1991-10-31

Mr. Speaker:: I should advise the House that I have received a number of applications on a question of privilege.
I might indicate to the House before we commence that I expect and I know that all hon. members will conduct whatever debate is to ensue here with the dignity to which this House is entitled, keeping in mind our traditions.
I call upon, first of all, the hon. member for Park-dale-High Park.


Mr. Jesse Flis (Parkdale-High Park):: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise on a question of privilege pursuant to Standing Order 48 and according to Beauchesne's Parliamentary Pules and Forms, Sixth Edition. Paragraph 114 defines a question of privilege as saying:
(1) By its nature, a question of privilege is of such importance that
it may be raised at any time.
Standing Order 48 makes provision for the precedence of a question of privilege over all other business of the House.
That is how seriously I take this question of privilege. I gave the Chair notice last night. In fairness to the member concerned, I also notified the hon. member because of my deep respect for him as we entered this Chamber at the same time.
It pains me to raise what I have to raise in this question of privilege but I had to weigh my respect for the hon. member and the respect for the authority of this House,
and the respect for the authority of the Mace and the Speaker.
My question of privilege arises from proceedings in this Chamber at approximately 8.10 p.m. on Wednesday, October 30,1991 when the Speaker was in the process of adjourning the House until the next sitting day.
We have Standing Orders which regulate the behaviour of members when the House rises at the end of a sitting. The Standing Orders ensure that House proceedings are carried out with a degree of ceremonial order. If I can quote to the hon. members our Standing Order 16(3) which reads:
No member may pass between the Chair and the Table, nor
between the Chair and the Mace when the Mace has been taken off
the Table by the Sergeant-at-Arms.
Standing Order 16(4) says:
When the House adjourns, Members shall keep their seats until the
Speaker has left the Chair.
Last evening, the Speaker did adjourn the House with ceremonial order and with dignity. The members who stayed in their seats according to Standing Order 16(4) were shocked to observe an hon. member of this House, the member for Port Moody-Coquitlam, get out of his seat, run down the Chamber right in front of us and grab the Mace which was on the shoulder of the Sergeant-at-Arms.
The Speaker was still in his chair when the member got out of his seat and began running down the floor of the Chamber, clearly debasing the decorum of the House and contravening Standing Order 16(4).
I am not accusing the member of contravening Standing Order 16(3). When the member was clutching the Mace, he was behind the Sergeant-at-Arms, not between the Chair and the Mace.
The contempt for the authority of the Mace, which is the authority of the House, was an even worse offence than contravening Standing Orders 16(3) and 16(4).
The Mace is the Speaker's authority and it is this authority that maintains decorum and order which under

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Standing Order 16(4) commits members to be seated when the Speaker leaves the Chair at the end of a sitting.
In the question of privilege that I raise, the Speaker was on the stairs by his chair waiting for the Sergeant-at-Arms to precede the Speaker, which is the correct ceremonial process. Had the member held on to the Mace stronger or longer, the Speaker would have been prevented from leaving his place. In other words, one member of this House, by holding the Mace, the authority of this House, could have prevented the Speaker from leaving this Chamber.
In presenting my question of privilege I wish to emphasize the authority of the Mace and again I refer to Beauchesne 's Parliamentary Rules and Forms, Sixth Edition. Section 136 reads under the heading "The Mace":
The symbol of the House's authority is the Mace.
Section 137 reads:
During the election of a Speaker, the Mace is placed on a cushion on the floor under the Table. When the Speaker has been elected and is in the Chair, the Mace is placed on the 'Rible.
Ladies and gentlemen, if we disrespect that Mace, that authority, we show disrespect for the Speaker of this House. We show disrespect for this entire Parliament. That is how serious this contempt for the authority of Parliament is.
Section 168 in the same edition of Beauchesne's reads:
The chief characteristics attached to the office of Speaker in the House of Commons are authority and impartiality. As a symbol of the authority of the House, the Speaker is preceded by the Mace which is carried by the Sergeant-at-Arms and is placed upon the Table when the Speaker is in the Chair.
Reflections upon the character or actions of the Speaker may be punished as breaches of privilege.
What we observed last evening was clearly a member challenging the decision and action of the Speaker and this must be punished as a breach of privilege. The Speaker made a decision to adjourn the House. An hon. member of this House showed contempt for that decision.
Beauchesne's rules in the same edition. I would like to share with you section 117 on page 29, "Role of the Speaker":
Once the claim of a breach of privilege has been made, it is the duty of the Speaker to decide if a prima facie case can be established. The Speaker requires to be satisfied, both that privilege appears to be sufficiently involved to justify giving such precedence (or as it is sometimes put, that there is a prima facie case that a breach of privilege has been committed); and also that the matter is being raised at the earliest opportunity.
Our rules provide that when a member accuses another member of contempt of this Parliament it must be done in a motion. I conclude my case with the following motion:
Whereas the hon. member for Port Moody-Coquitlam by his actions on October 30, 1991, at approximately 8.10 p.m. did show contempt to the authority of Canadian Parliament, and
Whereas there appears to be a prima facie case that a breach of privilege has been committed, and
Whereas this matter is being raised at the earliest opportunity, I move that the member for Port Moody-Coquitlam appear at the bar of the House.
Calling for an order for a member to appear at the bar of the House is a procedure which has rarely occurred in Canadian parliamentary history. The kind of behaviour displayed by the hon. member has never occurred in the history of this Chamber.


Mr. Speaker:: I want to assure the hon. member for Port Moody-Coquitlam that I will hear him at an appropriate moment.


Mr. Len Hopkins (Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke):: Mr. Speaker, I was in my place last night when the hon. member for Port Moody-Coquitlam ran down the aisle of this House of Commons and grabbed the Mace while it was in the hands of the Sergeant-at-Arms as he was leaving the Chamber at the end of the day.
The Speaker had made a ruling on an earlier point of privilege that had been raised in regard to the timing of the vote. We know, Mr. Speaker, that decisions on the part of the Chair are final.
The Speaker's action was to adjourn the House and to The member for Port Moody-Coquitlam obviously proceed ceremoniously out following the authority of the was not willing to accept the judgment of the Chair, and Mace. An hon. member showed contempt for that therefore in this way was challenging the authority of the Speaker's action and the authority of the Mace.	Speaker.

We have seen moments of emotion displayed in this House on many occasions, but in my time here I have never seen anyone run after the Sergeant-at-Arms and grab the Mace. It comes at a time when we have an ongoing discussion before this House on the conduct of members in this Chamber and I think it is something we have to talk about and think about, not only on a particular day when we are debating that subject. Certainly it is something we have to be thinking about and have in our minds every day that we sit in this place.
I agree with my colleague from Parkdale-High Park that the standing orders are very vague on this subject. I suppose when the standing orders were studied by committees of this House and recommendations made that no one ever perceived that a member would be running after the Sergeant-at-Arms to grab the Mace.
The question of decorum in this place is a very serious one. If 295 members in this Chamber decided they were not going to abide by the rulings of the Chair and were even going to challenge the Sergeant-at-Arms himself as he performed his duties at the end of the day after the House had been adjourned, then this place would simply cease to operate. Therefore, this matter must be taken very seriously.
I saw the look on the Sergeant-at-Arms' face as he stood just about six or seven feet away from me last evening when he suddenly realized someone was trying to pull the Mace from him. It is totally inappropriate, Mr. Speaker, and I think it points up why we must take a serious look at our conduct in this House.
If we are going to talk about the need for decorum in this House, for decency to one another, and respect for the institution of Parliament itself, then we have to do more than talk. We have to act accordingly as we perform our duties in this House.
It comes down to the fact that members must try to control their emotions. The Mace is the symbol of the authority of Mr. Speaker and that is why it heads the parade going down the Hall every day as we enter this place. Therefore, it should not be meddled with in any way. It was a challenge to your authority in the House, Mr. Speaker, there is no question about it.
The Speaker last evening made the appropriate ruling on the point of privilege and adjourned the House. All was in order. But I agree with my colleague who raised this issue originally, that we cannot treat this lightly. We
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have the authority of the Chair to protect if this House is to function properly, and certainly we have the image of members of Parliament to protect if we do not conduct ourselves properly.
I do agree with the comments of the previous speaker. I would ask, Mr. Speaker, that you take this incident very seriously because I have never seen it happen before in all my years here and it should never happen in this place again. I think members have to take stock of themselves and realize that if we are going to sit in the Parliament of Canada then we had better start treating this place and the institution of Parliament itself, and indeed the authority of the Speaker of this place, with the greatest possible dignity so that we can conduct the business of the people of Canada with respect.


Mr. Speaker:: Just so that the House knows where we are going, I will recognize the hon. member for Calgary West and immediately afterwards I will recognize the hon. member for Eglinton-Lawrence and the hon. member for Thunder Bay-Nipigon. Then, given the disposition of the House, I would go to the hon. member for Port Moody-Coquitlam.


Mr. Jim Hawkes (Calgary West):: Mr. Speaker, I too was present in the House last evening and witnessed the events. I think the description of those events that has been laid on the Table is accurate and is confirmed by the television tape. From my point of view, I think we have little choice in this Chamber but to support the motion that was moved by the first speaker today.
I had the opportunity last Friday to rise in the Chamber and speak on the issue of decorum in the House. I tried in my own fashion to indicate how I felt when the House allowed contempt inside this Chamber. It is difficult for people outside the Chamber to have a positive feeling about the Chamber and its importance in our society, and that contempt inside the Chamber had to be stopped by the collective courage of the members of the Chamber if we were to ever have a hope of restoring this institution to the kind of level of esteem with which it should be held.
Perhaps more eloquently than I could say are the words of a constituent from Melville, Saskatchewan. When I arrived at the House this morning there was a three page letter from a Mr. Almasi to the member for Port Moody-Coquitlam, with copies to a number of the people in this Chamber, including yourself Mr. Speaker,

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and the member who was in the Chair last evening. I would like to read three short paragraphs because I think they capture the message that was probably conveyed by television to constituents in the country and their sense of disappointment in that behaviour. The first paragraph begins thus:
As I was watching television last night (Wednesday, Oct. 30), I saw a high placed politician in a certain country abandon the use of words and take up the use of force and bullying in an attempt to get his point across.
Paragraph 3 continues:
Instead I was watching the parliamentary channel and witnessed you, sir, take the tradition, honour and dignity of the House of Commons and trample it.
This is a letter to the member for Port Moody-Coquitlam and the fifth paragraph of that same letter reads:
After barracking at the Acting Speaker, the Hon. Charles DeBlois in a bid for attention, you stormed up the centre aisle, like a spoiled child who doesn't get his way would do, and used force against an Officer of the House.
In my remarks last Friday, I spoke about the escalation of verbal violence in the Chamber and the need to bring it to a halt, the need for all members of this Chamber to support the Chair in the enforcement of our rules and, Mr. Speaker, I did not in my wildest imagination think that we would be facing, just a few days later, the use of actual force in this Chamber to attempt to put one person's will against the majority of the House and against the institutions of the House.
I simply want to signal that I think the only course of action available to us, if we care about the issue of contempt of this House, is to support the motion as moved by the member for Parkdale-High Park.


Mr. Speaker:: As I have often done in the past, I perhaps can assist the House by indicating that I have the facts. I am fairly familiar with the procedural law. I know the hon. member would not need, necessarily, to repeat of what has gone on before, but I certainly will hear him.


Mr. Joseph Volpe (Eglinton-Lawrence):: Mr. Speaker, much of what I would have to say would be repetitive, and I would not want to impose that repetition on hon. members in this House.
I must associate myself with the motion presented by my hon. colleague from Parkdale-High Park. He has put it very eloquently, very cogently and in a framework that is representative of the kinds of manners that we are accustomed to in this House, that is that reason and dialogue and negotiation prevail in all instances.
Last night we had a circumstance, a situation where one of the members abandoned those kind of traditions and imposed his will by force than by reason and by dialogue.
I want to just reaffirm something that my hon. colleague from Renfrew indicated. That action was not only inappropriate because to suggest that it would be inappropriate would diminish the gravity of the offence.
It is an offence not merely upon the Speaker and the Mace, but against all members is this House by virtue of the authority that all members in this place rest in both the Chair and the Mace, and other symbols of the citizens' right to have his and her views expressed and to have those views decided upon.
In closing, I do not think that this House can do anything less than to support the motion of my colleague from Parkdale-High Park so that we can restore to this House, not only the decorum but the appropriateness of the mechanisms that we need to have in place in order to arrive at decisions without lapsing and collapsing into some of the scenarios that we have seen in some far eastern Parliaments.


Miss Deborah Grey (Beaver River):: Mr. Speaker, I rise briefly on this same point.
In terms of the decorum of the House of Commons and what we have seen happen in the last few weeks, I know that from my experience in high school as well as parenting that what we need to look at here is the whole idea of consequences.
When there is some behaviour that is inappropriate, or if we are looking at some wrongdoing or an action that is not appropriate, we need to look very specifically at the idea of consequences: What is it that will happen to me if I misbehave in the home, at school or in the work place, or in fact in this institution, the House of Commons. I would just raise two points before we move on. First of all, the idea of consequences must fit the seriousness of

the action or the wrongdoing. When we look at consequences in this Chamber of what might happen if somebody acts inappropriately in terms of not obeying or respecting the Chair or in terms of not respecting other members of Parliament, as we have talked about at great length in the last few months.
First, the consequences must fit the seriousness of the wrongdoing.
Second, I think every one of us in this Chamber has had dealings with other people in terms of work place or family or in a school setting, and the consequences must be administered as soon after the wrongdoing as possible. That is where somebody will be able to feel the most impact of those consequences. I believe that none of us would deny that. As soon as a consequence can be administered is the most important time and certainly has the most important effect.
In terms of recent behaviour we have seen in the House, we are looking at a number of weeks already. We saw most recently an event that happened last night. That certainly is first and foremost on our minds this morning. Several weeks have gone by since we have seen other dreadful things happen in this House.
I am calling on you, Mr. Speaker, to act as quickly as possible to administer consequences so that there will be some real and powerful effect.
In terms of this decision you are going to be called upon to make very shortly, I recommend to the House and also to you, Mr. Speaker, for whom I have such a great deal of respect, that the seriousness of this and the consequence could very seriously be watered down if a certain amount of time is allowed to go by.
I would like to say to the hon. member for Parkdale- High Park that it is important that we all support this motion and get on with the business of this House.
I will close by saying that I have had several calls in my constituency office and my Ottawa office within the last number of weeks and months. People in my riding are saying: "I forbid my children to watch the Parliamentary channel". I am sure we have all heard that. To me it seems a very unnerving and frightening experience for those of us here who are supposed to be representing the highest institution in the land.
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Mr. Speaker:: It would seem that the House would wish that I recognize the hon. member for Port Moody-Coquitlam.


Mr. Ian Waddell (Port Moody-Coquitlam):: Mr. Speaker, I did arrive right away and as I suggested to you earlier, I would like to stand up as soon as possible on a matter of privilege to deal with this matter.
You did recognize various other members and on reflection, I very much appreciate that. I listened very closely to all members of the House whom I respect a great deal, and I think they know that.
I want to say, Mr. Speaker, that I do unequivocally apologize for the events last night. I expressly apologize to the Sergeant-at-Arms and other members of the House and to the Chair. I did not intend to show contempt for the House or for the Speaker. I have nothing but admiration and the deepest feelings for the House, which I have served for 12 years. I am now serving on a number of committees of the House on a number of issues, including all the issues that are coming up today in the House and next week.
Mr. Speaker, this is not an excuse, but I do want to say that I was, I suppose, angry last night because I felt that I could not vote on this seniors bill. The seniors issue concerns me very deeply. I felt at the time, for some reason that I do not understand, but I guess it will be explained, that we had a short bell and I rushed over here fresh from a meeting on the Young Offenders Act, just having arrived from Vancouver. I rushed over here to try and vote. When I got here there was no vote. I was not alone. There were a number of other members.
I tried to explain my position and get it on the record. I felt that I was cut off. I also felt that other members were cut off. There were a number of members, including the member for Skeena, the member for Fraser Valley East and other members, trying to get up to explain why they did not vote on an important issue and to clarify the matter.
I thought the Speaker did near hear me or understand me. I was going down to try and alert him to that. That is no excuse, but I want the members to know because I value all those members who spoke very deeply. I know them. I want them to know what was going on in my mind.

October 31, 1991
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For some reason, I thought that perhaps the Speaker might reconsider and listen to those members. Foolish in retrospect, but I do want to say that I did not intend to show contempt for this House. I did not intend to show contempt for the Speaker. I have worked in this House as well as any member and I have always shown great respect for the House. I was thinking about British parliamentary tradition, and I know the dangers of touching the Mace and what it represents. I know what happened to King Charles when he did that, he got his head cut off.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: I do not want to give the members any ideas. The members will forgive me, but there was a young MP in the Bahamas years ago who picked up the Mace and threw it outside actually. His name Lynden Pindling and he has been Prime Minister for 30 years I think now There have been other incidents.
Mr. Speaker, let me return. This is a serious matter and I do not want to joke about it. I listened to what the member said. I offer my complete apologies to the Sergeant-at-Arms, to the other members, to the gentleman who sent you the fax. I have not received my fax but I will get it no doubt and I will reply to it and other letters.
I do not think I can say any more than that. I have offered my apologies. I know that there have been incidents in the House where people have been accused of being racist and sexist and so on. This is a different sort of incident, nevertheless a serious incident as well. I say to the members who spoke today that I offer them and the House my apologies. Those were not excuses, my concerns for seniors and the procedure of the House and the vote, but I want the members to know that this is not just for me, that I had in my mind that I was trying to do something to further my own ends in any way. In my own mind, there were members standing up in the House, we were a long way from the Chair, and there members standing up here from the House who wanted to get on and wanted to speak and I thought they should get a chance and then the House could be adjourned. I was trying to alert the Speaker. I walked up and the Mace was there. I touched the Mace and I should not have done so.
This is the fourth time I have said it and I will say it again. I know the member from High Park and I know the member from the Ottawa Valley, Renfrew-Nipis-sing, and I deeply respect them. When members like that stand up and say that they were hurt and everything, I want to tell them that I understand. When it comes from members like that then there was something wrong and I apologize for that.


