environmental guarantees. He has also promised specific worker adjustment for those American workers who will lose their jobs in continental free trade.
This Prime Minister has yet to answer to the thousands upon thousands of Canadians who lost their jobs as a result of the last deal and who were promised adjustment programs that were never delivered upon.
My question to the Acting Prime Minister is this: Why are the Americans committed to environmental guarantees and worker adjustment programs, when our government is not prepared to make the same guarantee to Canadian workers?
Oral Questions


Thomas Hockin: This is the government, through the initiative of backbench members of this party as well as this government, that put in place the momentum for the most important acid rain agreement ever signed in North America.
We do not have to take lessons from the hon. member on how to deal with the environment. There is also a three or four stage process for discussion of environmental matters. It is going to be very thorough. It will be aligned with these discussions under NAFTA.
When it comes to adjustment programs, no government in North America has an array of adjustment programs that can match what we have.
* sie *



Hon. Herb Gray (Windsor West):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance. Today Statistics Canada reported that its composite leading indicator, a measure of how the economy is expected to perform, fell last March for the 14th month in a row. These figures are for the month of March, after the government presented its most recent budget.
Will the Minister of Finance admit that his 1991 budget is proving to be the wrong budget for the wrong time? Will he present a new budget with a plan for a speedy economic recovery? Why will he not do more for the thousands of people suffering out there across the country from this government's misguided economic policies?


Hon. Don Mazankowski (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance):: The answer, Mr. Speaker, is no. As the hon. member knows, the budget was brought down in the latter part of February. These are the figures for March.
I think the hon. member would agree that a number of the indicators that have come out in April and in May whether it be business confidence, whether it be housing starts, whether it be housing resale, and indeed, job creation, indicate there have been some 73,000 new jobs created in the last two months. The positive impact of the budget is being felt and there are many indicators which suggest that.

June 12, 1991
Oral Questions
I know the hon. member would rather preach doom and gloom than be a little optimistic. Perhaps it is time for him to be a little bit optimistic.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, I want to assure my hon. friend I would like to be optimistic on behalf of the thousands of people unemployed in my own community and across this country. The minister fails to realize that the over-all indicator produced by his own government's statistical agency is down for the 14th month in a row. It shows the economy is still shrinking.
Why is the minister pursuing the same policies that got us into the recession to get us out of it? Why will he not admit that the economy is still shrinking and do something now to bring about a speedy recovery? Why is he simply standing back and doing nothing as he has been doing?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member knows that the way out of the problems we are in are not the simple solutions that he is suggesting. We have to attack the underlying causes of inflation. We have to engage in fiscal consolidation. We have to have the fundamentals right. We are getting the fundamentals right because the April and May stats show signs of improvement. That is encouraging.
I wish the hon. member would share that view because many other Canadians do. Even though we are not completely out of the woods, there are positive indicators which suggest that the turnaround is very close.


Hon. Audrey McLaughlin (Yukon):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Deputy Prime Minister.
Today the Canadian delegation is in Toronto to begin the trade talks with Mexico and the United States, but Canadians have been left completely in the dark about what is on the table. There has been no real parliamentary debate here. There has been no vote on Canada going into these trade talks with Mexico. I think it is absolutely irresponsible that this government starts talks with the Mexicans and Americans before it talks to Canadians.
Will the Deputy Prime Minister tell Canadians today who put together this package that Canada is negotiating and what exactly is on the table?


Thomas Hockin: Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to tell the hon. member that there is going to be a very continuous and intensive process of consultation with Canadians, through the SAGIT mechanism and other mechanisms with industrial groups, labour groups and Canadians generally that will accompany these discussions.
The broad principles which are being put in place before the Canadian people today in the House, but also in the meeting in Toronto, are clear: First, to try to improve trade by removing obstacles to trade, including tariffs and non-tariff barriers; second, to come up with a dispute settlement mechanism which will include Mexico; and, third, to see if we can protect intellectual property better. All of these principles will be done in order to increase benefits for Canadians.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: I have a supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. We still do not know what is on the table. One of the minister's colleagues was saying during Question Period that everything was on the table. That is what we want to know. Is culture on the table? What is on the table?
Since the Canada-U.S. trade deal began, 315,000 Canadians have lost their jobs and in the last year 36 auto parts manufacturers have gone out of business. On June 9 the chairman of Magna International announced that Magna would be spending up to $15 million in setting up a new plant in Mexico. The chairman of Magna took a page from the government's book and said: "Profit means money. Money has no heart, no soul, no conscience and no homeland".
My question to the Deputy Prime Minister is: What is the Canadian government doing in these talks to ensure that jobs do not continue to move out of Canada but stay in Canada?


Thomas Hockin: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member really has gone too far. If she looks very carefully at what the Magna announcement said yesterday, it is very interesting what the chairman said. He said that none of the production which is going to be established in Mexico would be used to supply the Canadian or the American
June 12, 1991

market. Assembly operations in Canada and the U.S. would continue to be served out of Canada.
Let me just quote the chairman of the company: "It is not a question of closing a factory and moving it down. I feel very strongly that I can maintain our employees here in Canada".


An hon. member:: You don't want jobs in Mexico, Howard?


Mr, Hockin:: The NDP theory is as follows. If there is to be a new business in a far away land, business we have never done before, Canadian companies should be prohibited from doing it unless it is done from Canada.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: Mr. Speaker, I think the minister would want to tell those workers in those 36 auto parts manufacturing companies in Canada that have been closed why they have lost their jobs because of this government's policy.

Last week the Minister for International Trade told us it was hard to see the positive results of free trade with the United States, and I am sure 1.5 million unemployed Canadians agreed with the minister.
Could the government give us the assurance that before starting these talks on free trade with Mexico, it will conduct two exhaustive studies: one on the impact of free trade between Canada and the United States and one on the effects of free trade between the United States, Mexico and Canada?


Thomas Hockin: Well, I would hope that the results of a Canada-United States-Mexican free trade agreement, if we can reach an agreement, would be as good as what we have seen in the last two years under the free trade agreement. What we have seen under the free trade agreement is that our balance of trade has moved from $14 billion to $17 billion. Net investment in the country was negative $2.5 billion three years ago. It is now a positive $4 billion. All this has helped in fact to strengthen us when we moved into a recession.
I am afraid the Speaker will not allow me to read it all, but I have a list three pages long of auto parts manufac-
Oral Questions
turing firms in Ontario and Quebec, just to take those provinces which have expanded and added to their production since 1989.


IMMIGRATION
Hon. Lloyd Axworthy (Winnipeg South Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Deputy Prime Minister.
On May 30 in this House the Deputy Prime Minister said about the Mashat inquiry, and I would like to quote directly from Hansard: "all the witnesses they require and/or demand will be available to respond".
Yesterday, on the instructions of the government House leader, Conservative members blocked the appearance of witnesses we asked to have before that committee, in direct contradiction of the commitment made by the Deputy Prime Minister on May 30.
My question to the Deputy Prime Minister is as follows. Why did the government direct its members to frustrate the work of that committee and the democratic process? What is the government trying to hide?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, that allegation is absolutely false.


Lloyd Axworthy: The
government members shut down the committee. That is not false; that is a fact.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Winnipeg South Centre will put his question.


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, if the government and the Deputy Prime Minister say they have nothing to hide, will the government-


Some hon. members:: Question.


Lloyd Axworthy: Show a little patience. It is coming. Will the government establish a judicial inquiry where oaths can be taken, where a proper investigation of missing memoranda can be pursued and where there cannot be frustration of an inquiry by government members? Will he establish that kind of inquiry?

June 12, 1991
Oral Questions


Hon. Barbara McDougall (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, let me just address if I can this business of the memo that has been raised from time to time.
The first thing is that yesterday the hon. member, with his colleagues, could not decide whether this was a secret or a top secret memo. It is a secret memo and not a top secret memo. This is something we take very seriously, but it means that it is not tracked in the same way as a top secret memo.
The departmental security officials are looking into the matter. There is no evidence of any criminality in terms of the fact that the original memo cannot be found even though copies were made available.
Let me also quote, if I may, the hon. member for Burnaby-Kingsway in terms of the committee's activity. He said: "Some Conservative members of the committee had suggested we hear from Allan Gotlieb, but I think Canadians expect us to report and to report soon on what went wrong on this and how Al-Mashat got into the country". The committee is made up of grown-up people. They are having a meeting tomorrow and they will make up their own minds.


Mrs. Christine Stewart (Northumberland):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Secretary of State for External Affairs.
On May 16, the secretary of state stood in this House and stated in reference to the public report on the Al-Mashat affair: "All the information regarding this situation is out and was made public. Ministers took the responsibility to ensure that the information went public and that that information to date has not been contradicted".
While the minister was out of the country the information was contradicted. We now know that there was no apology made by Raymond Chretien as stated in the minister's public letter.
Will the minister now, before this House, correct the record?
substance. That includes the reasons I was out of the country, which was a NATO meeting in Copenhagen and a meeting of the Organization of American States in Santiago.
I would certainly welcome questions on the foreign policy of this country. It is too bad hon. members opposite have no interest in foreign policy. What they are interested in is trying to continue to find some kind of malfeasance, none of which has been forthcoming.
The bottom line on this is that ministers came to committee and they were open. The members opposite chose to walk out. We came forward with documents. The committee will make up its own mind about the evidence that has been put to them by Mr. Chretien and others.


Christine Susan Stewart: Mr. Speaker, we were asking the minister to correct incorrect information.
My supplementary question is for the same minister on the same issue. On May 15 the secretary of state in this House stated: "I think the report speaks for itself. The report goes into some considerable detail in a very precise form as to what happened during the process of this incident".
We now know that the minister's report tabled May 14 did not contain all the facts provided to them on May 13 by their own investigators and, indeed, that all the major players were not even interviewed before the report was made public.
Will the minister now apologize for issuing an incomplete and inaccurate report?


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, it was neither incomplete nor inaccurate. If you look at the first report, there is no difference in substance between what came out on that first report and what came out subsequently.
As the hon. member knows, the first report was based on what the auditors could corroborate with written, documented evidence some time after the fact.


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, one of the things that truly amazes me about the opposition is that I have been Secretary of State for External Affairs since April 21 and I have not had one single question on an issue of
Now if there is some differences in memory on dates, there is still no change in substance. That was subsequently corrected at our initiative. We were the ones who went through it and made that marginally corrected version public.

June 12, 1991

Oral Questions


Mr. Svend J. Robinson (Burnaby-Kingsway):: Mr. Speaker, since we have not been able to put questions to the minister any further in committee, I want to ask the minister a question that arose from the evidence given recently concerning a fundamental issue of ministerial accountability.
The minister knows that her legislative assistant on April 8 informed the legislative assistant to the then Solicitor General about the entry of Al-Mashat into Canada.
Could the minister explain why it was that her legislative assistant apparently informed the legislative assistant to the Solicitor General on April 8 of her concern about this matter, yet according to the minister's evidence her own legislative assistant did not even bother talking to her about it until some time later. What is going on in the minister's department?


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, on the day in question I was not in town.
My legislative assistant did the appropriate thing. He was seeking more information before he brought the matter to me. Let me point out that this was, once again, well after the fact.


Svend Johannes Robinson: Mr. Speaker, certainly her officials knew about this well before the fact.


An hon. member:: You know the rules.


Svend Johannes Robinson: They were the ones who were not fingered.
My supplementary question is for the chair of the standing committee on external affairs. Would the chair of the standing committee on external affairs, the hon. member for Don Valley West, explain to the House why it is that he and his Conservative colleagues refused to allow that committee to hear any further evidence from witnesses-


Mr. Speaker:: I do not think that is in order. The hon. member for Burnaby-Kingsway may ask the chairman of the committee what it intends to do next or something like that, but that is a question which goes right into the heart of the committee. The hon. member may want to rephrase the question.


Svend Johannes Robinson: Mr. Speaker, I will ask the chair of the standing committee if he could indicate what steps he
and his Conservative colleagues are prepared to take to ensure that the committee is able to finish its work and call the witnesses who have to be called to get to the truth of this matter.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member probably would have been in order if he had kept the question to what the chairman and the committee are going to do. That is a question that goes to something which is not solely a question for the committee acting as a committee.


Mr. John Nunziata (York South-Weston):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Solicitor General.
Yesterday when I asked the Solicitor General why the RCMP had not been called to track down the whereabouts of the secret memo, he said: "Because I have not been asked to".
I have now formally asked both the Solicitor General and the Commissioner of the RCMP-


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


John V. Nunziata: -in writing to investigate the whereabouts of this particular memo.
Will the Solicitor General now give this House his undertaking that he will direct the RCMP to immediately investigate the whereabouts of the missing secret memo?


Hon. Doug Lewis (Solicitor General of Canada):: Mr. Speaker, no.


John V. Nunziata: Mr. Speaker, I would now like to ask the government about its security policy with regard to breaches of security.
According to the policy of the Government of Canada, the loss of this particular secret memo constitutes a breach of security. The guidelines of this particular policy of the Government of Canada state that suspected breaches constituting criminal offences shall be reported to the appropriate law enforcement authorities. It goes on to say that a report should be made in writing 10 days after there is a breach of security. It also indicates the sanctions which must be applied.
My question is for the Government of Canada. In view of the fact that a secret memo went missing three months ago, can the government explain why the security policy which the government introduced in this House was not followed? In particular, can the government indicate why the RCMP was not notified and why sanctions were not applied to Mr. David Daubney?

June 12, 1991
Oral Questions


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, in my hon. friend's letter he claims: "I believe that there are reasonable and probable grounds that the loss of the document is deliberate".
I know of no section in the Criminal Code that prosecutes anyone for deliberate loss of a document. I would suggest to my hon. friend that the Canadian public expects the RCMP to go after real crimes, just as it expects its elected representatives to go after real issues. I will tell you, on this issue my hon. friend is not hitting the news in Orillia.


An hon. member:: Have they stopped reading newspapers in Orillia?
[Translation\


Hon. Andre Ouellet (Papineau -Saint-Michel):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the President of the Privy Council. In the light of what the Solicitor General just said, the matter is indeed a serious one because if the document was deliberately lost it puts a different light on the matter.
I wish the minister would tell us in no uncertain terms, considering the fact that in the Watergate affair President Nixon lost 18 minutes of tapes: Did he lose the secret memo in the Al-Mashat affair? Can he tell the House today, without any hesitation, that the secret document was never in his attache case?


Right Hon. Joe Clark (President of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada and Minister Responsible for Constitutional Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, no and yes.


André Ouellet: The
minister admits that the secret document we are looking for, a document that would clarify a great deal and would undoubtedly exonerate the officials but put the blame on the ministers, was in the minister's attache case.


Sheila Maureen Copps: That is what you just said.


André Ouellet: That is what the minister just told us. I would ask the minister to tell us quite clearly whether he can say this document was not deliberately destroyed, either at the request of the minister or directly by one of his political associates.


Charles Joseph Clark: Yes, Mr. Speaker, I can say that, which should end the discussion. Perhaps my French is not sufficiently clear, at least not to members on the other side of the House. However, if the hon. member looks at the "blues", he will see he asked two questions. My answer to the first question was no. The Liberal Party does not take Parliament seriously, but I do, and that settles that.


THE ENVIRONMENT
Mr. Len Taylor (The Battlefords-Meadow Lake):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of the Environment who knows that lead leads to permanent and irreversible deterioration in the mental and physical abilities of children. Because lead's negative health effects far outweigh its benefits as a gasoline additive, the government severely curtailed its use in Canada in 1990.
Unfortunately those restrictions do not apply to the export of this toxic chemical, even though we know that lead poisons children.
Will the minister amend the gasoline regulations under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act to ensure that tetraethyl lead produced in Canada is exported only to those countries having environmental lead restrictions at least as stringent as our own?


Hon. Jean J. Charest (Minister of the Environment):: Mr. Speaker, I think the member related in his question that this government has effectively banned the use of lead in gasoline for cars as of December 1990. This represents, I think in the minds of all members of this House, a very important measure with respect to protecting the environment.
I will take his representation and maybe take this moment to advise him that the department will effectively examine the possibility of having import control mechanisms under the regulations of CEPA to deal with the export of such substances.


Leonard William (Len) Taylor: have a supplementary question, Mr. Speaker.
June 12, 1991

It seems simple to me that if we ban a substance in Canada because of its negative and dire health effects, we cannot support the manufacture of that product for export.
I thank the minister for taking the representation and indicating that he is going to look into it. I wonder if at the same time he would consider ensuring that countries we do any exporting to adopt more improved, more stringent environmental health regulations similar to those in Canada.


Jean J. Charest: To be quite precise, Mr. Speaker, the government did stop the use of this type of substance in gasoline in cars, which is the main use. There were a few minor exceptions to that.
In the case of farming equipment and of planes, the substance was not disallowed as such. Once again, I am very sympathetic to the point of view put forward by the member. We will examine this issue as rapidly as possible within the department.


GRAIN ELEVATORS
Larry Schneider: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Labour.
Grain elevator companies at the port of Vancouver have locked out workers in response to a contract dispute. The workers' contract expired some 18 months ago, illustrating the failure of the collective bargaining process.
On behalf of my rural colleagues and Canadian farmers, who will pay for the price of this industrial impasse? Will it be the farmer owned companies? Will it be the union? Or, will it be the farmers?
Is the minister able to respond?


Hon. Marcel Danis (Minister of Labour):: First of all, I would like to thank my hon. friend for his continuing concern for the western farmers of Canada.
We are indeed very concerned about the serious nature of the walk-out in the Vancouver port. We are concerned because of the potential loss of sales for Canada. We are concerned about the general economic loss to western Canada. We are also concerned about the tremendous reputation Canada has had about delivery of grain.
Oral Questions
For these reasons I sent yesterday to Vancouver my senior officials in the mediation and conciliation service. They are meeting right now as we speak with both parties in Vancouver. I expect a report from them later on today.
I would urge the parties to settle this through the normal practice of collective bargaining, but I can tell my hon. friend that if they do not the government will act.


IMMIGRATION
Mr. Tom Wappel (Scarborough West):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister responsible for Constitutional Affairs.
The minister's chief of staff, David Daubney, has publicly admitted that he not only received the missing March 8 secret memo but that he also read it. What is also clear is that David Daubney was the last person known to be in possession of the secret memo.
It is now lost, and we know that he did not tell his minister about it.
The guide book for public servants published by the Privy Council Office in 1990 states clearly: "Ministers are responsible to the House for everything that is done under their authority".
Will the minister accept responsibility for the negligence of his chief of staff?


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, I must say I appreciate that affirmation by a Liberal member of Parliament, that it is now known and accepted that the document was not passed to me. I assume that since the Liberal Party has now indicated that it is now known and accepted that the document was not passed to me that finishes the matter.
There have been questions raised about ministerial responsibility that I dealt within committee.


Thomas (Tom) William Wappel: Mr. Speaker, I asked very clearly if he would accept responsibility as the minister to this House for the negligence of his chief of staff, and he refuses to answer.
I ask my supplementary question. We know that the March 8 secret memo was forwarded to the minister's office in compliance with procedures put in place by Mr. Daubney and approved by the minister. The secret memo is now lost.

Oral Questions
Will the minister at least accept responsibility for the incompetence of his own office procedures?


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, I make it a habit of accepting responsibility that is mine in this House in accordance with the well-established practices of parliamentary tradition.
I would hope that a sense of parliamentary responsibility might show itself more evident-


Sheila Maureen Copps: You broke the habit, Joe. The word "lie".


John V. Nunziata: What about your lie on television?


Charles Joseph Clark: I am asked in the words of the member for York South-Weston, repeated by the member for Hamilton East, about the word "lie". I wonder, Mr. Speaker, if you would ask them to withdraw that language.


Mr. Speaker:: If the hon. members did make that allegation, I would expect that they would withdraw immediately.


Sheila Maureen Copps: I certainly withdraw.


Mr. Speaker:: I think for the moment we shall continue. The hon. member for Fredericton-York-Sunbury.


CITIZENSHIP
Mr.   J.W. Bud Bird@Fredericton-York-Sunbury: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the minister of multicul-turalism and citizenship. This is a supplementary question to one I put to him two days ago.
In his response at that time the minister emphasized a commitment to the promotion of Canadian citizenship as a fundamental value of national unity. In that regard I believe that one of the most moving experiences for any MP has to be the citizenship ceremony for new Canadians.
Can such a confirmation and welcome to the rights and responsibilities of citizenship not also be made
available to all Canadians, including those who are bom here?
Is the minister prepared to consider ways by which a citizenship certificate may be presented to every Canadian child at the appropriate time in the grade school process?


Hon. Gerry Weiner (Minister of Multiculturalism and Citizenship):: Mr. Speaker, I agree entirely with the member's appraisal of the Citizenship Court ceremony and would encourage all members to attend such events.
The member has an excellent suggestion and I intend to meet with him very quickly to see what further information he can give me, as I am prepared to meet with other members of Parliament who have ideas on helping Canadians better understand how meaningful the process of citizenship is.
What a wonderful way to provide Canadian youth with a meaningful program of sensitization.


IMMIGRATION
Mr. David Dingwall (Cape Breton-East Richmond):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister responsible for Constitutional Affairs.
The minister will know that implicit in exercising his fiduciary obligations as a senior minister of the Crown is the issue of trust.
I would like to ask the Minister responsible for Constitutional Affairs if he would please explain to the House whether or not he has in fact destroyed the document, the secret memo of March 8, and, if not-


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


An hon. member:: What's wrong with that? It's a straightforward question.


Mr. Speaker:: An hon. member said: "What's wrong with that? It's a straightforward question". It is also a straightforward allegation. I ask the hon. member to put his question more appropriately.


David Charles Dingwall: Would the minister explain to the House whether or not he has destroyed the document or whether he has misled or exercised gross negligence-
June 12, 1991

Oral Questions


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Mr. Speaker:: That question is just a disguised outright charge. The hon. minister may wish to reply.


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, the answer is neither. To make it absolutely clear to the House-and I say this as a member of Parliament and as someone who I think has earned a reputation for integrity in the country-I take the opportunity to advise the House-


Sheila Maureen Copps: You used to love it.


Charles Joseph Clark: If the member for Hamilton East will be quiet enough for a moment to let me answer-


Mr. Simmons:: You're a snake.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Some hon. members:: Shame.


An hon. member:: Order.


Mr. Speaker:: Perhaps the right hon. minister could finish his reply.


Charles Joseph Clark: I take the opportunity to advise the House that I first became aware of the document when I was in Iqaluit or in the Northwest Territories. I affirm that on my reputation as someone who has served in the public life of this country for 20 years and as a member of this House.
I have not seen it. I did not order anything done with it. I did not know it existed until after the controversy had become public. In any fair and honest place, that would end this matter.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, a senior minister of the cabinet has responded in the negative on both counts.
Would he explain to Canadians from coast to coast, but in particularly members of this House, why the Minister responsible for Constitutional Affairs has waited in excess of three months and has done absolutely nothing to track down the secret memo of March 8? Why the inordinate delay in trying to find the memo? What is the minister trying to hide?


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, I think one thing is clear to Canadians from coast to coast, and it is that I have some very sensitive and onerous responsibilities given my responsibility for
constitutional affairs. If this controversy is deliberately prolonged without reason, that could affect my ability to undertake those responsibilities.


David Charles Dingwall: Answer the question. You are prolonging the controversy.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Mr. Speaker:: I should say to the right hon. minister that the question was pointed, but nonetheless I would like the right hon. minister to answer the question.


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, I think most Canadians would hope that there are some limits to partisanship in this House and even on this issue.
With respect to the particular question, the hon. House leader of the Official Opposition, an officer of this House, knows that responsibility for tracing a document once it became known that it was lost would rest with the minister at the time. He knows that I was not the minister at the time.
The question was put to me deliberately. The question was put to me with malice aforethought. I am answering the question to make it clear that was a matter on which I could not take action for well-known constitutional reasons after I was no longer Secretary of State for External Affairs.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD

['Mr. Speaker, I rise on the same point of order which was raised by my colleague from Nova Scotia concerning the appropriateness of the way Question Period is conducted in this House. I would have to concur with the sentiments expressed by my colleague the House leader for the New Democratic Party that this continual assault each and every day by government members concerning the propriety of Question Period really is a questioning of the judgment of the Chair.\nWe have complete confidence that the Chair will conduct the affairs of this House in accordance with the rules and in accordance with the traditions of this House. For the government House leader to continually say that the problem is that all members of Parliament are held in disrespect, I suggest that perhaps the hon. member is continuing to look in the mirror all too often.']
William D. (Bill) Casey: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the chairman of the Standing Committee on House Management. This seems like a very appropriate day to put the question.
Several members including myself have made points of order regarding absolute consistent breaching of very clear rules of Question Period outlined in the annotated Standing Orders, No. 37, and Beauchesne's citations 409 and 410.
Is the committee on House management going to address these points of order? Would it consider a motion that all members of Parliament follow all the rules all of the time?


Mr. Albert Cooper (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons):: Mr. Speaker, I can confirm to the hon. member that the House management committee has looked at the issue of Question Period and the performance of members on both sides of the House in Question Period.

June 12, 1991
Tributes
We have not yet come to a consensus. We will continue to work on the issue, and I hope that we as a committee can put some semblance of rationality back into this institution to give us some credibility with Canadians.



Mr. Francois Gerin (Megantic- Compton-Stans-tead):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Communications.
In October 1990, Copyright Board Canada set the royalties for cablevision. As a result of this decision, Quebecers now have to pay $11.8 million in royalties, 85 per cent of which go to the United States and Americans.
Now we all know that Quebecers do not watch U.S. television or at least very little, and in any case a lot less than English Canada. Mr. Speaker, as you know, French language television in Quebec needs those millions of dollars very badly.	f
How does the minister intend to react to the report tabled by the Quebec Minister of Communications in November 1990, because while people are looking at studies all those millions are going to the United States?


Hon. Perrin Beatty (Minister of Communications):: Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend is a little bit late. Two days ago I made the announcement before the Canadian Cable TV Association that my colleague, the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs, and I would be issuing guidelines which would be helpful in terms of resolving the issue.


PRESENCE IN GALLERY
Mr. Speaker:: I draw the attention of hon. members to the presence in the gallery of the Presidential Committee from the Republic of Botswana, led by the Hon.
Archie Mogwe, Minister of Mineral Resources and Water Affairs.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


THE LATE SENATOR DAVID CROLL
Hon. Jean Chretien (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to inform the House that Senator David Croll passed away yesterday, and I would like to pay tribute to a great Canadian.
This man devoted all his life to public life. He was from a minority group and had to struggle in the 1930s to get elected. He managed to attain very high offices in our land. He was Mayor of Windsor. He was the first person of the Jewish faith to become a member of the Ontario cabinet and the first one to become a senator.
I had the privilege to serve in the caucus of the Liberal Party with Senator Croll for more than a quarter of a centuiy. He was an extremely impressive person. Senator Croll had only one preoccupation and it was to defend those who were defenceless in our society. It was to fight for those who needed the help of other Canadians. He was a promoter of all the social programs that we are so proud of today, and he had been a promoter of these programs since the 1920s and 1930s.
Senator Croll always said that in a country like Canada nobody should go to bed hungry, nobody should be homeless, nobody should suffer, because there is enough in this country to provide a decent living for any human being.

Senator Croll was one of those reformers who left their mark on this country. He was elected to public office as a very young man. He was mayor, minister and senator. However, the focus of his contribution was always to defend the rights of the neediest in our society.
As a political party, there have been times when we were unsure about the path we should take and every time we had doubts, when the Liberal Party was somewhat disoriented, Senator Croll would rise and tell us what to do. One of his principles was always to give the weakest members of our society the benefit of the doubt. He was a great Liberal. He was a great teacher for us all

June 12, 1991

in this House. I think his sudden departure will be a great loss not only for my party but for the Senate and the entire country as well. There have been very few politicians of his moral calibre.