Mr. Nelson A. Riis (Kamloops):: Mr. Speaker, I certainly want to say how much we appreciate the very thoughtful interventions that all members have provided to the House this morning. In respect to the institution of Parliament, to the position of The Speaker and to the position of the Sergeant-at-Arms, I want to on behalf of all of the caucus join with the member and apologize for this unfortunate and inappropriate incident.
Mr. Speaker, we acknowledge that the traditions and symbols of this place are very important in terms of our democracy, the democratic way of government and the institution of Parliament. The member has apologized to yourself, Mr. Speaker, to the members of the House and to the Sergeant-at-Arms. We realize that this is a very, very grave and very important issue.
There has been a suggested course of action that you will undoubtedly reflect upon. I want to suggest, Mr. Speaker, that another course of action would be for you to name the member. This is a tradition of this House for inappropriate actions that members take from time to time. I simply leave that with you, Mr. Speaker. We apologize for this unfortunate incident and I want to suggest an alternate course of action that you may wish to consider.


Mr. Speaker:: The first thing I want to say is that the Chair appreciates very much the manner in which all hon. members in the Chamber this morning have dealt with what is clearly a painful and difficult matter. That is very much appreciated.
Perhaps I do not need to say this, but I intend to say that the expressions of support for the Chair, and the officers of the Chair, the Deputy Speaker who was in the Chair last night, are also very much appreciated. They do not come as a surprise. I think I know as well as anyone in this Chamber the veiy high regard that this House and its members have for the Chair and for this institution.
October 31, 1991

The hon. member for Port Moody-Coquitlam has expressed his apologies and regret. He has also said that he holds this place, and the members in it, in highest esteem. This does not come as a surprise to us. The hon. member for Kamloops has, of course, made a painful, and as I say, a difficult decision with dignity and frankness.
I am conscious of the fact that this matter ought to be dealt with as soon as possible. The motion is to bring the hon. member to the bar. Clearly there is a prima facie case in this matter and I would ask hon. members to bear with me, at least for an appropriate moment, because I am going to consider exactly what our practice has been in the past when there has been a motion to bring a member to the bar. I shall try to clarify that and return to the House as soon as possible.
In the meantime, we shall proceed with Routine Proceedings.
The hon. member for Kamloops, on a point of order.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, part of the difficulty of last evening arose when there was a breach from the tradition, in my judgment, of the way Private Members' Hour was handled.
I simply want to seek guidance more than anything. I was unfortunately ill when this incident took place and was not in the House when the Whips and so on got involved in Private Members' Business. Perhaps the more appropriate thing to do would be to ask my colleague from Winnipeg Transcona, who was watching the proceedings more carefully than I, to make a few comments at this point. I see this as something on which we need some guidance from the Chair.


Mr. Speaker:: I am fully aware of what the hon. member is raising, but I am not at all sure that this is the most appropriate time to engage in this. I get some sense that, in view of everything, there is not a disposition in the House to get into a debate on it.
Hon. members know that a vote takes place when both the Whips come in. That sometimes means that the Whips come in earlier than the expected time for the bell. I understand that is the point of concern for the hon. member. However, I would ask hon. members to
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leave this matter, at least for the moment, and perhaps, with some discussion, we can return to it.
I think it would be appropriate to proceed with Routine Proceedings.
The hon. member for Winnipeg Transcona.


Mr. Bill Blaikie (Winnipeg TVanscona):: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I understand your appropriate desire to have time for reflection on what to do. I am not trying to delay that. But if it is your judgment that we should not deal with this other issue, which in no way bears upon your judgment on what has already been before you, and we should deal with that at another time, then that is fine with me. But I would like to know what you suggest as being that other time. I think there is a legitimate point of order to be dealt with here as to the role of the Whips in voting on Private Members' Business. I think that is a legitimate concern and separate from the issue which is now before you.


Mr. Speaker:: As I indicated, I know that it is a concern to some members. However, given the incident last night and what has taken place today, the Deputy Speaker clearly ruled on that last night. It may have been part of the reason for hon. members' concern, but that has been ruled on.
What I am suggesting is that if the members want to change the rule or change the practice, we might find a more appropriate way to discuss that. I, of course, am always prepared to listen to hon. members on the matter.


Mr. Albert Cooper (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons):: Mr. Speaker, I am not sure of this but I suspect part of the problem that we are facing in the House at the moment is that the debate that we are about to enter into after Routine Proceedings is completed is a debate in which the member for Port Moody-Coquitlam is a central player. Therefore, he is obviously concerned, and I am sure his party is, as to what role he can play in that.
May I suggest a possible solution for the Speaker. We can proceed with Routine Proceedings, but just before calling Orders of the Day, we can suspend to the call of the Chair to allow the Chair to deliberate. That would

October 31, 1991
Routine Proceedings
prevent anyone from getting into a situation that might be very difficult for all of us.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. parliamentary secretary has I think offered some assistance to the Chair. I was hoping that by the end of Routine Proceedings I could return, but I may be a few more minutes. In any event, I think the appropriate thing to do now is to proceed with Routine Proceedings. I shall return to the House as soon as I can.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Mr. David D. Stupich (Nanaimo-Cowichan):: Mr. Speaker, I realize this is somewhat unusual, but I am seeking the unanimous consent of the House to table a document presented by the representatives of the United Fishermen and Allied Workers Union to the fisheries committee where it was very well received by representatives of all parties.
The problem on the west coast-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is there unanimous consent to have the hon. member present a document?


Some hon. members:: No.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I regret there is not unanimous consent.


PETITIONS
Mr. Guy Saint-Julien (Abitibi):: Mr. Speaker, I have a petition concerning firearms from people in Ottawa, Gloucester, Cornwall and Summerstown. The petitioners humbly declare that the accessibility of weapons is a critical factor in murders, accidents and suicides and that many types of weapons which are easily available in
Canada are not needed for legitimate purposes like hunting and competitive shooting.
For these reasons, the undersigned ask Parliament to legislate now so that no one with a criminal record can own a firearm.


Mr. Don Boudria (Glengarry-Prescott-Russell):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise under Standing Order 36 and table a petition on behalf of several Canadian farmers who are upset, with reason, with the low commodity prices for agricultural products in Canada.
The petitioners are asking this government to provide assistance this year, not next year.


Mr. John Reimer (Kitchener):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36 I am pleased to present a petition on behalf of 157 citizens in the Kitchener-Waterloo area. This petition is in support of the parents of Nina DeVilliers. It highlights some serious deficiencies in the criminal justice system, that crimes of violence against women and children are intolerable and constitute the most abhorrent crime society faces. Our laws, sentencing, bail hearing processes and parole provisions do not appropriately reflect society's abhorrence of violence to protect society from such offenders.
Therefore, the petitioners call upon Parliament to amend the Criminal Code, Bail Reform Act and the Parole Reform Acts accordingly.


Mr. Ray Funk (Prince Albert-Churchill River):: Mr. Speaker, I have a petition signed here by over 200 people from communities such as Dauphin, Manitoba, Red Deer, Alberta, Sackville, Nova Scotia, Quesnel, B.C. and Alida, Saskatchewan.
These people have watched the erosion of the rural way of life in fishing, farming and forestry communities around the country. They call on Parliament to support Canada's rural way of life, to support the maintenance of rural post offices and to reject the Conservative government's agenda of cutbacks and closures.


Mr. Ronald J. Duhamel (St. Boniface):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to stand in this House today to present this

petition with respect to national standards in education, recognizing obviously the provincial responsibility in education and its constitutional responsibility as well.

This petition is from people in Quebec and Ontario who want the various sectors of Canadian society to dialogue with the national federal government and the provinces in order to try to articulate a policy that would make us much more competitive and that could meet Canadians' needs throughout the country in all fields of education.

I must add that this petition and similar feelings have been voiced by other Canadians in other parts of the country, including my own province of Manitoba.


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, I suggest that all questions be allowed to stand.


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


Some hon. members:: Agreed.
[English ]


[Stage Direction]
SUSPENSION OF SITTING
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is it agreed that we shall suspend the House to the call of the Chair?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.
The sitting of the House was suspended at 10.58 p.m.


Mr. Speaker:: Before proceeding further, I want hon. members to understand very clearly the procedure in this particular case. The hon. member for Parkdale-High Park has proposed a motion. I have retired and discussed the motion with him and it will be, as I understand it,
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changed very slightly to call the hon. member to the bar to receive a reprimand from the Chair.
At that point, if the Speaker rules that it is a prima facie case, the House is entitled to debate the motion that is before it, that is the motion of the hon. member. If the House approves that motion then it is incumbent upon the Chair to call the hon. member before the bar at a certain time to receive the reprimand.
The important thing to remember is that the hon. member has proposed the motion and the punishment is the reprimand. The House then decides on whether that is the punishment the House wishes the Speaker to exercise.
If there is any doubt about the procedure I would like to hear those doubts.


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, it is a doubt because certainly in my memory I do not recall any of us having been through this before.
May I just explain the procedure as I understand it. The Speaker would rule. If the Speaker rules that it is a prima facie case of privilege, the hon. member would introduce his motion, which is then debatable and amendable and should that motion pass, whatever the motion ends up being, and assuming it were to be the motion to call the member to the bar the member would then appear before the bar to hear what in effect is the Speaker's ruling.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Mr. Speaker, you raised the issue of punishment. Is that a second motion after the examination before the bar or is it inherent in the original motion and once it is voted on then that is what follows? The passage of the motion in the form which you have suggested, does that specify the punishment and that is what prevails? That is where the confusion came in. You made a couple of remarks I was not sure of.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon parliamentary secretary stated the position as succinctly as I can. Let hon. members be very clear on what we are doing. The motion is to call the member before the bar and to receive a reprimand from the Chair. If that is passed, the hon. member will be called before the bar and the Chair will in this place, in front of all of the hon. members' peers, deliver a

Privilege
reprimand. That is what will follow, if in fact the House supports the motion. Is that clear?


Jesse Philip Flis: Mr. Speaker, in light of the sincere apology that the House heard from the hon. member and the sincere apology from the House leader and probably my original motion not giving clear direction to the Chair, I would like to move:
That the hon. member for Port Moody-Coquitlam be called to the
bar of the House and be admonished by the Speaker.


Mr. Speaker:: There is no doubt in my mind that this is a prima facie case of contempt. The motion is acceptable and I propose it to the House.
It is moved by the hon. member for Parkdale-High Park and seconded by the hon. member for Renfrew- Nipissing-Pembroke:
That the hon. member for Port Moody-Coquitlam be called to the
bar of the House and be admonished by the Speaker.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Mr. Speaker, the form of the motion comes as a bit of a surprise to us on this side of the House. I am having just a little bit of trouble with it.
I heard earlier this day the precedents in the British House of Commons for an incident not dissimilar which involved a suspension from the chamber for I believe it was a period of a week. I believe the mace was damaged. It is my understanding at least from other people that the mace was damaged and the member was responsible for the repair of the mace.
I read earlier this day a letter from a constituent from Melville, Saskatchewan, not someone I know, expressing their thoughts and feelings in three pages of what they witnessed in the House last evening. In my remarks last Friday I spoke of this Chamber as the highest court in the land.
Certainly the member is a member of the bar and in his home province he is an officer of the court. Early this morning I asked a colleague of mine who is a lawyer what would happen if a similar incident occurred in a court. I was informed that jail would be the immediate automatic outcome with the duration of that incarceration to be determined at a later point because the contempt would be held to be so grievous.
Canadians are indeed very concerned about the decorum in this Chamber, very concerned about this democratic institution. I do not want to pretend on behalf of the government that I am speaking for the government or for all members on my side, and I do not intend to move an amendment. I would urge some members of the House to rise and to consider whether or not the protection of the institution is sufficient if the punishment is an admonishment.
With all the formality perhaps it is. Perhaps the public embarrassment is sufficient. But I think there is a kind of fairness principle which exists in Canadians from coast to coast. Sometimes they think that we are a body, we are a group, that gives ourselves privileges that the rest of the world does not have. They ask themselves if they had assaulted an officer of the court what would happen to them. What happened in this Chamber last evening was an assault on the Sergeant-at-Arms of this the highest court in the land.
I just have a feeling that out there in the constituencies across the country there will be some sense of disappointment with an admonishment for an act which is so clearly captured on television and does indeed involve a physical assault on the person of the Sergeant-at-Arms of the House.
I do not for a minute think it is appropriate for me as an officer of this Chamber to move an amendment to a motion which I am sure the member has well considered, but when I spoke earlier the motion without the amendment was one I thought was appropriate to the circumstance for the message that it would send.
My heart goes out to the member who in a moment did something that I am sure he sincerely regrets and certainly his comments were of that nature.
The institution is a very important one and at a very important time in our history some kind of process that would be more readily understood in the country, somewhat beyond a simple admonishment, my heart tells me would be more appropriate to the circumstances.


Hon. Jean Lapierre (ShefFord):: Mr. Speaker, I think this House and Canadians in general take no pleasure in the fact that it has come to this-that we must now reprimand one of our colleagues. I think we all wish the incident had not occurred.
October 31, 1991

However, Mr. Speaker, although our ideologies may differ, I believe that respect for the institution lies at the very core of the democratic system in this country. For those who object to the rules of the game, there is always the democratic solution. That is the only weapon we wish to use, and I think that is part of the traditions and values of this country. Whatever our reservations may be about institutions, I think it is incumbent on us to respect this institution, because otherwise the entire structure will collapse.
It is the primary source of law and order. Mr. Speaker, of course we regret we must support a motion like the one tabled today. We bitterly regret this. Despite all the differences that exist between our various ideologies, our respect for the institution, for democracy and for the rule of law requires that we act thoughtfully and effectively in this case. I bitterly regret that we must vote on this kind of motion, but I feel that, if our fellow citizens are to have any respect for our institutions and for the rule of law I must vote in favour of the motion.


Mr. Felix Holtmann (Portage-Interlake):: Mr. Speaker, I have a couple of brief comments to make on what has become a very unfortunate incident which occurred here last evening. I listened to all sides of the point of privilege as well as the member's statement.
I was here as well, Mr. Speaker, and I must say I reviewed the tape. What I did not see was the member just walk down and touch the Mace. I saw the member charge down and grab the Mace with some physical force.
I think this is such as tremendous breach of etiquette in this House it by no means should be allowed to pass with a slight tap of the wrist. That is all I have to say.


Mrs. Pierrette Venne (Saint-Hubert):: Mr. Speaker, I must say I was shocked to see what happened yesterday.
However, a few weeks ago this House witnessed events and language which in my opinion were far worse than what we saw yesterday. The language was used in referring to a woman, as we all know, and the word translates as plotte, which is a better translation of "slut" than trainee et putain. In any case, the latter term is not
Privilege
exactly idiomatic, and the correct term is extremely vulgar in Quebec.
My point is, Mr. Speaker, that at the time, no motion was tabled. There was no movement to reprimand the member in question, while this morning, people are making a big fuss. I agree we must have decorum in the House, and perhaps one way to achieve this is by reprimanding the hon. member directly, and that is why I support this motion, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Phillip Edmonston (Chambly):: Mr. Speaker, it is very difficult for me to put myself into the feelings or the scenario that existed at the time of this incident. I understand it is very serious and I also understand that we must respect the decorum and the traditions of this House.
I am particularly concerned right now at what I see to be a tendency to place all the blame on an individual. This incident is the culmination of what I believe is a progression, at least since I have been here. I believe both sides of the House and all parties and most members have been engaging in conduct which surely has not been the kind of conduct most beneficial to the image of this House.
Surely you, Mr. Speaker, who witnessed all of these incidents over the past few years must realize that we are the last people perhaps to tell you of how decorous we have been in our own conduct.
It seems to me as if I have suddenly arrived on another planet. There are people from some parties whom I have seen making certain gestures, who have said certain things, and all of a sudden today are white and pure as the snow. This is appalling. If this means that we are going to have decorum, if this means we are not going to have from both sides of the House the name calling, which I am not going to repeat because I think the names are disgusting, and if this means we are going to have a better functioning Parliament that all Canadians can believe in and can be proud of, then so be it.
I would just like to address myself to the question of a tap on the wrist. I am embarrassed by the incident. I believe my hon. colleague is embarrassed by the incident. I believe what is proposed is a serious gesture on the part of the Speaker. It is not the time right now to settle scores. It is not the time right now to gang up on anybody. Right now is the time to put to rest all of the foolishness we have been doing for the past few years. It

October 31, 1991
Privilege
is time for us all to turn over a new leaf and finally respect this House.


Mr. Alfonso Gagliano (Saint-Leonard):: Mr. Speaker, I do not want to take up too much of the time of the House, but I do believe that what we are discussing this morning is extremely important.
What the previous speaker said truly astonished me, Mr. Speaker, and I would like to say very briefly that the incident we are discussing this morning is not just a matter of decorum. During debate, a member will occasionally use certain terms, but this debate is about the authority of this House, the authority of the Chair and the Mace. I think this is a very important matter. If we want to continue to express ourselves freely, and if we want the Chair to make decisions, we must respect the authority vested in the Mace and the Chair in this House.
Mr. Speaker, there is another equally important question we discussed not long ago, which we will have an opportunity to discuss in the days to come and I am referring to the question of decorum. In this case, however, I think we should concentrate on the issue of authority as represented by the Mace, and on what the Chair in the House represents, to guide us in future debate.


Mr. Jean-Robert Gauthier (Ottawa-Vanier):: Mr. Speaker, I was here in the House when the incident occurred not far from my seat. I think it is most regrettable, and I agree with those members who believe that we cannot go on as if nothing had happened. The Speaker of the House had decided to adjourn the House. He was leaving, while the Sergeant at Arms carried the Mace, and the hon. member actually attacked the Mace, the symbol of order in this House.
Perhaps I may say that last night's incident, unfortunate though it was, is no reason to forgive previous incidents.

We are not forgiving in this House of other members who may have abused the privileges of this House either by word or by act or by gesture.
I would like to tell the member from Chambly that I agree with him that none of us are pure and white, but I do not forget and I do not think he does either that other members at one time in this House did similar things. We do not forget but we do not forgive either.
Yesterday was, in my opinion and to my way of thinking, a rather hard attack on basic order of this House. It was a charge on the symbol of order in this House. As much as I may deplore the gesture that was made, I can understand the frustrations and I can understand the difficult situation we were in last night because of that vote which was not expected. There were few members in the House. Many of the people did not have time to come here in response to the bell which was short. I understand that. The issue was an important one for many of us and I sympathize with the members who could not be here because of the shortness of the bell.
Nevertheless, I do not excuse and I do not forgive anybody in this House who has the kind of behaviour that attacks the symbols of this House and, as I said at the beginning, I am as embarrassed as anybody in this House with this incident and I deplore this type of behaviour.


Mr. Chuck Cook (North Vancouver):: Mr. Speaker, I rise in defence of the member. Everyone here seems to have forgotten what caused this incident and how it came about that he was so incensed that he lost his cool, charged toward the Chair and committed an act which all of us deplore. I believe he should be admonished for that, but I also believe that the mitigating circumstances should make that admonishment very gentle.
The Deputy Speaker in the Chair last night, with four people standing and waiting to be recognized, chose to shut down the House. I think the Speaker-


Mr. Speaker:: Just a moment. That is getting to be very close to an attack on what the Deputy Speaker did last night.
The Deputy Speaker made a ruling. This whole case is about whether, when a Speaker has made a ruling, anyone has a right to challenge it, whether it be by debate or by extraordinary behaviour as has been the case here.
October 31, 1991

I certainly will hear the hon. member on a plea of mitigation. The hon. member must be very careful not to attack the ruling the Deputy Speaker made last night.


Charles Henry (Chuck) Cook: Mr. Speaker, I will apologize if that was the way the remark was interpreted by the Chair.
The point I was making is what caused the member's conduct. It was four people waiting to be recognized who were not recognized.
The Speaker of the House of Commons must be the master of the House of Commons, but also the Speaker of the House of Commons is the servant of the Commons. Last night we had an incident in which at least one member was so incensed by what took place that he lost his temper and did something he will regret for the remainder of his life. It was improper. He must be admonished but it must be a gentle admonishment.
Part of the reason for the loss of his temper was the action of two other officers of the House of Commons, the chief government Whip and the chief opposition Whip. In the government's case, members were informed that there would be a 15 minute bell and the vote would be taken. I believe they both should be admonished as well, for their actions in ignoring the rights of members for 15 minutes. They did not allow sufficient time.
There were at least two cabinet ministers and eight members who expected that 15 minute bell and did not get it. That, I am sure, will be raised in the individual caucuses later.
In terms of the member, I understand his loss of temper. I deplore what he did, but I think we should be very, very careful as to how strong an admonishment he gets for attempting, in his view, to do his job for the misguided people of Port Moody-Coquitlam.
Let us not forget the other factor involved here. I was here the night that four members of my own party charged the Chair, stood in front of the Chair waiving their fists and stayed there for some time. The Speaker was a very strong man that night and I admired him tremendously. He stood there and took it and kept yelling for order until things finally settled down. That incident did not result in members being called before the bar and it was certainly as serious as the incident last night, in my view.
Privilege
I ask the Chair, with the greatest respect, to make that admonishment fairly light in terms of the history of unorthodox conduct in this place and in terms of the mitigating circumstances of the man simply losing his temper totally over what had taken place.


Mr. Joe Comuzzi (Thunder Bay-Nipigon):: Mr. Speaker, let me state at the outset that I was also in the House last evening when this incident occurred. The member for Port Moody-Coquitlam and I were both on our feet trying to be recognized by the Chair when the decision was made to adjourn the House.
I would just like to make these succinct comments with the thought of trying to assist the Chair in its decision. The thought that permeates my mind is the dynamics of the moment. It all happened in a fraction of a second. There was no pre-thought about the incident. The House had adjourned and the member was obviously upset and within 30 seconds it was all over.
I would ask that the Chair take those comments into consideration when it is making its decision. I am sure the member seriously regrets it. There are incidents that sometimes we would all like to forget. I would use the charity of the House in admonishing this member.


Ron J. Duhamel: Mr. Speaker, I simply want to add a few brief comments.
First, it is a most regrettable incident. It is an embarrassing situation for the House of Commons, for all members and for all Canadians.
I think that there are two issues, however, and we must not get them confused. One is the challenge, if you wish, or an attack on the authority of the Chair. The other one, of course, is inappropriate behaviour.
If we are going to deal with the inappropriate behaviour, I submit we cannot forget the inappropriate behaviour that has occurred within the last month. I am referring to the sexist comments that were made in this House to the member for Hamilton East and the racist comments that were allegedly made to the member for Windsor-St. Clair. Let us try to keep the two issues separate.
Concerning inappropriate behaviour, it seems to me we have to look at the other issues as well. Otherwise, we are not being consistent. We are being, in fact, unfair.

October 31, 1991
Privilege
My personal preference would be that the response would be sufficient to remind members that this is inappropriate, this cannot be tolerated and will not be in the future. Hopefully, it will not occur again. But should that be the case, it will be dealt with in the most severe way possible.


Mr. Derek Lee (Scarborough-Rouge River):: Mr. Speaker, I do not suppose there is a member here in the House who does not regret the incident as it transpired last night.
We are fortunate here today in that we have a situation where all of the material facts are either agreed to or apparent on the face of the record that we have here in the House. In addition, the hon. member involved has himself forthrightly addressed the matter already and has even put forward an apology in a very sincere fashion.
It is regrettable, but I suppose that we must, from time to time here in the House, stop our ordinary business to address matters involving our own conduct. In my view, the proposed procedure is adequate to do two things. One, it will address the incident itself adequately and expeditiously. Second, it will provide a precedent which may become useful to members here in the House in the future.
I would like to encourage members to get on with this matter now and address the question.


Mr. Peter L. McCreath (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of State (Finance and Privatization)):: Mr. Speaker, I also wish to see us get on with the issue.
I feel I have to stand and add a couple of comments. I would ask the indulgence of my colleagues while I do so. Obviously, I join with them in regretting the incident. I have to say that over the nearly three years that I have been here I have always admired the hon. member for Port Moody-Coquitlam. I see him as a vety energetic and intelligent, committed member of Parliament.
I look at the incident last night and, quite frankly, a phrase comes to my mind: "There, but for the grace of God, go I". In that sense, I hope I would never do that. I hope no hon. member would ever do that, but who knows? We are all human. As the hon. member from Vancouver said a few minutes ago, these things happen.
Nevertheless, Mr. Speaker, there are two or three points that I want to make that I think are very germane. This provides an opportunity to make points that I have wanted to make for some time, since I came to this place.
I think there is a difference between the incident that took place here last night and the more recent incidents that involved the use of language that is utterly and completely reprehensible in this place with respect to other members.
Nobody could be more combative in debate, perhaps, than I can. Nobody enjoys heckling any more than I can. But the fact of the matter is there are people watching out there. People are losing respect for this place because of the kinds of things that are going on here.
Let it be clear that when we use inappropriate language back and forth across this House, it is doubtless provoked by one to the other, and back and forth. This happens sometimes.
What took place here last night was an action taken against an officer of the House who did nothing to provoke that incident. What took place here last night was a physical action as opposed to calling somebody something.
Let us not wash over this fact, much as we all might like to say: "Let's just forget the whole incident". I am sure the hon. member understands my motivation in making the comment. We cannot wash it away. When something wrong is done, it must be brought to account.
I would hope that we would use this, however, as a launching pad because of the gravity of this situation. I was bothered by the incidents that took place in the last couple of months and referred to by the hon. member for St. Hubert. I was bothered by the fact that nothing happened with respect to those incidents which to me were unacceptable, though perhaps not at the same level of gravity. I have been bothered by other things I have seen here. I have been bothered by the fact that one cannot get up and call someone a liar in this place, but it is okay for someone to stand in their place and mislead, distort and twist information. That has always seemed kind of perverse to me, that it would seem one can lie here but one cannot call someone a liar.
October 31, 1991

I suggest and I would urge that perhaps you might use your good offices, Mr. Speaker, to urge an appropriate body like the Standing Committee on Privileges to take a look at incidents like these. I know there was a committee set up, I believe it was a committee of female members of this place, to look at certain aspects. I think we should get on with dealing with those things because we are all negatively impacted by those things. They reflect badly on Parliament and on government. It is one of the reasons the public is losing its respect for politicians and public figures who, from what I have observed, are people who are here because they want to serve Canada, no matter what side of the House they are on.
Therefore, we must deal with the reality of this situation, though we do not wish to, and we must condemn the action, as we must condemn all other actions of a similar nature. Hopefully, we will not have to be faced with them any more.
I urge that we do not let it drop there, that we take up these issues and that we do something about making this place a place that will earn the respect of Canadians.


Mr. Eugene Bellemare (Carleton-Gloucester):: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Very briefly, I must say that I deplore the behaviour of the member for Port Moody-Coquitlam. For days and even weeks, we have been talking in the House about improving the behaviour of certain members. The behaviour, or rather misbehaviour, is often vocal, but last night, it became physical.
We have an incident that really must be dealt with. This place, the House of Commons, is where the future of the Canadian people is discussed. We talk here about the life and quality of life of all Canadians and must do so properly and professionally. Moreover, we must set an example.
Every day, children and schoolchildren visit us, so our behaviour is very important. We have professional colleagues in the community who watch the debates on television or who come here to see us. We are here to debate and discuss different ideologies and points of view, but not to react violently in word or deed.
Mr. Speaker, since we have a very specific, clear and obvious example, I believe that it should be dealt with immediately in order to set an example and serve notice
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to all other members in the House so that we can continue to have a proper healthy dialogue in the House of Commons.


Mr. Speaker:: The House has heard the terms of the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the said motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
Mr. Speaker:: It is my duty in accordance with the motion to order the hon. member for Port Moody-Coquitlam to appear at the bar of the House this afternoon at three o'clock.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill C-12, an act to amend the Young Offenders Act and the Criminal Code, as reported (with amendments) from a legislative committee.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Before we commence, we have a ruling. There are 27 motions set down on the Notice Paper for the report stage of Bill C-12, an act to amend the Young Offenders Act and the Criminal Code.
Motions Nos. 1 and 2 were ruled out of order in the legislative committee. In doing so the chairman stated that the proposed amendments went beyond Bill C-12 by attempting to amend the parent act, namely the Young Offenders Act itself.
I fully concur with the chairman's ruling that a member can only amend a specific clause of a bill referred to it, the committee, by the House. Citation 698, paragraph 8(b) of Beauchesne's Parliamentary Rules and Forms, Sixth Edition provides:
An amendment may not amend sections from the original Act unless they are specifically being amended in a clause of the bill before the committee.

October 31, 1991
Government Orders
Motion No. 3 will be debated and voted upon in combination with motion No. 5. An affirmative vote on motion No. 3 will obviate putting the question on motion No. 5. A negative vote on motion No. 3 will require that the question be put on motion No. 5.
Since motion No. 6 is identical to motion No. 5, it will not be selected.
Motion No. 4 was moved, debated and negatived in the legislative committee.
There are minor differences between this motion and the amendment moved in committee, but they are not sufficient to overcome the prohibition in the Standing Order. Therefore, under the authority of Standing Order 76, subsection (5), I will now not select motion No. 4 for debate.
Motions Nos. 4(a) and 7 will be grouped for debate. An affirmative vote on motion No. 4(a) will obviate the need to put the question on motion No. 7. A negative vote on motion No. 4(a) will require the question to be put on motion No. 7.
Motions Nos. 8 and 9 are acceptable. They will be grouped for debate. An affirmative debate on motion No. 8 will obviate the need to put the question on motion No. 9. A negative vote on motion No. 8 will require the question to be put on motion No. 9.
Motions Nos. 10, 11, 12 and 13 will be debated and voted upon separately.
Motions Nos. 14, 15, 16 and 17 will be grouped for debate and a vote on motion No. 14 will be applied to motions Nos. 15, 16 and 17.
I have serious reservations with respect to motion No. 18. In my view, it is outside the scope of the bill and, in addition, it would require the expenditure of public moneys which only the Crown may authorize through a royal recommendation. Therefore, a new clause by a private member creating a charge on the public purse is not acceptable. It would infringe upon the financial initiative of the Crown. In this connection, I would refer the hon. member to chapter 15 of Beauchesne's sixth edition on financial relations between the Crown and Parliament.
Motions Nos. 19, 20, 22, 24 and 26 will be grouped for debate. Each of them deletes a clause of the bill. They will be grouped for debate, but each will be voted upon
separately. Since motion No. 21 is identical to motion No. 20, motion No. 23 is identical to motion No. 22 and motion No. 25 is identical to motion No. 24, they will not be selected.
Therefore, I will recapitulate for the hon. members for the convenience of the House. Motions Nos. 1, 2, 4, 6, 18, 21, 23 and 25 will not be selected.
The following motions are in order and will be debated and voted upon, as follows: Motions Nos. 3 and 5 are grouped for debate. An affirmative vote on motion No. 3 will obviate the need to vote on motion No. 5. A negative vote on motion No. 3 requires the question to be put on motion No. 5.
Motions Nos. 4(a) and 7 will be grouped for debate. An affirmative vote on motion No. 4(a) will obviate the need to put the question on motion No. 7. A negative vote on motion No. 4(a) will require the question to be put on motion No. 7.
Motions Nos. 8 and 9 will be grouped for debate.
An affirmative vote on motion No. 8 will obviate the need to put the question on motion No. 9. A negative vote on motion No. 8 will require the question to be put on motion No. 9.
Motions Nos. 10, 11, 12 and 13 will be debated and voted upon separately.
Motions Nos. 14, 15, 16 and 17 are grouped for debate. A vote on motion No. 14 will be applied to motions Nos. 15, 16 and 17.
Motions Nos. 19, 20, 22, 24 and 26 will be grouped for debate and each will be voted upon separately.
I will now put motions Nos. 3 and 5 to the House.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Motion No. 3.
That Bill C-12 be amended in Clause 2 by striking out lines 32 to
38 at page 2 and substituting the following therefor: "young person,
and the court shall order
(a)	that the young person be proceeded against in youth court, or
(b)	that the young person".
Motion No. 5
That Bill C-12 be amended by deleting Clause 2.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I would just note in passing that it is somewhat ironic that my motion is the first after this morning's debate. I have nothing to say about this

morning's debate except to say that I listened to my colleagues very carefully and what they had to say.
Getting on with the justice amendments. This is the Young Offenders Act. It has been around for a long time. There are amendments to the Young Offenders Act. These amendments have been around a long time. They were around even before prorogation of the House. They have been brought back, and we have been waiting and waiting and finally they have arrived. I am pleased that the government has brought them forward because I believe the Canadian public and my constituents I know want action in matters to happen in juvenile matters.
There has been an increase in juvenile crime in the country. There have been some real concerns about the alleged weaknesses of the Young Offenders Act. There is a great concern in my riding. A few weeks ago there was a meeting on juvenile gangs. The public is really interested in that and it wants us to respond to that.
To deal with the specific amendments let me say, before I go into that, generally what the act does. I think it is important that the members know the three principal objectives of the act, just to bring people back to what this act is doing. The act has three principal objectives, that is the government's amendments to this bill, C-12, to make it easier to transfer a youth to adult court. The youth can be transferred up to adult court and be treated as an adult. That is a rather unusual procedure, if I might say. It is a harsh procedure and that is in this bill. That is what I am going to deal with in proposed amendment 3 and proposed amendment 5.
The second objective of this act is to increase the penalty for youth convicted in youth court of first and second degree murder from three years to five years less a day. Part of the debate today will deal with the murder provision, over which there has been a lot of press and a lot of objections and difficulty.
The third principle of the government's bill is to permit earlier parole eligibility for youths transferred to adult court on murder charges. The adults were getting the paroles and the youths who were transferred and being treated like adults were not being eligible for parole.
Therefore that is the thrust of the government's Bill C-12. These are the first amendments. What I am trying
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to do with the first amendment is this. I am really addressing a principle and let me put the principle like this. Although he speaks adequately for himself, the justice critic for the Liberal Party, my friend from Cape Breton, expressed in committee, and we believe, that you should treat children as children in the criminal justice system. This is the period to reach them. This is the period when you can rehabilitate them and stop them from being adult criminals. If you are ever going to reach them, this is the place.
When the Young Offenders Act came in a number of years ago, what happened was that we did have a principle in this bill.
It is a very forward-looking bill, a very progressive bill, and the principle in the bill was that we would treat juveniles as juveniles. The problem was, having done that, we never provided facilities for that.
My first amendments, therefore, tackle the notion of transferring kids to adult court. Amendment No. 5 wants to abolish that provision.
Amendment No. 3 is somewhat more difficult and more complicated. My amendment was in line with the the Canadian Council on Children and Youth's recommendation. It did not favour, in transferring children to adult court, the paramountcy of the principle of protecting society. It was felt that there should be a balance in here and we should also consider the interest of the child as well.
The government's approach to affirming the principles of rehabilitation in the test for transfer will affect only those who are eligible for transfer. The government's wording implicitly assumes the young person is guilty as charged and is in need of rehabilitation. If the government is serious about affirming the principle of rehabilitation it should do so in the statement of principles. I believe it is set out in section 3 in the Young Offenders Act and that is where it should put it.
If I might sum up, my amendments here have the thrust of tackling the major issue and that is the issue of having these transfers. Why do we not just deal with juveniles as juveniles and provide tough juvenile penalties? We should not be afraid of providing tough penalties for them, but should deal with them as juveniles. Let us not make them adults and put them in a prison which

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is a school for crime, let us deal with them now. That is what these amendments are directed at.


Mr. Rob Nicholson (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada):: Mr. Speaker, I would urge the members of the House to turn down both these amendments. I think perhaps they are as important as any amendments that we will be looking at today and they go to one of the very important aspects of this bill, and that is the question of transfer of youth from youth court to ordinary court or sometimes referred to as adult court.
The amendments by the member for the New Democratic Party question if a transfer should be considered ordinary and if a transfer is going to be considered, under what circumstances. I have to disagree with the comments he made. I think the bill is clear that the objectives of the Young Offenders Act have been continued. I believe they are stated unequivocally in this bill. I believe as well that it is very clear that the vast majority of cases committed by young people will be dealt with in youth court.
However, there have been some problems with respect to the seriousness of crimes and under what circumstances we might want to consider a transfer. Provincial attorneys general have brought to the attention of the government the unequal interpretation across the country of the present transfer provision. There are concerns among members of the public that they want to be assured that in circumstances dealing with very serious crimes the protection of the public is paramount. That is what the present section, the present proposal of the government, intends to do.
It says that we tried to reconcile the benefits of keeping a youth within the youth system, but we also have to reconcile that with the protection of the public. The government's amendment makes it very clear that where you cannot reconcile the two, the protection of the public is paramount.
Many members will disagree with that and say: "You know, there are other considerations you should take. You should never consider transferring an individual to ordinary court". But there it is, the government is saying the protection of the public is paramount. I think most Canadians can live with that and for that reason I would
urge the House to turn down both these motions by the member for the New Democratic Party because I believe they attack that principle.