There is nothing Canada cannot do and do best. We have to do it when we can stand proud, remembering that there are those who have received less and those who have been put aside because of either faith, colour, sex or other differences because in Canada we are all equal.
What is important in human beings is always the human being itself. David Croll had almost been a father to me and many others, because whenever we were in doubt, and I was many times in my career, we asked David Croll what to do.
He always said: "You have to be on the side of those who need help, on the side of justice and dignity". This man has made a great mark on Canada, and I would like to offer his family our condolences. I hope there will be many more David Crolls in Canadian society in the years to come.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, I too would like to pay tribute to Senator David Croll on behalf of my party and on behalf of those of us in my community in Toronto who were admirers of the late senator.
He was, like many distinguished Canadians, not bom in Canada. He came here from Moscow. He grew up and was educated here to have a distinguished career among us.
He was the first Jewish cabinet minister, the first Jewish senator in Canada, and within those offices he contributed vitally.
He also was a member of the Canadian army. He joined in 1939 and went to war for Canada. He joined as a private and retired at the end of the war as a colonel. He was a man of great courage, vision and distinction. I think that all of us in this House will miss the presence and the historical contribution that he has made.
Let me join the hon. Leader of the Opposition in hoping that there will be many more of his stature who will choose to serve in public life.
Tributes


Mr. Lome Nystrom (Yorkton-Melville):: Mr. Speaker, we also want to join with our Liberal and Conservative colleagues in paying tribute to Senator David Croll, the dean of the Senate who passed away at the age of 91 years.
I remember when I was first elected to this House and after being here a couple of years, in 1971 he issued a report on poverty. He was the chairman of the Senate Committee on Poverty. His report was very revealing about the situation at that time. It made many recommendations about helping poor people in this country.
He was a man of tremendous dedication to a cause. It is important that we think of Senator Croll and remember in him that he had a cause. He had a purpose to be in public life, and he was in public life in many different capacities.
He started as mayor of Windsor in 1930. Later he became a member of the provincial parliament in Ontario. He was a cabinet minister with two or three different portfolios and in 1945 he was a member of Parliament for the federal riding of Toronto-Spadina. In 1955 he was appointed as a senator for the province of Ontario.

He was a great Canadian and a great democrat. He was an example to all of us here in the House, to those in the other place and to all Canadians.
On behalf of my party I wish to offer my condolences to his family and friends.


Hon. Jean Lapierre (Shefford):: Mr. Speaker, during the 10 years or more that I was in the Liberal caucus, there were certain people who made an impression on us, and I think Senator David Croll was one of those people. Few politicians are perpetual idealists. Many of us become cynical over time, but I believe Senator Croll was a perpetual idealist. He had not the slightest trace of opportunism or political self-interest. He always acted according to his principles, especially where defending human dignity was concerned. Very few politicians earn the respect of all members of this House. I think Senator Croll led the way for many of us who believe in philosophy and human dignity. I wish to extend our condolences to his family, and I hope he will remain a guide for us all.

June 12, 1991
Tributes


Mr. David Berger (Saint-Henri- Westmount):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to say what an immense privilege it has been for me to have been in Parliament and in the Liberal caucus with David Croll.
I will not review in detail the highlights of his career. Others have done that. Certainly we will be hearing more in the coming days.
I would like to mention that in 1971 at the age of 71 he chaired the Senate Committee on Poverty and recommended the implementation of a guaranteed annual income for all families and individuals. He said later it is the only way to give people the minimum living standards to which they are entitled.
What I really want to talk about is what it was like to hear David Croll speak. He was a gentle man with a sparkle in his eye. He spoke softly, but with such power. Every time he spoke, the room would fall silent. People would listen because they knew that he had something important to say. He always spoke about the needs of the elderly, the poor, the sick and how we had an obligation to respond to their interests.

I had a special affinity to and affection for David Croll. He was born on March 12, 1900, at the turn of the century, and my father was born on January 1, 1900. There was a certain similarity in the way they talked.

I would like to express my sympathies to the members of Senator Croll's family. We will remember him for a long, long, long time and we will honour ourselves if we can dedicate ourselves to fight for the ideals and the principles that David Croll stood for.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: So much of the life of Senator David Croll was connected with the city of Windsor, and part of his provincial riding of Windsor- Walkerville is located within my Windsor West riding. Therefore you will understand why I want to rise and for a minute or two say something by way of tribute to the late Senator Croll.
He was always to the end of his days a strong voice for social justice, a strong voice for people in need, the elderly, the pensioners, the handicapped and the poor.
It is remarkable that he passed away after a full active day in his work as a senator, and I am sure he looked forward to being in our Liberal caucus this morning. He was always the first to arrive there. I must say it will not be the same coming to our caucus and not seeing Senator Croll already there to take part in the work of our caucus. When he took part in the work of our caucus he was always a progressive voice, a voice of reform and a voice of liberalism, both big and small /, in the best sense of the term.
I am sure his point of view, his attitudes, reflected his experience as an immigrant child who came with his family to Windsor from eastern Europe. I am sure his views, his attitudes, reflected very much the values of his Jewish heritage. I am sure they also reflected the concerns of the Windsor area, a city of hard working people from all over the world who came together in Windsor to build better lives for themselves and their families.
Dave Croll always worked for equality, fairness and reform. Mayor of Windsor at only 30 years of age, he helped his city to get through the devastation of the recession. His work in bringing together the former border cities created the city of Windsor as it is today.
His work as a member of the provincial legislature and as a member of the provincial cabinet did much to help the province get through the troubles and travails of the Great Depression of the thirties.
You will recall that as a member of the provincial legislature and as a cabinet minister, he helped establish in the province of Ontario basic programs of labour standards and social welfare which are the foundations of many of the programs of which we are so proud today.
Dave Croll always put the people first.
This was shown by what he said when he resigned from the Ontario cabinet because he did not agree with the views of his premier on the organization of workers in the trade unions. He said that he "would rather walk with the workers than ride with General Motors".
A recent biography of Dave Croll is entitled The People's Senator. Before he was the people's senator he was the people's member of Parliament from Toronto, the people's member of the legislature, the people's cabinet minister and the people's mayor of Windsor. Windsor has always been proud of Dave Croll and Windsor will always be proud of him. The city was, as I have said, so much a part of his life and his career.
June 12, 1991

I want to express my deepest sympathy to his family, his brother and his daughters. I want to say to this House that the greatest and strongest way we have of honouring the memory of Dave Croll is to ensure that the ideals for which he stood will continue to inspire all of us who seek to serve the public interest in this House and everywhere in Canada.


Howard Douglas McCurdy: Mr. Speaker, I would like to state a few words because Senator Croll, when he was a member of this place, represented the riding of which I am now the representative. This man was a different kind of senator when one recalls that he spent his last day as an 11-hour day. That indicates the devotion that he had to this place. He was so much a symbol of Windsor. His imprint upon Windsor was exceedingly strong. It was strong among those who were poor. It was strong among those who worked for a living. It was exceedingly strong among those of us of many ethnic and racial groups in Windsor who looked for a voice of equality.
We will all miss him, but we will not lose what he gave us in Windsor and that is a character of generosity and care which he brought to this place as well.
I would like to express on behalf of my community and my party our condolences to the family and we share their sorrow in this loss.


POINT OF ORDER
William D. (Bill) Casey: Mr. Speaker, I just want to bring to the attention of the House an infraction of Standing Order 37 today during Question Period and also Beauchesne's citations 409 and 410. Citation 409 reads:
A preamble need not exceed one carefully drawn sentence-A supplementary question should need no preamble.
Citation 410 reads:
Supplementary questions should flow from the answers of Ministers.
Point of Order
I just want to register my feeling that this rule was broken again today.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, I want to say something about this point of order. I want to draw to the attention of the Chair that what the hon. member cites in Beauchesne's as being rules are not rules at all. They are guidelines that individual Speakers announced to inform the House as to how they would view Question Period.
It is entirely, under our rules, within the discretion of yourself, Sir, having been elected by the House with full authority in that regard, to act fairly with respect to Question Period.
I for one have full confidence in your ability to do that without the daily efforts of certain members opposite to try and create a case which does not stand on the facts about what Question Period ever was in this House, especially when the other side now in government was in opposition.


Hon. Harvie Andre (Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons):: Mr. Speaker, all I would like to say is that I think we are all aware and it has been clear to us in many, many quarters that the public which watches this institution holds us in disrespect as a result of what it sees. I think what it sees is Question Period and what it sees about Question Period does not cause the public to have the respect for this institution it needs to have.
In that context, I think the answer of the chairman of the management committee that this is being looked at in an all-party committee in terms of what we can do to regain the respect of the public is a good suggestion and we ought to let that happen.


Mr. Nelson A. Riis (Kamloops):: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of my party I want to say that we respect the decisions you make every day during Question Period. With regard to the opposition side as well as the government side, from time to time you see that it is appropriate to intervene and direct members of Parliament in either their questions or their answers. I consider this daily intervention to be a questioning of

June 12, 1991
Routine Proceedings
your ability and your decision. I think it is perfectly clear, Mr. Speaker, that you do the best you can to run this place as businesslike as possible.
I want to suggest to my hon. friend, the government House leader, that I do not think people are fed up with Parliament. I think people are fed up with the government and the fact that the government is ignoring the concerns of Canadians, whether on the GST, the free trade agreement or whatever.
I consider this type of an intervention a direct challenge to the way that you have managed the House on our behalf. I think it is very, very inappropriate.


David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, I rise on the same point of order which was raised by my colleague from Nova Scotia concerning the appropriateness of the way Question Period is conducted in this House. I would have to concur with the sentiments expressed by my colleague the House leader for the New Democratic Party that this continual assault each and every day by government members concerning the propriety of Question Period really is a questioning of the judgment of the Chair.
We have complete confidence that the Chair will conduct the affairs of this House in accordance with the rules and in accordance with the traditions of this House. For the government House leader to continually say that the problem is that all members of Parliament are held in disrespect, I suggest that perhaps the hon. member is continuing to look in the mirror all too often.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Mr. Jean-Guy Hudon (Parliamentary Secretary to President of the Queen's Privy Council and Minister responsible for Constitutional Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the President of the Privy Council and Prime
Minister responsible for Constitutional Affairs, I would like to table three documents.
The first document is tabled under section 198 of the Canada Elections Act. Attached, in both official languages, are copies of the Federal Elections Fees Tariff, the Northwest Territories Elections Fees Thriff and the Special Voting Rules General Elections Fees Tariff.
In accordance with the said act, I would ask you to make the necessary arrangements to have these documents laid before the House of Commons immediately.


NORTHERN PIPELINE AGENCY
Jean-Guy Hudon: Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the second document, pursuant to section 72 of the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act. We are tabling, in both official languages, copies of the reports of the Northern Pipeline Agency for the period ended March 31, 1991.
I would ask you to make the necessary arrangements to have these reports laid before the House of Commons immediately.


PUBLIC SERVICE STAFF RELATIONS BOARD
Jean-Guy Hudon: Finally, Mr. Speaker, I would like to table the third document, pursuant to section 72 of the Access to Information Act.
We are tabling, in both official languages, a copy of the eight annual report of the Public Service Staff Relations Board for the period ended March 31, 1991.
In accordance with the said act, we ask you to make the necessary arrangements to have this report laid before the House of Commons immediately.


JUSTICE AND THE SOLICITOR GENERAL
Mr. Bob Horner (Mississauga West):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the first report of the Standing Committee on Justice and the Solicitor General.
This report, unanimously adopted, is on the evaluation of the detention provisions and recommends 16 amendments to the government. Pursuant to Standing Order 109, the committee requests a comprehensive response from the government to this report within 150 days.
[.Editor's Note: See today's Votes and Proceedings]


DEBT SERVICING AND REDUCTION ACCOUNT ACT
Donald Frank Mazankowski: for leave to introduce Bill C-21, an act relating to the accounting of certain payments for servicing and reduction of debt of Canada.


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

Albert Glen Cooper: That the Standing Committee on National Defence and Veterans
Affairs be authorized to travel to Toronto on June 18 and 19 in
order to visit the Sunnybrook Health Science Centre and that the
necessary staff do accompany the committee.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

Nelson Andrew Riis: I rise on a point of order, Mr. Speaker, regarding the official languages legislation.
Routine Proceedings
Section 49 says: "A commissioner shall be appointed under the great seal after approval by the appointment of a resolution of the Senate and the House of Commons".
We are all aware that the Commissioner of Official Languages will put in his last day this Friday. As of Saturday, we will not have a Commissioner of Official Languages.
I want to ask my good friend, the government House leader: Does the government plan to bring in a motion before Friday, or will there be a period of time before we actually have agreed on a motion appointing a new commissioner?


Harvie Andre: I cannot give the hon. member the precise date on which that will be done, but it will be done soon, Mr. Speaker.


David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, could the government House leader just indicate to the House, perhaps elaborate if he would, what degree of consultations will be taking place with regard to this appointment?
The Commissioner of Official Languages, as the hon. member knows, is an officer of this House. I believe the tradition of this House has been that there would be meaningful consultations with the respective parties concerning this appointment.


Harvie Andre: I do not want to have to speak on the precise details, but it may well be that the travel plans of both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition have made it difficult to have those consultations, but I know they are intended to be held.


PETITIONS
Mr. Jesse Flis (Parkdale-High Park):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 361 have the honour to table petitions signed by 200 Canadians who are opposed to their tax dollars being used to fund and distribute the National Film Board's production of the anti-Catholic and historically inaccurate film The Burning Times. Through the presentation of historical inaccuracies and commentary entirely biased against and hostile to the

June 12, 1991
Routine Proceedings
Catholic Church, the film attempts to foster hatred and misunderstanding of the Catholic religion.
The petitioners therefore humbly pray and call upon Parliament to request the film The Burning Times be withdrawn from circulation and the National Film Board publicly apologize to Catholics.


Jesse Philip Flis: Mr. Speaker, this petition is signed by 150 Canadians.
Whereas Canada has never recognized the forcible annexation of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia into the Soviet Union, and whereas the Government of Lithuania has responded with an urgent appeal for the immediate support of all democratic countries to protect independence, democracy and freedom in Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia, the petitioners call upon Parliament to immediately recognize and establish diplomatic relations with the legitimate, democratically elected Government of the Republic of Lithuania.
The petitioners demand further that the Soviet Union withdraw all its military forces from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and that unconditional and international aid to the Soviet Union in the form of credit and feed grains be conditional upon the withdrawal of Soviet troops from the Baltic states and resolution of the Baltic crisis.


Robert Nesbitt Horner: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present a petition from the staff and students of the Streetsville Secondary School with 880 signatures who hereby declare their pride in Canada.
They perceive a growing lack of pride in the Canadian population. Therefore, they call upon Parliament to declare a national pride week. The purpose would be to encourage all Canadians and organizations within schools to celebrate the history, achievements and potential that is Canada.
Pursuant to Standing Order 36, the petition is certified correct as to form and content.


Mr. Jean-Robert Gauthier (Ottawa-Vanier):: Mr. Speaker, I have a petition pursuant to Standing Order 36. It is correct as to form and content.
People from the Ottawa community would like to signify that in their opinion Marie Sklodowska Curie must be honoured for her scientific contributions to humanity.
They also believe that because Marie Sklodowska Curie discovered radium, was twice awarded the Nobel Prize and was the first woman to win a place in the history of science she deserves to be recognized by Canada.
They believe that this Polish woman, who was a servant of mankind and a scientist who fame could not corrupt, has been honoured by many different countries of the world and should be honoured by Canada. This House should humbly pray and call upon Canada Post to honour Marie Sklodowska Curie by issuing a commemorative stamp on the occasion of the 125th anniversary of her birth, November 7, 1992.


Mr. George S. Rideout (Moncton):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, it is a pleasure for me to present a petition from the residents of Moncton and North Bay, Ontario.
The petitioners humbly pray and call upon Parliament to reject the imposition of wage controls and reaffirm support for free collective bargaining for Canadian workers.


Mrs. Beryl Gaffney (Nepean):: Mr. Speaker, I have a petition pursuant to Standing Order 36.
The petition is from 125 residents of many areas: Smiths Falls, Nepean, Ottawa, Greely, Kanata, Gloucester, Orleans, Hull, Almonte, Richmond, Vars, Gatineau, Aylmer, Stittsville and Cornwall. It is with regard to the Conservative government's intention to impose a freeze on federal Public Service wage increases for fiscal year 1991-92.
The petitioners humbly pray and call upon Parliament to reject the imposition of wage controls and reaffirm support for free collective bargaining for Canadian workers.


Mr. Lyle Dean MacWilliam (Okanagan-Shuswap):: Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to present a petition to the House which is signed by a number of residents from the greater Vancouver area.
These residents believe that a great woman, Madam Marie Curie, must be honoured for her scientific contributions to humanity and the gift of the discovery of radium and the application of that gift for the healing of the sick throughout the world.
The petitioners feel she needs to be recognized at this time by Canada. As we well know, Madam Curie was the discoverer of radium and has been twice awarded the
June 12, 1991

Nobel Prize. She is the first woman to win a place in the history of science.
The petitioners are calling on Canada Post to honour Madam Curie by issuing a commemorative stamp on the occasion of the 125th anniversary of her birth which occurred on November 7, 1992.


Lyle Dean MacWilliam: Mr. Speaker, I have some 14 petitions with approximately 600 names of residents throughout the Okanagan- Shuswap, the communities of Sicamous, Thppen, Salmon Arm, Lunby, Celista, Enderby, Grindrod, Sorrento and Eagle Bay.
The petitioners are calling upon the government to reconsider its position in terms of the plans for the government to reduce its share of funding for RCMP services in communities throughout British Columbia.
They are asking for the government to restore the proper levels of funding in the ongoing negotiations as they proceed.


Svend Johannes Robinson: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present a petition signed by hundreds of residents of cities and towns throughout Canada, including a number of students, staff and faculty of St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia.
The petitioners wrote that in October 1985 the subcommittee on equality rights of the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs submitted a unanimous report to the House recommending that the Canadian Human Rights Act be amended to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in all areas of federal jurisdiction.
They note further that in March 1986, over five years ago, the government accepted the report and its recommendations and said it would implement the report.
Routine Proceedings
Finally, they note that the government has yet to introduce this important amendment, despite urging by the Canadian Human Rights Commission and others. Therefore, they urge the government to bring forward immediately an amendment to add sexual orientation to the Canadian Human Rights Act as a prohibited ground of discrimination.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, it is my honour to present a petition on behalf of a number of constituents from Kamloops and the surrounding communities. They are concerned that the government is intending to cut back on financial support for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. They acknowledge the fact that has been put on hold for at least 12 months but are encouraging the government to continue with its full support of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to ensure that police protection is maintained throughout the area.


Mr. Jack Whittaker (Okanagan-Similkameen-Merritt):: Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to present a petition pursuant to Standing Order 36 from a number of respected residents of Osoyoos, British Columbia.
These residents state that the tools for building a better Canada have been abandoned. Important national institutions have been underfunded and then privatized. This government has cut CBC funding by $140 million over the last four years, resulting in 1,200 job losses and the closing of 10 regional stations in Calgary, Comer Brook, Goose Bay, Sydney, Sept-Iles, Toronto, Saskatoon, Windsor, as well as other areas.
The petitioners are urging Parliament to consider restoring proper funding to the CBC so that it can fulfil its mandate and its role as the heartbeat of Canada. Parliament must re-examine this government's priorities in terms of decreasing funding for Canadian institutions and its insistence on privatization.

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QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
[Stage Direction]
June 12, 1991
Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand.


Mr. Milliken:: Mr. Speaker, I rise with reluctance. I know the parliamentary secretary does his best, but there is a question of mine on the Order Paper, No. 17, dated May 13. The government House leader may find this amusing but it is not.
This question in fact has been on the Order Paper since February 25. It was put on in the last session and I asked for a response within 45 days. More than 45 days elapsed in the last session. The government did not get around to answering it.
The question deals with the expenditures the government made for the purpose of getting the hon. member for Lac-Saint-Jean elected before they realized that he was in fact useless for their purposes. They spent a lot of money. The question asks for details on the expenditures, which programs that were promised were cancelled, which ones went ahead and how much was spent on each of the promises that the government made in that constituency.
This information cannot be difficult for the government to come up with. It has had months and months and months to do so and, with respect, I plead with the parliamentary secretary to crack the whip on the people who are supposed to be providing him with these answers. I know it is not his department, but surely to goodness this kind of question should not be left and this kind of negligence allowed to continue.
I know the government has trouble keeping track of papers and documents, but surely the answer to this question was prepared in the last Parliament and could be found and provided to the House on an expeditious basis.


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for bringing this matter to my attention. I want to advise him that it was my intention yesterday to check into the very matter he raises but, as he may well know, Peter Gzowski had a very important tournament on illiteracy in this country and there were members on his
side, myself included, who went out to support that cause. As a result I will have to check into that today.


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


Some hon. members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS

[Stage Direction]


Lloyd Axworthy: That this House affirm that Ministers are individually and collectively responsible to the House of Commons for the activities of government including the management and conduct of the Public Service; that, individually, Ministers are responsible for the administration of the decisions of the Government and the activities of Public Servants falling under their jurisdiction; and that, collectively, they are responsible for the decisions of the Government as a whole and the activities of their colleagues.
He said: Mr. Speaker, on May 8 press reports detailed how a former Iraqi ambassador to Washington by the name of Al-Mashat was given quick and accelerated access into Canada, apparently circumventing a number of the required procedures under the Immigration Act. It raised many questions about how preference and priority are afforded to special guests of the government.
Since that time the issue has become much bigger, much more serious, much more critical than the mere entry of Al-Mashat into Canada. In many ways it has gone to the very heart of accountability and responsibility of a parliamentary system of government. It has questioned the very credibility of several senior ministers of the present government. It has gone to the question of how trust and confidence, veracity and honesty have to be the currency of this House, and not a debased currency as is so often the case and as we have seen in the last three weeks.
Even today we saw the Minister responsible for Constitutional Affairs complaining, perhaps whining, that this discussion and inquiry has hurt his own credibility; as if it was the responsibility of the opposition, as if it was the opposition that was responsible for ducking, bobbing, weaving, and evading its responsibility.
June 12, 1991

It was an attempt one more time to deflect the responsibility for a serious decision which no one had the guts, the courage, the sense of ethics, or parliamentary morality to stand up and take responsibility for.
I was recently reading a comment made by Malcolm Fraser, the Australian Prime Minister in 1982, which I thought would be good advice for members opposite to take. He said: "This government has always upheld the fundamental principle of ministerial responsibility" and "the appearance and reality of integrity are indispensable parts of our system of government". Integrity and responsibility are indispensable parts of our system of government, one that we share with the Australians.
In all the thousands of words that have been exchanged I have never yet once heard any member on the opposite side understand or admit that integrity and responsibility are an indispensable part of our system of government. If they had admitted it we would have had a very different story. We would have had a very different chronology of events. We would have had ministers standing up and saying: "Yes, Al-Mashat came in. I take responsibility for it. If you do not like it, what are you going to do about it?" In other words, defending the actions of the government.
Instead, we have had deflection, hiding, and evasion. Perhaps the most smarmy move of all was trying to take a couple of public servants and put them before the public saying: "They are the ones who caused the problem. It is their error in judgment, not ours".
Let us get down to facts. Let us deal with the specifics of the issue. First, let us deal with the former Secretary of State for External Affairs, the present minister of constitutional affairs who keeps saying: "I see no evil, hear no evil. I didn't know anything about it, had no responsibility. Don't touch me, I can't be held responsible for anything. After all it was only a decision made by my chief of staff, the person whom I appointed, the person I put into place, not a public servant, not some anonymous foreign service officer way off in Ankara or Vienna but the person who has offices right next to mine". Yet he said he had no responsibility. That is a
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distortion of a fundamental principle of ministerial responsibility.
To compound the error, that minister, along with others, says: "It was the Associate Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs who did not inform me".
We even heard from the under-Secretary. It appears that in fact he was informed according to the procedures set out by the minister himself. It was not a matter of the Associate Under-Secretary forgetting. He did not say: "I am not going to tell the minister". He instructed a senior civil servant, the head of the Security Division of External Affairs, to write a memo detailing that Al-Mashat had been turned down as a defector and was now being considered as a possible retiree.
That memorandum went to the major departmental clerk of the minister's office who registered it. It came in an envelope marked secret, had a tab snapped on under red wax. It went from there to the office of a chief of staff who admits that he read it, but then he cannot recall what happened to it. All of a sudden he was struck with a fit of amnesia that has lasted for three months.
Actually, maybe the minister responsible is the minister of health and welfare. Maybe it is that he has not undertaken a major health inspection of all departmental assistants, all executive assistants, all chiefs of staffs and all ministers of the Crown who seem to have been struck by a mass epidemic of amnesia on the government side. All we heard in the testimony was: "I can't recall. I can't remember. I wasn't there. I don't know. I am not sure".
The fact of the matter is that the minister of constitutional affairs does bear full responsibility in terms of what goes on in his office.
I will take him at his word. He stood up in Parliament today and said: "I did not see it". We cannot dispute the word of a member.
At the same time it does beg a real question as to what happened to the memo. Does anybody in this entire country believe that a memo marked "Secret" sent under the proper procedures in the Department of External Affairs, which is probably the most self-conscious department in the entire country about security

June 12, 1991
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matters, all of a sudden just vanishes overnight? It just sort of flutters away.
No such thing happened to it. That security memo is somewhere, but this government has made no effort to find it. It has not made any. I make this additional allegation, charge and submission to the government. If it is trying to defend the performance and activity of individual ministers, how is it possible to do so when there has been no real effort to call in the RCMP to properly investigate what happened to the memo or who is responsible for it?
When there was a small budget leak that a reporter from Global Television, Doug Small, received, half the legions of the RCMP were scouring the country looking for it.
When members of the opposition are sent a brown envelope and it arrives at their desk with some kind of government document within 24 hours the RCMP is in our office saying: "How did you get hold of that?"
The government goes to extraordinary lengths to change its typewritten cabinet documents and secret documents so it can trace them. However, all of a sudden in this one case there is a cavalier, casual approach.
The present minister of external affairs says: "I don't know. I have been away. I don't know". This is a minister who is operating in a total fit of absence and is not fulfilling her responsibility to find that document so that we can find out what is the truth.
I just heard the parliamentary secretary say: "We have it". Once again, another big lie. Once again, another piece of mythology. Once again, we are engaging in propaganda because that parliamentary secretary knows full well that the original had disappeared and he knows the original-


Mr. Friesen:: I think it would be proper, and I think the member knows that he has to withdraw the remark that he has just made. If he wants to keep it parliamentary, he ought to withdraw that remark.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I do not think he called anybody a liar. I think he made a statement. Carry on. I will look at the "blues".
If the hon. member, who has been here for as long as many of us have and in fact longer, feels that he has gone
beyond what he should be saying here in the House then I know he will withdraw it.