Mr. Russell MacLellan (Cape Breton-The Sydneys):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to say a few words about both of these suggested amendments.
I have been listening to the hon. parliamentary secretary and I tend to agree with some of the points he made with respect to amendment No. 3 which states some of the objectives on this bill and what we hope to achieve and certainly the rehabilitation of the offender is important and the safety of the public is very important.
In that regard I do not think amendment No. 3 really offers that much. It may be more of a problem.
However, with respect to amendment No. 5 I feel very differently about that. I think that this bill is a bad bill. I do not think it comes anywhere near doing what we on this side of the House feel should be done in light of rising youth crime in this country, and the concern that the citizens have.
On the other hand, I do not think it does justice to the offender. I think that what we are saying is that the terms, the sentences, should be longer. While they are longer there should be something done to rehabilitate and to train the offender because we are talking about young people. We are talking about young people according to this act as it presently states from the ages of 12 to 18.
If we do not rehabilitate these young people, we are going to have them re-enter our criminal system later on. We are going to have them re-offending. We are going to be putting them in adult institutions again and
again.
What we want to do is try to rehabilitate these young people at a formative age. In that regard I think the minimum age on the young offenders act is no longer applicable. I think 12 is too old to really start rehabilitating some of these young offenders. I think we have to look at the age of nine. In light of our society and in light of the fact that there are a great many of our children who are just out on the streets at all times, we have to be able to deal with them. We have to be able to take these young people at an early stage.
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At the same time we have to be able to rehabilitate them. We want to do something to get these people on the path of being good and constructive citizens.
The other feature as was mentioned by the parliamentary secretary is the transfer provisions. There can be an application to transfer an individual from the youth court to the adult courts.
Then, if that application is made and approved, the young offender can in turn appeal that and have it moved back to the youth court.
This whole process could take up to two years. It is counter productive. We should have one youth court, quite probably and realistically, combined with the family court to deal with all of these issues.
Family courts at the present cannot deal in jury trials, but that can be changed. We need a continuity in this area where we are talking families and young offenders because one quite often is part of the other.
I feel this bill does not deal with that. All we are doing is papering over the problems in our society and the anxiety faced by our citizens, particularly in our urban communities.
I would like to offer my support to the member for Port Moody-Coquitlam on his motion No. 5. I think it goes to the heart of what is wrong with this bill.


Mr. Jim Karpoff (Surrey North):: Mr. Speaker, I want to support the motion that my hon. colleague has made.
One of the things that people get concerned about is the problem of juveniles and they feel that the solution is an ability to transfer to adult court. I want to recount a couple of my own experiences. Before I comment in more detail, my own background is working with youth and working in correctional systems. I became interested because of an incident involving a young fellow I knew when I was in university. A young man from my home town, as a young teen, was cutting through a lumber yard one night and picked up a splitting wedge. For that he was sentenced to nine months in reform school.
Of course while in reform school he met many youths who were much more sophisticated than he was, much more involved in crime than he was. They convinced him to go on a little trip up through the central part of B.C. There were five kids travelling in the car. Three of them had been sitting in a restaurant, two of whom were hardened kids who had relieved an elderly gentleman of
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his wallet. The kids were charged with robbery with violence.
They were raised from juvenile court to adult court. They were convinced to plead guilty. They were sentenced to two and a half years in the federal penitentiary. The court asked them to waive their rights to appeal, which they did.
Here is a situation where a boy who had some difficulties had been treated in a manner by the court system that simply guaranteed he would spend his life in crime. It did not rehabilitate him. It did not treat him as a youth or a child. It pushed him into the federal penitentiary system as a young teenager. And what had he done? Very little.
I wrote my master's thesis on the whole business of the Juvenile Delinquency Act and the Juvenile Court and came to the conclusion that it was a star chamber court. Kids could be removed from their homes, sentenced to long periods in reform schools, raised to adult court for offences that would be considered as an adult trivial. The Young Offenders Act made great process in the handling of youth. The principles of the Young Offenders Act are sound. The problem has been that the resources necessary to invest in our youth who are in trouble have not been forthcoming. Because of that there are those people who say: "We have to be more punitive. We have to be more harsh. We have to teach these kids a lesson. Let's make it easier to raise them to adult court. Let's make it easier to send them to adult penal institutions".
The New Democratic Party and I simply say that this is a wrong approach. Let us look at whom we are talking about when we are talking about youth in conflict with the law. A large proportion of them in this country, regrettably, are native. There are indications that in Manitoba as high as 84 per cent of kids in detention centres are native. Native youth in this country have more of a chance of going to jail than going to university. These are the youth we are talking about making it easier to raise to adult court.
In child welfare circles in some jurisdictions 80 per cent of the children in care of the Superintendent of Child Welfare are native youth. There is a tremendous overlap between child welfare, young offenders and poverty in this country.

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Resources to help families that have been mainly directed through the Canada Assistance Plan have been curtailed by this government. It has put a ceiling on services under the Canada Assistance Plan in three of the largest provinces, which account for 50 per cent of those in need of child welfare services.
This is how and when we should be putting our resources into working with families on a preventative basis to make sure that youth do not get into trouble with the law later on. If you go into an elementary school, most grade one, two and three teachers will be able to tell you the kids who are going to end up before the juvenile court when they are 12, 13 or 14. They know by their behaviour, by the lack of support they are receiving from their families and by their inability to function in a school environment that these are the kids that are in difficulty.
We choose to ignore that. We do not put in the family support resources that they need. We do not provide adequate income for the families to ensure that these children are not in poverty. We simply wait until the child gets into difficulty. Then we stand and say: "The time has come. We have to teach this kid a lesson. We have to show him that we will not tolerate unacceptable behaviour". Yet we have refused to extend the help and resources that we now know would prevent that child from coming before these courts and becoming a longterm drain on our society.
The overlap of illiteracy and offenders in our adult prison system is well known. We know that 60 per cent to 80 per cent of all adult offenders have a learning disability. Yet we are unprepared to put in resources on a significant basis to deal with this problem in the formative years or even in adult years.
We will not put in place the kinds of programs in our school systems that will ensure youth with disabilities are able to pick up the fundamentals necessary to function in this society: to be able to read at a level so that they can get a job, to be able to handle basic mathematics at a level where they can function in society where they have to understand interest rates, banking and mortgages. We simply are unprepared to put in the kinds of resources. Then four or five years later when this child comes before the youth court we want to say: "It is your fault". We want to make it easier for them to transfer and to say
that the paramount thing must be the protection of society. The best way to protect society is to provide the resources to ensure that this child never gets before juvenile court.
I would support the amendments my colleague has made because I think they maintain the principles we want to see in the Young Offenders Act.


Derek Vincent Lee: Mr. Speaker, at the outset of this report stage debate I felt a need to address the principle lying behind the discussion of this proposed amendment.
The previous member when speaking quite properly raised the issue of public safety. I think we should all make sure that we stop here and take note that hundreds of years ago, perhaps a couple or three hundred years ago, we in western society made a bargain. We made a bargain with the state that in return for public safety, law and order we would give up some of our own personal liberties, liberties like going out and taking care of retribution or the enforcement of revenge after an offence.
We have turned that over to government. We continue, all of us as citizens, to have a right in the quid pro quo here to demand from government that it provide the public safety that we bargained for, that the state holds out it is able to provide for us, and that we all pay for it.
Lying behind the Young Offenders Act is a concept that young people who are not fully matured, who have not formed their minds yet in terms of their relationship to society, should be treated differently. I agree with that. I know all my colleagues agree with that.
What has happened is that in the big city-I represent an urban riding-many of my constituents, many people in metropolitan Toronto, are starting to question the artificiality of the distinction between a 17-year-old and and 18-year-old. They realize that in many cases we have individuals defined as youths, 17, 16, 15, who have embarked on a pattern of crime that is no different in any material respect from the pattern of crime perpetrated by those who might be 18, 19 or 20 years of age. They justifiably ask the government to which they give their taxes: "Where is the public safety? Where is the system that will provide for safety for me and my family in relation to the assaults, the robberies and the killings?" The proposed amendment to this Young Offenders Act provides a mechanism to address directly, head
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on, the young offender who may be of significant concern from a public safety point of view.
The way the amendments are drafted permit a judge in a court to deal with differences in region. We have urban areas. We have rural areas and we have a large number of potential native offenders. Each of those categories can be addressed differently by the courts involved.
What my constituents are asking for is a mechanism that will permit the justice system to deal with public safety head on for cases which merit that when the individual happens to be of a young offender age. I speak in a manner that would not support this particular amendment.


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


Some hon. members:: Question.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The question is on Motion No. 3 standing in the name of the hon. member for Port Moody-Coquitlam. All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.


Some hon. members:: Yea.


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


Some hon. members:: Nay.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: In my opinion the nays have it.


An hon. member:: On division.
Motion No. 3 negatived.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Motion No. 5 That Clause 2 be deleted.


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


Some hon. members:: No.


Some hon. members:: Yes.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.


Some hon. members:: Yea.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: All those opposed will please say nay.
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Some hon. members:: Nay.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: In my opinion the nays have it.
Motion No. 5 negatived on division.


Hon. Gilles Loiselle (for the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada) moved:: Motion No. 4A
That Bill C-12 be amended in Clause 2 by adding immediately after line 17 at page 4, the following:
"16.1 (1) Notwithstanding anything in this or any other Act of Parliament, where
(a)	an order is made under section 16 that a young person who is under the age of eighteen be proceeded against in ordinary court, and
(b)	the young person is to be in custody pending the proceedings in that court,
the young person shall be held separate and apart from any adult who is detained or held in custody unless the youth court judge is satisfied, on application at the time of the making of the order, that the young person, having regard to the best interests of the young person and the safety of others, cannot be detained in a place of detention for young persons.
(2)	Notwithstanding anything in this or any other Act of Parliament, where
(a)	an order is made under section 16 that a young person who is over the age of eighteen be proceeded against in ordinary court, and
(b)	the young person is to be in custody pending the proceedings in that court,
the young person shall be held in a place of detention for adults unless the youth court judge is satisfied, on application at the time of the making of the order, that the young person, having regard to the best interests of the young person and the safety of others, should be detained in a place of custody for young persons.
(3)	On application, the youth court shall review the placement of a young person in detention pursuant to this section and, if satisfied, having regard to the best interests of the young person and the safety of others, and after having afforded the young person, the provincial director and a representative of a provincial department responsible for adult correctional facilities an opportunity to be heard, that the young person should remain in detention where the young person is or be transferred to youth or adult detention, as the case may be, the court may so order.
(4)	An application referred to in this section may be made by the young person, the young person's parents, the provincial director, the Attorney General or the Attorney General's agent.
(5)	Where an application referred to in this section is made, the applicant shall cause a notice of the application to be given
(a)	where the applicant is the young person or one of the young person's parents, to the provincial director and the Attorney General;


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Motion No. 7
That Bill C-12 be amended by adding immediately after line 17 at page 4 the following new clause:
"3. The said Act is amended by adding thereto, immediately after section 17 thereof, the following section:
"17.1 (1) Notwithstanding any other provision in this or any other Act of Parliament, where an order is made pursuant to section 16 and the young person is proceeded against in the ordinary court, and is sentenced to custody, the judge who sentences the young person may order that the young person serve that sentence in a place of detention for young persons until the young person attains the age of eighteen years.
(2)	Where a young person is held in custody in a place of detention for young persons pursuant to an order made under subsection (1), and an application is made to the youth court by the Attorney General, or the Attorney General's agent, the provincial director of
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the province in which the young person is held in custody shall cause the young person to be brought before the youth court and the youth court may, after affording both parties and the parents of the young person an opportunity to be heard and if it is satisfied that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the young person should be transferred to a place of detention for adults, order that the young person be transferred from the place of detention for young persons and to a place of detention for adults.
(3)	For the purposes of determining an application under subsection (1), the youth court shall consider without limiting the generality of the foregoing,
(a)	the young person's difficulties in controlling violent impulses to the point of endangering the safety of any other person in the place of detention where the young person is being kept;
(b)	whether the young person is a psychological threat to other young persons in the place of detention where the young person is being kept; and
(c)	whether it is in the best interests of the young person to keep the young person in a place of detention for young persons.
(4)	Six months before a young person in respect of whom an order has been made under subsection (1) attains the age of eighteen years, a youth court may on application of the young person, the young person's counsel, the Attorney General or the Attorney General's agent, after affording both parties and the parents of the young person an opportunity to be heard, order that the young person's detention in a place of detention for young persons, be extended until the young person reaches the age of twenty years, provided the court is satisfied that it would be in the interest of the young person for the court to do so.""


Rob Nicholson: Mr. Speaker, first of all, just as a point of clarification for the House, it would seem to me that if motion No. 4A were passed that motion No. 7 would not be necessary inasmuch as I believe they deal with the same thing.
This clause arises out of a number of areas and certainly not the least of which are concerns raised by members of the legislative committee that looked at C-12 or its predecessor C-58 in the last session of Parliament. That concerns the placement and detention of young people both prior to trial and post-conviction of individuals who have been the subject of a transfer provision, the one that was spoken of in the last motion. If a young person has been transferred to ordinary court, the question arises as to where and how that individual would be detained.
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In motion No. 4A, the government motion, we break it down into two parts, the pre-trial detention and the post-conviction. Within the pre-trial detention we make a distinction. We say that if the individual is under the age of 18 there is a presumption that he would be kept separate and apart from adult offenders. At the same time, if the young person who has been transferred has now reached the age of 18 or older, there is a presumption that he would be held in the ordinary courts with other adults.
One of the things I should say is that both these presumptions are rebuttable. They are reviewable. The motion indicates to whom and how an application might be made to change that and the notice that should be given.
The crux of what we are talking about here in the pre-trial phase is young people should be treated different and it is a good idea for the long-term rehabilitation of an individual for his or her well-being as a young person that he or she should be kept separate and apart. As I say, that is not an iron-clad rule. Circumstances may make that impossible. Circumstances may make that undesirable but prior to the trial those are the two presumptions that we are suggesting in motion No. 4A.
On the other hand, for an individual who has been transferred to ordinary court and has been convicted, the second part of the government motion deals with that. It gives a judge basically three choices. One of them is that the young person could be kept separate and apart from an adult. Second, that individual may be placed in a provincial correctional institute or, in cases where the sentence is two or more years, a penitentiary.
One of the important things to remember in asking the House to pass this clause is that there are a number of considerations that go into a judge's decision as to where the most appropriate place is that this individual will be confined.
The motion and the proposed amendment, as you see, take into consideration a number of of considerations we believe the judge should take into consideration, among them the safety of the young person and the safety of the public, which I already spoke of in the previous motion.

October 31, 1991
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The person's accessibility to his or her family is an obvious consideration.
Ultimately, we want individuals who have been convicted of a crime to be rehabilitated. In almost all cases, contact with one's family is an important component of that. When a judge has to make a decision as to where the best place is for the confinement of that individual, proximity to family has to be taken into consideration.
Other things the judge would take into consideration are the young person's level of maturity, the availability of treatment, education and other resources that might be helpful in reintroducing this individual into society, and any other factor the court considers relevant.
That is the crux of the government's motion. There are sections here as to how and when notice should be given, who should be notified, how the application could be made and the circumstances under which a review could take place. I believe it is a substantial step forward. It is in line with the commitments the Government of Canada has made over the years concerning the treatment of young people in our judicial system.
I might point out to members of the opposition that I think it is in line with suggestions they made at the committee stage and suggestions they have made publicly. Therefore, I am asking this House to accept 4A. At that point, it seems to me that motion No. 7 would be redundant.


Russell Gregoire MacLellan: Mr. Speaker, this is an important motion. I agree with the parliamentary secretary that it does help the bill somewhat. Unfortunately, it does not go nearly far enough. While the parliamentary secretary has made representations that this is largely what we in the opposition were looking for in committee, I would say this is a small part of what we were looking for, certainly in this party, at the committee stage.
I do not think we would have this amendment had it not been for the government signing the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and realizing that with its own Young Offenders Act it could not abide by the convention which, not only had it signed, but was a co-sponsor of. Therefore, this is to really tidy up and to bring it into
line with its sponsoring and signing of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
This is not just for the benefit of justice in Canada or for the young people who have been incarcerated or charged in this country. This is to save an embarrassment for the government. Frankly, we will take any reason at all to improve this act.
That reason having been stated, we will accept it as a basis, regardless.
I would like to speak to this and to the parliamentary secretary and the government in particular.
The first part of the motion is good. What we are talking about in the first part of the motion are young people who have been charged and who are now subject to a motion, having their charge heard in the adult court as opposed to the youth court. As I said, if the motion is successful, the young person or his or her representative can appeal. This process can take up to two years.
What has happened in the past is that while this young person is waiting for the question on whether he or she is going to be transferred to adult court to be heard or the appeal is to be heard, that young person is held, most of the time, in an adult institution where the young person is subject to physical and sexual abuse and at the same time learning all the tricks of the trade as far as far as how to enhance your career as a criminal is concerned.
That is not what we mean when we say we want rehabilitation and assistance for these young people to make them good, worth while, law abiding citizens. In a lot of these cases the young person is a victim of where they lived or their own economic situation. These young people at that age can be helped. By putting them in this facility during this critical formative period of time, quite often when they come out it is too late to do anything for them. Their whole future has been formulated.
The government has made a very important step here. It says:
That, notwithstanding anything in this or any other act of Parliament, where an order is made under section 16 that a young person who is under the age of 18 be proceeded against in ordinary court, and the young person is to be in custody pending the proceedings of that court, the young person shall be held separate and apart from any adult who is detained or held in custody unless the
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youth court judge is satisfied on application at the time of the making of the order that the young person, having regard to the best interests of the young person and the safety of others, cannot be detained in the place of detention for young persons.
That would say that the basic presumption is this young person can be kept in a youth facility and is not a danger "having regard to the best interests of the young person and the safety of others", and that this young person does not represent a safety problem for the other people in this youth facility. In most cases the youth who are detained are not a problem to the safety of others. They may be a bad influence, but one could say they are a bad influence on one another. I can understand what we would call incorrigibles, youth who cannot be placed in a youth facility.
Having regard for the safety of others, I would rather have it defined and say a certain type of young offender, one we would call incorrigible, that is fine. This is not perfect but it is a major step forward.
In that regard, for that period of time while the young person is awaiting a decision of whether he or she is going to be heard in youth court or adult court, that does help the young person.
The other feature which is important is at the end in subsection (7) which says:
Notwithstanding anything in this section, no young person shall remain in custody in a place of detention for young persons under this section after the young person attains the age of 20 years.
That is fine because presumably in the two year period, and surely it would not be much more than two years to have this matter resolved, the person would be 20. That looks after that. That is good. This is a major improvement. The problem is when you go on to the next section in which we are talking about the actual incarceration.
Once again, what we have here is a rehashing of what is already in the bill in different language. It says:
The provincial director and representatives of the provincial and federal corrections have an opportunity to be heard-.other than the young persons serve a portion of their imprisonment in a place of custody for young persons separate and apart from any adult who is detained or held in custody, a provincial corrections facility for adults, or, where the sentence is for two years or more, a penitentiary.
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What we are doing, once again, is giving the judge or the court the choice. They already have that choice, that choice is in the Young Offenders Act right now. It is in Bill C-12. This amendment does not change that.
What we want to see is something similar to what we have in the first part. All we are asking the government to do is be consistent in the second part, that is the incarceration after the sentencing, with what the government has said about the incarceration of the young person prior to the determination of whether that young person is going to be heard in adult or youth court. That is all we are asking; to say that the young person will be detained in a youth facility, unless the young person is a safety problem for the other inmates of the youth facility. That is not a lot to ask, to say that the young person perhaps cannot be incarcerated in that youth facility after he or she reaches the age of 20 years. But it does give the system a chance to rehabilitate that young person. Before the determination whether the person is to be in adult or youth court, after the sentencing the young person, until he or she is 20, can be in a youth facility where we can treat and work with that young person. He or she will not be open to physical and sexual abuse and not constantly bombarded with the criminal expertise that older inmates can give.
I say this is a minor improvement. I just wish the government had followed through and changed the second part to coincide with the first part. Then I think we would really have something here. Unfortunately it does not go nearly far enough.