Lloyd Axworthy: Certainly look at the "blues". What I was saying was that this government, day after day, attempts to manufacture new concoctions about what went on.
The parliamentary secretary is attempting to intimate that we have the document when he knows full well the original document has disappeared and that original document has stamped on it who received it and how it was used. If there is going to be any apology it should be from that parliamentary secretary who is directly responsible for shutting down the committee of inquiry by saying he refused to answer any questions.
Knowing that hon. member, I know we will not get an apology. I know when the apology will come. It will be the day when he has to face his electorate back in his own riding. It is going to demand the ultimate apology, which is the fact that will put him into permanent retirement.
Let us go on to the second case of ministerial responsibility. I want to cite very clearly the circumstances and the events that we know about.
Once it was discovered that Al-Mashat was in the country and it became public, the entire government geared into massive damage control.
We know that on May 13, there was a meeting held of senior cabinet ministers, including the minister of external affairs, the former Solicitor General, the Minister of Employment and Immigration, the minister for constitutional affairs, the Clerk of the Privy Council and the principal secretary to the Prime Minister. Did they get together to talk about, as we keep hearing, admonitions from the minister of external affairs to get down to the substance?
Did they get together to talk about what was happening in Kuwait or to the Kurdish refugees? No. They were planning on how they could issue a report that would be laundered and cleansed, and would carefully, selectively take the information which had been given to them by the pubic service auditors and refine it into a more acceptable document, missing key points, key facts, key elements and ingredients.
Those very same ministers had the unmitigated nerve and gall to come before the public on May 14 and say: "This is a complete document and it has all the facts,
June 12, 1991

everything you need to know. Nothing more needs to be said".
The very day before this high level committee of ministers and senior officials had spent its time whiting out the important parts, twisting the words, rewriting and regauging. To compound the problem once again, it engaged in what I can only call an act of political extortion. The committee wrote into that report apologies or confessions for Mr. Raymond Chretien, the Associate Under-Secretary and for Mr. Daubney, even though neither of those two gentlemen had ever been asked if they were prepared to apologize. They had never been given the opportunity to give their side of the case to that committee. This committee was a star chamber, a kangaroo court. It is running people out on a rail.
Once it was revealed, once that information came to light and we knew that a senior group of ministers and officials had engaged in this kind of political concoction, not one of them had the guts or the courage to stand in the House and apologize to the individuals involved for ruining their reputations. In fact those ministers and officials gloated over it.
The minister of external affairs in a press conference said: "Of course this is going to undermine their reputation". There are several people whose reputations have been undermined. It is not the Associate Under-Secretary. It is the minister of external affairs, the minister for constitutional affairs and the Minister of Employment and Immigration. That is really where the crux of this whole issue lies.
One does not have to take my word for it.
Let me just read, if I may for a few moments, the comments of other people who have had some serious and distinguished experience in government. Mr. A1 Johnson, who was a former deputy minister, in a May 23 article in The Citizen, said: "The pick and choose approach to ministerial responsibility is lunacy. Ministers would be free to choose what they would accept responsibility for; everything that went well, of course, they would agree with; anything that went wrong it was the civil servants to blame".
Let me also cite the judgment of Judge Lieff in the Goyer case in 1978: "It is a long-standing convention of parliamentary democracy and the doctrine of ministerial responsibility which encompasses it that civil servants are to remain faceless to the public. A minister should not be
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able to blame or castigate personally any civil servant or department under his control".
We then come to a third authority, and this is an authority I hope the government will listen to because it was the authority cited ad nauseam by the minister of external affairs. Professor Kenneth Kemaghan, on the whole concept of ministerial responsibility, said: "In the event of maladministration by department officials, the conventions of both ministerial responsibility and political neutrality require that ministers protect the anonymity of the wrongdoers by declining to identify them publicly".
He goes on to explain that also the burden of proof is on the ministers to be responsible.
Let me also quote once again from J. R. Mallory who was the authority cited by the minister of external affairs as taking away her obligation to be accountable: "A minister alone is accountable for the policy of his department; the civil servant cannot be called to account for policy statements or his actions". That was J. R. Mallory, one of the distinguished political scientists.
The reason why it is important that this House face this issue and come to grips with it, and why members of both sides of the House must support this motion is in recognition of the damage that has been done. Until we reassert this fundamental principle of responsibility there is going to be a continued undermining of the confidence of the Public Service of this country. Officials in external affairs will never again be able to trust their minister after she railroaded one of their senior officials into the kind of public ignominy that she was responsible for.
All public servants across Canada are right now saying to themselves: "I am not taking the responsibility. I am not making the decision because I am going to be hung out to dry by those ministers".
That is one reason why this House must reaffirm this principle. We must also reaffirm confidence in the way that this government works because we see time and time again ministers evading the truth, not detailing the facts, blaming other people, and fingering public servants. We are all talking about this scepticism. The throne speech said in such eloquent words that we must restore belief in the parliamentary system. I can think of no more serious erosion to the parliamentary system

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than what has been constituted by these ministers not taking responsibility and accountability for their actions. That is where the real responsibility lies. That is when confidence is undermined; when ministers get up in this House and play deaf and dumb to their own responsibilities. That is not the way to conduct oneself.
Over the years this government has been on a wrecking crusade. It has undermined the CBC. It has undermined our public transportation system. It undermined the economy of this country and people are paying a heavy price for it. Now, not satisfied with ripping apart the economic and social fabric of Canada, it is trying to undermine the Parliament of Canada and the very system which we are all sworn to defend and protect.
Until we can reaffirm what is important to it and until we can say to Canadians very clearly that we are going to try to rebuild that system and show ministers who are elected to take accountability, that the buck stops at their desk and not at somebody else's desk, there will not be confidence in this system of government and there will not be confidence that people can be governed with honesty, truth and veracity.
The government shut down the parliamentary inquiry probably because we are getting too close to the truth. It can redeem itself by having a judicial inquiry where it is not subject to parliamentary majorities, so that there can be oaths of office, so that there can be proper investigation, so that we can get a kind of real insight.
If the government is not prepared to do that there is another way. I would like to cite the comments of Lord Carrington, a distinguished British minister and former Secretary of State for External Affairs.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The hon. member's time has expired. He will require unanimous consent to continue. Is it agreed?


Some hon. members:: No.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, would the hon. member please give us the citation that he was about to read?


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Hamilton East for the courtesy which is denied me by the members on the government side.
I would like to read the statement made by Lord Carrington in his autobiography. He said: "The nation feels that there has been a disgrace. Someone must have been to blame. The disgrace must be purged. The person to purge it should be the minister in charge".
I would think that it would be good advice that the present minister of constitutional affairs and the Minister of Employment and Immigration should take to heart. Where there is a disgrace, it should be purged. It can only be purged by the minister in charge.


Benno Friesen: Mr. Speaker, I want to remind the member here, and we will all keep in mind, that we will look at the "blues" to make sure that when we get them and check them the member will withdraw that statement.
I want to come, first of all, to the whole harangue about the secret memo of which he has a copy, and all the members of his party who were on the committee have a copy, and the member for Burnaby-Kingsway has a copy. It is a secret memo, of which the press all has copies.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Where is the original?


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I would like to hear the comments and the question put. I cannot do it if there are going to be exchanges from across the floor.


Benno Friesen: All these members have the opportunity of getting copies of that memo. They persist in talking about the secret memo that is missing. It is true the original is missing, after all the copies were made.
Could they tell the difference between one copy or another? Bring in the RCMP with the Xerox machines.


Sheila Maureen Copps: I thought you were a lawyer.


Benno Friesen: No, I am not. I am clean.
June 12, 1991

Could they tell with modern technology the difference between the original and the copy? I doubt that they could.
This member began his address by inveighing against what he called the quick and accelerated access to Canada that Mr. Al-Mashat had. He talked about the special access and the high dudgeon, synthetic outrage that this member had against that particular process.
I want to take this member back a few years when there was real reason to express outrage. I take him back to Hansard, page 2646 of July 8, 1980, when he was minister of immigration. I have raised this before, and the member already knows what is coming.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Again I would like to say to the hon. member for Scarborough West that I cannot hear if there is going to be yelling across the aisle.
I would like to hear what the comment and question are.
I may have to rule on something he is saying, so please.


Benno Friesen: Mr. Speaker, these are the ones who believe in free speech but shout down others who want to speak.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Be reasonable. I want to ask questions too.


Benno Friesen: Okay. You will get your shot. You want to hear about Guiseppe Calamusa again, don't you? The member was asked about the special treatment of what we could call the quick and accelerated access, the special access that this member when he was minister of immigration gave to one Giuseppe Calamusa who moved from Niagara Falls to Winnipeg, presumably to be a little closer to the minister's office at that time so he could get quick and accelerated access to Canada.
Let me give you the credentials of this individual. He was asked about the record: high and upstanding. He had three criminal records in the former country where he lived. He was helped along, incidentally, by the member's campaign worker, who had given him lodging for that quick and easy access to Canada. When he was asked about deportation, here is what the minister said: "The procedure is to allow those who are given a deportation order", very carefully chosen words, "to be given a permit so that they can then present it upon re-entry".
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Since when could somebody under deportation order come back into the country? That is the most fundamental rule, that people under deportation do not come back to Canada. This member not only gave him a permit to come back in, he provided immigration officers to ride in a government car to Emerson, Manitoba, do the loop around Emerson, do the re-entry and come back into Canada. And this is the man who is so offended that Al-Mashat had quick and easy access. Nothing but synthetic outrage from this man. After that kind of a record, how could he object to another man coming into Canada through the special access, the quick and accelerated access?


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker,
I am very pleased that the hon. member is a student of history because I think he should learn something from that incident.
First, let us get the facts straight. I remember the case very well. The member quoted somewhat selectively, just as his ministers do in the Al-Mashat case. What he did not mention is that the Calamusa family also had a child who was near death and could only get treatment in Canada and that under the Immigration Act, the minister is obliged to give a permit in matters of humanitarian or compassionate means. Otherwise the child might have died. The only way they could have got the treatment was to have them stay in Canada and demonstrate if they would become good Canadian citizens, which, by the way, they have now become. I am glad to report that as far as I know he still owns and operates a bakery and is providing employment for several Canadians.
But, here is the difference: I made that decision as the minister of immigration and I got up in the House of Commons and took full responsibility for that decision. I did not hide. I did not duck. I did not evade. I took all the heat that that member could give, which was not very much, because he is not capable of generating much intellectual heat in anything. But I took full responsibility and I did not try to duck and hide like his ministers did. I accepted ministerial responsibility. That is the difference.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, I want to hear more about this case. I think the hon. member is putting a red herring here. I want to hear the member for Winnipeg South Centre tell us more about this case that he had to deal with.

June 12, 1991
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Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, very clearly, there was a case which was transferred to me by the Department of Immigration with a number of recommendations on it dealing with the judgment that had to be made as to whether this gentleman, who had a large family of six children all of whom had been bom in Canada, would be allowed to stay or be asked to leave.
We received differing opinions as happens with most immigration case, from security, from medical officers, and it came down to, and hopefully I will get back to the germane, responsibility.
After considering all the evidence, after taking the memo from my civil servant, directly by the way, not being screened by some assistant or chief of staff, but looking at it directly according to my own lights and taking it and pondering on it, I decided to let the family stay under a short-term permit to allow the child to have treatment and to determine if the family was then able to begin to establish its bona fides in Canada, to show its proper citizenship. They could have been sent back any time under that permit if they had not showed that.
Fortunately it was a good judgment call. Of course the real deciding factor, the real difference in all those immigration cases, is that I was prepared to come into this House every single day and take my responsibility for them. If the opposition did not want to help a child who was ill to get proper treatment that was its business, but I took that decision and I am proud of it.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Questions and comments are now terminated.


Harvie Andre: Mr. Speaker I remember that case. The individual in question had a criminal record, had been deported and had come back illegally.
There was no doubt that the overwhelming opinion of officials was that he should not be permitted in Canada because of his criminal record. The minister of immigration put him in a car, took him down. He says he did it for the right reasons. That could be, but for him to get indignant about special privilege in this case, considering
what he did in that case, is a little bit-shall we say-questionable.
The motion today says:
That this House affirm that Ministers are individually and collectively responsible to the House of Commons for the activities of the government.
In fact we do not disagree with the motion, but we are going to have to vote against it because this is a question of competence.
I wonder what the hon. member's former leader had to say about ministerial responsibility. I quote from Hansard of March 2,1983 when we had the famous Gillespie case. As a matter of fact the member for Surrey-White Rock-South Langley brought to the attention of the House the quotes from the then Prime Minister, Mr. Trudeau, who said in Hansard on page 22938:
Yes, Madam Speaker, we are collectively responsible for the policies of this government. . . The government as a whole is not collectively responsible for some individual agreement-
Then Mr. Trudeau went on to say:
However, one could not condemn the whole government for some act of an individual unless the whole government itself had been part of the decision, much as on the other side of the House, if one Tory Member behaves illegally the whole caucus does not stand condemned.
Ah, ha, what about collective ministerial responsibility, Mr. Trudeau? No, no, no, you cannot condemn the whole government unless the whole government participated in the decision. Then Mr. Trudeau said:
If the Hon. Member is talking about the meaning of responsible government, literally, it means that the Government of the day is responsible to Parliament and can only continue exercising its powers with the authority of Parliament, that is, with the support of the majority of the Members of Parliament. That is what responsible government means.
Nothing more, nothing less, according to Mr. Trudeau. Then the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of State for Economic Development at the time, Mr. Jim Peterson-who is now back in the House-said in a late show debate on March 15, 1983, quoting the Prime Minister:
-the Prime Minister said: "If someone acts improperly in such circumstances, it is not the whole Government that is acting. If a Minister is acting improperly or illegally, he has to be taken to task. However, one could not condemn the whole Government for some act by an individual, unless the whole Government itself had been part of the decision".

Yet we have a motion and screaming and yelling from the hon. member opposite that the ministers are individually and collectively responsible for Al-Mashat. His former leader said absolutely nothing. That is absolutely absurd. I believe he supported his former leader at that time. I do not know if he still does. Going on to quote Mr. Trudeau:
- literally, it means that the Government of the day is responsible to Parliament and can only continue exercising its powers with the authority of Parliament -
Nothing more than that.
The Government does not accept responsibility for an error of judgment or bad administration by one of its members. The process of Government compels a delegation of authority. The Cabinet must leave to each Minister a substantial discretion as to what matters he will bring before it. If he makes a mistake, then he must accept the personal responsibility.
That quote is attributed to Sir Ivor Jennings, who Mr. Peterson said was the leading authority on responsible government in the 20th century.
It is interesting how perspectives on responsibility seem to change with time.
The New Democrats have been a part of this exercise. Let us hear what the premier of Ontario had to say about ministerial responsibility. Speaking about the Farnan affair, Mr. Rae is quoted in an article by Chris Hall in The Ottawa Citizen as saying: "Let's put some context here. The opposition talks about ministerial responsibility. I've looked into the precedents and there isn't a case that I can find in the last 50 years where a minister was expected to take the rap, the fall, because something was done without him knowing it. Hmmm, interesting how the standards change, depending on where you are and who the target is".
Let us not go any further than the McGrath committee report, which was endorsed by this House. It was an all-party committee. The hon. member for Papineau signed the report. Everybody agreed to it.


Sheila Maureen Copps: It was never adopted.
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says: "The idea of a minister being responsible for everything that goes on in the department may once have been realistic, but it has long since ceased to be so. A minister cannot possibly know everything that is going on in a department. The doctrine of ministerial accountability undermines the potential for genuine accountability on the part of the person who ought to be accountable, the senior officer of the department".
My goodness, how times change. This was a wonderful doctrine in 1985 when all parties in the House agreed to it. Now it is an outrage, an insult, and something we must abandon.


Sheila Maureen Copps: You don't even know what you are talking about.


Harvie Andre: Yes, it was. It was a report put forward by the House to which the government responded and accepted the recommendation flowing from it. There was not one word of opposition from her party. She knows it.


Sheila Maureen Copps: It was not. That's a lie.


Harvie Andre: She says: "That's a lie". I would like her to quote one word of opposition anywhere because I have gone through the minutes. She knows she is wrong and she is caught out.
Part of the minutes of the McGrath committee report, interestingly enough, discuss this question of ministerial responsibility selectively, but I would like to quote from the committee proceedings of February 7, 1985, page 612.


Mr. Harvard:: That is some kind of archaeological dig.


Harvie Andre: It talked about Doug Fisher, the columnist, who appeared before the committee and said: "Last Friday on my television program Gordon Robertson said the whole idea of ministerial responsibility is outmoded".
I think he is right. He said we had to start holding-


John Harvard: Some kind of archaeologist. I will never learn from Doug Fisher.


Harvie Andre: It was adopted by this House. The hon. ^jr. ^n(jre: jUS{ a minute. Listen to this, John Harvard, member for Hamilton East says it was never adopted. You may learn something.
She is skating backward. She is saying the hon. member
for Papineau was not speaking for the Liberal Party then; He said we had to start holding public servants he lost his head; he went out to lunch. He probably accountable, believed that Mr. Trudeau was right when he said those
things. That is probably why. However, in the report it Mr. Harvard: I will never learn from Doug Fisher.

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Harvie Andre: You're right. You can't learn anything. You need to have some intelligence to do that.
He is quoting Gordon Robertson, so if you would keep your mouth shut you might hear what I am saying.
What does that mean for you? Anyway, I think the case has proven that what we have here is an abundance of dual standards, to avoid using the word that starts with an h that describes this thing. We have dual standards. On the one hand the Liberals and the New Democratic Parties say the thing is outmoded. We agree with this.
The Fascists over there are trying to shout me down. That is typical of their approach. They do not like the message so they try to shout me down, the brown shirts in the Liberal Party.


Sheila Maureen Copps: A Fascist I am not and I want that withdrawn right now.


Harvie Andre: I have no trouble withdrawing it if she will promise me she will keep her mouth shut so I can finish my address. Prove to me I was wrong in my assertion: she is behaving like one.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, I object strenuously to the term Fascist and I want an unequivocal withdrawal, right now, right here and now.


Harvie Andre: Mr. Speaker, seriously, this is a very important fundamental principle we are discussing, the principle of ministerial responsibility. It underlines our system of responsible government.
Recent events of which we in this House are all aware have given rise to considerable comment from members of Parliament, the public, the press, about the nature and practice of this principle. Indeed, the motion which we are debating shows that interest in this principle is alive and well in this Parliament, as it should be. I would note, however, that some of the comments on ministerial responsibility which we have heard and read in recent weeks have contained some misconceptions about the principle that have undoubtedly confused rather than clarified how it is applied in Canada.
I am pleased, therefore, to participate today in this debate and set out for the House, and through it for the Canadian public, the key elements of this fundamental principle of our democratic system of government.
I wish first to address the motion itself. On the face of it, it is a very straightforward motion calling upon members of Parliament to announce their support for the doctrine of ministerial responsibility. The vehicle being used, as has been conceded by the Liberal Party opposite in another supply motion earlier this year, the medicare one, is a non-confidence motion. Were it to pass, it would require the government to resign. We can hardly expect this as a straightforward attempt on the part of the Liberal Party to encourage non-partisan all-party support for the principles underlying this doctrine to which this government has adhered faithfully in recent events.
Let me therefore set out for the House the nature and elements of this doctrine.
Ministers exercise powers bestowed upon them by the Crown in Parliament and hold office at the pleasure of the Crown. The exercise of these powers for which ministers are constitutionally responsible to Parliament provides the foundation of responsible government.
The concentration of responsibility in the hands of ministers reflects the fundamental democratic principle that the power of the state must be exercised under the authority of elected officials accountable to the representatives of the electorate.
This enables Parliament to focus responsibility for the conduct of government on those of its members who hold ministerial office and who ultimately must personally answer to Parliament and hence to the electorate for their actions and the actions of their subordinates. Collectively ministers are responsible for the decisions of the government as a whole and the activities of all of their colleagues, even though Mr. Trudeau did not agree with that. This is the cement of our system of government. Although collective responsibility unlike individual responsibility is conventional rather than legal, it is fashioned through means that serve to make more effective the exercise of individual responsibility.
In this manner the constitutional responsibility of ministers, both individually and collectively, enables Parliament to satisfy itself that power is exercised responsibly through the system of government.
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The direct responsibility of ministers to Parliament on a day-to-day basis is the essential strength of our system. The essence of the doctrine is that ministers, and only ministers, answer to the House for the way in which the authority conferred on them has been exercised.
The principles of responsibility, the concentration of the Crown's power in the hands of ministers and the subjection of ministerial power to parliamentary control reinforce the responsibility of ministers, requiring them to be in a position to assure the House that they are exercising powers responsibly.
Ministers fulfil their responsibilities and are called to account by the House of Commons for the exercise of their statutory authority in accordance with practice and convention. From the origins of our system, however, political circumstances rather than literal application of the principle of ministerial responsibility have governed the answerability of ministers. As Professor J. R. Mallory has noted, the minister has a political responsibility.
Ministers are responsible for all the actions taken under their authority. Although it is true that the degree to which they are required to answer for the actions of officials will depend upon the political circumstances and whether an official has, for example, acted in a clearly unacceptable manner of which the minister had no knowledge, the fact remains that the minister is constitutionally responsible. This is essential in determining who answers for what and to whom in the system.
Accountability in the system derives directly from the responsibility of ministers. Ministers answer before Parliament and are challenged to defend the way in which they or their officials have exercised the power that is made legitimate my their constitutional responsibility as ministers.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Harvie Andre: I see the brown shirts over there are still trying to yell me down.
Parliament expects and requires that ministers are responsible and enjoys ready access to ministers for the purpose of holding them answerable.
Deputy ministers derive almost all their authority from ministers. They advise ministers and administer the
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programs carried out under the statutory authority exercised by ministers. They are loyal to their ministers and are required to actively support and participate in the policy and administrative decisions taken by ministers individually and collectively. Put simply, deputy ministers are responsible to ministers.
Officials are not, of course, constitutionally responsible, but they play and have played a role vis-a-vis Parliament that in some important respects compliments the role of ministers. Although officials do not have constitutional responsibility or share the responsibility of their ministers, they do share to a degree in the answerability of their ministers to Parliament.
They support ministers in answering to committees of the House provided this does not draw officials into partisan controversy or undermine the authority and responsibility of ministers. This role of officials has been enhanced and strengthened by the McGrath report which recommended that public servants be made available to parliamentary committees. The government stated at that time that it supported this recommendation, and recent events have borne out our commitment in this regard.
The concentration of responsibility in the hands of ministers is the bedrock of parliamentary government. It is, however, a matter of observation that the government is a large administrative enterprise. It is not a modem phenomenon that ministers cannot know everything that is under their authority. The phenomenon is merely more acute today than it was a century ago, and not prima facie proof of the irrelevance of ministerial responsibility. Ministers spend much of their time providing information to Parliament, indicating a need for the minister's ability to answer and provide information to be shared without, however, sharing his or her responsibility.
The essential elements of the doctrine of ministerial responsibility, therefore, are that: Power flows from the Crown and is exercised by ministers who are responsible to Parliament. Ministers are responsible for the actions of their officials, whether they had prior knowledge of them or not. Officials advise ministers and they are accountable to ministers.

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When an error is made of which the minister is unaware, the minister acts to establish the facts, correct the error and satisfy himself or herself that it will not reoccur. The minister informs the House of the action taken.
I note that all the precedents at the federal level in Canada and Canadian authorities support this interpretation of the doctrine.
Professor Kenneth Kernaghan has noted it is almost universally accepted that it is unreasonable to hold a minister personally responsible in the form of resignation for the administrative failings of subordinates.
The usual practice is that the minister informs Parliament that the fault lies with his officials, and he promises that the offenders will be disciplined and their mistakes corrected.
Despite frequent calls by opposition parties for ministerial resignations on the grounds of actual or alleged departmental mismanagement, in practice ministers in Canada do not resign as penance for administrative bungling in their departments. They never have in this country.
Professors S. E. Finer and Geoffrey Marshall, leading British authorities, sum up the doctrine of practice of ministerial responsibility as follows:
When we speak of minister's individual responsibility we merely mean that, for every act or neglect on the part of civil servants, some minister or other is charged to explain in the Houses of Parliament: and that only ministers may do so.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: They do not; they refuse to answer.


Harvie Andre: The hon. member knows that is not true and I wish he would quit interrupting. He will have his opportunity.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: There will be a time for questions and comments if the hon. minister will be able to finish in another four minutes.


Harvie Andre: Mr. Marshall said:
When action is taken of which a minister disapproves and of which he has not prior knowledge, there is no obligation on his part to endorse it, to defend the errors of his officers, or to resign.
There is not a single case since Confederation of a minister resigning because of an error of an official.
Applying the doctrine to the facts of the Al-Mashat case, I would note the following: Ministers did not know anything of the Al-Mashat affair until after Mr. Al-Mashat had entered Canada legally. That has been accepted by everybody. When they were informed, they took full responsibility by acting to establish the facts.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: To accuse other people.


Harvie Andre: There he goes again. The brown shirts are in action again. They will not allow me to speak.
When the facts were established, they took appropriate action to ensure there would be no repetition and sought an apology from those involved. Ministers informed the House of how they had fulfilled their responsibilities.
Given the ministers' commitment to a thorough investigation and to make the facts public, and given the findings of the investigation and the nature of the report flowing therefrom, it became inevitable that the identity of the officials principally involved would become public.
I have spoken at some length on the doctrine of ministerial-here we go again; they do not like-


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member keeps protesting he is being shouted down and yet we have sat here listening patiently for quite a long time. I want to remind him, since he is so keen on citing Beauchesne's and the authorities therein, of citation 473, and I would ask the Chair to bear this in mind:
While it has frequently been ruled that in addressing the House a Member must not read from a written, previously prepared speech, Members have traditionally been allowed to make use of extensive notes when speaking.
I hate to say it, but I think the minister is reading verbatim from this and I ask you to draw his attention to the-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I think those are selective notes. I would like to hear the government House leader. He has two minutes.


Harvie Andre: I do not understand. I sat here and listened to a lot of what I felt was pretty outrageous from the spokesman for his party. I wonder why it cannot extend the normal courtesy of allowing me to complete my remarks without interruption, barracking, shouting and yelling, but that seems to be the approach of the other side; if you do not like the message of the other side, shout it down, and this is all for responsible government.
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When we talked about it in terms of the decorum and how people watching must feel about this, we get accused of there somehow being ill motives behind it. When I sit here and watch this going on I feel guilty about the sums of money we as parliamentarians collect from the citizens.
I have spoken for some time on the doctrine of ministerial responsibility and its direct application to the facts of the case that have risen to this debate in the House. I have set out the doctrine as it currently applies in Canada and I have demonstrated how ministers of this government have acted in accordance to its elements in the Al-Mashat case.
I wish I could be confident that hon. members would recognize-there is the talking, empty head from Winnipeg again.
The facts in this case are pretty clear for anybody who wants to see them. Phone calls were made to Mr. Raymond Chretien. He started Al-Mashat on the fast track. He did not inform his minister. The ministers did not become aware of his being fast-tracked until after he came into Canada.


Some hon. members:: What about the memo?


Harvie Andre: The memo they are talking about they had copies of as soon as they asked for it. I will let you in on a secret. A Xerox machine makes an exact copy. The original and the copy are the same. They know what is in the memo. They are simply off on a witch-hunt.
We agree with the substance of the motion but we have to vote against it because it is a confidence motion. I would remind members of what their former leader, Mr. Trudeau, had to say. I would refer them to citations in Hansard. I wish that they would recognize that sometimes a little bit of integrity and consistency and a little less high dudgeon and outrage, when in fact they have no basis for that high dudgeon and outrage, would better suit the country. There are important issues facing the country. Whether the Xerox in this case produced an exact copy or not is hardly an issue.
The former minister of immigration, who fast-tracked people by putting them in ministerial cars and driving them to North Dakota, is screaming in outrage about special treatment for Al-Mashat. This case did not involve ministers bending the rules as was done in his case.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, first of all I have a comment-


An hon. member:: Will it be brief?


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Yes, it will be brief.
The subject before the House today deals with ministerial responsibility-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Please, I would like to hear the questions and comments of the hon. member for Ottawa-Vanier.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: I will be very brief, Mr. Speaker. There are two important aspects to the question before us today. Ministerial responsibility implies administrative responsibility. In the McGrath report we all read in chapter I and following: "Ministers are held responsible for their actions and their department". They are also held responsible for the administration of that department. In the speech he just made, the minister confirmed that his opinion was not any different.
We have before us a motion that simply states a fundamental principle of Canadian democracy. I would ask the minister: Does he not think it is going a bit too far to say that this motion calls for a confidence vote? He knows what McGrath had to say about this. I will read it to him if he likes, but I do not have time so I will refer him to page 10 which gives an excellent explanation of the problem. There are five or six very clear resolutions that say that once the electorate has spoken and when the government in power has a majority, the government should not use the question of confidence to try to get rid of a motion which in fact, is an excellent motion in favour of ministerial responsibility. Again I ask him: Why does he keep causing us this kind of grief in the House?


Harvie Andre: Mr. Speaker, we have dealt with that already at least a couple of times this session. These opposition days are a replacement for the traditional way in which Parliaments held governments to account, which was by challenging the appropriations bill. It was introduced by the Hon. Donald Macdonald when he was House leader for the Liberal Party. The traditional way was replaced by opposition days, a number of which could have votes attached to them which are considered

June 12, 1991
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confidence motions because of what they are a surrogate for, namely votes on the appropriations bill.
As I indicated earlier, I think we should look at it. I have asked the management committee to look at it. However, those are the rules that the Liberal Party imposed in 1969 and they are still part of our system. They may well be outdated, and I agree they probably are, but those are the rules that we have at this point in time. Until they are changed we are obliged to follow them.