James Capsey (Jim) Karpoff: Mr. Speaker, this amendment as proposed by the government certainly does go a long way toward answering some of the concerns that were raised.
I particularly am happy to see the section makes it veiy clear that a young person shall be held separate and apart from any adult who is detained or held in custody unless the youth court judge is satisfied on application at the time of the making of the order that the young person, having regard to the best interests of the young person and the safety of others, cannot be detained in a place of detention for young persons.
This is a principle that is well set out and is valid, that the preferable place of detention shall be in a place for

October 31, 1991
detaining of young persons. It is only in rare and specific exceptions where the safety of others, or the interests of that young person, can maybe help in any other setting.
I think it has been the unfortunate practice in many jurisdictions in Canada to detain youths, particularly those who are before the court waiting on applications to be raised to adult court, in facilities to detain adults. Often this is done on the basis, almost of a prejudgment, of the court decision that this child is a child who should be raised to adult court. Therefore, based on the fact that we have made that application, we now see fit to have the child detained in adult facilities.
This, of course, makes it clear that that is not possible.
The other parts of the bill try to set out the circumstances or considerations under which a judge will determine the place of custody of a young person once they have been dealt with by the court. It is set out that it may be in a place for youths, it could be in an adult correctional facility under provincial jurisdiction, or it could be in a federal penitentiary under federal jurisdiction.
One comment I would like to make refers to 2(g). It says that the court shall take into consideration availability and suitability of treatment.
This is where the government has totally fallen down because this is where the greatest lack of resources is. We do not have adequate resources for youths. We do not have them to provide adult offenders with the treatment and rehabilitation that is necessary. Without that, we are always trying to force that young offender into increased incarceration rather than into a situation that is for treatment, education, and other kinds of resources.
It is very commendable for the government to set this out in legislation. My concern, however, is that it has not provided the resources that really and truly give the judge the alternatives that he or she can look at to make that kind of a judgment: what is in the best interest of the child, the best treatment for this child and what is in the best interest of society.
I will end on those remarks, being conscious of the time.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Before I call it one o'clock, shall I put the question on Motion No. 4A and on Motion No. 7?


An hon. member:: Mr. Speaker, I want to speak on Motion No. 4A.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Therefore, I will call it one o'clock p.m.
The House took recess at 1 p.m.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 2 p.m.

Mr. Mac Harb (Ottawa Centre):: Mr. Speaker, a letter was sent to me today by The Canadian Hearing Society. On behalf of 1.6 million Canadians who are either visually or hearing impaired, they are asking questions. For example, a recent Canadian Human Rights Commission report stated that the basic telephone communication via TDD with federal departments was inadequate.
They gave Ottawa airport as an example. Ottawa airport claims to have a telecommunication device for the deaf, as it should, according to Transport Canada policy. However, no one has ever seen this device or been able to use it. The information booth claims it does not have one.
The Minister of Finance promised to make further tax deductions in 1992 towards making accessible buildings owned by landlords for the benefit of the deaf and hard of hearing. In 1991, only flashing fire alarms were recognized as deductible. What items will be included on the list in 1992?
As another example, Treasury Board does not have a policy supporting the training of public servants in American sign language. This is necessary as deaf persons face primarily attitudinal and communication barriers to employment in the federal service. A policy should be passed as soon as possible.
Finally, they are asking, what are the number of deaf and hard of hearing Canadians employed by the federal government and in what capacity: clerical, professional, management? How does this compare to the general population? They are calling on the government for action.
October 31, 1991

[!Translation\


CANADIAN AWARD FOR BUSINESS EXCELLENCE
Mr. Andre Plourde (Kamouraska-Riviere-du-Loup):: Mr. Speaker, I welcome this opportunity today to pay tribute to some of the best entrepreneurs in this country. We are honoured by the presence in our gallery of 22 winners of the Canadian award for business excellence. These people proudly represent Canadian companies outstanding for their innovative approach and firm commitment to the highest possible production standards.
These Canadian men and women are proof that with vision, commitment and determination, we can meet the challenges of an increasingly competitive world economy and come out winners. They are setting standards for a new era in business in this country, an era that will prove that Canadian businesses can compete with the best in the world and come out on top. Mr. Speaker, we are proud of these people, and I know that all my colleagues will join me in offering them our sincere congratulations.


VISIBLE MINORITIES
Hon. Warren Allmand (Notre-Dame-de-Grace):: Mr. Speaker, there is growing racism in this country and the government must show more leadership in fighting against it. There will be an excellent opportunity to do this because the Employment Equity Act passed in 1986 requires a parliamentary review after five years and that review will start shortly.
The purpose of the Employment Equity Act is to provide more jobs for visible minorities and other target groups but it has not been successful. The percentage of employment of visible minorities and firms covered by the act has barely changed since 1986. In order to make this law effective, the government must make the following changes; first, put more effective sanctions in the law to enforce affirmative action; second, make the law applicable to all federal departments and Crown corporations; third, make the law applicable to all firms with 25 or more employees rather than 100 employees.
Furthermore, governments and political parties must appoint more officials and run more candidates who are visible minorities.
Fine words and good intentions are not enough. Political and social justice demand that we take effective affirmative action now before this country is overwhelmed with racial and social unrest.


MADRID CONFERENCE
Mr. Guy Ricard (Laval-Ouest):: Mr. Speaker, yesterday in Madrid, Spain, a conference was launched to negotiate peace in the Middle East. Several countries are participating, including the Soviet Union and the United States. All eyes are on Israel, but there is also the fact of the status of Jews in Syria. About 4,000 men, women and children are being held by a regime that has no respect for the concept of human rights. I ask the Canadian government to support the peace talks negotiations at this conference and to put pressure on the Syrian authorities to allow Jews in that country the same freedom to travel, speak and live in their country as their fellow citizens.
* # *


OZONE DEPLETION
Ms. Lynn Hunter (Saanich -Gulf Islands):: Mr. Speaker, today is Elallowe'en and a good day to remind this government that the sun's rays are becoming increasingly dangerous and not just to Count Dracula.
Dracula never goes outside any more, not since the recent UN scientific report warned that the protective ozone shield is disappearing faster than was forecast.
But help is on the way in the form of CFC sucking vampire units. Development and distribution of Canadian technology to combat ozone destruction can give Canadian's anaemic economic a much needed boost.
One Canadian company estimates markets for vampire units to be worth over $2 billion. Recovering used CFCs will create local employment, help save the ozone and protect people's health.

I urge this government to bring in regulations to require every industry to have vampire units on site so that all CFCs in use will be recaptured and recycled.
Let us make Halloween and every other day safe for little hobgoblins, witches and Draculas everywhere.


PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
Mr. Andre Harvey (Chicoutimi):: Mr. Speaker, the Liberals, the NDP and the Bloc Quebecois often talk about good public administration but never mention the hard work and successes of the present government. A simple comparison with the Liberals' record from 1980 to 1984 will show how far removed our administration is from that of the Liberals, who increased their spending by 15 per cent annually, compared with 3.5 per cent by our government, since 1984.
If we had pursued the same disastrous policies as the Liberals, Canada would be bankrupt, and here is why: The Liberal's budget today would be 250 billion instead of 150 billion; the deficit would be 160 billion instead of 30 billion; and worst of all, the debt would now be 800 billion instead of 400 billion.
To keep the deficit at its present level, we would have had to raise the taxes of every Canadian by $4,700 annually. That is why our government must keep doing its job and ignore the demagogic outbursts of the opposition.


DEMOCRACY IN HAITI
Mrs. Christine Stewart (Northumberland):: Mr. Speaker, there are many who have tried to discredit Haitian president Jean Bertrand Aristide. However, the events speak for themselves. Under his regime, human rights violations substantially decreased, and no abuses were attributed to his government.
As Aristide pointed out, during the short period of seven months in which Haiti's democracy developed, for the first time in its history, Haitians worked to create a responsible government. They resurrected an independent judicial system. These achievements are now in danger of being reversed.
It is now one month since the Haitian army overthrew President Aristide, and during that time, our government has failed to act on its commitment to freeze Haitian assets in Canada and impose economic sanctions.
Action must be taken now to bring President Aristide back to power. We cannot renege on our commitments. Democracy must be restored in Haiti.


MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT
Mr. Bill Attewell (Markham-Whitchurch-StoufF-ville):: Mr. Speaker, I recently asked my constituents to let me know what issues are concerning them most these days. Over half of those who wrote to me are very concerned about the lack of confidence in many Canadian politicians.
Wallace Armstrong of Thornhill writes: "Our elected members of all parties are well-meaning people, but TV's Question Period does not always show that. Fix that and our unity and economy will follow".
I seek a consensus from this House to begin the process of rebuilding confidence in MPs and in this great institution. Our conduct in the House of Commons must be mature. Let us attack the issues and not each other's character.
We are accountable to our electorate and we must show them that we are serious about our responsibilities and our conduct. Let us begin a new chapter in the proceedings of this House where mutual respect for one another and total respect for this institution will be paramount.


SHIPBUILDING
Ms. Mary Clancy (Halifax):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to remind the government of a promise it made in 1984 to provide Canada with a competitive shipbuilding industry-
In a press release of August 23, 1984 the Progressive Conservative Party's Atlantic caucus stated that: "A top priority of the PC government will be to create a more viable and prosperous shipbuilding industry". It went on to call for a comprehensive series of steps that created a national shipbuilding policy for this country.


October 31, 1991

Eight years later, the legacy of the Tory national shipbuilding policy is clear. A commitment to build a Polar 8 ice-breaker at Versatile Pacific broken. A commitment to build submarines in either Quebec or New Brunswick broken. MIL bailouts and closures round out this government's so-called national shipbuilding policy.
Shipbuilders in the Atlantic region demand that this government stand up and enact a comprehensive series of policies to ensure that its industry is competitive. Increase the tax on vessels constructed offshore. Extend support to the smaller ship repair facilities such as the Dartmouth marine slips. Establish Canada as a leader in cold water shipbuilding technology and create an investment climate so that we can rid ourselves of the 90 per cent rate of offshore vessel construction.
Mr. Speaker, I urge the government to act now.


PROSPERITY
Mr. Jean-Pierre Hogue (Outremont):: Mr. Speaker, the announcement made two days ago in this House by the Minister of Employment and Immigration and the Minister of Industry, Science and Technology and Minister for International Trade puts us squarely in the present-day reality and the third millennium, which we will enter in a few years.
The Province of Quebec has no reason to think that there is any intrusion at all in any field whatsoever. Setting standards of excellence and pursuing them can ultimately only help the provinces and the whole country meet the new challenges well.
Furthermore, in many fields of art and science, such criteria exist and institutions, like individuals, are only better for it. Economists such as Professor Porter in his study have given us the same message.
Canada's prosperity, Mr. Speaker, depends on adequate knowledge and well-managed human resources. Seeking improved productivity is not a visionary approach but a necessary consequence of our society's evolution.


YUGOSLAVIA
Mr. Steve Butland (Sault Ste. Marie):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today in response to the continuing crisis in Croatia. The continued aggression of the federal army is totally unacceptable. Thousands of people in Croatia continue to live in miserable conditions without decent food or clean water. Thousands have been wounded and killed and many others are living in fear for their lives.
Humanitarian aid must be allowed through immediately without further interference. Wanton damage is being perpetrated against internationally recognized sites of Croatian culture such as the city of Dubrovnik.
The federal army must stop this aggression at once and withdraw from Croatia immediately. Many people in my community and others with families in Croatia are currently raising money for humanitarian aid. These people feel helpless and frustrated at the continuing violence in the area.
The federal government can alleviate this frustration and anxiety by establishing a 1-800 information hot line on the Croatian conflict. Canadians have a right to know what is happening to their loved ones. I call upon the government to establish this service immediately.


INTEREST RATES
Mr. Garth Turner (Halton-Peel):: Mr. Speaker, The Globe and Mail today devoted space to attacking me for raising the issue of credit card interest rates in Parliament. Taking the side of the banks, the newspaper continued its familiar attempts to discredit me.
This is fine but Globe readers should remember that this is little more than continuing an old newspaper war against a former rival business journalist. Worse, the Globe is both selective in its coverage and wrong in its facts. Why is it supporting credit card rates of almost 20 per cent, when the prime is 8.5 per cent? Why does it not run the story saying that the Consumers Association of Canada welcomes an inquiry into these rates? Why does the Globe say today that I supported price controls

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during the introduction of the GST when I authored a report saying exactly the opposite?
By calling Canadians with credit card debts "foolish" in these rough economic times, The Globe and Mail is being both arrogant and insensitive.


UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE
Mr. David Dingwall (Cape Breton -East Richmond):: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance in his budget of 1989 said this with regard to unemployment insurance premiums:
The government will continue to contribute to the financing of
unemployment insurance in difficult economic times when it is
inappropriate to raise premiums.
In July 1991, the government raised premiums 24 per cent and next year, January 1,1992 they will be increased 5 per cent again.
It has come to our attention that unemployment insurance once again will be raised approximately 14 per cent by the Minister of Finance. When the Minister of Finance was questioned on Thursday and Friday, October 24 and October 25, he said unequivocally he would not give an assurance to this House that unemployment insurance premiums would not rise.
I want to point out to the Minister of Finance that if unemployment insurance premiums go up once again it will further erode business confidence, particularly as it relates to small business. It will have a devastating effect on employees of small business as well as workers across this country.
I urge the Minister of Finance to take heed of this advice and not increase the unemployment insurance premiums-


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


Mr. Dan Heap (Trinity-Spadina):: Mr. Speaker, why is Canada helping to kill babies in Iraq? According to the October 22 report of 87 specialists who visited 30 Iraqi cities: "Unless Iraq quickly obtains food, medicine, and spare parts millions of Iraquis will continue to experience malnutrition and disease. Thousands of children
will die". Already mortality of children under age 5 has risen 380 per cent.
The United Nations with Canada's active support stopped Iraq from selling enough oil to feed its people. Iraq cannot use oil revenues to buy arms because the money is deposited in a United Nations account only for UN approved purposes. Yet the UN restricted Iraq to less than $1 billion to buy and transport food.
We did not do that to the Germans and Italians when we won World War II. Why impose death on Iraqi babies, some not even bom when the gulf war began?



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Ms. Sheila Copps (Hamilton East):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance. The minister keeps on repeating that his government's economic policies are succeeding. He never stops repeating that the recession is over. However, we learned today that the gross domestic product has fallen again. If the recession is over, why is steel production falling? Why are sales of metals and machinery falling? Why are aircraft production, gas distribution, construction, fishing, agriculture, mining, transportation, insurance, real estate and sales of automobiles and manufactured products down? Why?


Hon. Don Mazankowski (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, the question the hon. member poses is very legitimate but some of the descriptions she has put forward in the body of her question are grossly inaccurate.
There has been a slight contraction in the service sector. The monthly output data is somewhat volatile at this particular time.
I remind the hon. member that if she were to look at the September preliminary figures she would see that growth in housing starts was strong. As a matter of fact, housing starts increased 19 per cent in the third quarter over the previous quarter. I believe automobile sales increased by 9 per cent or 10 per cent. Truck sales increased by 17 per cent in the month of September.
October 31, 1991

Employment rose. Unemployment went down from 10.6 per cent to 10.2 per cent and 65,000 new jobs were created.
As well, Canada's composite leading index improved in the month of September so I would ask the hon. member to consider the September figures because they certainly do look a lot better.
I might just add in conclusion that coming out of the 1981-1982 recession there were two months within a year wherein there was negative growth. So this is not unusual.
I take the hon. member's question seriously. We said all along that recovery would be moderate and modest and we still stand by that.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance talks about a slight downturn. Manufacturing is down $5 billion from the same time last year. Construction is down $1 billion. The retail trade is down $1.5 billion. This economy is in desperate trouble and the member behind the minister is supporting me in my comments.
Once again I ask the Minister of Finance, instead of running a multimillion dollar advertising campaign, why does the government not act today to solve our current desperate financial problems?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I would draw to the member's attention that in the first eight months of 1991 the volume of exports in Canada is up by 11 per cent. A lot of that is manufacturing and the goods producing sector.
The goods producing sector did not weaken in the month of August. It maintained a very vibrant pace and what happened in the month of August was the fact that the service sector declined somewhat.
I indicated to the hon. member that to some extent these data were stale-dated because there are data that have come forth in the month of September which supersede that.
I should also draw to the hon. member's attention that we have had another 13 basis points reduction in interest rates today, which really puts the Bank of Canada rate at 8.03 per cent or Treasury bills at 7.75 per cent.
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That is the lowest in 14 years and that ought to be a good indicator.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, the government's advertising campaign may be yes, we can, but to the steelworker in Hamilton the answer is no, you haven't. We are talking about a $5 billion drop in the manufacturing sector alone.
What can the minister say today to the steelworker in Hamilton about the policies of his government, policies that have led to a $5 billion drop in the manufacturing sector?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I can say to the hon. member and to the steelworker that as we said in the February budget the key to growth is to bring down interest rates. The key to bringing down interest rates is to bring down inflation and inflationary pressures.
That is occurring. With the continuing decline in interest rates, that should provide for a new investor confidence in investing into plant and equipment.
I think it is time to shed the charge that this government is pursuing a high interest rate policy. Interest rates are the lowest in 14 years. It is now time for the business community to take up the challenge because it cannot hide behind that forever.