Thomas (Tom) William Wappel: Mr. Speaker, the previous speaker mentioned this memo, Xerox machines and various things like this. I want to make a comment and then ask the minister and the House leader a very specific question.
The original of the memorandum of March 8 we know for a fact was sent from External Affairs in the usual course, as demanded by the minister who is now the minister for constitutional affairs, taken into his office and given to one of his staff. That person literally walked it into the office of the chief of staff of the then minister of external affairs and brought it to the attention of the secretary of the chief of staff. The chief of staff admits receiving it, the chief of staff admits reading it, that is the chief of staff chosen by the then minister of external affairs.
The chief of staff, the person who was the right-hand man to the minister of external affairs at that time, saw the document, saw the original, had the original in his hands. It has disappeared. The minister has stated categorically, and we accept the minister's word as we do all hon. members, that he never saw the memorandum. It is clear that his right-hand man did not bring it to his attention. This was at a time at least two weeks before Al-Mashat came into this country.
Is it such an unreasonable proposition to ask that in those circumstances the minister take responsibility for the negligence of his chief of staff in failing to bring that memorandum to his attention? Is that so unreasonable?


Harvie Andre: He spoke of the memo of March 8. He will know that the memo was dated March 8 but did not reach the minister's office until March 14. I think he agrees with that fact. He nods in consent.
It is interesting. How come it took six days? We cannot blame it on Canada Post. However, in any event those facts are true. The former Secretary of State for External Affairs was upset because he was at this very time in the Middle East meeting with leaders of the Middle East countries. He was understandably upset that he was not told by his senior deputy minister, by the deputy minister who initiated this memo, about this fact because it could have come up and been an embarrassment to the Secretary of State for External Affairs.
The principal secretary, chief of staff to the Secretary of State for External Affairs, has testified before committee that he does not know what happened to it, that he did not recognize it for its importance because it was not flagged, it was not identified, that there was nothing on it that said "the minister must see this" or any such thing.
He recognized that perhaps he should have taken the initiative and done it anyway. That is one of the reasons for the apology.
Subsequent to that, as the hon. member knows, there was a cabinet shuffle. Undoubtedly there were conversations going on between the Secretary of State for External Affairs and the Prime Minister in that regard. There would have been preparations; there were some changes of offices. In any event the document was a pretty common kind of document. Yes, it was marked "secret" but I get press clippings marked "secret". If it is something that is really important in terms of national security, it is given a much higher confidence category. The memo was in the machine, if you will, in the computer. There are many copies of the memo. It is available. Everybody sees it. It is not the kind of thing that would be treated as though we were dealing with state secrets.
It contained information that was not to be released to the press immediately. However, it was not a secret document challenging the security of the country for which the RCMP should be brought in.
That is probably the explanation. The Secretary of State for External Affairs, the current one, says it cannot be found. That is hardly relevant however because if you

June 12, 1991

want another copy, if you have lost yours, we will just turn on the word processor and generate one.


Mr. Blaine A. Thacker (Lethbridge):: Mr. Speaker, I have a comment that is more a question for the opposition because I am absolutely convinced that if government members voted for this motion they would be calling for the defeat of the government. This is one of the days declared to be votable, and that is under our procedures. That is why we have to vote against it even though we agree in substance.
I have not been following this debate too closely. However I have not heard any members talk about the Supreme Court decision. There is a Supreme Court decision, as I recollect, on this issue called the Bhatnager case. Does that not impact upon this ministerial responsibility? Has the committee been briefed on that? The Bhatnager case is the supreme law of the country.


Harvie Andre: I do not know whether the committee has been briefed on it but the hon. member is right. That situation arose as a result of a court order requiring certain actions of the government.
There were charges laid that the minister of immigration and the then Secretary of State for External Affairs were cited for contempt for the failure of their officials to comply with that court order.
Their officials did not comply with it. They were charged with contempt of court. A Federal Court of Appeal found them guilty in that regard. It went to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court found them not guilty, saying that they could not be held responsible for the failure of their officials to act on the court order.
If that is true, and that is a decision of the Supreme Court, it is certainly equally true that they cannot be held responsible for an act of commission or omission by officials. The member for Winnipeg South Centre nods his head.
He invokes higher moral authority but the Supreme Court has said this. Incidentally this is similar to what his former leader said. If he will not believe the Supreme Court, will he believe Pierre Trudeau? Is he going to continue to take the politically opportune as opposed-
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The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Questions and comments are now terminated.


Svend Johannes Robinson: Mr. Speaker, I regret that in the period of time allocated to questions and comments that it was not possible to ask a question of the minister. I had risen to do that.
I am pleased that this House has an opportunity to debate this very important issue. I am particularly pleased that the House has the opportunity to debate this issue because unfortunately as a result of the strong-arm tactics of the members of the Conservative Party on the external affairs committee that committee is not able to do the job that originally was assigned to it, which was to get to the truth in this matter.
Unfortunately at this point the only option we have is to raise questions on the floor of this House.
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Secretary of State for External Affairs asked this House to look back in Hansard. He asked this House to look back at earlier events, and I want to reply to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Secretary of State for External Affairs and say: "Yes, I am prepared to look back in Hansard at previous events".
I want to remind that member and government members opposite of what took place in this House 15 years ago, almost 15 years ago to the day.
In June 1976 a Liberal cabinet minister, Jean-Pierre Goyer, had blamed a senior bureaucrat for a bungled deal to buy military aircraft. He was a fellow named Stopforth and was one of his senior bureaucrats.
The minister stood up and said: "No, no, it was not my responsibility. It was the senior bureaucrat's responsibility". What was the response at that time by members of the Conservative Party who were then in opposition, including the member for Surrey-White Rock-South Langley? What did he have to say about it at that time? I have the Hansard here that the member referred to earlier.
What did the member for Yellowhead, who was then the Leader of the Opposition say about this attempt to pass the buck to civil servants? He said that his question arose out of the attempt by the minister to transfer blame for this government's gross incompetence in the Lockheed affair to a middle ranking civil servant. He said

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it was shameful to try to pass that blame to a middle ranking civil servant.
The Conservative defence critic, Allan McKinnon, accused the minister of "trying to blame his own incompetence and lack of supervision on his subordinates".
It is interesting that when it is in opposition the Conservative Party is prepared to stand and defend public servants. When it is in government, what does it do? It engages in the sleaziest form of buck passing in an attempt to avoid its own responsibility in allowing Mo-hamed Al-Mashat to enter the country.
There is a double standard, and I think Canadians recognize veiy clearly that double standard.
I want to take a couple of minutes first of all to just put this question in context. The member for Winnipeg South Centre certainly did that in the course of his comments with respect to what took place before Al-Mashat got into the country, but also with respect to what took place afterward.
I think many Canadians are asking themselves two fundamental questions. How did the guy get into the country in the first place without any minister knowing? Second, what is this absurd, dangerous and destructive spectacle that we have seen in this country of ministers trying to cover up their own responsibility, trying to doctor documents, seeing documents disappearing and extorting confessions from public servants? There are two issues here. There is the original question of how this guy got into the country, but there is also the very fundamental question that members on the Conservative side of this House are refusing to allow the committee to deal with, the question of ministerial accountability.
Certainly the motion which is before the House merely reaffirms a principle which the Secretary of State for External Affairs set out as representing the policy of the Government of Canada in an appearance before the committee on May 30. In fact it quotes from that statement verbatim.
How is it that members of the Conservative Party now are going to vote against that statement which purports to represent the policy of this government? We are told
by the government House leader that somehow the government will fall if they support this statement. The government members, including the government House leader in 1986, supported the McGrath report. What did the McGrath report have to say about questions of confidence on supply days?
It said that confidence on supply days was a question for the government to consider and that the motion is only a question of confidence if the government declares it to be a question of confidence. This nonsense that somehow the government is going to collapse, is going to fall if it reaffirms this principle of ministerial accountability, should not be accepted by this House.
At the conclusion of my remarks I will move an amendment to this motion that will make it very clear that by supporting the motion before the House, members of the House are not in any way considering a lack of confidence in the government. Not by supporting this motion alone. Certainly there are many other reasons for voting lack of confidence in this government, but it will not be able to say that voting for this motion represents that.
I want to look at the question of ministerial accountability. I want to look at the role that ministers have played in this process. Before doing that, I think it is also important to put this question in the context of what has happened here and the anger that Canadians feel and have felt since May 7 or 8, when they first learned that something had gone very wrong, that Mohammed Al-Mashat, the former Iraqi Ambassador to the United States, had not only been allowed to immigrate to Canada but had been given the royal treatment, the red carpet treatment.
We know that he had friends in high places. Apparently Allan Gotlieb and John Godfrey, and who knows who else, made representations to senior government officials urging that Al-Mashat be allowed into the country. We know only too well of the record of Al-Mashat. We know, for example, that when he was Ambassador of Iraq in the United Kingdom he actively encouraged a young reporter for The London Observer, Farzard Bazoft, to make visits to Iraq. After Mr. Bazoft had been arrested in Iraq and falsely charged with espionage, and many countries around the world including Canada con-
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demned that, we know that Al-Mashat denounced him as a spy. He found the secret trial and the hanging of Bazoft thoroughly justifiable.
We know that this man was an important member of the ruling Ba'ath party. We know that he justified the holding of what he called "guests", hostages, including innocent Canadians during the period leading up to the war. We know of this man's record. We have to ask ourselves why it was that, despite this record, this man was given the red carpet treatment. What deals were made, for example, between the American State Department, American intelligence agencies and Canada, to allow this man to get the royal treatment, this special treatment?
This is particularly offensive to Canadians who, in many cases, have struggled with the bureaucracy of the department of immigration themselves for two, three or four years, seeking to be reunited with their families, with their loved ones. When they see this kind of thing happening, they are angry and they ask who is responsible and they see ministers running for cover.
Refugees who have waited in this country for fair treatment have, in some cases, out of desperation, committed suicide. Others ask themselves: why is Al-Mashat getting special treatment, when at the same time there is a system in which refugees are being denied justice. They know. They have seen the desperate Kurds fleeing from injustice and they ask themselves why there is one standard for Al-Mashat and another for the Kurds.
I might add that Al-Mashat, speaking of the Kurds, also denied that there had been any chemical warfare or any gassing whatsoever of the Kurds at Halabja in 1988, despite the fact that the eyes of the world saw exactly what was going on.
Why is it that this man is given the red carpet treatment? On May 8 the Minister of Employment and Immigration threw up his hands and said: "Nobody knew, Mr. Speaker. I just found out. We all just found out and what a terrible thing it is". I do not think Canadians accept that.
We have slowly been learning that in fact ministers did know earlier. We learned, for example, that the Solicitor General found out on April 11. We learned that the Minister of Employment and Immigration found out on April 16. What did she do when she found out? She said
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she hit the roof. She said she was angry. But did she order an inquiry to find out what went wrong? Of course she did not.
According to the documents and the statement made by that minister she said: "One of the responsibilities of ministers is when they are informed they must take full responsibility by acting to establish the facts". Did this minister do that? Did she follow her own guidelines? No, she did not do a damn thing when she found out on April 16. She did not tell the new minister, her successor, Mr. Valcourt: "Bernard, something went wrong here, get to the bottom of it and find out". She did not tell the Prime Minister or Joe Clark, the former Secretary of State for External Affairs. After all, she and Mr. Clark had earlier turned down another application by another Iraqi diplomat. She did not get on the phone to him or talk to him and say: "Something has gone wrong here". She did not talk to anybody. She did not order any inquiry. She did nothing. And yet she blames Raymond Chretien and David Daubney and says that they are the ones who have to accept sole responsibility.
We are told that the Prime Minister only found out on April 30. According to the evidence that the committee has heard, the Clerk of the Privy Council knew on March 12 that Al-Mashat was coming into the country, well before he came in. The Clerk of the Privy Council knew that he had already jumped to the front of the queue. He had had his interviews, his medical and his interviews for a security check and everything had been done. It was a done deal.
Immigration knew and CSIS knew and yet we are asked to believe that nobody told any minister. That is what we are asked to believe. The fact is that, even after Al-Mashat got into the country and the Privy Council Office was informed on April 2 that the guy was in the country, it took 29 days. What did they do then? According to the Privy Council Office they did nothing. The Clerk of the Privy Council did not even tell the Prime Minister until April 30, four weeks after he found out.
The legislative assistant to the Prime Minister knew. The deputy press secretary to the Prime Minister knew. The Solicitor General knew. The Minister of Employment and Immigration knew. We are told the Prime Minister did not find out until April 30. The Secretary of State for External Affairs, the new Minister responsible for Constitutional Affairs, did not find out until May 7. Incredible, literally incredible.

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We raise concerns about a meeting that took place of ministers, a cabinet lynch mob, that was deciding to extort confessions from senior public servants. They decided for the sake of symmetry that they would name the minister's chief of staff. It was a cabinet meeting that decided that they would deliberately issue a misleading and inaccurate document, an inaccurate chronology of events. What does the Minister responsible for Constitutional Affairs say when we tiy to raise questions about this? He says: "Don't touch me. Don't ask questions about my credibility because you might damage my credibility as Captain Canada". Unbelievable. That is what this minister says to Canadians: "Do not ask me tough questions. Do not put me on the spot because it might hurt my credibility".
His credibility and the credibility of his fellow ministers have already been damaged by their own incompetence in dealing with this affair.
What about the events that led up to the entry of Al-Mashat into the country? We know that a number of senior officials were well aware of the fact that he would be allowed into the country, fast-tracked. We know that there was a memo on May 7 that set out clearly that Al-Mashat had already been accepted provisionally as a retired applicant. He had had his medicals. Yet despite that immigration officials did not alert their minister. Privy Council Office officials did not alert their minister, the Prime Minister. The officials responsible for CSIS did not alert the Solicitor General.
The one public official who made an effort to alert his minister was the one public official that this government has attempted to blame. Shameful. The one public servant who not only followed the guidelines then in place, and it is ministers who are responsible for those guidelines, the one public servant who followed those guidelines is hung out to dry by these ministers.
Why did they do nothing whatsoever to finger Arthur Kroeger, the deputy minister of immigration, who admitted before the committee that he should have said something too but did nothing? Why did they not finger Paul Tellier who said: "Yes, I knew, but I did not tell the Prime Minister until April 30". It is pretty obvious why they only fingered one public servant.
Of course they also fingered David Daubney for symmetry. Why did they tell Daubney they were fingering him? Because of the fact that Raymond Chretien happened to be the nephew of the Leader of the Opposition and they thought that would not look very good.
Mr. Speaker, you are certainly right. Canadians find that this whole matter does not look very good because they know that it is an attempt to evade and avoid the responsibility of cabinet ministers by blaming one public servant who, in fact, did follow the existing procedures.
In my mind it is not unreasonable to suggest in all the circumstances that given the seriousness of Al-Mashat's potential entry to the country Raymond Chretien could have taken additional steps to ensure that this matter came to the attention of the minister responsible. I do not dispute that fact. I do not dispute the fact that apparently he agreed to have a memo sent by Mr. Vincent, but as I understand it there was no follow-up. There were a number of meetings between himself and the deputy minister, a number of meetings with the minister, and I do not disagree that it is not unreasonable to suggest that given the gravity of the situation identified by Mr. Chretien himself that perhaps he could have taken additional steps to ensure that the minister knew.
But to single him out as the only person responsible and to issue a statement stating that Mr. Chretien had apologized knowing full well that that statement was a lie, a bald-faced lie, is what Canadians find reprehensible.
In the time remaining available to me I want to remind members of this House what the now Secretary of State for External Affairs said during the press conference when she decided to pin the blame on Raymond Chretien. She said: "I don't think anyone should underestimate the impact this could have on people's reputations. You know the saying about taking away my good name".
I think Canadians are going to judge this government and judge it very harshly both in terms of Mohamed Al-Mashat coming into this country, getting the red carpet treatment, and also in terms of the shameful way that ministers of the Crown have attempted to avoid their own responsibility and to pin that on others.
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By trying to blame public servants they have very seriously damaged the relationship between the Public Service and the government, and the Canadian people are going to call them to account for that responsibility.


Benno Friesen: Mr. Speaker, I do not go out of my way to agree with the hon. member very often, but there is one point that he did raise which I agree with. It is frequently the case when members of government, for example, will take positions they may have attacked while they were in opposition. Certainly members of the opposition will attack positions they were defending when they were in the government. That is true not only for the Liberals and the Tories. It is also true for the New Democrats. They are really no different.
I read where Premier Bob Rae, in the Ontario legislature said: "The opposition talks about ministerial responsibility. I have looked into the precedents and there is not a case that I can find in the last 50 years where a minister was expected to take the rap, the fall, because something was done without him knowing about it".
There seems to be a doctrine for Premier Rae and the Ontario legislature and another one for the New Democrats here in Ottawa. Why is it that Rae takes one position and Robinson takes another? It seems to me that if he wants to criticize people for taking opposing positions, depending on whether they are government or opposition, he should include the New Democrats. They are really caught in the same human web that we are.
He says that Canadians are angry that Al-Mashat came in too rapidly. You bet your boots they are angry. So is the government. So are members of the government. Every one of us here has cases in our files that we think have been there far too long and that we would like to see come in. We have constituents who want to see their relatives and friends come in, and they have not been able to. They are offended, as we are offended. Please, please, it is foolhardy for the member to go into high dudgeon, thinking that only the opposition and other people are offended. We are just as offended as they are and we want that to stop.
He began his statement by talking about the strong-arm tactics bringing the committee to an end.
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Sheila Maureen Copps: He is right.


Benno Friesen: We can count on the member for Hamilton East to echo that. She never fails us.
He is criticizing the committee for stopping and yet on June 7, almost a week ago, he said on CBC: "I do not think we have to prolong this thing indefinitely. Some Conservative members of the committee had suggested that we hear from Allan Gotlieb, but I think Canadians expect us to report and to report soon on what went wrong on this and how Al-Mashat got into the country".
He cannot have it both ways. I do have a question for him. He is offended by the fast-tracking of Mr. Al-Mashat, but I remember when he was first elected back in the dim ages of history, before the House sat. He encountered a Latin American seaman who had jumped ship in Vancouver. He had been in several countries after he left Latin America and jumped ship in Vancouver and the member for Burnaby-Kingsway all of a sudden on his own decided: "Here is a refugee". He took him to his apartment and sheltered this man and badgered the then minister of immigration to make sure this fellow whom he harboured was going to be declared a refugee.
Here today he is offended that Mr. Al-Mashat got a fast-track, and all the time in his own history he has been trying to fast-track people himself. Tell me, where is this guy coming from?


Svend Johannes Robinson: Mr. Speaker, I will be very pleased to respond to the questions of the hon. member.
With respect to Galindo Madrid, a young Chilean refugee who had been a student leader and had been tortured in Chile, perhaps the member recalls that Amnesty International, the United Nations Human Rights Commission and the United Nations Commission on Refugees said this was an outrage and that his life was in danger. The Conservative government however, which he was a part of, was prepared to send this person back to be tortured and possibly to be killed.
I and the many others such as church leaders from across this country, including Mennonite church leaders and perhaps the hon. member might have listened to them at the time, stood up and said: "We will not stand by while a Chilean refugee is sent back to a bloodthirsty and brutal military dictatorship to be tortured and killed".

June 12, 1991
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I stand by that decision today and I am very pleased to be able to report that person is a fine and upstanding Canadian citizen.
What I think this government has to answer for is its own responsibility. It should not be hiving it off on to some other level of government, some provincial government. Maybe the hon. member could explain why the Prime Minister stood up in this House on May 15 and said that the Clerk of the Privy Council had said: "Do not let Al-Mashat in. Do not admit him".
We know very well that was not true. The Clerk of the Privy Council said before the committee on June 4: "I surely did not say that the visa should not be issued". That is what Mr. Tellier, the country's top bureaucrat, said.
I would invite the hon. member to answer a supplementary question. When we talk about consistency maybe he can explain why the Prime Minister of this land was not prepared to tell the truth to Canadians about the role of the Clerk of the Privy Council and why to this day he has not apologized for misleading the House.


Mr. Howard Crosby (Halifax West):: Mr. Speaker, I want to make a comment on the matters presented by the member for Burnaby.
I want to make it clear to him and to members of the House that when he refers to the dialogue between the Prime Minister of Canada and the Clerk of the Privy Council, Mr. Paul Tellier, Mr. Tellier said to the committee, and the member heard it, that what the Prime Minister said was 100 per cent accurate.
Read it. It is there in writing and it is in the public domain.
Let me add something else about the member's remarks. He enters into the area of personal judgment on immigrants. We do not do that. We have objective standards for immigration into Canada, and we want those objective standards adhered to.
It is ironic that in this case the member for Burnaby and the member for Winnipeg South Centre went to Baghdad. They said: "We have to deal with the Iraqis. We have to bring about peace. We have to negotiate. We have to talk".
The minute a former member of the administration in Iraq, the Ambassador to the United States, comes into Canada, they said: "That should not happen". I would have thought they would welcome him to Canada.
It was this side which decided to take action against Iraq. It was the government that entered into hostilities and it was the members opposite in the NDP who said: "No, no hostilities". The Leader of the Opposition said: "Bring our men home".
My question is on another subject. I want to refer to what occurred in the committee, and the member knows this. Mr. Anthony Vincent gave a statement to the committee explaining exactly what he had done and he asked to share with Mr. Raymond Chretien any blame that should be attached.
He made it very clear when he asked to make this public statement: "Mr. Raymond Chretien has been publicly associated with the Mohamed Al-Mashat case. I wish it also to be known that as Chairman of the Interdepartmental Committee on Defectors I was directly involved in the management of this case".
"While I greatly appreciate Mr. Chretien's readiness to shoulder the entire burden of public responsibility on behalf of the department, I consider it only just that the public be aware of my own role in the recent events".
It is very clear that the officials of the department took the position that they had taken the action which allowed Al-Mashat to come into Canada. Mr. Anthony Vincent made that statement in the committee. He referred to his relationship with Mr. Chretien.
How can the member stand in this House and suggest that anybody but Mr. Chretien and Mr. Vincent were responsible for the entry of Al-Mashat into Canada?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The hon. member has one minute to answer that.


Svend Johannes Robinson: The member for Halifax West has just made the point.
The fact of the matter is that one public official was prepared to say that it was wrong to single out Raymond Chretien. He recognized that as being wrong. The government ministers who were responsible for deciding who to finger said: "No, we want to single out one person, Raymond Chretien. We are not going to talk about immigration officials, Privy Council officials or any
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other external officials. We are going to put the rap on Raymond Chretien".
Every member of this House knows why they put the rap on Raymond Chretien. It is because he was the nephew of Jean Chretien and that is the truth and that is what members should-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Questions and comments are now terminated.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, I do not intend to make a very long presentation. It has been extremely well documented by the two previous speakers from this side what happened in the Al-Mashat affair.
For me, of course, it is unbelievable, and I know there are a lot of Canadians who cannot believe the story given by the government. We know there were apparently some problems in the Department of External Affairs, but there were three departments involved in that. We have now found, in the committee, that there were bureaucrats in every department who had been aware of the Al-Mashat application for a long time. There were all sorts of communications between departments and so on.
In one case there was a bureaucrat by the name of McCallion working in the office of the then minister of external affairs who was going on holidays and who was involved in security matters. Anybody who has been minister of external affairs or who has been a minister in any department, will know how serious the Department of External Affairs takes anything that involves security. It is for them an extremely important domain and they take it extremely seriously. Before she went on holidays she said to Mr. Daubney, who is the No.l bureaucrat in the office of the minister: "Be aware it is a very dangerous problem and it is extremely urgent. I am going away, but make sure that the minister is informed".
However, to make sure that it would work properly, she decided on her own, according to her own testimony, to talk to other people in the office of the minister to make sure that the minister was aware.
It must have been the same story in every other department, but we do not know. What we know is that
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nobody from the other departments has been blamed for anything. We are all very surprised that the Solicitor General's department, again specializing in security matters, would not inform its minister. These are things that we cannot believe. There are dozens of people in the bureaucracy who must have known and suddenly we see that some junior people in the offices of the ministers make other departments aware of what is going on and it never goes to the top.
I have been a minister for 17 years myself and I know one thing that is very basic. The main document, signed by the official when it is decided it has to go to the minister, is the copy that eventually will be on the desk of the minister. It is the proper thing to do. We never gave a copy to the minister. We gave him the original document signed by the bureaucrats. This is the procedure.
The original is there and did not go anywhere but to Mr. Daubney. According to the rules decided by external affairs it went there, but the original document does not exist any more. It is, as it was raised in the House today, a question of security. For a much smaller thing, the whole government is getting very excited about security.
Do you remember what happened when there was a leak with the budget? We have never seen so many policemen involved in something on the Hill. Members who received brown envelopes were asked by the RCMP where they came from. Now we have a document that is at the heart of a major controversy and it has disappeared. Nobody knows where it is.


An hon. member:: It is very strange.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: It is very, very strange.

I find this hard to believe. When I was a kid, people would say it was a mystery. What is a mystery? It is something you cannot understand but you have to believe it because it was revealed by God.
In this case, the revealing was done by the Prime Minister or by the former Secretary of State for External Affairs. Some mystery. Everybody in the department knew. As one member said not long ago, even the minister's chauffeur knew. Everybody in three departments knew about it, except the ministers.

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One wonders, however, and this has not been addressed in the House, why the three ministers involved in the Al-Mashat affair were transferred all of a sudden. Why? According to parliamentary practice, the minister of a department is obliged to field questions on that department in the House. Meanwhile there were some changes in cabinet. The former minister for external affairs who is now Minister responsible for Constitutional Affairs can no longer field questions about internal matters related to the Department of External Affairs. The minister who was responsible for immigration was transferred to external affairs so she can no longer answer on behalf of the Department of Employment and Immigration. Then, all of sudden, our Solicitor General who was doing a pretty good job disappeared. He got a nice promotion, but I am not sure to what department.
What happened? It is a mystery. We have to believe it even if we do not understand. It sounds slightly ridiculous. Personally I see an aspect that is even more troubling; We can debate whether Al-Mashat should or should not have been admitted to Canada, but it is obvious that at some time there was a conspiracy. How can we get out of this mess? On May 13, the day before the new Minister of Employment and Immigration, and the new minister for external affairs made their statements, there was a meeting. I think this is the most serious element, because the meeting included ministers and bureaucrats.

There were ministers there and there were bureaucrats and they decided at that moment: "How can we get out of this?" They had a report that had been prepared by very responsible officials. When they saw that report they gave instructions to change it. After they decided that they asked how they could get out of it. Suddenly they gave instructions to extract apologies. It was unbelievable that the chief of staff for the minister of external affairs, a former member of Parliament, was suddenly informed-he said nobody had asked him any questions, not one single question-that he had to apologize and that he would have to take the blame.


Sheila Maureen Copps: For symmetry.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: For symmetry. After that they singled out a bureaucrat who had to take the blame. They told
him to apologize and take the blame. Who did that? They were the ministers of the Crown of this country who gathered in the cabinet room to determine who were guilty and who were to be informed of their guilt without having a chance to explain themselves.


Some hon. members:: Shame.