Mr. John Manley (Ottawa South):: Mr. Speaker, my question for the Minister of Finance is very simple.
On Monday he told the House: "The economy is starting to boom". That was Monday of this week. Today we realize that the economy declined by .3 per cent in August.
Was the minister misinformed on Monday? Has he now changed his mind, or does he think that a declining GDP is consistent with a booming economy?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I take it from the tone of the hon. member's question that he is almost ecstatic about the fact that there has been a small, modest decline in output in the month of August, .03 per cent.
I am concerned about it. When I said that the economy was starting to boom I may have been somewhat over enthusiastic. The hon. member knows as well as anyone else what I have always said. After a growth of about 4.9

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per cent in the second quarter we indicated that we did not expect to achieve and maintain that level of growth, that we were projecting modest, moderate recovery, but that if we got the fundamentals right to bring inflation down and to bring interest rates down that would be the recipe to a durable, sustainable recovery.


John Paul Manley: Mr. Speaker, of course we are all happy to see the interest rates come down, but the minister should accept that in the current circumstances lowering interest rates is rather like trying to push a string when it comes to trying to stimulate economic recovery.
Based on the fact that Statistics Canada has today said that the rate of recovery is about half what it was over the first five months of the recovery in 1981-82, is the minister prepared to consider measures that will improve consumer confidence, or is he prepared to stand by and let this haemorrhaging that continues to go on continue indefinitely?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, as we have indicated and as is occurring, the interest rates are continuing to decline because we have been able to get inflation rates down and inflationary expectations.
I know my hon. friend agrees with that. I know that there is a very interesting internal debate going on within the Liberal caucus. I think the hon. member shares the view of the government that we must get the fundamentals and we must get the basics right.
I have not heard one positive suggestion coming from that side of the House; only to spend more money and to drive up interest rates.


Mr. Steven W. Langdon (Essex-Windsor):: Mr. Speaker, the minister suggests that perhaps he was over-enthusiastic.
Let me suggest that the minister has been Mr. Sunshine right from the start on this recession. A month ago he talked about us being on the road to recovery. Two weeks ago he talked about us being on the right track.
Let me ask the minister whether these figures do not show that we in fact have returned to recession which is hurting people right across this country. Will the minister get up and admit that he was wrong? Will he do something to help those thousands of people across this country who have been hurt by the free trade deal and to whom his government promised adjustment assistance help which it has never come through with?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I admitted that I may have been somewhat over-optimistic when I used the words "starting to boom", but I must say I was certainly less optimistic than the IMF, the OECD, the Economic Council of Canada and the Bank of Canada. They are all projecting growth far in excess of what we are projecting in the Ministry of Finance.
In so far as the hon. member's question is concerned, he talks about the free trade. Just the other day I happened to visit Edmonton where the Dow Chemical Company was opening up a new petrochemical centre, a new facility, investing about $600 million with about 700 jobs and $300 million worth of output. The President of Dow said we would not be building this unit here if it were not for free trade.


Steven W. Langdon: The fact is, Mr. Speaker, that Investment Canada, the government's own agency, came out and said this week that investment by foreign firms in this country dropped by $3.9 billion this past year.

My supplementary question is for the Prime Minister. His finance minister announced two months ago that the recession was definitely over. Today, statistics show that the recession is back. Will the Prime Minister change his economic policies or will he change his minister?


Right Hon. Brian Mulroney (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, we do have some indication of that today, but it in no way changes the projections for fairly impressive economic growth next year and the one after. The fact is that interest rates today are at their lowest level in 14 years. For three months, the inflation rate has been at its lowest level since 1971,1 am told, or in the past 20 years. These are very important indications of an impressive lasting recovery for Canada.
Instead of complaining-The hon. member just accused the Minister of Finance of being Mr. Sunshine.



Better Mr. Sunshine than Mr. Rainstorm like you.


Steven W. Langdon: Mr. Speaker, most people when they face a rainstorm would prefer to have an umbrella rather than a pair of sunglasses.
This week the government tried to divert Canadians with the so-called prosperity papers. These figures today show that the recession is still bashing people day after day.
I ask this government: When will the tricks stop? When will the treats start? When will this government start to take seriously the damage that it is imposing on people with its economic policies?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I suppose my reply to the hon. member should be he does not have a ghost of a chance.
The hon. member obviously relishes in the fact that there has been a slight drop in output in the month of August. I indicated in earlier answers that in terms of automobile sales the month of September has seen an increase by about 9 or 10 per cent. In truck sales it is about 17 per cent. Housing starts are up by 19 per cent in the third quarter over the second quarter. The merchandise trade balance has risen by $5.4 billion. There is a $17 billion trade surplus. The hon. member talks about the free trade agreement, investment shifted from a $2.5 billion outflow ion 1988 to a $4.5 billion inflow in 1990. That is what the free trade agreement is all about.
I understand in his own backyard that Chrysler Corporation is opening a third shift for the construction of a mini-van. If Chrysler sees some optimism and prosperity in the future, why doesn't a little bit of that rub off on the hon. member?


Alfonso Gagliano: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Industry, Science and Technology. The consultation exercise proposed by the government last Tuesday is merely a repeat of what has already been done by the Cornell du patronat du Quebec at Rendez-vous economique 91. How can the minister justify spending $20 million to ask the public to
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provide solutions to the economic problems for which he is responsible?


Hon. Bernard Valcourt (Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, I am amazed that the hon. member overlooked the fact how important it is to involve business, the financial community and labour in developing a plan of action that will help us meet the challenges all Canadians will face in a globalized economy.
The hon. member may be appalled by the fact that the government has decided to involve all sectors in this exercise, but we are convinced it is in the best interests of Canada.


Alfonso Gagliano: Mr. Speaker, I don't think the minister understood my question. Rendez-vous economique 91 generated 48 promising job creation projects. Fifty leaders in Quebec managed to do in three days what the minister intends to do in one year, at a cost of $20 million.
Instead of spending millions to consult the public, why doesn't the minister use the recommendations made by Rendez-vous economique 91 and start by revising his monetary policy? That was one of the recommendations.


Bernard Valcourt: Mr. Speaker, I am surprised the hon. member didn't mention the drop in interest rates. I was in Montreal yesterday, and I was talking to the people there, and they were very keen on seeing our monetary policy work, because interest rates have now reached a level that will boost economic growth in Canada and Quebec. Instead of always talking about gloom and doom, I think the hon. member should get up and admit that our fiscal and monetary policy in this country is doing some good and that it will guarantee durable economic growth across Canada.


EDUCATION
Ms. Catherine Callbeck (Malpeque):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Employment and Immigration.
In a document released this week by the government it talks about setting world-class standards in our education system. At the same time the federal government

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has imposed a 3 per cent tax on student loans and a 7 per cent GST on their books.
If the minister were serious about improving our education system, will he make a commitment today to remove those unfair taxes on students?


Bernard Valcourt: Mr. Speaker, I would like to know how the hon. member would answer, what she would say, if the Minister of Industry, Science and Technology and Minister for International Trade and myself announced on behalf of the government that in the next 10 years we are going to invest $400 billion into education. What would she say?


Catherine S. Callbeck: Mr. Speaker, first of all I would ask them to remove those taxes.
This government has not increased student loan allowances since 1984. Tbition fees have increased dramatically because of this government's underfunding. Will the minister admit that it is impossible to achieve these educational standards that are talked about in this report if this government continues its destructive policies, making it difficult for students to afford post-secondary education?


Bernard Valcourt: Mr. Speaker, if that is going to be the contribution of the Liberal Party to the learning challenge of Canadians, so be it.
But let me tell the hon. member and members of this House that Canada is spending at a rate only surpassed by two industrialized countries in the world. The question we have to ask ourselves is that it is not so much the money we threw at the problem the way the Liberals did; it is the results. We are slipping and Canadians are concerned and preoccupied. We should find ways of trying to keep up with the challenge.


NUCLEAR VESSELS
Mr. Jim Fulton (Skeena):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of the Environment. British Columbians are outraged that the cabinet considered, let alone approved, U.S. nuclear submarine rights to Dixon Entrance without first publicly assessing the risks to Canadians.
Since as recently as last month the minister's own department advised the contingency plans for a nuclear submarine accident in Dixon Entrance provide only some assurance, will the minister do what cabinet has approved for him to do, which is to respond to the public concern in British Columbia and appoint an independent panel today to review in public the risks that cabinet have been advised of to date only in private?


Hon. Jean J. Charest (Minister of the Environment):: Mr. Speaker, I welcome this opportunity to clarify a point that the member brought up yesterday. He alluded to the fact that there had been a decision by the court in Kemano on which he draws a parallel for this event.
I respectfully submit that that parallel is not correct in this area. In the case of Kemano, there was an exemption of an environmental assessment review process and the court found differently. That court decision is still before the courts in appeal.
But I would also like to remind the member that the case we are dealing with now is a lot more similar to the Naskapi Montagnais case where in the case of the low-level flying in Labrador the government had proceeded by Order in Council. It had been challenged also and had gone before the courts, and the court had found that the government had proceeded correctly.
A big difference, Mr. Speaker.


James Ross Fulton: My supplementary question is for the same minister, Mr. Speaker.
Yesterday the Secretary of State for External Affairs tried to leave the impression with Canadians that the U.S. nuclear submarine fleet is safe, contrary to the facts, because since 1983 the U.S. nuclear submarine fleet has suffered at least 12 groundings, 50 collisions, 113 fires, 14 on board explosions and 31 on board crew suicides.
Will the minister stop making excuses like he just did about why he has found a loophole and why he is not doing what he is supposed to do and stand up for Canada and stand up for British Columbians and do what he can do legislatively, that is to appoint an independent review panel today to look into the risks that are facing my constituents, British Columbians? Stand up for Canadians for once.


Jean J. Charest: Mr. Speaker, let me add for the benefit of the hon. member that, first, an environmental assessment has

been done of this Order in Council decision consistent with the policy of cabinet that was announced in June of
1990.	That is something that was not done by previous governments. It is a new policy, and that is part of the announcement we made. Second, let us be completely honest about this. The fact of the matter is that the NDP is against NATO, it is against collective defence, it is against anything to do with any co-operation with other countries in the area of defence. Whether there would be an environmental assessment or not has nothing to do with the position of the member for Skeena.


Mr. Jim Peterson (Willowdale):: Mr. Speaker, the minister of industry claims that he must spend over $15 million and delay economic actions for at least a year so that he can find out what Canadians already know.
Will the minister recognize that there are many areas in his prosperity primer where there is consensus where he can act today.


Hon. Michael Wilson (Minister of Industry, Science and Technology and Minister for International TVade):: Mr. Speaker, there may be consensus between my hon. friend and myself as to areas in which we might want to act. I would appreciate it if he would tell us where those areas might be. I think he does think more along our ways than the member for Windsor West or the member for Winnipeg South Centre.
The only point I should make is that we have to work together more to develop the consensus between yourself and Mr. Axworthy and Mr. Gray.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


James Scott (Jim) Peterson: Mr. Speaker, he is really scraping the bottom of the barrel there.
Two days ago, a Toronto manufacturer entered the office of the Program for Export Market Development, PEMD. He sought $1,500 to promote the sale of his product in Europe. He was told: "Sorry, PEMD is out of funds until next April".
Why does this government have over $15 million to spend flogging its prosperity primer but not even $1,500
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to help one of Canada's exporters go head to head in the world market?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I do not wish to get in to the internal machinations of the Liberal caucus, but I do not think he should refer to the ideas of his colleagues as being the bottom of the barrel.


An hon. member:: I think he is right.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. minister should refer to them by their riding names.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, my friend raises a good point. The budget for PEMD, the Program for Export Market Development, is very tight. It is one indication of the veiy positive response of Canadians toward exporting. That is precisely what we are trying to promote in this document that I tabled on Tuesday. We will continue to work on it.
As far as the budget is concerned, we are discussing that to see whether there are ways of stretching that budget more than has been the case because of this tremendous response and the tremendous desire of Canadians to export.


UNEMPLOYMENT
Mr. Maurice Foster (Algoma):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Labour.
A year ago last summer over 2,400 miners in Elliot Lake lost their jobs when the mines shut down. Now their unemployment insurance has run out and they are facing welfare.
The minister has had a report on his desk since the end of August to provide pensions for some 260 older workers under the POWA program.
I want to ask the minister when these pensions are going to be paid? Tomorrow is November 1. These miners do not have UI benefits any more.


Hon. Marcel Danis (Minister of Labour):: Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member knows, the Program for Older Workers Adjustment is one where both levels of government have to authorize the payments.

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We in the federal government have done that and it will be done very shortly by the government of Ontario. I am sure it is not due to any bad faith on anybody's part. It takes a little bit of time. I authorized ours recently and I am sure Mr. MacKenzie will do the same soon.


Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, the minister knows that these workers are in a community where some 15 per cent of the work force is facing welfare this coming winter.
Would the minister be willing to meet later this week with the Ontario Minister of Labour to make an arrangement so that cheques could be sent out next month and these workers will not have to go on welfare as many others face in that community and in that district.


Marcel Danis: Mr. Speaker, I would be ready to meet with the Ontario Minister of Labour at any time he would choose.


CULTURAL IDENTITY
Mr. Lyle Dean MacWilliam (Okanagan-Shuswap):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Communications. Yesterday in committee the president of the CBC warned that any further government cuts would severely harm the CBC's ability to do its job reflecting Canada's cultural identity.
I would like to ask the minister whether he can tell us why he has not replied or responded to the serious funding proposals put forward to him by the CBC. I wonder if he can advise us as to when a final decision on this funding will be made and whether he could advise whether such a decision will in fact involve CBC's request for long-term and stable funding.


Hon. Perrin Beatty (Minister of Communications):: Mr. Speaker, we are very sensitive on this side of the need to ensure that the CBC can discharge the mandate given to it by Parliament.
Unlike members on the other side who daily get up in the House and make dire predictions for the CBC and the requirement for them to close stations and so on, that is not going to take place. The government continues to work with the CBC on the issue of long-term funding and in ensuring that the whole of the broadcasting system in Canada is well managed and is soundly financed.


Lyle Dean MacWilliam: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question also deals with our cultural identity and is directed to the same minister. During Tuesday's committee meeting, the member for North Vancouver mused that not enough Canadians read books to justify federal assistance to the book publishing industry.
Does the minister support his colleague's opinion that federal assistance to Canada's book publishers should be discontinued? Does he agree with his colleague that Canadian publications are just not good enough? Does he not recognize that such-


Mr. Speaker:: I think the hon. member can ask if it is government policy to do something, but I do not think it is in order to ask whether the minister agrees with something that somebody else has said.
The hon. member for Okanagan-Shuswap may wish to put his question directly in an appropriate way.


Lyle Dean MacWilliam: Mr. Speaker, my question in regard to those comments to the minister was simply this. Was the member from North Vancouver speaking for the government when he voiced those particular opinions?


Henry Perrin Beatty: Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member should know, the government has done a great deal in order to support the cultural industries in Canada. It is our full intention to continue to do so.
One of the things which this government did was to bring in systematic parliamentary reform in order to ensure that individual members of Parliament were able to express their personal points of view and to play an important role in the conduct of Parliament.
I might say that in doing that, our members have brought greater distinction to our party and to this Parliament than one of his colleagues did last night.


Garth Turner: Mr. Speaker, the media coverage of the government's competitiveness and prosperity initiative has many Canadians confused as

they witness business people, labour spokespeople, academics and special interest groups making claims and counterclaims.
My question to the Minister for Industry, Science and Technology is this. Will the minister please explain to Mr. and Mrs. Front Porch in my riding what this agenda means to them and how they can participate in it.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I think the principal reason why this is important to people in his riding is because the initiative is designed to review the challenges we have in improving our competitive position and the standard of living of the people in his riding, are related to our competitive position.
Normally when views are sought from Canadians on matters such as this in a normal consultative process, people such as he is referring to do not have an opportunity to feed into the process, to express their views, to get into a dialogue, to discuss the problems and the challenges that we are facing. Since we are going to 175 or 185 communities across the country, people such as my hon. friend is referring to will be able to feed directly into the process and have their views heard.


SOVEREIGNTY-ASSOCIATION
Jean-C. Lapierre: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Right Hon. Prime Minister. Since yesterday, when he had his initial reaction to the excellent report by the Economic Council of Canada, I know that the Prime Minister has tried to play the bogeyman and pretend that there is no question of Canada one day having economic agreements with a sovereign Quebec. My question for the Prime Minister is: Will the 100,000 workers in Ontario who owe their jobs to the $30-billion trade that Ontario has with Quebec be unemployed to punish Quebecers the day after sovereignty is attained?
Oral Questions


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I think that my friend has been overtaken by events. Important events are taking place in Quebec. He is the manager or assistant manager of the Ontario Branch of the PQ, but his big boss made an important revealing statement last night in Montreal. Mr. Parizeau said that in an independent Quebec, Quebecers who wanted to could keep their Canadian citizenship. So Mr. Parizeau is now proposing independence, but keeping the Canadian currency, an economic union with Canada and Canadian citizenship. It may be less costly for Quebecers to remain Canadians.


Jean-C. Lapierre: Mr. Speaker, I wish to ask a supplementary question. I know that the Prime Minister will have fond memories of that great Quebec leader with whom he plotted to get elected in 1984 and 1988 and the Prime Minister cannot deny it.
Can the Prime Minister tell me whether western farmers who sell $750 million worth of beef to Quebec will say that once Quebec is sovereign, they will no longer sell their beef but eat it in the West?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I do not know with whom I plotted in 1984, but I know that my opponent then belonged to the Liberal Party.


TRANSFERS TO THE PROVINCES
André Harvey: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the President of the Treasury Board and concerns transfers to the provinces. Since 1984, when our government held program spending increases to 3.5 per cent, most provinces continued to raise theirs too rapidly. Since then, they must also adjust to economic reality, while trying at times to put the blame on the federal government, with the demagogic help of the opposition parties. To my knowledge, Mr. Speaker, the figures on transfer payments contradict these ridiculous statements and I would like to have them confirmed by the President of the Treasury Board, especially with respect to programs like equalization, Established Program Financing and the Canada Assistance Plan.