An hon. member:: A kangaroo court.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: That was the day when they decided to hang two honourable people out there. Suppose that Mr. Daubney who served in this House would like to run again. He cannot because he had to play dumb in order to save his government. You know they killed him. That is what happened.
I was a cabinet minister for 17 years and I took my share of flak. I have a lot of scars, but never, never in my life would I have dared to blame someone for something for which I was responsible.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: When you are a minister and your bureaucrats do well, you take the credit. I always took the credit. I never got up in this House and said: "Do not thank me for that; say thank you to this bureaucrat". Never. I said: "Thank you very much". I took all the credit. On the other side of the ledger, when I made a mistake I took the blame. I never ran away from it. It is the only way.
Today I was coming back from Atlantic Canada when I met a young bureaucrat from the Quebec government at the airport. He was travelling to Ottawa. We were waiting because the plane was delayed, and we sat together. I asked him about that. He said to me: "I do not know if I can still do the job I am doing; I am paid to make decisions on a daily basis". He gave me some examples and I understood the political difficulty of some of the problems he has to deal with. He said to me: "I do not know if I would still be able to do that, because I do not know if my minister one day would get up in the House in Quebec and say, I blame him, I am not responsible". He said he had been a bureaucrat for 20 years and had always presumed that when he was working in his department he had a minister who would come to his defence if he made a mistake. He would be
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reprimanded. He might have been demoted. He might have been changed, but nobody would have known that.
Now we have exactly the reverse situation. We have two people who have been blamed by this government, but they keep their jobs. They say it is just a little slap, take the blame. Normally if they have done something they should not have done, no one would know. One was appointed by the minister himself, the chief of staff. It was a job that was created by this government and in many ways it was a slap in the face for the bureaucracy. Government members felt that they needed a very senior person in every department who was not a bureaucrat, and everything had to go through that person.
For 17 years I was a minister in eight different departments. I did not need anyone between me and my deputy minister. I knew they were there to serve me to the best of their abilities. I knew that if they did well I would do well. And if I did well then they would do well too. I was to claim the fame if they did well, and I would have to take the blame if there was an error.
Today we have a certain number of ministers who met and we do not even know who was there. We do not know who was there.


An hon. member:: They will not tell us.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: A certain number of bureaucrats were gathered together but we do not know what happened. We had a committee for a few days. No one was sworn in. Sometimes in front of the committee when it was a very delicate situation, bureaucrats or others were invited to be sworn in to give them freedom. In that case there was no such thing. And they are closing down that committee as quickly as they can.
There were a certain number of ministers there. I do not know who they were. I have an idea. They are the ones today who are in very responsible jobs, who will be dealing with their bureaucrats, who will be asking these people to make decisions, who will be asking these people to use their best judgment.
How can they face them and say: "I have confidence in you" or ask them: "Have you got confidence in your minister?" This is the question, because confidence and trust are the key of public office. The example given by
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the member for Winnipeg South Centre earlier concerning Lord Carrington is a good example of what is noble in public life.
He said: "There is a mess. Somebody has to take the blame. I am at the top and I take the blame". He did not try to find anybody. He did not say he was not informed. He did not say he was not wakened in the middle of the night or whatever it was. He said: "I am responsible. I will do the honourable thing. I will get out".


Lloyd Axworthy: Pass the buck.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: He did not pass the buck; it stopped with him.
The only thing I am asking these ministers is now that we are in a very difficult period of our history, can they really handle the job they have. After a mess like this one when the principal secretary to the Prime Minister, the secretary to the cabinet, the deputy ministers and the ministers gathered together and selected two bureaucrats to blame, they did not even ask them what they had done. How can the people of Canada trust these ministers today?


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: When we opened this session the government came to us and said: "Let's work together; this country is facing a major problem", and we offered our collaboration because we felt it was our duty. But to be faced with a government that acts like this, the rule is very simple. You take the blame when something is wrong and you do not finger anybody else but yourself. This is what a person of dignity does.
That is why I did not get into this debate, did not ask one question. I have been around since 1963 and I know there is a principle. It is responsibility.
The minute you become a cabinet minister, you take responsibility and you discharge responsibility until the end. That is the rule that should prevail. That is the one rule that can keep the confidence of the people in any individual.
In my judgment, the standards of integrity and trust were breached on May 13 when senior bureaucrats and senior ministers gathered together, including ministers who have nothing to do with the file any more, to protect themselves, wrap themselves in the flag or whatever it is rather than face the responsibility.

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That is why I am voting with my party on this motion. It goes to the heart of responsible government. If that principle is broken, if the people who are elected to serve the country cannot take full responsibility, cannot defend the personal staff they selected to do the job, cannot fire them after they have said they have made a mistake, but instead single out somebody in the bureaucracy is wrong. Of all the departments, only the Department of External Affairs took the step to make sure that the minister knew.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: To single out a bureaucrat in that department who has done his job, plus the people working for him who have done their jobs, is unbelievable. Not one person in Immigration was singled out and it was an Immigration case. Not one single person in Immigration has been singled out.
It is a case of high security and nobody in the Solicitor General's department or CSIS has been singled out. It is not acceptable that they sweep it under the rug. They can do it; they have the majority. We will vote against it.
However, I would like to tell the people of Canada that when we form the government, every minister in the cabinet that I will be presiding over will have to take full responsibility for what is going on in his department. If there is any bungling in the department, nobody will be singled out. The minister will have to take the responsibility. If there are errors, some people might be moved, but people who cannot defend themselves will not be singled out, and left hanging out there in front of the public. It is shameful. It is an indignity that we have not seen in Canada for a long time and it is why I stood today.
If the system of ministerial responsibility and integrity is not respected, if ministers cannot go home and look at themselves in the mirror and say: "Do I have the trust of my employees, do I have the trust of the people of Canada," if they cannot do that because they want to keep their little jobs, people will never have confidence in public servants in Canada.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Svend Johannes Robinson: Mr. Speaker, I want to preface my question to the hon. Leader of the Opposition by congratulating him on a very eloquent speech in which he set out very well the fundamental principles of cabinet accountability, which I am sure that Prime Minister Audrey McLaughlin will implement when she forms the government after the next federal election.
The Leader of the Opposition has had 17 years, I believe, of experience as a minister. I wonder if he could comment on two particular aspects. First of all, the hon. Leader of the Opposition raised the issue of David Daubney and the way in which he was singled out in terms of symmetry. I think, in fairness, it has to be pointed out that Mr. Daubney was after all the chief of staff of the minister responsible at the time, the Secretary of State for External Affairs, that he stated that he did not know who Al-Mashat was, that he had no idea, that it could be any one of a whole series of former Iraqi ambassadors to the United States. He said that the memo was not highlighted. He did not bring it to the minister's attention.
While I agree that he was singled out for unfair treatment, I think that the Leader of the Opposition would agree that in the circumstances he did not do his job, but it was the minister who should be responsible for that, presumably. It was the minister who hired him. It was the minister presumably. In fact I think it is the Prime Minister who appoints chiefs of staff. It is the Prime Minister in consultation with the Secretary of State for External Affairs who has kept this person in place.
I wonder if the Leader of the Opposition could comment with respect to that aspect of accountability, and particularly the accountability of the Secretary of State for External Affairs, now Minister responsible for Constitutional Affairs, for his own senior public servant.
Second and just briefly, perhaps the hon. Leader of the Opposition could comment on the defence that we heard earlier today in this House from the Minister responsible for the Constitution who said: "Don't attack me. You know it is not fair that you attack me because I am the minister responsible for the future of the country. I am the minister responsible for the Constitution". How does the Leader of the Opposition respond
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to the suggestion that somehow we should lay off questioning this minister because of his present constitutional responsibilities?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: On the question of Mr. Daubney, I feel sorry for that gentleman. He has been put in an impossible position. He has failed to serve his minister so much that he should have been fired. There is something fishy there as to why he has not been fired.
It is probably because he decided to take the blame as he was asked. It was quite evident. "We need two scapegoats and you are one of them. But the price is, take the flak and we will keep you in your job". I think that it is a terrible position, that he did not even have the chance to talk to the people who were doing the inquiry.
He is the one person who admitted that he was not given the document and he does not know where the original is. He is the one who gets the originals of all documents on his desk and he does not know where it is. But he took the flak and he has not been fired. He is still doing that.
You cannot blame him. You can only blame the person who named him. Not him. I do not know how the minister today can say: "Do not ask me any questions". He still works for him. He evidently has confidence in him today. He must have had confidence in those days.
The relationship between ministers and personal staff is not like departmental relationships. The minister is absolutely responsible for his staff. Nobody selects them but the minister.
It is just like when I was a lawyer. In my firm, I was not always there. When a document was delivered to my office by a bailiff I might not have been there to receive it, but the minute the bailiff put the document in my office, I cannot go in front of the court the week after and say: "I am not responsible" because the bailiff said a document had been put in the office of Mr. Chretien, or the firm of Chretien-Landry-Duchesnes or Lang-Mi-chener, or whatnot. I do not want to make publicity for anybody. The document belongs to me at that minute. If I have a deadline to meet, unless it is something of which I am sure the deadline has expired, I do not get up and say: "Sorry, I was not advised. You gave it to my secretary". That is not an excuse. It is certified that your office has received the documents. We have known some
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lawyers who had to pay big sums of money because documents were misplaced.
The minister said today: "Do not blame me. Do not attack me". Why? I never ran away from being attacked. I never got up in the House of Commons and said: "I am the first French Canadian to be Minister of Finance. Leave me alone. I might look bad. Poor little me, I am the first one. Suppose I fail, there will never be another one". I never said that. I took it on the nose. That is why I have a broken nose today. I replied in kind.
I do not understand, but it is quite evident that he feels terribly uncomfortable, just by the way he acted in the House. It is for them to decide. We cannot. I know that when we form the government, ministers will know. Twenty-five years from now we may train a New Democrat to be a responsible Prime Minister, but not before that.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, I want to join with my friends and congratulate the Leader of Opposition for an excellent speech.
The motion before the House reads:
That this House affirm that ministers are individually and
collectively responsible to the House of Commons for the activities of
the government, including the management and conduct of the Public
Service-
I want the record to show that not one minister was in the House during that speech and we resent this practice, this conduct and we absolutely condemn-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Questions and comments are now terminated.


Benno Friesen: Mr. Speaker, there have been many surprising twists and turns in this affair, commonly known as the Al-Mashat affair. The first surprise is that he was here. Obviously Canadians were not only surprised; they were shocked. There were a number of other revelations and surprises that came along the way as the committee met, not the least of which was the fact that the assistant under-secretary said in committee, emphasized in committee, how important it was for him always to put things in writing. He liked to do things in writing. He said: "I do not like to do it by phone. You don't remember phone calls, but you always have it on record when you put it in writing". That is what the assistant under-secretary of state said in

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committee. But there is not one scrap of paper on this case that he signed, not one scrap of paper.
How do you put the two together? It is surprising to me how that man can sit in committee and say he did more than necessary and yet there is no paper trail. How do you put the two together?
The biggest surprise for most Canadians who have been watching-and I doubt that as many people have watched this event as the opposition thinks-is the resurrection and the rebirth of the rat pack. We remember when the rat pack was bom about seven years ago. Soon after the 1988 election a group of opposition MPs decided they were going to be the rat pack and they attacked ferociously. They did not care what they said. They did not care what kind of indignities they expressed, but they attacked.
It was not long until the people of Canada started asking two important questions. Where is the Leader of the Opposition in this? Either he knows and approves, or he knows, does not approve, but cannot do anything about it.
Now that we have the resurrection of the rat pack, sooner or later Canadians are going to say the same thing about the leader today. We have the rat pack carrying on and yelling all kinds of indecencies and pretty soon-


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Indecencies?


Benno Friesen: That's right. You were not in committee.
Pretty soon Canadians are going to ask if the Leader of the Opposition of today approves of the way these people are carrying on, or does he recognize it and does not approve but cannot do anything about it. If anything has happened as a result of this we have seen a process of the rat pack destroying the present leadership.
We know that the former leader was a decent and honourable man and he did not approve, but he could not control those people. We know the same thing is true about this man. He is a decent and honourable man and it is going to dawn on the Canadian people very quickly that these people are uncontrollable and sooner or later it will bring disrepute on the leadership of the Leader of the Opposition.
We have a motion before us and as the government House leader has already said, we see nothing wrong with this motion. It states the obvious. In fact it was enunciated by people long before this motion came along and we approve of it. Essentially it deals with ministerial responsibility and it looks as though everybody in the House is in favour of it. But, seemingly, everybody has a different definition of it and everybody has a different time when they want to invoke it.
I want to go back as others have done to the McGrath report. I served on that committee as did the member for Papineau-Saint-Michel and, I might add, he served very well as did the member for Winnipeg Transcona. I want to read into the record exactly what the McGrath report says on page 21:
The idea of a minister being responsible for everything that goes on in a department may once have been realistic, but it has long since ceased to be so. A minister cannot possibly know everything that is going on in a department. The doctrine of ministerial accountability undermines the potential for genuine accountability on the part of the person that ought to be accountable-the senior officer of the department.
Clearly the McGrath committee was saying that if we take the view which some of the members today are taking, we relieve officials of the department of then-responsibility and that is not serving Parliament nor the Canadian people.
Therefore the recommendation is:
We recommend that all ministers co-operate with committees exercising their expanded mandates by making available public servants that may be called to testify before a committee.
That is what the McGrath committee said. I think, given different times, members of the House tend to agree with that. It is all well and good to agree with a ministerial responsibility and a statement on that in the heady summer days of parliamentary reform, but it is a little bit more difficult to agree with it when we are facing a winter of discontent.
The fact is that sooner or later we have to make this principle operate and that is what we have been trying to do and that is what the ministers have been trying to do. The Secretary of State for External Affairs stood in the House and said: "We have taken full responsibility". The doctrine of ministerial responsibility says: "We will examine what has gone wrong. We will deal with the public servants. We will correct the mistakes. We will bring in a new regime". That is ministerial responsibility.

What the opposition seems to want is for heads to roll; only it wants ministerial heads to roll, but that is not what the doctrine says. It is not what Former leader of the member for Winnipeg-St. James, said. "When there is a mistake in the department ministerial heads do not necessarily roll", Mr. Trudeau said, as was read into the record earlier by the government House leader.


Mrs. Finestone:: Just say I made a mistake.


Benno Friesen: That is right. Just say it was a mistake. There have been mistakes made. They were not made by the minister. How can you make a mistake when you do not even know what happened? I say to my friend from Montreal, how do you know? Members from her party and from the New Democratic Party have all admitted that the ministers did not know. How do you correct it if you do not know?
The motion today and the McGrath committee conform to the common practice of ministerial responsibility. One of the things we have acknowledge is that when you invoke ministerial responsibility, you also include the delegation of responsibility and if that minister is responsible surely that minister can delegate. If the minister delegates, they can hold that person responsible for the way they have carried out their duties. I think the member from Montreal will agree with that. It seems logical.
The business community out there understands that in a company, if the president delegates responsibility to the vice-president and the vice-president delegates it to the manager and the manager boots it, the manager is going to take responsibility and the vice-president is going to take him to account. Now it sees nothing wrong with that.
Out there, the public understands. It has seized that issue and it understands it. The public for the life of it cannot understand why people in the House here are questioning that when there is a mistake made all of a sudden a different regime comes into play. No, we cannot touch people who made mistakes, that would be touching the bureaucracy. We cannot hold them responsible, can we? The public is mystified by what is going on here.
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When ministers delegate responsibilities, they have a right to demand performance. When that performance is not there, they have the right to demand an accounting. That is the process which the ministers have followed throughout this regime.
As I said, the business community understands this. The journalists understand this. This case came to the public attention because a journalist in Toronto called the external affairs department to alert it of an individual who might want to be a defector. It was a journalist.
After that journalist called external affairs, there were public panel discussions on television. There was public discussion in the printed media. There were editorial columns written about whether it was proper for a journalist who presumes to be speaking for the masses or for the newspaper to pay particular attention to one case. Should he plead or lobby on behalf of one person? Was there an impropriety on the part of that one journalist?
There was public discussion for a few days, maybe a week, on that. It is funny, but that person has already been taken out of that job. He is no longer the editor of that newspaper.
The press says: "Of course, it had nothing to do with the Al-Mashat affair". Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. "It had nothing to do with that". It is funny how the timing coincided.


An hon. member:: He is on another assignment.


Benno Friesen: Yes. He is already out of that office. I am informing my friend from Montreal that the member is no longer editor of The Financial Post.
Newspapers understand it. They know that you cannot be talking for the public and then lobbying for one. You cannot be speaking for the newspaper and lobby for one. You are accountable to the publisher. They understand it, and he is gone.
He has some other kind of a job, presumably in the newspaper. What I cannot understand for the life of me is why journalists understand it when it is one of their own but not when it is in the government.

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Here we have roughly 40 ministers of the Crown. We have a bureaucracy of 250,000, a quarter of a million. Somehow people in the opposition and some journalists seem to think that 40 ministers ought to keep track of
250,000	bureaucrats. It is not logical. It makes no sense and it violates the whole concept of accountability which bureaucrats want to see.
I do not understand why the opposition cannot understand that. As I pointed out before in the question and answer period, Premier Rae of Ontario understands it very well now that he is in government. While he was in opposition he probably did not. Now that he is in government, he is saying something entirely different.
Now he is saying: "The opposition talks about ministerial responsibility. I have looked into the precedents and there is not a case that I can find in the last 50 years in which a minister was expected to take the wrap, the fall, because something was done without him knowing about it. It is not the ministers who resign. They deal with the people who are the subordinates. They make sure the systems work and they make sure the employees work". That is ministerial responsibility.
I have one further point, and it has to do with the minister's statement. The Secretary of State for External Affairs appeared in committee and she read an eight-page document in which she outlined carefully ministerial responsibility.
She said, from page 4: "Public servants are responsible to the ministers. They advise ministers and administer the programs carried out under the statutory authorities exercised by the ministers. Those ministers, in turn, are responsible to the House of Commons. Officials do, of course, support ministers in answering the committee of the House provided this does not draw officials into partisan controversy or undermine the authority and the responsibility of the ministers".
That is the point, the key point. Officials come before the committees and they come with the ministers, provided it does not draw officials into partisan controversy or undermine the authority of their responsibility to their ministers.
We had a case last week in committee where the minister came before the committee with her officials. She read this statement and at the conclusion she said this: "Now, to place this case in the context of Canada's over-all immigration process, Mr. Kroeger will describe how that process works in all cases, and Mr. Marchand will review the key factual highlights of this particular case and the changes to the procedures that have been
made since then. Then Mr. Valcourt and I will be pleased to respond to questions".
I want to tell my friend from Montreal that when the Secretary of State for External Affairs said: "The officials will now elaborate", members opposite walked out.


An hon. member:: That is false.


Benno Friesen: The member for Burnaby-Kingsway was the first to stand. The member from Winnipeg followed him, as the rest of the committee did. They walked out. I am telling members opposite they cannot have ministerial responsibility both ways. If officials are going to be responsible to the minister, they have to be held responsible to the minister. If these officials come with a minister to a committee, they are under the authority of the minister.
I think that is logical. I think the members will accept that. They are under the authority of the minister and the minister is responsible for them. What the members wanted to do was to draw them out separately and make these public servants accountable not to the minister, but to the committee. There was nothing wrong, and the minister made it a point to underscore the fact that the officials from her department were going to be available to report to the committee.
There is a difference between reporting to a committee, imparting information to a committee, and being responsible to the committee. They cannot have it both ways. They say they want the ministers to be responsible, responsible for the Public Service, how they behave, how they produce and how they perform, but at the same time want them to be responsible to the committee. They cannot do that. Sooner or later they are going to have to make a choice.
It so happened that at that time they got a 30-second or a 60-second clip on television by walking out and having this high dudgeon outside in front of the television. They sacrificed the very principle they said they were working for: holding ministers accountable. As soon as they rejected that opportunity, they were saying: "We want them to be accountable to us and not to the minister".


Thomas (Tom) William Wappel: Were you there, Benno?


Benno Friesen: I was there. These people have a choice to make. If they really believe in parliamentary and ministerial responsibility, they will take the committee work seriously. They will hold the minister accountable for the way the officials do their work and they will insist that the ministers hold those public servants accountable. If one of them says he would like to put it on record, he would like to put everything on record so that people can read it and so there is a record, but never writes

anything down so there is no paper trail, surely the minister has a right to ask what happened to that official.
It is not an unfair question to ask, is it? If he says he does not like to use a telephone except in an emergency but he wants to put it on record, maybe we have a right to look for those memos which are not there, especially if his boss is travelling in the Middle East and does not know what is happening here.
I want to make one more point and that is the famous so-called secret memo, copies of which are floating all over the place, dated March 7, rewritten on March 8, kept the original date, rewritten again on Monday and did not arrive until March 14. It was written by Mr. Vincent and it was addressed to Ms. McCallion, not to the minister. It was not addressed to the minister and the member for Winnipeg is so upset because this very important secret document did not get to the minister, was not even addressed to him.
It was not even addressed to him and yet he gets into this synthetic rage because something has gone wrong here.
We believe in this motion. We may not be able to vote for it because of the conventions of this House but we believe in the motion, and we have performed according to the demands of this motion as the ministers can prove.


Mr. Mark Assad (Gatineau-La Lievre):: Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the hon. member's comments on ministerial responsibility. I am even prepared to go along with part of his comments, to the extent that the minister or ministers said they had not been informed.
How can we in this House and how can Canadians believe that at a time when we were at war with a country an ambassador of this calibre was not under surveillance by CSIS and our country's security agencies, that no one
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was aware of his activities and that he was able to enter a country like Canada? This is not a banana republic. He entered Canada. How can we believe that no one knew about it?


Benno Friesen: I am glad the member asked that question because it underscores exactly the problem that we have been discussing in committee.
The first telephone call came on February 27. It came to the Assistant Under-Secretary of State. He did not bother calling the minister. What he did do was place a call to Vienna and alert Vienna that there was somebody who might come and want to defect, but he did not tell the minister upstairs. I think it was the next day the minister was going to Washington to meet with Baker and talk about Middle East issues. He let him go to Washington and did not tell him that somebody from Iraq was wanting to defect to Canada. He let it go by way of memos and discussions. Nothing, there was not one memo written to alert and warrant a response from the Secretary of State for External Affairs.
General memos, yes. None of them said: "for the attention of", "we want a response", "we want to have some direction from the minister".
I will tell you why. A week prior to that two ministers had said: "There is a case coming before us, another diplomat from Iraq. He should have no special privileges".
They knew what the attitude of the minister was on this. He wants to know how this happened and I will tell you why. It all was steamrolled by the security division of external affairs. I am not saying this is inviolate. I am not saying that it was trying to do something tawdry, not at all. It was looking after what it thought were the best interests of an individual who felt that he was in danger. I think we have to get it out of our minds that it was trying to do something tawdry.

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The security division checks on whether this person is there was no malice and there was no intent to conspire really a defector. The word comes back that he is not or do anything wrong. Would you agree with that? considered a defector.
It deals with an immigration officer in Vienna. Vienna reports back to external affairs. It was never reported directly back to the immigration department. Never did a telex go directly from Vienna to the immigration department here, it always went to external affairs. By March 11 it was case closed. They had been provisionally accepted on March 5, the day after the first interview.
Mrs. Al-Mashat came in on the evening of March 4. Mr. Al-Mashat came in on March 5 and both were provisionally accepted at the interview, providing their medicals and their security checks were okay. The security division made sure that it checked out that section.
Also you mentioned a few moments ago in your first remarks a comment about Mr. Trudeau's statement in 1983 with regard to ministerial responsibility. I would like you to elaborate on that a little more if you could. That was an interesting comment and I would like to hear your thoughts on that.


Benno Friesen: Mr. Speaker, on the issue of fairness, I do not think that we can blow it out of proportion in terms of looking after what went wrong. That has to be taken care of. The minister has done that. We are dealing with human individuals and therefore things can go wrong, but we have to guarantee for Canadians as far as humanly possible that we will conduct a fair operation so that everybody across Canada gets the same treatment.
It was a quick adoption of the process. It was not illegal. It was, I think, improper, but it was not illegal and because the system was made to function extra efficiently these people got in while thousands of people around the world wanted to get in. It was terribly unfair. I want to underscore that the officials did nothing legally or technically wrong. They thought they were doing right, but it was wrong.
In that sense it is not overblown. In the sense of the publicity, yes it is overblown. The Secretary of State for External Affairs has said that she has in the meantime gone to Chile and dealt with incredible issues with the Organization of American States to ensure that becomes a more active and a viable union on behalf of North and South America, and maybe deal with some of the poverty issues and the security issues that face this hemisphere.


William D. (Bill) Casey: Mr. Speaker, I just wondered in the opinion of the hon. member if this does not appear to be blown out of all proportion. It seems to me that we are occupying an awful lot of our time here in Question Period and in the House today on this issue months after it has happened.
When I call back to the people in the riding and I ask "are you concerned about this" or "are you following this", I do not find that people in my riding are following it closely at all. There were some questions in the beginning and, as you just said, a lot of people who did have relatives and friends whom they wanted to have come to Canada and who have been working hard at it for years who perhaps were very disappointed to see this happen. I agree with that. In all fairness, however, is it not blown out of all proportion considering the fact that, as you said, there was no malice? Perhaps there was a difference of opinion in the judgment used, and I think that is true. Perhaps there were some mistakes made, but
She has been to Copenhagen and she has been dealing with NATO issues; whether we ought to change the relationship within NATO. She has met with NATO foreign ministers. That has incredibly long range implications for our country. None of this gets any attention as long as we are dealing with "where is that secret memo". That is the destructive part of this debate. There is nothing wrong with holding ministers accountable, nothing wrong with making sure that the system remains fair. That is the way it ought to be, but it is wrong to distort the issue to such an extent that the issues which face our country and the world get completely obliterated and blotted out by this one issue, in order to get a few seconds of a television clip.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I have two minutes left in question or comment period. I will recognize the hon. member for Mount Royal for a minute and then have a rebuttal for a minute.


Sheila Finestone: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague very much for addressing many of his remarks this way.
The issue of the memo is important, if I may suggest to my hon. colleague, because it is not an ordinary memo. The memo was dealing with a man that my colleague and I have talked about in international meetings, a really unpleasant, not very good, dictator in Iraq with whom we were at war. I think you could say that this man we were referring to, Al-Mashat, was an apologist for him.
If it was just an ordinary piece of paper or just an ordinary memo, I guess we could have said was, perhaps pushing the case a little bit too far. But this was not an ordinary memo. I would suggest that you should not distort it in that regard.
Second, like you and like most members in this House, we have hundreds and hundreds of immigration and refugee cases. I do not have to tell you, because you and I have discussed this, the number of married men over here who have not had the pleasure of being able to live and have their wives, and some of them their children here, for over three years because they cannot get through this refugee and immigration system.
When you read the minister's statement and she was bringing the members of her staff before the committee to discuss the process and the procedure, I think that was logical. We got lots of things to look at there and we have lots of reasons to be angry that this man, Al-Mashat, apologist for Saddam Hussein, was in here. There is good reason.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I am sorry, questions and comments are now terminated.


Thomas (Tom) William Wappel: Mr. Speaker, just to put it on the record, I will be taking 10 minutes of
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the 20 minutes and my colleague for Northumberland will take the other 10 minutes, with your permission.
I would like to look at this entire issue from the point of view of two words; honesty and integrity. First of all, I look at precisely what we are talking about. In general terms we are talking about ministerial responsibility.
My colleague from Winnipeg South Centre moved a very specific motion. Lest the people who are watching and who will read Hansard not know, they may wonder where in heaven's name did this wording come from.
I would like everyone to know that the wording is verbatim, extracted from the white paper on the future of the Public Service which was tabled on the Prime Minister's behalf on December 12, 1990, and which was quoted favourably by the Secretary of State for External Affairs when she appeared before the Al-Mashat committee. Why is that important?
It is important because that statement is a statement of principle by this government of ministerial responsibility. Among other things it says that ministers are responsible to this House and through this House to Canadians for the activities of government and individually, and I quote:
Ministers are responsible for the administration of the decisions of
the Government and the activities of Public Servants falling under
their jurisdiction;
That is a principle with which the members of the government do not have a quarrel, or so we are told. Indeed it would be very illogical if they did have a quarrel with it since their own minister quoted it favourably. However, how does it apply to situations like the Al-Mashat affair? That really is the key.
I thought in the time allotted to me I would just have a look at the calendar of events. Members on the opposite side are interested in history when it suits their purposes. I would like to deal with some facts.
Factually, let us go back to 1984. We will all remember that the Prime Minister of today, then the Leader of the Opposition, campaigned long and hard on the issues of honesty and integrity and on the faith that people should have in the government and on the faith that he would redeliver to people when he became Prime Minister. Unfortunately that has not happened and people are very disappointed. This Al-Mashat affair would have been and still can be a perfect opportunity for this government to rekindle faith in the political process with Canadians, to reinstill a feeling of honesty and integrity.

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But how? By being open and honest about this matter and having some integrity.
Now let us look at the facts. We were at war with the nation of Iraq. This is a fact. Al-Mashat was the Ambassador to the United States of the country with which we were at war. When? In January and in February. On February 27, admittedly at a time when a cease-fire had been called, our government is notified that he wants to come here. That is fine. We know what happened after that, but where do ministers get involved? I would suggest that it would be between March 8 and March 14.
Why? A memorandum was written to the office of the minister of external affairs dated March 8. It stated in it: "You may wish to bring this to the attention of your minister". We know that the minister's procedures established by his chief of staff and approved by him specifically stated that all memorandums were to be brought to the attention of the chief of staff. The office procedures did not state that the memorandums were to be brought to the minister's attention. The office procedures did not state that deputy ministers and under-deputy ministers were to pick up the phone and call the minister. It stated specifically that all memoranda were to be directed to the chief of staff. That is exactly what happened.
We know that the chief of staff received the document because he has admitted receiving it in accordance with the procedures established by the then Secretary of State for External Affairs. We know he read the document. When? Well, he is not quite sure. He thinks it might have been Thursday the 14th. It might have been Friday the 15th. It certainly would not have been on the weekend he tells us, but more probably the 18th or the 19th, a Monday or a Tuesday. In any event, it is at least 10 days before Al-Mashat got his visa.
What Canadians want to know is why did this man get in here and how did he get in here in 28 days. Well, on the 14th there was a memorandum in the office of the then minister of external affairs in accordance with the then minister of external affairs own office procedures as approved by him. His chief of staff admits reading the document and does not tell him about it and does not show him the document, at a time when the then
minister of external affairs says that he was concerned about these issues because he was travelling in the area.
That is a clear breach by the chief of staff. Who is responsible for breaches by the chief of staff? Canadians know the answer. You do not need professors, you do not need law degrees to know the answer to that simple question. Who is responsible for the chief of staff? The person who hired the chief of staff, the person under whose direction the chief of staff works. In this case it is the present Minister responsible for Constitutional Affairs.
This is not some mysterious thing that we have to go to the Supreme Court of Canada for guidance. This is pure and simple common sense. The chief of staff reports to the minister. The minister is responsible for the errors of his chief of staff, period. No one can dispute that.
I leave it to Canadians to make that decision themselves because I know Canadians have common sense and that is a common sense position.
But what happens? The memo is not brought to the minister's attention. We will go to another department. On March 11, Paul Tellier is advised. The Clerk of the Privy Council on March 11, not April, not May, but March, almost 18 days before Al-Mashat arrives, is advised. Does he pick up the phone and tell his boss, the Prime Minister of Canada? No. And yet Raymond Chretien is fingered as the person who should have picked up the phone and called the minister directly and told him about this; not Paul Tellier who should have picked up the phone and called the Prime Minister and not the chief of staff, David Daubney, who should have picked up the phone, but the only person who actually prepared or had prepared a memorandum which we know, in the ordinary course of events, according to the minister's own office policy, reached his office and reached his chief of staff.
That is the nub of the issue. Somebody should be taking responsibility for the errors made not only in the department but in the minister's own office. That is where the question of honesty and integrity comes in.
If you are a minister and your staff has made an error, have the integrity to stand up and face the music. No one has been talking about resignation. I think if we check
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Hansard no one has called for a resignation. I stand to be corrected, but I do not think so.
What we have asked for is someone to stand up and have the backbone to say: "I am the minister. I am responsible". We have not seen that, and that is lamentable to the people of Canada.


Guy St-Julien: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the hon. member for Scarborough West. I would ask the hon. member to name the activities for which a minister is responsible to the House and indicate what activity would be grounds for a minister's resignation.


Thomas (Tom) William Wappel: Mr. Speaker, let me answer the second question first.
I would certainly call for the resignation of a minister if a minister knew of a fact and then stood in this House and denied knowing of that fact. That, to me, is misleading the House and that calls for a resignation.
As far as the first question is concerned as to what the guidelines should be, it seems to me that the guidelines are very clearly set out in a little booklet entitled "Notes on the Responsibilities of Public Servants in Relation to Parliamentary Committees" issued by the Privy Council Office in December 1990.
I commend it to the hon. member for his attention. I will merely read one statement from it: "Ours is a system of responsible government, because the government must retain the confidence of the House of Commons and because ministers are responsible to the House for everything that is done under their authority. They are answerable to Parliament and its committees".
That does not mean they must resign every time something happens. What it means is they must stand up and face the music.


Jesse Philip Flis: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member who just spoke is the immigration critic for the Official Opposition.
As he knows, there are thousands of cases in the refugee backlog who cannot see their relatives, immediate family, for three, four or five years because they have been here for so long.
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As the critic, what complaints is he getting from Canadians? Is it the fact that Mr. Al-Mashat jumped the queue? Is it the fact that the ministers are refusing to admit fault in this House? What complaints are he getting? Is it more jumping the queue? Is it more the honesty and the integrity of this government?


Thomas (Tom) William Wappel: Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question.
In fact it is three things. Not only is it the complaints about honesty and integrity of the government, the lack of same or the appearance of the lack of same. Not only is it the fact that many thousands of Canadians are waiting for their relatives and cannot get them in for years on end. They do not even get an answer from the minister of immigration, and this person is fast-tracked in 28 days. Third, we are not talking about John Smith or somebody. He is the former Iraqi Ambassador to the United States from a country with which we were at war who was an apologist for that government and for the regime that runs that country. Those are the three things that are infuriating the people who are calling me.


Mr. Pat Sobeski (Cambridge):: Mr. Speaker, I would just like to ask a question about the management and follow-up in this particular case.
We heard the hon. member talk about the importance of this individual. According to what I heard before the committee on March 7 a decision was made. They started to prepare a memo on March 7. The bureaucrats finished writing the memo on Friday, March 8.
Again, the member indicated it was a very serious issue. Yet the person whom they sent it to did not receive it until almost a week later. He acknowledged before the committee that he did not read it until maybe March 18 or March 19.
Are you telling me that when a bureaucrat sends a memo of that importance, following procedure, that it is not his responsibility to check six, seven, eight, ten days later that that memo has been received? Do you think it is proper for a bureaucrat to sit back and wait that long to follow up on such an important memo?


Thomas (Tom) William Wappel: The answer is that first of all I think it is quite proper for a bureaucrat to follow procedures laid down by a minister. Second, I think it is quite proper for a bureaucrat following such procedures to assume that the procedures will bring the memo to the attention of

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the minister who set the policies in place. Third, yes, I do think that follow-up should have occurred. However, such follow-up would not have been necessary if this memorandum had been put in front of the minister as it should have been, in which case this whole matter would have been over.


Christine Susan Stewart: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity after weeks of study on this issue to speak to our Official Opposition motion today. I am very pleased my colleague has mentioned that is actually verbatim from the government's own publication Public Service 2000, which was tabled in the House in December 1990.
We are here today discussing, via this resolution, an issue of ministerial responsibility. The issue is not just of ministerial responsibility. It is not merely as it is delineated in this resolution, but there are layers of ministerial responsibility which have been brought to focus over the last weeks.
If the ministers of this government had taken their responsibility as they have outlined in their own document, Public Service 2000, the Canadian public would not have been harangued and assaulted with this issue for so long. Certainly Canadian citizens wish that this government were able to get on to issues which they consider to be very important, such as the economy, the loss of important jobs in this country-every job is important to every citizen-and our constitutional affairs.
We have been side-tracked over the issue and the principle of ministerial responsibility as it is articulated in the resolution which we are addressing today. However, I would like to say that there is, beyond the principle of ministerial responsibility, another layer of responsibility. That is the responsibility that this government bears to the two officials who were named as being responsible for all of the Al-Mashat affair and were publicly blamed in a document that was presented to the public and tabled here in the House on May 14.
This document, which included a chronology of events as they occurred, supposedly well researched by the government, was preceded by a statement by the Minister of Employment and Immigration and the Secretary of
State for External Affairs. That statement says: "The Right Hon. Joe Clark regrets the fact that the Associate Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs, Mr. Raymond Chretien, did not exert effective control over this sensitive case. Mr. Chretien has apologized. Mr. Clark also regrets the fact that his chief of staff, Mr. David Daubney, did not inform him of this case. Mr. Daubney has apologized to the minister".
We know from the history of this case that the previous Secretary of State for External Affairs, who is now the Minister responsible for Constitutional Affairs, said on public TV that Mr. Chretien had apologized to him.
In the House we have heard comments from the current Secretary of State for External Affairs with regard to the report that was prepared. She is quoted as saying: "I think the report speaks for itself. The report goes into some considerable detail in a very precise form as to what happened during the process of this incident".
She goes on further on May 16 in the House to say, referring to the report:
Number one, all of the information regarding this situation is out and was made public. The second point is that ministers took the responsibility to ensure that the information went public and that that information to date has not been contradicted.
We now know that Mr. Chretien did not apologize to anybody for his actions during this affair. In fact in his view he went beyond what was required of him as associate minister in external affairs, that he did everything that he could to inform ministers responsible of what was happening with regard to this affair. To repeat, he did not apologize for his role in this affair.
After that startling evidence was presented, we also heard from Mr. Daubney who, in response to the report itself, told us that he had not been interviewed by the auditor designated by the minister to investigate this case. He, the chief officer for the Secretary of State for External Affairs, had not been interviewed by the auditor although it was known that he would have had a role to play. He also stated that he had not agreed to the public statement attributing blame to him.

The fact is that a committee of unknown ministers and bureaucrats, as was stated here earlier today, met on the evening of May 13. They wrote the minister's statement that was to be made public the next day, and in that statement they attributed blame to Mr. Chretien and Mr. David Daubney. Later that same evening the committee presented this statement to them for comment. However, in fact it was a fait accompli to which they did not agree at all.
The issue is large; it is larger than just how Al-Mashat got into this country. Canadians are very concerned about that. However, in my constituency I have spoken to constituents who have informed me that they are worried about the greater principle of ministerial responsibility. As has been pointed out here before, and the minister pointed it in her own statement to the House when she selectively quoted from Professor Kemaghan who said: "In practice ministers in Canada do not resign as penance for administrative bungling in their departments".
Why did the ministers not take the appropriate, as acknowledged by tradition, responsibility in this case and say that they were responsible, do their investigation, and allow us as a country to get on with other issues of importance? However, because the ministers did not take the necessary responsibility for this case, we have a serious change in what was formerly a respected procedure in this House of Commons and in this government.
In fact, the very notion of government in this country is questioned because it now appears that the less the minister knows, the less the minister is to be blamed; the less the minister knows, the more departmental officials will be hung out to dry, the more departmental officials will be blamed for what goes wrong. Ministers, of course, will take credit for departmental accomplishments.
There is a lot of concern, not only among constituents at large in this country but certainly among the Public Service, about the precedent that the government has set in the handling of this particular affair. It is something that is of distress to me.
Also, in terms of ministerial responsibility and levels of responsibility, it was interesting today in this House when the former Secretary of State for External Affairs, the present Minister responsible for Constitutional Affairs, was questioned about his search for the missing secret memo. He cast the blame for the persistent loss of
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that memo on the present Secretary of State for External Affairs.
The present Secretary of State for External Affairs certainly did not look amused when she was blamed for being responsible for a memo which has now been missing for three months.
Canadians across this country are concerned and worried. They do have other issues that they wish this government would pursue and deal with. However, we are also concerned that this government has cut off our opportunity to try to find out more clearly what has happened. The minister and present Secretary of State for External Affairs made her statement to our committee. It was a nine-page statement and approximately seven pages of that were devoted to ministerial responsibility. Yet the government denies the committee investigating this case the opportunity to call forward Gordon Robertson, a very respected Canadian and acknowledged expert in the area of ministerial responsibility. The government is not allowing this important person to come and speak to the issue of ministerial responsibility.
There is an article in yesterday's paper that I think expresses very well what I have heard from many of my constituents. It comes from the Saskatoon Star Phoenix. It says: "Whatever the explanation, the most singular thing about the whole business is the way in which senior cabinet ministers have dismissed their responsibility with shrugs. McDougall, Clark and all other cabinet ministers are paid by us to know what is going on in their departments. This is the essence of responsible government. Ministers are responsible for everything that happens in the departments to which they are assigned. If something is messed up, they, not civil servants who are forced to sign apologies, are ultimately to blame".


Howard Edward Crosby: Mr. Speaker, I want to make the point once again in the House of Commons with respect to the action actually taken in the Al-Mashat case by the ministers involved, because the member once again reiterated the complaint that ministers should not have mentioned publicly the role of officials in the Al-Mashat case.
What ministers did, knowing of the arrival of Al-Ma-shat in Canada as an immigrant under the retiree provision, was cause for an investigation to be made within their respective departments. What that investigation revealed, and the member knows that because she

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sat at the hearings of the external affairs committee and heard the testimony, was that two senior officials, both in the Department of External Affairs, knew before the entry of Al-Mashat into Canada that he indeed would be likely to be granted status as an immigrant and would arrive in Canada before March 30, 1991.
Those two officials had been involved in the process from the outset. In fact one of them, Mr. Raymond Chretien, had received a telephone call from Allan Gotlieb that started the whole process.
The member knows that and the member knows that those officials had the particular responsibility for notifying the minister, in that case the Secretary of State for External Affairs. The method that officials chose to notify the minister was a memorandum, a memorandum dated March 8, 1991, which contained reference to the fact that Al-Mashat would likely come into Canada by March 30.
In reference to that memorandum, Mr. Raymond Chretien said in his presentation to the committee that he read the memorandum and concluded that since Al-Mashat was no longer a defector, normal immigration procedures would apply: the ministers responsible, namely the Minister of Employment and Immigration and the Secretary of State for External Affairs, would be informed of the case. That is what he said.
Two people-forget the ministers-Mr. Paul Tellier, Clerk of the Privy Council and Mr. de Montigny Mar-chand, an Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs, two senior officials of the government, said that was an error in judgment to assume that the minister of external affairs would be notified. That was the reason why Mr. Raymond Chretien was named in relation to this whole process.
Will the member answer this question? Are those two senior officials of the government wrong in saying there was an error in judgment? Who does she believe, Mr. 'Chretien or Mr. Tellier and Mr. Marchaud?


Christine Susan Stewart: Mr. Speaker, obviously we have heard in the committee testimony from different witnesses who have given different versions of what occurred with regard to the Al-Mashat affair.
Certainly it is not necessarily for us to judge whether or not there was an error. In the Secretary of State for External Affair own statement to the House she said: "When an error is made of which the minister is unaware, the minister acts to establish the facts, correct the error and satisfy himself or herself that it will not recur".
Certainly, if an error is made or if something goes wrong and a mistake is made, the ministers are responsible after they have taken on and accepted their own responsibility for what has happened. They do have an additional responsibility to research what happened and to try to correct procedures so that a similar incident would never occur again.
What is also quite interesting-we heard testimony from different witnesses and departments before the committee-is that according to many committee members there appeared to be as much liability on other departments as there was on the Department of External Affairs. Yet officials in the Department of Employment and Immigration and the Privy Council itself bore no responsibility and no blame for what happened. That certainly is questionable.


Mr. John Reimer (Kitchener):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak on the most fundamental principle underlying our system of responsible government, the constitutional responsibility of ministers.
Recent events, of which we in this House are all aware, have given rise to considerable comment from members of Parliament-as we see here today and in Question Period in the past few weeks-the public and the media about the nature and practice of this principle. Indeed the motion which we are debating shows that interest in this principle is alive and as well in this Parliament as it should be.
I wish to first address the motion itself. On its face it is a very straightforward motion calling upon members of Parliament to announce their support for the doctrine of ministerial responsibility. The vehicle being used, as is conceded by the Liberal Party opposite, is a non-confidence motion. Were it to pass, it would require the government to resign.

However, we on the government side of the House can hardly accept this as a straightforward attempt on the part of the Liberal Party to encourage non-partisan all-party support for the principles underlying this doctrine to which this government has adhered faithfully in recent events.
It is a political ploy to embarrass the government. That is all it is. Let me therefore set out for this House the nature and elements of the doctrine of ministerial responsibility.
Ministers exercise powers bestowed on them by the Crown in Parliament and hold office at the pleasure of the Crown. The exercise of these powers, for which ministers are constitutionally responsible to Parliament, provides the foundation of responsible government.
The concentration of responsibility in the hands of ministers reflects the fundamental democratic principle that the power of the state must be exercised under the authority of elected officials accountable to the representatives of the electorate.
This enables Parliament to focus responsibility for the conduct of government on those of its members who hold ministerial office and who ultimately must personally answer to Parliament and hence to the electorate for their actions and the actions of their subordinates.
Ministers fulfil their responsibilities and are called to account by the House of Commons, for the exercise of their statutory authority in accordance with practice and convention. From the origins of our system, however, political circumstances rather than literal application of the principle of ministerial responsibility have governed the answerability of ministers. As Professor J. R. Mallory has noted, the minister's is a political responsibility.
What that means is that it is a political, policy setting responsibility. It is not a day-to-day administrative responsibility of the running of that department. Deputy ministers derive almost all of their authority from ministers. They advise ministers and administer the programs carried out under the statutory authorities exercised by their ministers. The tradition is that they are loyal to their ministers and are required actively to support and participate in the policy and administrative decisions taken by ministers individually and collectively.
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Put simply, deputy ministers are responsible to their ministers and are accountable to them.
Deputy ministers also support their ministers in answering to committees of the House provided this does not draw officials into partisan controversy or undermine the authority and responsibility of ministers. This role of officials has been enhanced and strengthened by the McGrath report which recommended that public servants be made more available to parliamentary committees. The government stated at the time that it supported this recommendation and recent events have borne out the government's commitment in this regard.
The concentration of responsibility in the hands of ministers is obviously the bedrock of parliamentary government. It is, however, a matter of observation that government is a large administrative enterprise. It is very important to recognize that it is not a modern phenomenon that ministers cannot know everything that is done under their authority. The phenomenon is merely more acute today than it was a century ago, and not prima facie proof of the irrelevance of ministerial responsibility. Ministers spend much of their time providing information to Parliament, indicating a need for the minister's ability to answer and provide information to be shared without however sharing his or her responsibility.
Professor Kenneth Kernaghan has noted: "It is now almost universally accepted that it is unreasonable to hold a minister personally responsible in the form of resignation for the administrative failings of his subordinates. The usual practice is that the minister informs Parliament that the fault lies with his officials and he promises that the offenders will be disciplined and their mistakes corrected. Despite frequent calls by opposition parties for ministerial resignations on the grounds of actual or alleged departmental mismanagement, in practice, ministers in cabinet do not resign as penance for administrative bungling in their department".
Professor Geoffrey Marshall, a leading British authority, sums up the doctrine and practice of ministerial responsibility as follows: "When action is taken of which a minister disapproves and", here is the more appropriate part, "of which he has not prior knowledge, there is no obligation on his part to endorse it, to defend the errors of his officials, or to resign".

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In point of fact there is not a single case since Confederation of a minister resigning because of an error by an official. Applying the doctrine just outlined in summary form to the facts of the Al-Mashat case, I would note the following. All the evidence heard by those of us who were members of the committee that has been looking into this matter indicates the following.
First, ministers did not know anything of the Al-Mashat affair until after Al-Mashat had entered Canada legally.
Second, when the ministers were informed they took full responsibility by acting to establish the facts.
Third, when the facts were established they took appropriate action to ensure there would be no repetition and they sought an apology from those involved.
Fourth, ministers informed the House of how they had fulfilled their responsibilities.
Fifth, given the ministers' commitment to a thorough investigation and to making the facts public, and given the findings of the investigation and the nature of the report flowing therefrom, it became inevitable that the identity of the officials principally involved would obviously become public.
Early on in the debate that began in the committee, I contacted the Library of Parliament and asked them to do a study on ministerial responsibility as it might relate to this case. I read from the conclusion of the documents they sent to me. It is a document entitled Individual Ministerial Responsibility, Resignation of Ministers in the U.K. and Canada. Page 18 reads:
Individual ministerial responsibility exists in both Canada and the U.K. as an important constitutional convention to the extent that Ministers must answer for the policies and activities of their departments. The purported obligation to resign where departmental officials commit serious errors does not appear to be a duty in either country.
That quote is very clear.
We also have the study which was adopted by all three parties of this House of the McGrath committee which also looked into the question of ministerial responsibility. I quote:
The individual responsibility of ministers concerns the administration of their departments. It is no longer reasonable that a minister be accountable or responsible when, through no fault of the minister, senior officials misuse or abuse their powers.
In the next paragraph it reads as follows:
The idea of a minister being responsible for everything that goes on in a department may once have been realistic, but it has long since ceased to be so. A minister cannot possibly know everything that is going on in a department. The doctrine of ministerial accountability undermines the potential for genuine accountability on the part of the person that ought to be accountable, the senior officer of the department.
That last point is something we rarely hear from the opposition benches.
In looking at all of the evidence that we have been receiving in the committee, it is obvious that the ministers did not know until after Al-Mashat was in the country.


Jesse Philip Flis: Nonsense.


John Henry Reimer: The member says it is nonsense. The member was not even there.
The second point, the deputy minister, Mr. Chretien, knew from the very first day, from February 27, about this case and what was involved in this case. You cannot in any way dispute that because it is accepted by everyone who was there at the committee. That deputy minister also agreed that this was a very sensitive, political case.
The minister gathered all the facts. I commend him on taking the time to get all the facts, which took four days as determined by the defectors committee. Once he knew that our immigration officials in Vienna had already provisionally approved the Al-Mashats under the retiree category, what did he do?
I am going to come to that. That deputy minister also, in responding to me and to some of the questions in the committee, said that although the new system of reporting instituted by the chief of staff of the minister was in place by January 1, from January 1 through to February 27 that deputy minister quite often used other means of communication directly to the minister. He did it by telephone, by directly speaking to him and by memos.
Now we say that he has to hide behind this process. No, he admitted quite often that he used other means. I just cannot see why people are not accepting that. He said it to us and it is clear.

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When I persisted in my questions to him, he admitted that he did not just follow the new procedure but also made other types of contact directly to the minister. It is not, as the member for Winnipeg South Centre says, that he only followed procedures. No, that is not correct. He used other means.
He admitted that it was a very politically sensitive case. He also knew that his minister was going to Washington, to the United Nations and then to the Middle East. At that point he already knew what this case could amount to. He knew it was politically sensitive. Why did he not just pick up the phone and talk to his minister? Why did he not walk down the hall and see him? He could have. That is not being mentioned in here. I do not know why the opposition does not mention that.
Furthermore, he knew that CSIS had said: "He is not a defector". He knew it had said: "He has no value to Canada". He also knew that the PCO said: "No special treatment in this case". He also knew that the immigration officials said: "No special treatment in this case". He knew all of those things. Then, right when his minister is going to the most sensitive place related to this topic, right from where this ambassador came, he does not even tell the minister. I find that simply incredible.
The deputy minister knew where the minister was going and he knew that it could be politically embarrassing to that minister if it should suddenly leak out that Al-Mashat was seeking to come into Canada. He knew that could happen. What did he do? Instead of contacting the minister directly, which he did quite often, using his words "on other issues", he said nothing on this one. Instead of routing a memo directly to the attention of the minister he sent it through the system, to Mr. Vincent, then across to Ms. McCallion and then up to the chief of staff without even saying: "attention to the minister". That is incredible. It is almost as though he did not want the minister to see it.
If you wanted to subvert the system, delay it and put it aside for five or six days-it happened. I find it incredible because on other issues he talks direct.


An hon. member:: That person is not here and cannot defend himself.
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John Henry Reimer: Listen to the babbling brooks on the other side. They will get their turn. I did not interrupt them, Mr. Speaker, so I am sure you would want to point out that they should not interrupt me.
The debate today, instead of on ministerial accountability, should really be on accountability, by senior officers in their departments. Let me quote a person who has been at all of those hearings, one of the members of the media. In The Ottawa Citizen Ms. Marjorie Nichols says the following:
In my opinion Raymond Chretien, along with external's former chief of staff, David Daubney, ought to have been fired immediately when Brian Mulroney and Joe Clark discovered they had been betrayed by their own bureaucracies. There may be cause for the reprimand of others as well.
It is interesting that people in the immigration department accepted some of the responsibilities and apologized. I quote again:
But there is no doubt that Raymond Chretien is top honcho on the responsibility poll in this case.
You can hear the members of the Liberal Party babbling away over there. I am not focusing on Mr. Raymond Chretien because he is the nephew of the Leader of the Opposition. I am focusing on him because of his position as the senior deputy minister in the department who quite often spoke to the minister, who admitted this was a politically sensitive case and that he knew more about it than anybody else in the whole Public Service. That is why I am focusing on him.
In conclusion, examining all the evidence we can see that: first, no laws were broken and nothing ethically improper was done in the handling of the case.
Second, there was no foreign influence nor any hidden espionage motives involved in any way in Mr. Al-Ma-shat's entry.
If the people on the other side would only listen, instead of always shouting from their seats, they would hear that I said that according to the evidence we heard so far this is what we know.
Third, ministers did not know anything about the case until after Al-Mashat had been in Canada.
Fourth, the issue was clearly embarrassing to the government: there is no denying that. It must, however, be kept in proper perspective. Canada's national security was not threatened and no laws were broken. Handling of this case outside the proper channels allowed a high profile individual to enter Canada quickly and without

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the knowledge of the ministers. As a result of misjudgement by senior officials, ministers were embarrassed by this case.
However, at a time when Canada faces major challenges such as the very unity of Canada itself and grave economic questions and competitiveness in the international arena, what are we doing here? We are spinning our wheels on a ridiculous case that is a simple comedy of errors. That is all we are doing.
The opposition wants to somehow get at some minister. The ministers did everything they could once they knew. The real problem is not ministerial responsibility but senior Public Service accountability. That is the issue. As I said in quoting Marjorie Nichols, I think there are two people who did not carry out their responsibilities and should be fired.


Marlene Catterall: Mr. Speaker, I can honestly say that I have never seen such a disgusting display of dumping responsibility on people who cannot defend themselves or protect themselves. In my view it is an abuse of the privileges of this Chamber.
The member has quoted extensively from various sources. I want to quote from government policy and show how government policy has been violated over and over and over again since this affair began.
Let me quote from Directions to Public Servants on how public servants should behave before committee: "The preservation of the relationship of trust and confidence between ministers and public servants is essential to the conduct of good government". This member is talking about the impact on the country at a time of great difficulty.
Let me continue: "Matters of policy and political controversy have been reserved more or less exclusively for ministers, principally because political answerability on the part of officials would inevitably draw them into controversy, destroy their permanent utility to the system, and indeed undermine the authority and responsibility of their ministers".
The carrying out of the will of this House depends on an impartial and anonymous Public Service. I want to quote again from Public Service 2000, which the President of the Treasury Board announced on December 10 with great fanfare as government policy. It says: "The Public Service is, therefore, central to the structure of our democracy. Power flows from the Crown and is
exercised by ministers who are responsible to Parliament. Officials advise ministers and are accountable to ministers. The constitutional responsibility of ministers is the cornerstone of the accountability of public servants".
This is the policy of this government. It further says: "Ministers are individually and collectively responsible to the House of Commons for the activities of government, including the management and conduct of the Public Service. Individually ministers are responsible for the administration of the decisions of the government and the activities of public servants falling under their jurisdiction. Collectively they are responsible for the decisions of the government as a whole and the activities of all of their colleagues". That is all of their colleagues.
This is a statement by this government on what its policy is. I can only refer to Dian Cohen's comments last week on Canada AM who said: "How does this government expect, as it says in PS 2000, to transfer more responsibility, more decision making, more independence, more of the kind of creativity we need as the world changes rapidly, to public servants if they are then going to be dumped all over in public by members of the government, including their very minister who is there to be responsible for the conduct of their department's affairs?"
The government has made it clear it is violating its own policy. As Dian Cohen said, Public Service 2000 is dead in the water.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Order, please. Questions and comments period is not the time for a new speech or address. It is time to ask a question or make a comment. If you want an answer from the previous speaker, it is time to end your remark or question.