Gilles Loiselle: Mr. Speaker, although the government has striven since 1984-85 to reduce public spending, it has always made a point of remaining sensitive to the needs of the provinces and, as evidence of that, I would mention that since 1984-85, the principal

October 31, 1991
Oral Questions
transfers to the provinces have risen 40 per cent, or over 6 per cent a year. Established Program Financing, for example, has gone from $14,500 billion in 1984-85 to $20,368 billion this year; equalization, from $5,422 billion to $8,115 billion this year. Finally, Mr. Speaker, public services and other transfers have risen from $6 billion under the Liberals to $9 billion this year. That is steady growth.


IMMIGRATION
Mr. Tom Wappel (Scarborough West):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the minister of immigration. It was reported last week that the minister intends to further restrict family class immigration. Unlike some members on the other side, I do not treat as gospel what is reported in the media.
I ask, not a reporter but the minister himself, a novel idea: What is he planning respecting family class immigration?


Bernard Valcourt: Mr. Speaker, speaking of novel ideas, one thing is it is all right-


An hon. member:: Family class.


Bernard Valcourt: Yes, family class is coming. One sure thing, we will not put them in refugee camps.


Thomas (Tom) William Wappel: Mr. Speaker, if people's actions were judged by what was reported in the media, the minister might not be a minister.
Last year the previous minister delivered the annual report on October 25 and announced the five year plan with great fanfare. This year the minister will wait until the last possible minute on the last possible day to deliver his report. We are dealing with people's lives here.
Why the delay? Is the news that bad?


Bernard Valcourt: Mr. Speaker, the news is maybe not that bad but it would be better if he stood in this House and dissociated himself openly with that report which I believe really exists.
Last year we indicated that there would be restrictions on the family class because that class had mushroomed. What we want to ensure is that the family, as we know it, is reunited in Canada. When the regulations come out
the hon. member will thank us for not interning them and for making the family class eligible to come to Canada.


JUSTICE
Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister. Last night the CBC informed us that Mr. Frank Majeau, a close friend of former minister Roch LaSalle, attempted in 1979 to receive a bribe from the McDonnell Douglas aircraft manufacturer for the awarding of a government contract. McDonnell Douglas has confirmed this fact.
When did the Prime Minister find out about this situation and did he know it when Mr. Frank Majeau was appointed as an assistant to a member of his cabinet, namely Roch LaSalle?


Hon. Doug Lewis (Solicitor General of Canada):: Mr. Speaker, the matter is under review by the RCMP and the government is not in a position to comment.


Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is for the Solicitor General. According to the same report, an officer of the RCMP's Montreal office accompanied Frank Majeau to St. Louis, Missouri when Mr. Majeau tried to get bribes from McDonnell Douglas for a government contract. Can the minister tell us who this agent is? Was he on duty? And especially, is he still a member of the RCMP?


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, as I said in English, there is an investigation. The government cannot comment.


FISHERIES
David Stupich: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Employment and Immigration.
Today the labour and employment subcommittee passed a motion recommending reinstatement of the emergency response fisheries program for fishing industry workers in B.C. The motion from the all-party committee also urged the Minister of Employment and Immigration and the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans to
October 31, 1991

co-ordinate their efforts to ensure the earliest possible delivery of this program.
Has the minister decided to support reinstatement of the emergency response fishery program for B.C. fishing industry workers?


Bernard Valcourt: Mr. Speaker, I sympathize with the plight of all Canadians who work in the fishery.
I will be contacting my colleague, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, who is responsible for the management of the resource. Together we will look at the situation of the fishery in British Columbia and then decide what form of action is required.


David Stupich: Mr. Speaker, I think the minister recognizes that the problem was created by the government when it changed UI legislation to require more weeks of work.
On the other hand it controls the harvesting of the resource and shortened the fishing season. Really the government is responsible. I hope that the answer is positive and that the minister recognizes the importance of an early reaction and gives it soon.


Mr. Ross Belsher (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and Minister for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to remind the hon. member that the emergency response feature is mainly for catch failure. There has not been a catch failure in British Columbia's fisheries.
The herring roe and the salmon catch has been as high or higher than the average of the last five years.
Nowadays there is a tremendous compression of the catching as a result of the change of gear and the ability of fishermen to move around. The catch is as high as it has been but is much more compressed. That is causing structural changes which are taking place in the industry.


Mr. Speaker:: I must ask the indulgence of the House for a moment. It being 3 p.m. it is my duty, pursuant to the order made earlier this day, to direct the hon. member for Port Moody-Coquitlam to proceed to the bar of the House. I would ask for absolute order for the next few minutes.
House of Commons HOUSE OF COMMONS


MEMBER FOR PORT MOODY-COQUITLAM
Mr. Speaker:: Mr. Waddell, you stand at the bar of the House because your peers have decided that the conduct you displayed in the House on Wednesday, October 30, 1991 offended the privileges of the House of Commons of Canada.
Just before adjournment and shortly after eight o'clock p.m. you were given the floor on a point of order. After your intervention the Deputy Speaker made a ruling on your point of order and proceeded to adjourn the House in conformity with the Standing Orders whereupon you left your seat in breach of our conventions, interfered with the Sergeant-at-Arms, an officer of the House, and you physically attempted to prevent the Mace from leaving the Chamber.
The Sergeant-at-Arms is a servant of this House and acts under the authority of the Speaker. The Mace is the symbol which embodies not only the authority of the House but its privileges as well.
The special privileges that members of the House of Commons enjoy are part of the constitutional law of Canada. Freedom of speech is one of the most revered of these privileges. However, with that privilege comes the responsibility to use it wisely and for the good of Canada.
It is not a licence to say whatever one wishes under all circumstances, or permission to disregard the rules of the House or the common practices of civility.
There is little doubt that the incident of last evening is one which all members regret. In your statement to the House earlier you expressed your personal regret and apologized to the House.
Nevertheless because of the seriousness of your action the House has chosen to agree to the motion directing me to reprimand you. You have been duly elected a member of this House. It is incumbent upon you to represent your constituents and to fulfil your duties and obligations as a member. In honouring those onerous obligations it is essential that you always respect this institution and its rules and practices.
The House of Commons can only function when its dignity is upheld by all members and its rules followed. That you disregarded the rules and practices of this place and the authority of the Speaker is a matter of grave

October 31, 1991
Privilege
concern to this House and to all who cherish and respect this institution.
As Speaker of the House, and upon its instructions, I therefore reprimand you as guilty of a breach of privilege and of a gross contempt of the House.
The hon. member may retake his seat.


BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, may we have an outline of the business for the next week?


Hon. Harvie Andre (Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons):: It is my
intention tomorrow to call Bill C-22, the bankruptcy legislation, for completion at second reading.
Hopefully we will have completed Bill C-12 this afternoon but if that is not the case, we will proceed with C-12 tomorrow.
On Monday it is my intention to call Bill C-36, dealing with the conditional release of prisoners, to begin and hopefully complete its second reading stage.
On Thesday and Wednesday of next week it is my intention to call for report stage and hopefully completion of report stage and commencement of third reading of Bill C-17, dealing with firearms.
On Thursday, November 7 it is my intention to call Bill C-31, the Extradition Act, the act to make our extradition procedures more efficient, and to complete third reading on Bill C-17 at that time should it be necessary. I will have the usual consultations with House leaders with respect to Friday of next week.


PRIVILEGE
James Ross Fulton: Mr. Speaker, my question of privilege arises from Question Period. When you have the opportunity to review the "blues" from the first answer of the hon. Minister of the Environment, I believe that you will find that there is in fact a prima facie
case not of debate but of the minister presenting information contrary to the facts. That might be described as an intention to mislead the House.
The reason that I say that is there is a memorandum from the Director General of Operations of the Federal Environment Assessment Review Program office to the minister which has two sentences completely contrary to the facts that the Minister of the Environment placed before the House during Question Period. I quote them: "If approval is sought from the Governor in Council it will be seen as an effort to bypass the EARP, it could lead to a legal challenge similar to that mounted against the exemption order for the Kemano completion project in British Columbia. Given that a Governor in Council decision is soon going to be announced regarding the transit of nuclear submarines through Dixon Entrance, the issuance of another Order in Council for a similar activity on the west coast could draw undue attention to the use of this technique to avoid the application of the EARP".
That was provided to the minister. It is now a public document. Mr. Speaker, I believe that you will see that there is a prima facie case that what the minister said about the Kemano court ruling of May 14, 1991 is not sustained by the facts.


QUESTION PERIOD
Bill Attewell: Mr. Speaker, this point also deals with Question Period.
I think one of my privileges should be to ask a question. In 45 minutes we on this side of the House were only permitted two questions, and as well the procedure is that we cannot even ask a supplementary. Surely it is not asking too much of the Speaker to allow this side to ask at least three questions.


David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, to facilitate his particular objective perhaps the hon. member could have conversations with the government House leader and the parliamentary secretary and then the matter could be raised at a House leaders' meeting and we could extend, for the benefit of all and with the consent of all, the length of Question Period to accommodate the hon. member.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, with regard to my hon. friend's intervention I would like to
October 31, 1991

join many others in suggesting that there are many questions that ought to be put to the government. A way to maximize the number of parliamentarians with access to Question Period would be to extend it for half an hour each day.
I would like to go on record and join my colleague from the Official Opposition and say that we would enthusiastically join with the Official Opposition in supporting this proposal to make this place more democratic.


Bill Attewell: Mr. Speaker, my question had the greatest urgency. It needs to be answered by tomorrow. It concerns 400 refugees in New Delhi. I wanted to ask the minister an urgent question about that.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Order, please.
It is not the first time that question has been raised in this House.

We have a House Management Committee, and if the hon. member wishes to make representations, I am sure that both sides of the House would be very interested in improving the Standing Orders, if necessary.


James Ross Fulton: Mr. Speaker, I would like to hear from you when you might come back before the House regarding the privilege I have raised. I believe it is a prima facie case. I am prepared to move the necessary motion to refer it to committee but I would certainly appreciate learning when you will come back from reviewing the "blues" and determining what the minister said and what the facts really are.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: The Chair will take the question raised several minutes ago under advisement, and if there is a genuine question of privilege, the Chair will announce its decision as soon as possible. Thank you for your co-operation.
Government Orders



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of Bill C-12, an act to amend the Young Offenders Act and the Criminal Code, as reported (with amendments) from a legislative; and the motion of Ms. Campbell (Vancouver Centre) (p. ); and the motion of Mr. Waddell (p. ).
Rob Nicholson: Mr. Speaker, I believe we voted on 4A just before one o'clock. The clerk is shaking his head. You are quite right, one member did indicate that he wanted to say a few words about it. I do not see him in the House right now.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: There has been no vote yet on motions Nos. 4A and 7. Resuming debate.

Resuming debate on motions nos. 4A and 7.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I want to make some comments regarding these particular amendments. Perhaps I can use this as an opportunity to ask members of Parliament, as we debate this important piece of legislation, from time to time to cast their minds back to the reason for these discussions.
We are trying to find ways and means to make the Young Offenders Act more appropriate.
While we must do this some time or another, we have to spend time in this House asking why these young people are getting into trouble in the first place. We are dealing with the situation after the fact. Of course we have to do that. However, at some time we have to make a much greater effort to ask ourselves if there are initiatives we could take as Parliamentarians and new policies that we could urge the government to take that would result in fewer young people getting into difficulty with the law in the first place.

October 31, 1991
Government Orders
All too often we spend time discussing situations after they happen. How do we assist a business after it is nearing the stage of bankruptcy? How do we assist a region after it is in a state of economic decay?
Once again this provides us with a reminder that while this must be done-important interventions by various members have already been made today-let us provide an opportunity to identify ways and means to initiate policies and legislation to encourage young people to not participate in illegal activities and get into trouble so that they may have a more fulfilling life that makes sense to them and contribute to society as positive citizens rather than being waylayed by behaviour that is unacceptable.


Mr. Jack Whittaker (Okanagan - Similkameen-Merritt):: Mr. Speaker, I just want to make a brief intervention with respect to the Young Offenders Act and some of the things we have been dealing with, not only with the amendments themselves but the over-all act.
The incarceration clauses and some of what has come before us show that there is a movement in my riding of Okanagan-Similkameen-Merritt	and throughout
much of the country to examine the problem of youthful offenders, to examine in what situations they should be incarcerated, the rehabilitation provisions and how to best work with young people who have been misguided.
In doing that I think we have examine not just the severity of the offence. As the member for Port Moody- Coquitlam has pointed out it is so easy to raise children into adult court, with all that comes with that such as the incarceration, the conviction and the time limits. That is a major problem. People are saying: "If there is the crime, the punishment must be suited to the crime".
There is another perspective on this, and I think the member alluded to it in his earlier talk on the incarceration provisions, that perhaps we should be looking at the Young Offenders Act and punishing young offenders as youths and making the punishment more fitting within the Young Offenders Act to the crime. This should be done because of the circumstances of for example a 16 or 17 year old child who may well know the ramifications of his or her actions entering into a crime but still being
young, foolish and impressionable, not looking at the end result of what is going to occur to them with respect to robbery with violence, 10 years imprisonment; second degree murder, 25 years with a minimum 10 years without ability to be paroled, or first degree murder provisions being life imprisonment with a minimum of 25 years.
This is pretty serious stuff when we are looking at a 16 or 17 year old. Yet I cannot disagree certainly with many of my constituents and many others who say the punishment must be more fitting to the crime. I think perhaps this is the area that we should be looking at, the provision of strengthening within the Young Offenders Act the penalty provisions.
Those are the words that I would like to say at this juncture.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to agree with these government amendments. The amendment was very much like my amendment. I also want to tell my mother I still have my head on here so that I can speak.
Anyway, the amendment 4A is very much like the amendment I proposed and I am pleased that the government has really looked into this in some depth and that the government has moved on this. I congratulate the parliamentary secretary. It may have helped that the Prime Minister went to New York and chaired a committee of the United Nations and ran smack into the middle of some United Nations rules on this very subject. As a matter of fact, those rules I speak about are the United Nations standard minimum rules for the administration of juvenile justice and at the United Nations Convention of the Rights of a Child, of which Canada, and I congratulate the government again on this, was one of the leading advocates, promised to ratify this by the end of this year.
I just want to quote from the brief of the Canadian Bar Association to our committee. The Bar Association said:
Detention of young offenders in adult institutions appears to
violate the new United Nations Convention on the Rights of the
Child, which Canada proposes to ratify in the near future.
Article 37 of the convention contains the following provision:

(c)	Every child deprived of liberty shall be treated with humanity and respect for the inherent dignity of the human person in a manner which takes into account the needs of persons of his or her age. In particular, every child deprived of liberty shall be separated from adults unless it is considered in the child's best interest not to do so.
I quote again from the United Nations rules from the so-called Beijing rules, rule 13.4:
Juveniles under detention pending trial shall be kept separate from adults and shall be detained in a separate institution or in a separate part of an institution also holding adults.
And more broadly, rule 26.3:
Juveniles in institutions shall be kept separate from adults, shall be detained in a separate institution or in a separate part of the institution also holding adults.
The hon. member for Esquimau-Juan de Fuca spoke earlier in the debate some months ago when we were debating the Young Offenders Act. He had experience not only as being a premier of a province but as a social worker and a court worker, and so on, and many of my colleagues have this. What all the probation officers and court workers will tell you is that if you take a 16 year old kid and you put him or her into an adult jail and literally, if I can be so crude, they end up getting raped and getting assaulted within days, sometimes within minutes, you will never after that experience really change that person properly.
I congratulate the government.
I am glad the Prime Minister and his government saw the light of their own speeches in the United Nations if I might say. Nevertheless, it is done and I would be pleased to now end the debate on this and to support that amendment.
I understand if this amendment goes, there is no necessity for my own amendment on this matter and I would accept that.


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


Some hon. members:: Question.
Government Orders


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt motion No. 4A?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.
Motion No. 4A agreed to.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: And by the same token, motion No. 7 is also carried, if I am not mistaken.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Mr. Speaker, I would suggest that be withdrawn because it would be redundant. We would not pass both of them.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: You are right. Thank you.

The House will therefore proceed to consideration of motions Nos. 8 and 9, which have been grouped together for debate.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Motion No. 8
That Bill C-12 be amended in Clause 3
(a)	by striking out lines 31 and 32 at page 4 and substituting the following therefor:
"other than the dispositions referred to in paragraphs (fc.l) or (k.2), or any number thereof that are";
(b)	by striking out line 34 at page 4 and substituting the following therefor:
"the offence is first";
(c)	by striking out lines 38 and 39 at page 4 and substituting the following therefor:
"{k. 1), and where the offence is second degree murder within the meaning of section 231 of the Criminal Code, the court shall make the disposition referred to in paragraph (k.2).";
(d)	by striking out lines 46 to 48 at page 4 and substituting the following therefor:
"(fc.l) in the case of first degree murder, order the young person to serve a disposition not to exceed seven years comprised of";
(e)	by striking out line 4 at page 5 and substituting the following therefor:
"five years from the date of committal,"; if) by adding immediately after line 9 at page 5, the following:
"(k.2) in the case of second degree murder, order the young person to serve a disposition not to exceed five years comprised of
(i)	a committal to custody, to be served continuously or intermittently, for a period that shall not exceed three years from the date of committal; and
(ii)	a placement under conditional supervision to be served in the community in accordance with section 26.2; and";


Russell Gregoire MacLellan: ;
Motion No. 9
That Bill C-12 be amended in Clause 3
(a)	by striking out lines 46 to 48 at page 4 and substituting the following therefor:
"(k.1) in the case of first degree murder, order the young person to serve a disposition not to exceed ten years comprised of";
(b)	by striking out line 4 at page 5 and substituting the following therefor:
"seven years from the date of committal";
(c)	by adding immediately after line 9, at page 5, the following:
"(k.2) in the case of second degree murder, order the young person to serve a disposition not to exceed seven years comprised of
(i)	a committal to custody, to be served continuously for a period that shall not exceed five years from the date of committal; and
(ii)	a placement under conditional supervision to be served in the community in accordance with section 26.2; and";
(d)	by striking out lines 28 to 34 at page 5, and substituting the following therefor:
"not exceed five years, except where one of those offences is
(a)	first degree murder within the meaning of section 231 of the Criminal Code, in which case the continuous combined duration of those dispositions shall not exceed ten years; and
(b)	second degree murder within the meaning of section 231 of the Criminal Code, in which case the continuous combined duration of those dispositions shall not exceed seven years.";
(e)	by striking out lines 39 to 46 at page 5, and substituting the following therefor:
"sitions may exceed five years, except where the offence is, or one of the previous offences was, first degree murder within the meaning of section 231 of the Criminal Code, in which case the continuous combined duration of the disposition may exceed ten years.";
(f)	by adding after line 46 at page 5 the following:
"(c. 1) the combined duration of all the dispositions may exceed five years, except where the offence is, or one of the previous offences was, second degree murder within the meaning of section 231 of the Criminal Code, in which case the continuous combined duration of the dispositions may exceed seven years."