Marlene Catterall: What I would like to know from the previous speaker is: How does this government intend to repair the terrible damage it has done? Will it do as the public accounts committee has recommended and set up a special committee of the House of Commons to deal with these issues? Will it do something to start moving toward restoring some sense of confidence in the Public Service so that its members can make decisions, know that they are not going to be dumped all over in public and that they do not have to be paralysed by worrying more about whether their decisions are going to please their political masters than whether or not they are good decisions?
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John Henry Reimer: Mr. Speaker, I am going to repeat one thing that I quoted which had the support of the member. Her party supported the McGrath commission report.
In that report it says the following: "The idea of a minister being responsible for everything that goes on in the department may once have been realistic, but it has long since ceased to be so. A minister cannot possibly know everything that is going on in a department". I think the hon. member would accept that.
It goes on to say: "The doctrine of ministerial accountability undermines the potential for genuine accountability on the part of the person who ought to be accountable, the senior officer of the department".
I did not hear her speak about that part. There are two things here. There is ministerial responsibility for all the policy setting and what goes on in departments. There is also a second factor which the McGrath committee, to its credit, mentions here, that there is also senior officer accountability. That is the other factor.
If we dwell only on the one to the exclusion of the other, how can we ever get true accountability within the person who in some cases is genuinely accountable, and that is the senior official in the department?
Therefore I think what happened in this case is very simple. The opposition is dwelling on one side of the coin. I am trying to dwell on both sides. Ministers are accountable, no question, but so are senior public servants.


Mr. John Brewin (Victoria):: Mr. Speaker, just let me say that the major speech of the hon. member was a hatchet job on public servants who do not have an opportunity to defend themselves. I agree with the previous member that is an unacceptable way for a member of this House to conduct himself.
The issue before the House is the accountability of ministers. The thesis that the member put forward would leave ministers to be able to just walk away from any decision that is made. The issue here that underlines this case, which so offends Canadians who have to see their relatives and friends stand in line for month after month
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after month, is that this particular person was allowed to skip the line.
This government and these ministers are responsible for that.


John Henry Reimer: Mr. Speaker, I am glad the member raised the second point in his question.
There is no question that many Canadians very frustrated by the fact that their friends and relatives simply cannot get in. It takes months and months, if not years, and here is someone whom I do not think very many Canadians would want to admit into the country if they knew all of the facts, suddenly coming in very quickly.
That offends all of us, and I agree with the hon. member on that. I am terribly offended by the fact that person jumped the queue the way he did. I find that offensive. But the question now is: How did it happen? Who did it? Not a single minister knew about it until after the person was here. That is the key point. Therefore, how did it happen? It happened because some people unfortunately did not tell their minister.
I am convinced that if the senior official in that department had gone directly to the minister on this case, as he admitted to me he quite often did, the minister would have said: "No way do we admit him now when I am going to the Middle East. You put that one on hold and back to the back of the line and we will reconsider it later".
There is no question that is what would have happened. I agree with the hon. member that this member should never have been allowed to jump the line. Why did he jump it? Because some senior public servants allowed it to happen.


Mr. David D. Stupich (Nanaimo-Cowichan):: Mr. Speaker, a former cabinet colleague of mine in the Dave Barrett administration, Ernie Hall, when something went wrong in our government, once quoted what he called a Limey proverb to the effect that if something happens once it is happenstance. If there is a second happening that is a coincidence. If it happens three times then somebody is managing the affair.

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The hon. member from Kitchener has described a litany of events which all conspired together to make sure that none of the cabinet members knew about this incident, this case, this person who wanted to come in.
We are asked to believe not one, not two, not three happenings but a whole litany of events conspired together to make it possible. It is difficult to believe. I am not saying it is not the truth, but I am saying it is very difficult to believe.
As I say, twice is coincidence. Third is getting unbelievable. When it gets to 13 and 33 then we have to wonder if somebody is not managing the events.
The question was asked earlier in the debate: "Are we not dealing with this out of all proportion to the importance of the case?" I am inclined to agree with that.
Certainly I am as concerned as other members are about the way in which one person was able to jump the queue in the way that person did. I must have close to 100 open files in my office where people have been trying to get admission to Canada. Some of them are from as long ago as the election of 1988. They still have not completed the process, yet this one particular person was able to do it within 28 days.
Had one of the 100 or so who concern me right now managed to jump the queue then I would say: Yes, something went wrong. The system broke down. It was just too easy compared to all the rest.
When a very high profile person such as this jumps the queue then I have to wonder. I cannot say all these people are not telling the truth, but I really have to wonder whether it is possible for all those events to come together. It was not just a casual person brought in out of all the people who want to immigrate into Canada. It is this one particular person who from all the rest is the fortunate recipient of all of these happy events which combined together to make sure that he was able to enter Canada legally.
It strains the bounds of credibility. I have a great deal of difficulty in believing that it could be so easy for one high profile person with a well-known name when none of the people with whom I am dealing can find a way of getting in even within the regular time.
Having said that, I still think we are spending more time on this than it is worth. The part that bothers me-I
have highlighted just a few words in the motion introduced by the Official Opposition-is that ministers are responsible for the activities of public servants falling under their jurisdiction.
I was a cabinet minister, and I certainly believe that. It does not apply just to cabinet ministers. You can recall the Leader of the Opposition in his speech talking about his experience as a lawyer. If someone delivered a document to my office-I ran an accounting business until some time after the election when I had to give up that part of my life-even had I been away on vacation, it was still my responsibility. If the client came in and complained about me losing something that belonged to him or her, I would not go to my staff and try to find out which one it was and then tell the client that it was so-and-so on my staff. I would want to know. I would want to find out who received it. I would want to trail it and see if I could not find it or have them find it, but there is certainly no point in me telling the client who was to blame. I had the responsibility.
For a while in my life I was a poultry farmer, an egg producer. Eggs have to be candled to check the interior quality as well as examining the exterior. I did not lay the eggs, but if a customer complained to me about the quality of one of those eggs that I was selling him there was no point in me blaming the chicken, finding out which hen laid it and saying that she was to blame. I was responsible. I was the proprietor and it was my responsibility.
In the same way the cabinet minister is responsible. I was a cabinet minister and I had problems in my department. It never once occurred to me to find out who the offending individual was with a view to telling people outside my ministry who that person was and what he or she had done wrong. I was the one who was responsible. I suppose, in different circumstances, President Truman said it in less than 20 minutes, much shorter and very concise: "The buck stops here".
I was the minister of that department and it was my responsibility. Things did go wrong and I wanted to find out who and why and to try to set in motion procedures to make sure that those same things did not go wrong again, and I never had that third happening. Sometimes a coincidence but never to the point where I was suspicious of the whole process. That is the cabinet minister's responsibility.
June 12, 1991

In this instance we are led to believe, as I say, that cabinet ministers did not know. Four of them who have been identified in debates in this House, should have known something about it. There was a paper trail and they should have known. In some cases it was suggested they did not get around to reading their mail. A lot of us do not get around to reading our mail, but if it is important mail we see it and we see it promptly. If not, we want to find out why not.
If there is someone in our office who has not done his or her job properly, we have a way of dealing with that person. Depending upon the severity and depending on the incident, there are different ways of dealing with it. But it would certainly never occur to me to blame one of my staff members if a constituent was not served properly or if the job was not done correctly. I do not do it all and none of us can. We all have help to do our work, but we are responsible for everything that goes out of our offices and everything that is done in our constituency offices.
Not often but occasionally we do get some credit. If there is any blame we cannot pass it on to anyone else. It is our blame and it is our responsibility.
That is the way it has to be in cabinet. Public servants and public employees do not have any way of speaking out. If they do, it is cause for dismissal. When public servants were named in this case, individuals named before the committee started meeting and before they started getting into the evidence, those individuals were named. That is not fair to people who do not have any voice. They can speak to their minister. They can speak to the person to whom they are responsible, but they have no right to say anything outside the minister's office about anything that has happened. They have taken an oath not to.
There is responsibility and there is loyalty.
The people working with the minister have to be loyal to him or her. Otherwise they do not belong there and they had better find another job. The minister has to demand loyalty. He cannot afford to have that person going out and cutting the ground out from under his feet under any circumstance.
I had that happen to me just once. The offending person said that he was just joking and did not mean it seriously, but it never happened a second time to anyone in the department. The person was not fired, but
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certainly the message got around that kind of conduct was not acceptable.
On the other hand, nobody in my ministry ever had to worry that I was not supporting them. If anything went wrong then I would have it out with that person, but it never occurred to me to say publicly that somebody in my department had done something wrong or that it was not my fault if things were not done right: in other words, that I did everything right but some individuals whom I would name were the ones who did everything wrong.
It does not work that way. That is not acceptable. The public has a right to know who is responsible. The premier or Prime Minister has the right to know who is responsible and not to have to blame a public servant or anyone else. The Prime Minister or premier goes to the minister and should not go any further. The minister should not tell the Prime Minister who is to blame. That is between him and his staff.
The loyalty has to work both ways if it is going to work at all. What kind of loyalty is there within the departments that were involved in this? How can any of the senior staff feel safe about the work they are doing? We are told that they admitted their blame, accepted the responsibility, confessions were obtained, should I say extracted from them? Certainly indications were that they were not willingly offered.


John Harvard: Extorted.


David Stupich: The word extorted has been suggested to me and I think that is appropriate under the circumstance.
If confessions were obtained in that way, how can anybody working with that minister ever have any feeling of loyalty or trust in the minister again? The minister found an easy way out. If something else goes wrong, the minister will probably find that same way out again. Would that not be the fear of anyone working in the ministries or the departments of any of those ministers?
Certainly I could excuse a person feeling that way, but not one of the senior public servants involved, even when the heat was on as much as it was, even when their names were released publicly, and even when it was told how much they had done wrong, said anything publicly until they were called before a committee. There they had to. They had no choice. They were loyal to the minister, but the ministers, three or four of them,

June 12, 1991
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certainly had no feeling of loyalty to the senior public servants.
That is not good enough. It is not the public servants whose heads should roll. It is the ministers who should have from the beginning told us what happened and let it go at that. If they expedited his entry on short notice, why not say so and be done with it? That would have been the end of it. What can we do if they admit they are wrong? If they admit they did something they should not have done, that would be the end of it. We cannot pursue it any further- once the whole story is known.
It has dragged on now for a month. Bit by bit we have found out more and more, but I suspect that we have yet to find out the whole truth. I doubt that we ever will, unless someone writes their memoirs and they are released some time in the future.
One of the hon. members suggested there is nothing wrong with the motion, that he or she accepts the principle of cabinet responsibility. We all have to accept that and, as I say, it goes beyond cabinet. It is in our whole lives. We have to be responsible to people, have loyalty to people working with us, loyalty to people who we supervise, and they have to be loyal to us, whether it is in business, at home, or whether it is as a cabinet minister. There is nothing really peculiar about it except that cabinet ministers have taken an oath, as have senior public servants. There is that exception, but there is really nothing new or different about the principle.
I welcome the comment from one of the government speakers saying that he could support this, would like to support it, believes it, but because of the nature of the operation of Parliament as a government member he has to vote against it.
The McGrath report has been referred to several times and one of the findings of the commission has been passed on to me. The report was endorsed by this House five years ago, I am told, in 1986. It specified that opposition motions should not be considered questions of confidence. I understand that since that report was approved by the House two opposition motions have actually been adopted by the House, not by voting but by unanimous consent.
That being the case and so that it will be possible for some government members or all of the government members to vote for this motion to show how they feel about ministerial responsibility, I want to move an amendment to the motion before us which would add the words:
And that adoption of this motion not be considered a lack of
confidence in the government.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: I will take under advisement during a few minutes the motion moved by the hon. member. We now proceed with questions and comments.


Mrs. Dorothy Dobbie (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs and Minister of State (Agriculture)):: Mr. Speaker, I have been listening most of the afternoon to the interventions by my hon. colleagues opposite. Just recently we heard from the member for Ottawa West and more recently the current speaker who may be able to answer this question for me.
Both these members seem to suggest that somehow ministers should always back up-I think those were the words used in one case-the decisions of their senior officials. I assume that they mean that the officials who have been chosen for their experience, their intelligence and their good judgment should be listened to in all cases. At least that is the impression I get from the hon. members opposite.
However, I think that if that were the case, if ministers should always agree with the decisions of their staff, always back them up, always stand behind the decisions of their staff, then the members must be telling me that they also believe that the staff, the senior public officials, made a good decision to let Mr. Al-Mashat into Canada without discussing this with their ministers.
I do not think that is what they mean. If that is what the hon. members mean then I take it that they are saying we should not have government by elected representatives but rather we should have government by bureaucracy, that the elected members do not have any position, that ministers do not have any position of
June 12, 1991

authority, that ministers are not in a position to make critical decisions when critical decisions must be made.
I have some difficulty with that kind of logic. It seems to me that if the senior officials were concerned about a decision as critical as this one, concerned enough to write memos and to certainly document the fact that they were taking this under some serious thought, they would also have ensured that ministers were informed in person so that there would be absolutely no possibility of any mistake about whether or not ministers knew this was being contemplated.
The only other possibility that I can garner from this, if the members opposite do not agree, is that the member believes that we should be governed by our senior public officials who should not be accountable, who may have great authority and great power but who should never be held to account for the fact that sometimes they do make errors in judgment.


David Stupich: Mr. Speaker, I am not sure if the member was in her seat all the time that I spoke. Earlier on I thought I made it quite clear that there is some doubt in my mind as to whether the ministers did or did not know about this. I explained at some length that it is almost unbelievable such a chain of events should have happened, so many coincidences, and none of the ministers even heard about it.
We are talking about the top level of public servants, the highest level. All this was going on around the ministers and they did not know anything was happening. I find that hard to believe for a start. However, the member asks: "Should cabinet ministers agree with everything that their senior staff do wrong?" Of course not.
What I am saying is that if something went wrong in my department as Minister of Agriculture, I was the one who took the responsibility. I did not try to find out which individual had done something wrong, or even if I knew. I was the minister, not somebody else. I would take it up with that person individually.
When the premier was expressing concern about it I had to take responsibility, not the person under me. That is all I am saying. It is a ministerial responsibility. The minister is responsible. The premier is responsible when
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we get to the top, or the Prime Minister. We cannot go any higher.
As Truman said: "The buck stops here". As long as I was Minister of Agriculture I was responsible.


John Harvard: Mr. Speaker, I will try to keep my remarks short. There has been a lot of rhetoric on this issue but it seems to me that there are two answers. Either the ministers knew or they did not know. If they did know then we have a full-blown scandal. They say they did not know and a lot of Canadians do not believe that story.
I hear that there will be a poll coming out, perhaps tomorrow, that will say that 78 per cent of Canadians do not believe the government's story.
Let us accept the government's line for just a moment. The ministers say they did not know, the bureaucrats did not pass the information along to them. If they did not know, would it not have been the responsible thing to simply admit responsibility? "Yes, there might have been a mistake here. There might have been a bungle there. But we are the ministers and we are going to take full responsibility".


Mr. Guilbault:: Mr. Speaker, I thought the hon. member had a question to ask. I had risen to speak to this issue.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: The question and comment period is not over. I will recognize the member for Winnipeg St. James again and ask him to please conclude.


John Harvard: I will conclude in just a moment.
Instead of accepting responsibility for this, the government and the ministers were cowardly and craven. What they did was look for a scapegoat, for defenceless public servants who could not defend themselves. What upsets Canadians so much is the government's cowardice and the fact that it would not admit to this responsibility.
My question for the previous speaker is quite simple. Does the previous speaker not believe that the honourable thing to do was to simply admit responsibility?


David Stupich: Mr. Speaker, the actions of the ministers in identifying the public servants publicly before the

June 12, 1991
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committee ever met is totally reprehensible. The honourable thing for them to do was to accept the responsibility, as the member has suggested. Then they could deal with it in their department as a separate matter, and that is not a public issue. Publicly those ministers should have accepted the responsibility for what went wrong in their departments.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Before resuming debate, I am now in a position to make a ruling regarding the motion put forward by the hon. member for Nanaimo -Cowichan.
His amendment is out of order on two counts. First, it introduces a concept irrelevant to the main motion and, on this point, I refer to Beauchesne's sixth edition, citation 579(1), which says: "An amendment setting forth a proposition dealing with a matter which is foreign to the proposition involved in the main motion is not relevant and cannot be moved".
Second, in Beauchesne's sixth edition again, citation 929 states:

"On an allotted day, during consideration of the business of supply, an amendment must not provide the basis for an entirely different debate than that proposed in the original motion".


Jean-Guy Guilbault: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak on the most fundamental principle underlying our system of responsible government, the constitutional responsibility of ministers.
Recent events of which we in this House are all aware have given rise to considerable comment from members of Parliament, the public and the media about the nature and practice of this principle.
Indeed the motion we are debating shows that interest in this principle is alive and well in this Parliament. I may add that some of the comments on ministerial responsibility we have heard and read in recent weeks contain a number of misconceptions which have helped confuse the issue instead of explain how this doctrine was applied in Canada.
I welcome the opportunity to speak on this subject today. I hope to provide some clarification for members of this House and the Canadian public and address some of the key elements of this fundemental principle of our democratic system of government.
I wish to first address the motion itself. On its face it is very straightforward motion calling upon members of Parliament to announce their support for the doctrine of ministerial responsibility.
The vehicle being used, as is conceded by the Liberal Party opposite in the debate on a previous supply motion on medicare, is a non-confidence motion.
Were it to pass, it would require the government to resign. But we on the government side of the House can hardly accept this as a straightforward attempt on the part of the Liberal Party to encourage non-partisan, all-party support for the principles underlying the doctrine to which this government has adhered faithfully in recent events.
Let me therefore set out for this House the nature and elements of the doctrine of ministerial responsibility. Minister exercise powers bestowed on them by the Crown in Parliament thus providing the foundation of responsible government, and under the Constitution they are accountable to Parliament for their actions and the actions of their officials.
The concentration of responsibility in the hands of ministers reflets the fundamental democratic principle that the power of the state must be exercised under the authority of elected officials accountalbe to the representatives of the electorate. Public servants, in turn, are accountable to the ministers. They advise them and administer the programs implemented by virtue of the powers exercised by the ministers.
Former Auditor General Kenneth Dye was fond of saying that some public servants knew what was going on in their departments but ministers did not because the machine had become top unwieldy.
These powers are therefore conferred on ministers by Parliament, and ministers are accountable to the House of Commons.
Public servants also support their ministers in aswering to committees of the House, provided this does not draw officials into partisan controversy or undermine the authority and responsibility of ministers.
June 12, 1991

Ministers fulfil their responsibility and are called to account by the Elouse of Commons for the exercise of their statutory authority in accordance with practice and convention. As Professor J. R. Mallory has noted, the minister's is a political responsibility.
It is, however, a matter of observation that governe-ment is a large administrative enterprise. It is not a modern phenomenon that ministers cannot know everything that is done under their authority. The phenomenon is merely more acute today than it was before.
How ministers deal with their responsibility for their officials depends on the circumstances and whether, for instance, an official took action that was totally unacceptable, without the minister's knowledge. Of course if the minister was not informed he cannot be responsible.
Briefly here are the essential components of this doctrine. Authority is conferred by the Crown and exercised by ministers who are accountable to Parliament.
Ministers are responsible for the actions of their officials whether they did or did not know what those actions were. When a mistake is made without the minister's knowledge the minister must establish the facts, correct the mistake and make sure it does not happen again. The minister informs the House of the steps taken.
From what I can see, precedents at the federal level in Canada support this interpretation of the doctrine. Professor Kenneth Kemaghan, in an article entitled Power, Parliament and Public Servants in Canada: Ministerial Responsibility Reexamined published in Canadian Public Policy, volume 3, 1979, noted: "It is now almost universally accepted that it is unreasonable to hold a minister personally responsible in the form of resignation for the administrative failings of subordinates." It is on page 36.
The usual practice is that the minister informs Parliament that the fault lies with his officials and promises that the offenders will be disciplined and their mistakes corrected. That is on page 387.
Private Members' Business
Professor Kemaghan also said: "Despite frequent calls by opposition parties for ministerial resignations on the grounds of actual or alleged departmental mismanagement, in practice in Canada ministers in cabinet do not resign as pennace for administrative bungling in their department". This quote is from page 386.
Addressing the same issue in a book entitled Ministerial Responsibility, Oxford, 1989, Professors S. E. Finer and Geoffrey Marshall, both leading British authorities on the subject, sum up the doctrine and practice of ministerial responsibility as follows: "When we refer to the individual ministerial responsibility we simply mean that for any action taken by or omission on the part of a civil servant, a minister or someone else is expected to provide information to Parliament. This, only ministers can do". "When action is taken of which a minister disapproves and of which he has no prior knowledge, there is no obligation on his part to endorse it, to defend the errors of his officials, or to resign", said Marshall at page 386.
Applying the doctrine just outlined in some reform to the facts of the Al-Mashat case, I would note the following. First, ministers did not know anything of the Al-Mashat affair until after Al-Mashat had entered Canada legally.
Second, when they were informed they took full responsibility by acting to establish the facts.
Third, when the facts were established they took appropriate action to ensure there would be no repetition and they sought an apology from those involved.
Fourth, ministers informed the House of how they had their responsibilities.
Fifth, given the ministers' commitment to a thorough investigation and to making the facts public, and given the findings of the investigation and the nature of the report flowing therefrom, it became inevitable that the identity of the officials principally involved would obviously become public.
Given the political and constitutional history of Canada, we have to conclude that this government has acted according to the above-mentioned principles and doctrine because since Confederation no minister has had to resign due to an error made by a public servant.

June 12, 1991
Private Members' Business
I have talked at length about the doctrine of ministerial responsibility and its direct application in this case, as suggested in the motion. I have no doubt hon. members will acknowledge that this government, through its recent efforts, has fully abided by this doctrine.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: It being 7.45 p.m., pursuant to Standing Order 81(14) it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and to put forwith every question necessary to dispose of the motion.
Accordingly the question is on the motion moved by the member for Winnipeg South Centre. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the said motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: All those in favour will please say yea.


Some hon. members:: Yea.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: All those opposed will please say nay.


Some hon. members:: Nay.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: In my opinion the yeas have it. Call in the members.
And more than five members having risen:


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Call in the members.
And the division bells having rung:


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Order, please. I have been requested by the chief government Whip and the chief opposition Whip to defer the division until a later time.

Accordingly, pursuant to Standing Order 45(5)(a) the division on the question now before the House stands deferred until tomorrow at 10 a.m., at which time the bells to call in the members will be sounded for not more than 15 minutes.


Mr. Gagliano:: I rise on a point of order. It was agreed between the government Whip and myself to defer the division until 10 a.m. tomorrow. I know you have already so ordered, but you did not specify when. You just said until a later time. Perhaps hon. members should be reminded to be here at 10 a.m. tomorrow.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: To make perfectly sure the hon. members know exactly, the bells will ring at 10 a.m., as usual. The difference is that the division will be taken at 10.15 a.m.


PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS - MOTIONS   THE CANADIAN ECONOMY REMOVAL OF THE GST
Mark Joseph Assad: That, in the opinion of this House, the government should envisage removing the GST because of its unexpected and negative effects on the Canadian economy that will inevitably prolong the current recession.
He said: Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I take this opportunity tonight to speak on the GST because I would like to report a number of significant happenings since its implementation.
As the motion says, the GST is having unexpected and extremely negative effects on the Canadian economy. This is why I ask that the tax be removed, since it inevitably makes the recession drag on.
Of course, I do not expect the government to change the legislation overnight to abolish the GST, the goods and services tax. I realize it would not be realistic. I would not want hon. members or the public to think this is a simplistic motion. What do I forecast? The negative effects and their consequences for the retail business on top of the psychological effects of this new tax are like the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back.
We are still willing to discuss reforms, but I contend that we should consider reducing gradually the GST. I
June 12, 1991

believe that, from a psychological point of view, this would be highly significant for Canadians and the economy. The GST has had a negative impact. Figures show that prices and inflation have surged ahead. When you look at the number of people crossing the border to shop in the United States, you get an idea of the degree of rejection of this new tax by the public. It comes a time when we are feeling the effects of a recession.
All the experts in the field, and I will read you some quotes later on, have demonstrated that the tax was introduced at a very inopportune time, when the economy was slowing down. While this new and substantial tax is going to produce billions of dollars, it has greatly hampered the growth of the economy.
Mr. Speaker, if you look at the statistics for the last few months, you will notice a very negative reaction on the part of Canadians. I would like to note that when this transition happened, when the manufacturers' sales tax was abolished, all companies and all retailers were supposed to reduce their prices proportionally to the tax they had paid on the manufactured goods. Indeed, the government had said many times in this House that the price of several products would go down. But that has not been the case, except perhaps for automobiles. We have not seen any price reduction in several kinds of businesses. Whether it was hardware, clothing or any other product, there has been no reduction. So it was unthinkable to believe that in the over-all Canadian economy there would be a price reduction on all products on which the manufacturers' sales tax had been applied, that businesses would reduce their prices, that the GST would be applied and that we would save money. It is not the case at all.

The motion I brought before the House concerns the goods and services tax, the GST. It is not only an extremely major tax increase, it has had a psychological effect. All you have to do is check the figures to see how the retail sales took a dramatic drop in many sectors of our economy.
There is no doubt there was a reaction, be it crossborder shopping or a reduction in consumer spending. We would have to say not only is there a reduction in consumer spending but the amount of money we have had to spend has been curbed substantially. If you take into consideration all these factors, the GST has done great damage to the economy.
Private Members' Business
At the time when we felt the economy was slowing down, that we were going into a recession, it seems that common sense should have dictated that there should have been a delay at least of the GST.
The effects were detrimental and they are compounding. There were alternatives to the whole affair. Figures do not lie and we are seeing the results.
If you take the fact that there was an alternative solution for the way we tax our people, we consider that the government could have found a simpler way of finding additional revenue without penalizing the whole country and affecting the economy to the point that we are into a recession. It took them many weeks to admit that we are into a recession.
In the literature that has been written on the subject, everybody who is aware of global economics has reported that the tax burden has increased substantially in this country. They summed it up in this way, and I could not find better words: "At the risk of over-simplification, my assessment of the Tory tax change is summarized in this fashion."
He says: "It is less equitable and more complicated. The corporate tax increase has improved their position. It is a more stable and predictable source of revenue. It is more neutral and hence more efficient." That is corporate tax. It went down. It says here that basically the GST has turned out to be quite complicated, and a large number of small businesses that never had to deal with the manufacturers' sales tax were the big losers in this whole affair along with the Canadian people.
What I contend is that it does not take a degree in economics to realize that basic common sense is always the best answer when dealing with anything, even economics.
The major factor is that the government came in with a major tax measure without going into any kind of basic tax reform. The best example of all is New Zealand.
Two years prior to putting in the goods and services tax, it had a major overhaul, a major tax reform. It was quite remarkable. Taxes were lowered considerably. Prior to the GST, it lowered personal income tax substantially-I mean substantially.
Lately I have read that the New Zealand government was not impressed with the way the Canadian government introduced its GST. The New Zealand government realized that public perception was extremely important. It wanted to cover up the loopholes and it wanted it to be a progressive tax.

June 12, 1991
Private Members' Business
Before implementing the GST, it lowered the personal income tax substantially. By doing so, a lot of people in the economy were paying taxes when probably they had not before. If the New Zealand government was highly successful with its transfer, why could we not have taken a cue from it when we were trying to put in the GST.
Basically the whole situation rested upon the fact that the government decided to put tax over tax. Therefore, we are left with a situation where not only are we saturated, but we have signs of a tax revolt on our hands. Of course, the government will not admit it. The figures are there. We know that taxes, direct or indirect, have been put on the Canadian people in the last years. It has been detrimental.
I am not saying that the government is totally responsible. For the last 10 or 15 years we have needed a profound tax reform which we have not had. We have an elite in this country which dictates to our governments. It literally dictates to our governments.
If there is something that is fundamental in a democracy, it is the way we tax our people. Yet we are going along half baked. No research has been done, no political will has been put into our tax system to make sure that it is fair and equitable. How many Canadians feel that the tax system in this country is fair and equitable? None.
We have a gentleman over there. Thank God I do not know your riding and your name because your electors would certainly be on your back. You had better listen to your electors more often.


Patrick (Pat) Anthony Sobeski: Tell them that you want to tax food like New Zealand. Tell us about the New Zealand tax on food.


Mark Joseph Assad: Mr. Speaker, we will excuse him for his ignorance.

As I said, one of the most fundamental elements in a democracy is the way people are taxed. For years, not since this government has been in power, but for at least 10 or 15 years there has been a need for a comprehensive reform of our tax system.
We have a tax system which has become utterly inequitable and unfair. It does not take a degree in economics to realize that changes are imperative. Everywhere in our country people complain that the tax burden has become intolerable, that they have less and less leeway. The middle class is the backbone of a society. If the middle class is overtaxed, how the economy could be sound and progressive? It is impossible.
The goal of the motion that I introduce tonight-and I really do not expect the change to come tomorrow-is that we recognize at least the need for a reform. We must repeat it because the financial elite of our country tells us that everything is as fine as it can be, but it is far from true. If anybody should be knowledgeable in Canada, it is we, because we represent these taxpayers and we are very much aware that they cannot take it any more.
No matter what political party we represent in this House, we are at the limit. People have had enough of the tax system and they want us to have the political will, the courage and the honesty to say: "We want a comprehensive reform of our tax system." If we, who represent the people, are not in a position to recognize the needs and real interests of all Canadians, what exactly is our role in this House?
Are we speaking on behalf of the financial elite in this House, or are we speaking for all Canadians, especially the middle class, the backbone of our society? These are the things we should be discussing among ourselves. We have to recognize that it is essential for Canadians that we bring about a reform. It will never be said often enough.
If the decision makers in the government do not listen to those who represente the nation's 295 ridings, what hope can there be?
With this motion, we hope to start a discussion that will keep on growing. We also want to make sure that all the financial and even the social organizations will recognize the need and that they will keep pressuring those who represent them in this House, to let them know that it is time to consider the interests of all Canadians.



In conclusion, I am amazed sometimes to see the reaction of some of my colleagues across the way. They cannot make me believe that the people in their constituencies do not want to see a reform of the tax system, that they feel it is no longer fair and equitable.
We are not spokesmen here for the financial elite in this country. We are the spokesmen for all Canadians and especially the middle class, which is the backbone of this society. If we cannot have the political courage or the honesty to reflect what the people in this country want from us, what hope is there?
I would like to know where the hope is going to be for the rest of the Canadian people in this country. If there is anything more fundamental in a democracy than the tax system, you tell me what. There are probably two great priorities in this country; the constitutional political issue and the financial problem that we have. Unless we can face up to it there is no hope.

Mr. Speaker, I do not know if my time has expired, but I would ask you to give me a few minutes to sum up.
I think my colleagues opposite should go back to their ridings and poll their constituents. I do not have to tell them what to say; they know. But each and every one of us has a duty to fulfil here. Whatever party we represent in this House, we have individual obligations, and that is to reflect the concerns, especially the material concerns, of Canadians.
That is why I want all Canadians to put pressure on or seek the support of the member who represents them in this House to express their points of view. Together we could convince the government's mandarins, if you like, and say: Listen, we are not asking for miraculous changes, we are asking for a reform of our taxation system. It would be a first step. I am convinced that as soon as we consider a true reform of our taxation system, it will be a sign that we acknowledge the problem we are facing and that we have the courage and the political will to solve it.


Mr. Pierre H. Vincent (Parliamentary Secretary to Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance):: Mr. Private Members' Business
Speaker, I have to admit I prepared a speech to respond to my colleague, but, after hearing the remarks of the hon. member for Gatineau-La Lievre, I must say he is right on two points. First, when he mentions-


Mark Joseph Assad: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: The hon. member for Gatineau-La Lievre on a point of order.


Mark Joseph Assad: Mr. Speaker, I think that under our Standing Orders there is no questions and comments period during Private Members' Business. If the hon. member wants to make a speech, let him do it, Mr. Speaker.


Pierre H. Vincent: I have a speech, Mr. Speaker, but I rather respond to the ludicrous comments of the hon. member for Gatineau-La Lievre. So I was telling him that I agreed with him on two points. First, he mentioned that for the last 15 years we needed a tax reform in Canada. That is why we were elected in 1984. The second point, for which I will forgive my colleague, is that there was a tax reform, part I, in 1988-unfortunately, my colleague was not in this House at that time-where the personal income tax was reduced. My colleague not being here at that time, I can understand why he does not remember that.
He also talks about a fairer and more equitable system. It was the Progressive Conservative government that innovated after coming into office and that introduced a federal sales tax credit, the archaic tax that we had. It is this party and this government that introduced a tax credit. It was also the Conservative Party that took away the personal exemptions from all Canadians and replaced them with a tax credit, with the result that, before, under the Liberal regime, someone who earned $100,000 and had a personal exemption of $3,000, saved $1,500 in taxes. His neighbour, who had an income of $10,000 a year and the same personal exemption of $3,000, saved $200 or $300 in taxes. We have changed that, Mr. Speaker. Whether our income is $10,000 or $100,000, we are allowed a tax credit of $1,000 a year. It is advantageous for those on low incomes and it means as well that those who earn $100,000 a year will pay more taxes. This, Mr. Speaker, is how we make a system more fair and equitable.

June 12, 1991
Private Members' Business
The member spoke about tax reform. He forgot to mention his former colleague, Marc Lalonde, the Minister of Finance who, in 1984-


Mr. Della  Noce@: Oh, Mr. Petro-Canada.


Pierre H. Vincent: -created a tax credit for scientific research which, in 10 months cost Canadians, people from Trois-Rivieres and Gatineau-La Lievre ridings alike, some $10 billion. Minister Marc Lalonde made Canadians spend not $10 million but $10 billion for zilch over 10 months, one billion a month, Mr. Speaker.
That is one billion a month that the then government sent down the drain and it is this finance minister-and that was his first move-who put a stop to that scientific research tax credit which was draining the money of Canadian taxpayers.
I think that the hon. member for Gatineau-La Lievre has no lesson to give. He talks about the GST. I would like to correct him on a number of points.
First of all I invite him to come to my riding of Trois-Rivieres and see for himself in hardware stores and the like how prices have really come down since January 1. At the drugstore, prices have gone down. You will understand that I cannot do any advertisement, but in the car industry, prices have also gone down. This is my first point.


Mr. Della  Noce@: And sales have gone up.


Pierre H. Vincent: My second point is that the federal sales tax was 65 year old; it was hidden, invisible. Everybody used to pay it without knowing it was there.
When I was a student at the University of Sherbrooke to get my Master of Arts of Taxation in 1978, there was a course specifically on the federal sales tax because of its complexity. The professor we had, a distinguished tax expert from Montreal, Mr. Normand Guerin, used to say in those days: "I hope the federal government will get rid of this sales tax which is bad for Canada, bad for the industry, bad for everybody." They were saying that back in 1978.
The Liberal Party was in power. They had been relected but they never had the courage precisely to abolish the federal sales tax which was responsible in
Canada for a $9 billion loss every year in goods production. Thirty-five thousand jobs are going to be created this year because Canadian companies are going to increase their output. And why are they going to increase their output, Mr. Speaker? The reason for it is very simple: Canada was the only country in the world which still had a manufacturers' sales tax. The outcome of it was that a company from Trois-Rivieres wanting to sell abroad, would go to Europe, to Japan or to the United States and it had to include in its sale price an additional
13.5	per cent due to the manufacturers' sales tax.
Often these companies could not compete internationally-


An hon. member:: It's not true.


Mr. Della  Noce@: Of course it's true.


Pierre H. Vincent: Mr. Speaker, I have been polite and I have listened to my colleague. Perhaps he could do the same. At least be polite.


Mr. Della  Noce@: Liberals don't know the meaning of politeness.


Thomas (Tom) William Wappel: It's not possible.


Pierre H. Vincent: It's not possible to be polite. I understand that with Liberals it's impossible to be polite.
I was saying that the company from Trois-Rivieres did not have competitive prices at the international level, so it could not sell outside the country. Worse than that, the European company which came to Canada did not have a manufacturers' sales tax built in its products because there was no such tax in Europe. Consequently, products entering Canada were cheaper than Canadian products. Canadian products were more expensive because of the federal sales tax.
A major reform was needed and we have done it. The GST will make Canadian companies more competitive at home as well as on foreign markets. It means that if they produce more goods, they hire more people. It is important to emphasize that.
My colleague opposite the hon. member for Gatineau-La Lievre, said: "Canadians are overtaxed, they cannot take any more." We agree with him on that, Mr. Speaker, but if he wants to be serious-
June 12, 1991


An hon. member:: Ask him to say why they cannot take any more.


Pierre H. Vincent: If the Liberals really want to be serious, why do they not co-operate with the government in doing two things: first, reduce the deficit; second, stop asking for more money for new programs and for all sectors of the economy. They should stop asking the government to spend more if they really want to stop taxing Canadians, because what can the government do? It gets the money from the taxpayers and redistributes it through all kinds of programs. There has not been one day, in the seven years that I have sit in this House, that the opposition, whether it is the Liberals or the New Democrats, has not asked for more money.
Canada's credit card has been used to its limit. The banker now says: I am not lending you money any more. Start paying off your debts. You start paying off the $3 million that it costs you, every hour, in interest alone. You do that, and then you can start thinking-


Mr. Della  Noce@: It is the Liberal heritage.


Pierre H. Vincent: My colleague from Laval East is quite right: It is the Liberal heritage. Then you can start thinking about implementing new programs.
I realize that my time is up but, in concluding, I would like to invite my colleague from Gatineau-La Lievre to take note of the economic realities of Canada, and to co-operate with the government so that we can first look after the deficit. If we do that, Canadians will automatically enjoy a better quality of life.


Mr. Brian L. Gardiner (Prince George - Bulkley Valley):: Mr. Speaker, in the short time I have tonight, I am pleased to get an opportunity to speak on this motion which we can certainly support because I think for the first time in some time we actually have a truthful motion coming from the Liberals.
Part of the motion deals with the impact of the goods and services tax on Canadians, as we have learned in the last few days. It was the government's own Department of Finance which last week revealed the contents of the
Private Members' Business
motion, and that is how the government either deliberately or through its usual bungling has shown that the revenues to the government under the GST are considerably higher than they were ever predicted to be.
Net GST revenues totalled $2.2 billion in the first three months of this year, 22 per cent higher than the $1.8 billion the government predicted a few months ago in the 1991 budget. Gross GST revenues, including the GST low income credit, were $2.78 billion. We can see by looking at the motion that is actually the truth of what is happening in our economy because of the goods and services tax which was brought in and rammed through this Parliament by the Conservative government. Business communities, consumers and Canadians all across the country are now facing the trouble in our economy, the recession which is being led by the policies of this government. The recession is being encouraged by the policies of this government in bringing in the goods and services tax.
We had in this House a debate about the goods and services tax, in which the then Minister of Finance said there was no other alternative, there was no other way to go, it was the GST or nothing. "Give us your alternatives", he said, "Tell us what you would do instead".
We certainly heard from the government on how it is driving Canadian consumers into the ground. We also heard from the New Democrats who presented, and we were the only party to do so in this House, a detailed alternative to the goods and services tax. We laid out the plans that we said could raise revenues for government. We could reform the manufacturers' sales tax so that government would have those revenues and be able to implement the programs that Canadians need.
That is why I do not think you can talk about the GST in isolation from the general taxation policies that this government has followed. If you look at some of the policies and ideas that our caucus has put forward, there is plenty of tax revenue out there. The fact is that this government and its friends from the Liberal Party over the years have failed to collect those revenues from the wealthy corporations.

June 12, 1991
Private Members' Business
A graph that was produced with the information from the government's own department is a very revealing one. It clearly shows what all Canadians know, that under the tax policies followed by the Liberals and now the Conservatives, the personal share of income tax has been rising and the corporate share has been declining.
This is a very interesting graph, as is the background material which I would be pleased to send to anyone who is watching and listening to the debate tonight.
I would like to indicate just what this impact means in a community. What does the GST mean to a community such as Prince George? The estimates tell us that the GST will mean that individual Canadians will be paying at least an extra $600 a year. People tell me that is a conservative estimate and that it is likely to be much higher. What that means for a community such as Prince George, with 70,000 people at $600 extra a year is that the Conservative Party of Canada is sucking an extra $42 million out of that community. It is no wonder people are suffering. It is no wonder that businesses in the area, as was indicated earlier this week when we had the debate on youth unemployment, are suffering. They cannot hire those extra students because of the difficulties they are having with the goods and services tax.
In my riding in a community just west of Prince George at Bums Lake there is a gentleman, Mr. Brown, who is really putting his principles on the line. I talked to him on the telephone earlier tonight. He has a small business there called Process 4 and he is not collecting GST. He is not collecting it on principle because he does not believe in the tax. He welcomes the day when the government's tax collectors get around to seeing him and take him to court because he is prepared to fight for what he believes. Not a lot of people will do that but in this case he will and I think he deserves our support for that because in fighting this tax he is certainly living by his principles.
In fact it is an anomaly. He has people who are tourists who have heard about his cause and are dropping into his store deliberately purchasing items from him because he does not charge the GST. You must know, Mr. Speaker, from your own riding, how much Canadians resent this very unfair tax. In fact it tells us that Tory times are taxing times.
I hope that in the next election campaign when the policies of our party go up against the policies of the other parties, it will be very clear to Canadians that the New Democrats stand alone among all of the parties. Even the Reformers are fudging on the GST now-they do not know whether to support it or be against it-and we are never sure where the Liberals stand.
At our recent convention in Halifax there was part of a resolution from my riding wherein we said we would abolish the GST and bring in a fair tax system. When I am back on the doorsteps in that next election campaign, whenever it is held, that is going to be a message we will take to the doorstep. My advice to Canadians from coast to coast to coast is, when those Tories phone-you know how they bother you at suppertime-to try to get you to vote for them, you should ask for your money back. Canadians should tell the Tory canvassers that they want their money back because of the unfair tax policies of this government. At the next election when the New Democrats form the government, we will bring in a fair tax system, fair to all Canadians. We will ensure the revenues are there for government so that we can have the policies and programs we need. We can do nothing more than that.
I call on the government members opposite to get up their courage and support this motion. Their government's own information tells them that the motion is true. Join with the rest of Canadians. Reject the goods and services tax and bring in a fair tax system.


Mr. Geoff Wilson (Swift Current-Maple Creek-As-siniboia):: Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to participate in this private members' debate and to speak most definitely and vehemently against the motion put by the member for Gatineau-La Lievre.
I am disappointed in the motion, which suggests that government should envisage the removal of the GST and, in keeping with Liberal policy all the way along, offer no alternative.
There is no way this government or any future government is going to envisage eliminating some form of sales tax. I think we learned from the experience of the past 50 years that the old form of federal sales tax, the federal manufacturers' sales tax was fundamentally flawed, was out of step with modern society and simply had to be

replaced with something more up to date. That of course was the genesis of the goods and services tax.
None of the other parties came forward with any workable or viable alternatives. The Liberal Party had nothing whatever to offer and that is still the position of the Liberal Party.
The previous speaker from the New Democratic Party said: "Well, we had all sorts of alternatives". In fairness, they did. As I recall it, flawed as the old federal manufacturers' sales tax was, as bad as it was for Canadian manufacturers, putting them at a disadvantage with imported goods, in spite of all of that and understanding that, the NDP would still have retained that out-moded, out-dated, antiquated tax. They would have brought it back to 9 per cent from 13.5 per cent.
To make up the rest of the revenue which otherwise would have been gathered by the old federal manufacturers' sales tax, the NDP would, of course, have raised other income taxes accordingly and brought back estate tax. What a wonderful thing. It was the NDP in Saskatchewan which had the last estate tax, as I recall it and finally got rid of it in 1977 because it was so grossly unpopular.
The thought that after the toils of a lifetime, after paying income tax year after year, that the bit people could accumulate would be taxed away from them upon their passing is the NDP alternative to the GST.
I am really surprised that the hon. member has brought forward this motion after all we have seen and heard over the past number of months and years with regard to sales tax. It must be that the Liberal position simply never changes.
I recall a few years ago that the then finance critic for the Liberal Party, I believe it was the member for Etobicoke North, was dismissed from his position as the finance critic for the Liberal Party because he spoke the truth. He came forward with an honest assessment when he said: "Of course the deficit is a problem. Of course the deficit that we Liberals created over the last 20 years, the national debt, has to be addressed". He went on to say that there had to be reform of sales tax. For that and some other honest transgressions he was dismissed from his position.
Private Members' Business
It is interesting to note that the party's associate finance critic today, the member for Ottawa South, is quoted in The Toronto Star. We all know that if it is in The Toronto Star it certainly must be gospel, so I will not hestiate to repeat it here.
The current associate finance critic of the hon. member's Liberal Party says the Liberals have simply avoided the question of the deficit, simply accusing the government of mismanaging the nation's finances, but not saying what they would do themselves.
The party's associate finance critic, the member for Ottawa South, says this may work for an opposition party, but it will not convince Canadians that Liberals are capable of governing. He urged his colleagues to make the transition. That was a day or two ago, and it is unfortunate that the member who put the motion that we are now debating did not hear that, because the proposal makes a whole lot of sense.
Unfortunately, the hon. member for Gatineau-La Lievre has fallen into the old Liberal position of ignoring reality. Just do away with the GST, he says, we will not worry about $18 billion or $20 billion of revenue, and we have no alternative. We will just borrow some more. No problem. Perhaps by the end of the decade we will reach the point when every cent of government revenue will have to go to pay interest on the debt. There will not be anything left for the needed programs of government.
That will not matter, because maybe we can put a second mortgage and a third mortgage on the future of this country. That is the bankrupt position of the Liberals. It has been for the past 20 years. That kind of approach saddled us with a massive national debt. The interest charges on that debt are crippling the ability of the nation today and they offer more of the same.
I find that the position put by the hon. member in this private member's motion is certainly out of touch with reality. I was amazed when, and I believe I am quoting him correctly; he chastised this government for lacking the political courage and honesty to reflect what people want.
What an amazing statement, because time and time again people have indicated that they want to see the deficit dealt with. They view that as the number one

June 12, 1991
Private Members' Business
problem in the country. They want that deficit brought down and they want it eliminated.
How on earth can you do that? How can you reduce the deficit unless you take in more revenue on the one side and either hold or cut spending on the other? Clearly those are the alternatives.
The answer from the hon. member and his party opposite is: "Well, no tax increases." He is going to get rid of the GST, put nothing in its place, lose $18 billion or $20 billion worth of revenue and at the same time, day after day in this House, he and his party oppose every single government proposal to reduce spending.
It seems to me that if we are talking about having the political courage and honesty to face up to the problem, the debt which the Liberal Party created during the Trudeau years and the interest which has to be paid on it, we have to cut spending on the one side and take in more revenue on the other. There is no alternative to it.
The only fleeting or passing alternative is to continue to borrow. That is the Liberal way. You just continue to mortgage tomorrow to pay for today's programs. That is out. I think everyone in the country realizes that is not on anymore.
It is pretty clear to most people that the GST had to come forward. It would be nothing less than irresponsible to consider removing the GST at this point. The amazing thing is to offer nothing in its place. That is incredible. Canada waited for 50 years for sales tax reform. Members opposite and everyone in this House knows that sales tax reform was first proposed back in, I believe, 1940 by the Rowell-Sirois commission. The federal manufacturers' sales tax at that time had been in place for about 15 years. Even then, 50 years ago, it was obvious that it penalized Canadian manufacturers and created problems in that sector. So it was recommended that there be changes.
Subsequent commissions, inquiries and experts for 50 years recommended that something be done. Successive governments looked at this thing and occasionally they came to the brink. The Liberal Party, the Liberal government of those days came to the brink a few times, but lacking the political courage and honesty which the hon. member proposed this motion talks about, it would back off and resort instead to the easy way of borrowing.
Just borrow some more and put out the programs for people. We will not face them with the necessary tax measures in order to pay the bills. No, no, we will
borrow. We will mortgage tomorrow to pay for these programs today.
That is the tragedy. That is why our government finally came forward, faced the facts and accepted the recommendations that have been suggested for over half a century, fell in line with modem society, with 48 other nations, with 19 out of 24 of our partners in the OECD and with most of the industrialized nations of the world and introduced a value added form of sales tax to replace the antiquated tax that we had.
Time will show that this was the appropriate measure. It will expand Canada's manufacturing base. It will expand Canada's industrial capability. It will expand Canada's exports and it will place our manufacturers on a level playing field with their competition. Canada depends on world trade.
I see that you are indicating that my time is almost up, Mr. Speaker. I just want to finish by saying that Canada depends very much on world trade. One out of every three jobs in this country depends on it. This is but one of a number of steps, including liberalized trade negotiations with other nations and with the United States, that we have embarked upon in an effort to to have a more competitive approach for our country leading to more employment for Canadians and a better future for our kids. That is what the GST is all about.


Thomas (Tom) William Wappel: Mr. Speaker, I think we have advised the Chair that I will be splitting the 10 minutes that we have allotted with my hon. colleague from Winnipeg.
May I begin by congratulating my colleague for bringing forward this motion. In the five short minutes that I have I want to make a few points, but I cannot begin without at least responding briefly to some of the comments that were made by my friends opposite.
I want to deal not with fiction, not with fantasy, not with fairy tales, but with facts.
The hon. parliamentary secretary had the audacity to say that this government has brought in fair taxation. In my view that is not a fact.
It is a fact that there have been at least 33 separate tax increases since 1984. It is a fact that the average middle income person in this country is presently paying approximately $1,500 a year more in tax than they were in 1984. It is a fact that, during that period of time, while the middle income Canadian has been paying more tax, the high income Canadian has been paying less tax. That, in
June 12, 1991

my view and I would suggest in the view of many Canadians, is not fair taxation.
The parliamentary secretary indicated that there was a major problem with our exporters because of the manufacturers' sales tax. That is also not a fact.
The fact is that exports and exporters were exempted from the manufacturers' sales tax for the most part, except for fixed assets. This was a fiction in effect brought in to justify the scrapping of the manufacturers' sales tax. There is no question the manufacturers' sales tax needed revision, no doubt about that. Let us talk about facts and not about fantasy.
The hon. parliamentary secretary said that the hardware stores in Trois-Rivieres immediately started to reduce their prices on January 1. I was not there, but I can tell the hon. member that I was in Prince Albert at approximately that time. I was told by not one, but two hardware store owners that they had absolutely no intention whatsoever of going through 10,000 items in their hardware stores and changing the prices, despite the fact that they would not have to pay the manufacturers' sales tax and would get an exemption. In fact, their prices did not go down. They may have remained the same, but they did not go down.
I have a great deal of difficulty in believing that if that is what occurred in Prince Albert, it did not occur in Trois-Rivieres.
What about the effects of the goods and services tax? There is no doubt whatsoever that the government did not anticipate a lot of the problems that the goods and services tax introduced.
I want to raise one of them. It is that the goods and services tax was not supposed to tax necessary items, but if there is one thing that is necessary-and I raise this in all sincerity-it is feminine hygiene products. They are not a luxury. They are a necessity and this government chose to tax them. That is an abomination. When I was official opposition critic for revenue I got many letters from constituents and from female Canadians across this country complaining about this. Members on that side have brought this to the government's attention. So far I have not heard an iota of sympathy for female Canadians. It does not care.
What about the rest of the goods and services tax? The proposition was that the goods and services tax would
Private Members' Business
reduce the debt. That is also nonsense because when the goods and services tax was brought in, there was not a word about a debt reduction fund. In all of the previous budgets that the Minister of Finance had, there was not a word about the debt reduction fund. But the government finally realized what a cash cow the goods and services tax would be. It knew that Canadians were up in arms to the tune of 80 per cent to 85 per cent against the services tax, so it said: "Oh, oh, we had better do something", and it came up with this so-called debt reduction fund.
How do I know this? How do I know that this was a last minute thing? Because I got a letter today from the Minister of Supply and Services suggesting that we as members of Parliament respond to our constituents in a certain way. The first thing he says is: "What about the debt reduction fund?" He admits that it was mentioned in the February budget of 1991 and the legislation is not ready yet.
Of course it is not ready yet because it was not even thought of until the last minute to try and save this government from absolute and certain defeat at the polls on this issue and many other issues.
Let us talk about facts and let us not talk about fiction. There is no question that everybody wants the debt reduced, and I for one applaud that if we are going to have this onerous tax, totally contrary to the will of Canadians, at least we should have a debt reduction fund and it should go to reduce the debt, not go into the consolidated revenue fund to be spent by this government any way it sees fit. At least I applaud that much for this government.


John Harvard: Mr. Speaker, I hope I get my full five minutes.
I want to say at the outset that this is a timely bill and a timely debate. I want to thank my hon. colleague for Gatineau-La Lievre for bringing forward the bill. I congratulate him on a fine presentation.
The goods and services tax is a very cruel measure. Consider when it was brought in, at a time of high taxation. We all know about this government imposing something like 33 tax increases since it came to power in 1984. We all know that since 1984, since the Conservative government came to power, that the income tax burden, the income tax load on the middle class has gone up $1,500 per family. That is why it is a cruel measure and

June 12, 1991
Private Members' Business
that is why people are as mad as hell and they are not going to.take it any more, to use a well-known cliche.
Another reason why this tax measure is cruel is because when it was brought in, it could not have been brought in at a worse time. It was at a time when the economy was going down and into a recession. Despite all the warnings from us, despite all the warnings from Canadians, the government went ahead and imposed this goods and services tax. That is how much it listened to Canadians and that is how much it is out of tune and out touch with Canadians. This is why I say it was a cruel, cruel measure.
The other thing, and this is why Canadians are so mad, is they feel that they have been had and that they have been betrayed. The Conservative members went around and said first of all that it was going to be neutral and then it was going to get a little bit of extra money but not a whole lot, and if there was some extra money, they would decide later what to do with it.
We hear the story that tracking shows they are getting something like $400 million more in the first quarter than expected and anticipated. The finance minister has the unmitigated gall to say that he is surprised. Tell me another one. If you can believe that, you can believe anything. It is not surprised. It knew in advance that it was going to get that kind of money. It knew in advance that it was an absolute cash cow.
Canadians are upset because the Conservatives promised us tax reform. Back in 1984, they promised us tax reform, and what did we get? All we got were tax forms that are even more complicated, not less complicated and higher taxes. That is an example of tax reform.
Let me just finish on a positive note. I cannot stand here and not offer some kind of alternative to the GST. This GST is not working. It is cruel, and Canadians want it to go.
We do have to look at the taxation system. People are very upset. They are paying too much. They are voting with their feet right now. That is why they are going to the border states. That is why they are crossing the boundary line.
Every time they go across the boundary line into the United States and buy something, they are telling those guys over there that taxes are too high, that the tax system in this country has to be overhauled.
I believe to my very core that the tax system in this country has to be overhauled. It has to be made more equitable. It has to be made more fair.
That is a pledge I make, and I think I can speak very fairly on behalf of everybody on this side. We know that the tax system is not fair. It must be overhauled. By golly, we are committed to it.
This tax is unfair. Canadians do not want it. They are telling Conservatives that over and over. Not only are they telling them with their feet as they go across the border to buy goods in the States, but they are also telling the Conservatives in the polls.
That is why they are down at 14 per cent. That is why they are going down to 10 per cent. Maybe they will even go out of sight. It is because of this dam tax system that they are using to beat us over the head.


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

Pursuant to Standing Order 96(1), the order is dropped from the Order Paper.
It being 8.47 p.m., the House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 10 a.m., pursuant to Standing Order (24(1).


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 8.47 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Thursday, June 13,1991