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: The debate is on motion No. 8 and motion No. 9.


Russell Gregoire MacLellan: Mr. Speaker, as you have stated correctly, I sponsored motion No. 9 which is quite similar to motion No. 8 presented by my friend, the member for Port Moody-Coquitlam.
I will speak to my motion, motion No. 9, because I feel that is the motion that best reflects the concerns of this party. The concern is that this bill just does not do anything to correct the problem of youth crime in this country.
As I stated earlier, with respect to the offender, the offender under this act is not getting rehabilitation, counselling, training, except when the young offender is

October 31, 1991

waiting for the disposition of the question of whether he or she will be in youth court or adult court.
The young offender is going to be housed quite likely, particularly if there is sentence from an adult court, in an adult institution and subject to sexual and physical abuse by senior inmates of that institution, and will be subject to learn more about the criminal how-to-do than really that person should be learning.
We are not helping the situation. We are not looking at the individual. That individual is going to come back and is going to be subject again to the temptations of crime.
With the additional knowledge, I think we are likely to see a rise in the rate of recidivism in most of these situations in which that person will wind up breaking the law again and going back into the institutions.
That is one concern this bill totally fails to address. The other question is: Is it protecting society? Is it protecting individual Canadians? Right now there are a tremendous number of complaints about the Young Offenders Act. I remember when we had this bill, which was then named Bill C-58 before we entered into a new session and it was renumbered Bill C-12. This goes back to December. So the government has had a long time, nine months, of complete inactivity on this bill to bring it up to date, but has chosen to do nothing except bring forward motion 4A which protected its political neck with respect to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
We had a witness, Mr. Maurice Rose, whose son was killed by a young offender on public transportation in the city of Montreal. He had applied to see the minister. The minister would not see him. He presented his case before the committee and he has circulated a petition throughout this country. He has on that petition now
800,000	signatures of people of Canada as to the inadequacy of the Young Offenders Act to deal with the problems of youth crime in our country today, particularly in the urban areas.
This has to be addressed. Certainly we want rehabilitation. We want counselling and we want training for the offenders. We want assurances that the public is going to be protected. What our party is recommending is that the length of the sentences be increased to allow for parole, to allow for an adequate period of time for counsellors to deal with the problems of these young
Government Orders
offenders so that they will be able to receive help and so they will not come back in to society more bewildered, more apprehensive and more bitter than before they went into our institutions. Hopefully then they will not again be recidivist statistics, they will not be committing further crimes and coming back into these institutions.
We need these additional periods of time, first of all so that the young people realize that these crimes they are committing are not jokes. These are not childish pranks they are doing. They must know that they cannot thumb their nose at authorities, particularly law enforcement authorities. There will be the period of time, even taking into consideration parole, for these young people to receive the instruction and the counselling and the rehabilitation that they need.
It is absolutely vital that this period of time be increased. It is a question of doing the job in this case. It is a question of whether this act is going to be relevant or whether it is not going to be relevant. Unless we have adequate periods of incarceration, this act is not going to be relevant.
What we are seeing now, and the most diabolical and most frightening aspect of youth crime, is that it is now a front for organized crime. Organized crime members are intentionally using young people under the age of 18 because they know they are not going to receive a long sentence if they are caught, and that if they are caught and receive a sentence, their parole possibilities are tremendous so that they will be out on the street in just a few months.
This has got to be stopped. We have to stop organized crime members from using our young people for their own insidious and damaging purposes as far as our society is concerned. Unless we are going to be realistic about the terms of incarceration, organized crime is going to continue to take advantage of our youth and our society as a whole.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Mr. Speaker, I would like to speak on this amendment of my friend from Cape Breton and on my own amendment which is grouped with this. Let me just set the context for the House and for the Chair.
What the government is doing is making it easier to transfer people to the adult court. It is making some changes in the bill that we have agreed on in terms of where people are incarcerated and in terms of probation and so on. The big difference between the opposition and the government is that the opposition is saying:

October 31, 1991
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"Treat children as children and keep them in the juvenile system".
As my friend from Cape Breton said, people are going to say: "That is fine, but the sentences are too light". We are saying: "You're right, so let's make the sentences tougher in the juvenile system". There is the difference. We want to keep the children in the juvenile system, not in the adult jails which are schools for criminals for these young people. We should simply deal with them in the juvenile system, but hit them in the juvenile system. When we have these offences, the young people should have to pay the penalty. I differ from my friend from Cape Breton who spoke last. I adopt a different sentencing procedure from his. I think his is excessively harsh, if I might say. I think this one would be preferable. I call it the three, five, seven option. As I said, we do recognize that they should be held accountable for their actions. Three years, in the case of some offences like murder and so on, may sometimes be insufficient for treatment. Some crimes require a strong response and the public believes three years to be an inadequate response to certain crimes. It is in the community's interest to ensure the best available treatment to youths. Young offenders will still have the benefit of the Young Offenders Act special presentations.
My amendment introduces a sentence which could be, for some crimes, three years and for others five years and for others seven years. But all within the juvenile system.
Overly long incarceration makes institutionalized young people, and we think it works against community integration, against the community's interest in the long run. That was told to us at the committee by the Canadian Foundation for Children, Youth and the Law. I draw your attention, Mr. Speaker, to the legislative committee on what was then Bill C-58 and now is Bill C-12, page 4:7 in the committee proceedings.
The second reason is that we recognize the need for a strong response, but we must place it in the context of a need for vigorous emphasis on eradicating the roots of criminal behaviour. Child abuse, poverty and learning disabilities are the things to attack. Those are the areas where we can really stop juvenile crime.
As the member for Cape Breton-The Sydneys said, when we have adults using juveniles to commit crime,
then we have got to punish those juveniles, and harshly, but within the juvenile system.
The third reason is that seven years as opposed to a 10 year maximum proposed by my friend is already a very long time for a young offender. As the Criminal Lawyers Association and the Ontario Social Development Council pointed out, it represents half the life of a 14 year old, which is the threshold age at which a youth may be transferred to adult court. If you transfer them at 14 and give them 10 years, they will be spending half their life in jail.
In the adult court system, seven years is the first date for parole consideration in a case where an adult is serving a life sentence. Moreover, seven years in the youth court system is seven years to the day. There are no earned remissions. Seven years means seven years, unlike the adult system.
Finally, psychiatrists working in the field of youth justice say that five to seven years is sufficient framework to treat the most serious cases which come into the young offender system. If you do not get them then in that five to seven years, you will never get them.
Let me sum up by saying that I see what the member for Cape Breton-The Sydneys is trying to do. We are on the same side. My amendments I think follow a little more on what the witnesses were saying at committee and it is a little less harsh. In any case, I would be prepared to accept either one. I think that has to be put in there, as opposed to the government system, which is just to put them in the adult system. I think that creates more criminals. Let us hit them hard while they are still juveniles.


Rob Nicholson: Mr. Speaker, I would like to say a few words about both these amendments.
With respect to the hon. member for Cape Breton- The Sydneys, I am not quite sure from which direction he is coming on this. He talked at one point about the necessity of increasing the penalties. He talked about the problem of organized crime. He made comments to the effect that people involved with organized crime know how young people will be dealt with in the youth system.
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I am not quite sure what the upshot is of all his comments.
I think a few things should be very clear about the amendments from both the New Democrats and the Liberal Party, very clear in relationship to this and where they have been coming from on all these motions.
The first point I would like to make is that the Liberal Party member does not want any transfer available to ordinary courts. He is nodding his head and so I have that right. There would be no transfer. A completely separate juvenile justice system is what he is calling for.
He would probably remember the controversy surrounding the implementation of the Young Offenders Act. There would be overwhelming pressure from a lot of Canadians who would be quite concerned about the fact that there was no longer available a transfer to ordinary court, that 16 and 17 year olds who may commit very serious crimes will remain in the youth system. I can tell him that there would be considerable pressure from across this country to lower the age back to what it was under the Juvenile Delinquents Act.
As far as I know it was his party, as well as other political parties here, which were in favour of raising the age. I can tell them there would be considerable pressure to move that down if we abolish the transfer.
At the same time he indicates that he wants tougher penalties. I think anybody listening carefully to this debate would get confused and believe that somehow if we adopted the Liberal amendment that we in fact might have people liable for longer sentences.


Mr. Horner:: Or the NDP amendment.


Rob Nicholson: Or if we adopted the NDP amendment. They talk about young people paying the penalty, then they want something considerably less than what the government is proposing.
I should say that in terms of protection of the public and the incarceration provisions, I do not think they are at odds with the rehabilitation of the young person. I think the protection of the public and the rehabilitation of the young person go hand in hand. The protection of society involves making sure these individuals are not repeating their crime.
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Getting back to this whole level of increased penalties, I thought I heard the member for Cape Breton-The Sydneys say that that is not the case. Under the law that the government is proposing, there is a transfer provision. Let us take the most serious case, that of murder. It is the one that gets a lot of publicity. It is the one that offends the most people, I would guess, those who write to members of Parliament.
When they talk about the Young Offenders Act they are often talking about individuals, a 17 year old for instance, who commits murder. Under the Liberal system the penalties would be increased in youth court to a maximum of 10 years and a maximum custodial sentence of seven years. That is their increased penalties.
The bill itself says that if that individual under the new transfer provisions is transferred to ordinary court, he or she is liable to life imprisonment. I find it difficult to reconcile talk that I have heard about the NDP wanting to get tough with the youth crime and the Liberals wanting to increase penalties. I cannot reconcile their amendments with what the bill actually says. The bill says that an individual transferred to ordinary court who has committed first degree, premeditated murder, is liable for life. That is what the bill says.
I would suggest to hon. members of this House that this is in line with provincial attorneys general, police officers, people who work with individuals in this area and the great Canadian public. This is what they are saying. They think something like this is reasonable.
One of the things that is an improvement is that the parole provisions have been changed. They are five and 10 years under the government's bill. There is a possibility of parole, but nonetheless for that most serious of all crimes in society, the maximum penalty under this bill is life. I would suggest that there is a little more to the story than what hon. members in the opposition are saying, that somehow we are increasing penalties when in fact the maximum penalty for the most serious crime in society is considerably less than in the existing bill.
The upshot of both of these motions is to kill the thrust of the government's bill which was to clarify the transfer provisions. These say basically that we are to try to reconcile and co-ordinate the interests of the young person with the protection of society. However we make

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it clear in this bill where that cannot be done, where the protection of the public is paramount.
Both opposition parties do not want to see that in there. I can say that that position is at odds with what Canadians want and what Canadians have been telling us about the Young Offenders Act. I hope that this House has the good sense to turn down both these motions.


Mr. George S. Rideout (Moncton):: Mr. Speaker, I think that as we take a look at this legislation and the very progressive amendments which have been put forward by the opposition parties, we realize that what is at issue here is not the goal, but the methodology. Quite frankly, the government's methodology is to take young people and transfer them into the adult system and let them be treated by the adult system.
I listened to the parliamentary secretary who made the point about somebody who commits a premeditated murder. He doesn't get the same penalties under the young offenders legislation, but if he goes into the adult system he would get a life sentence. This could be anywhere from 20 to 25 years, if you wish. You are taking somebody who is 15, 16 or 17, and then putting them back out on the street after 20 years. What you have then is a 35 year old person who has been abused by the system for 20 years and he or she is probably going to recommit.
I think what we are saying is that we want to try to find a different method. We feel that the basic approach is one of keeping youth out of the adult system. In that system, you are in effect saying that there is a failure. We are abrogating our responsibilities by putting them in the adult system and leaving them for the maximum period of time that we can get.
We realize on this side that there is a problem. I just have to quote the recent statistics that were in the media. Violence by youths rose by 34 per cent over four years:
The number of youths in court charged with violent crimes has increased a staggering 34 per cent in the past four years, Statistics Canada reports.
The figures released yesterday show that violence-related cases among youths aged 12 to 17, including homicides, robberies and sexual assaults, are up from 1986-87, when statistics were first collected.
It went on to point out that the report showed that more than 60,000 youth court cases were heard in
Canada in 1990-91. In 9,013 of these, the principle charge was of a violent offence, in most cases assault, followed by possession or use of weapons and then robbery. There is no question that we have a problem. It is in the way of trying to find the solution to that problem that we differ with the government.
What this legislation does is make it easier for youths to transfer and end up in the adult system. More than likely we are going to destroy youths by putting them in that system.
At the same time, in trying to find the right balance, we agree that there should be increases in sentences. We believe that there are problems in the legislation, that they have not worked properly and that some youths look at being caught under the youth offender situation as a joke. You can talk to police officers who will tell you that you can almost set your watch as far as break and enters are concerned. This is because there are gangs of youths who get involved in break and enters, they get a light sentence of six months or something like that in a community home and they are back on the streets causing the same problems again.
We acknowledge that is a problem and that is why we on this side have suggested keeping them in the youth system, but increasing the penalties. Let the youths realize that they are going to pay for the crimes that they commit and that payment is going to be in time, their time. At the same time we believe there has to be a commitment to rehabilitation and, for want of a better word, to treatment for these individuals. We have to structure the system so that we are trying to salvage the youth in our communities rather than sending them off to university by sending them off to prison. That to us is not effective. It will create a situation in 10, 15 or 20 years where we will have some very highly trained criminals who have spent years and years in the adult system so that they are so-called university trained criminals. They will be very good at it when they are back out on the street.
We on this side are looking for is a solution to the problem. Youth have to pay for their crimes, but at the same time when we look at the causes of youth resorting to crime we as society have an obligation to them to make sure that they are not penalized by the system and

that they do receive help so that they can extricate themselves from that terrible situation of crime.
We would urge members opposite to see the wisdom of this far thinking and far-sighted amendment. They should adopt this progressive piece of legislation.


James Capsey (Jim) Karpoff: Mr. Speaker, I find it quite interesting how people seem to talk about this matter with a great deal of confusion. They interchange words like "punishment", "rehabilitation" and "treatment", as if they are all the same thing. I really think we have to start looking at what our court system and our penal system do.
I used to have a professor in criminology many years ago who said that if we set out to design a penal system and a court system that would guarantee hardened criminals, we could not have done anything better than what we have done in Canada with our jails and our federal penitentiaries. We could not have done anything better to guarantee hardened, life-long criminals.
Let us not talk about transferring of juveniles and sentencing them to adult penitentiaries in the same breath that we talk about rehabilitation treatment. That is just so much malarkey. I wonder how many members in this facility have actually visited places like the old B.C. penitentiary or Kent Institution or Matsqui and have talked to inmates, particularly inmates who are young and vulnerable in that population, about what has happened to them. Did the the fact that they were raped contribute to their rehabilitation? Did the fact that they were abused by other inmates contribute to their treatment? Did the fact that they were manipulated by guards and correctional staff contribute to them becoming responsible adults?
We have to make a fundamental decision in this country. We on this side are saying that youth must be protected from the ravages of adult correctional facilities. Therefore we oppose transferring them, but we are saying that we should give the judges more options based on the ability and need to treat this person. We may not be able to provide treatment in less than three years or five years or seven years.
Who are these kids that we are talking about? There has been repeated documentation indicating that a percentage of these kids are offenders who have come
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from abusive homes, have been abused themselves, have failed in educational facilities, have learning disabilities and have psychiatric and emotional problems. We need time to provide treatment, but not treatment in a federal penitentiary. It should be treatment in a juvenile facility.
This is why I support my colleague's amendment which addresses periods of three, five or seven years based not only on the seriousness of the offence but on the seriousness of the youth's problems. That is a concept that somehow in all of this is being abandoned. What we are talking about is treatment and rehabilitation. That takes time. With some children their backgrounds are such that they have difficulty functioning in a community on a constructive basis.
I cannot help but comment on a remark that a lot of juveniles are being used in organized crimes because organized crime knows that they are not going to get lengthy sentences. For anybody so naive as to think that if we increase juvenile sentences organized crime is going to stop using them is nonsense.
I have worked on the streets of Vancouver where organized crime does not give a dang-I could use stronger language-about the fact that its exploiting 14 or 15 year old girls. It does not care that those youths are in danger of a long sentence of four, five or ten years. Those youth are endangering their lives from drug addiction, from being put at jeopardy with violent johns. Organized crime does not care. These kids are expendable.
If you think you are going to solve the problem of organized crime by increasing the penalties for juveniles, you must never have been involved with criminal behaviour in this country.


An hon. member:: Have you ever said that?


James Capsey (Jim) Karpoff: The member asks: "Have you ever said that?" That was one of the arguments used for increasing the penalties, that it would stop organized crime from using youth. That argument has no bearing on it. We must have the ability to provide treatment, rehabilitation and education for youth at appropriate times and for appropriate lengths of times in youth facilities.
I commend my colleague from Port Moody-Coquitlam for his amendments. I think they are based on the

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concept that we must provide appropriate treatment for these youth over a longer period of time.
There has been a lot of talk about murder. Murder is always the most difficult. We assume right away that because it is murder the youth is most dangerous to society and to himself. That is not necessarily so. Murder involving juveniles amounts to one-fortieth of one per cent of youth coming before juvenile or youth court. I do not thing that we should be designing laws and transfers and penal institutions based on one-fortieth of one per cent.


Mr. Dennis Mills (Broadview-Greenwood):: Mr. Speaker, I want to continue along the same theme as my colleague from Moncton and the member for Cape Breton-The Sydneys.
We have found in my riding in downtown Toronto, Broadview-Greenwood, as in every other region of the country, that since this first Young Offenders Act was passed youth crime has doubled. As some members have said earlier, organized crime is now using the refuge of the Young Offenders Act to promote their dealings, especially in the area of drugs. I think it is really important that the government, in its review of this act, really takes some of these amendments seriously. The ability and the understanding of youth today with regard to this Young Offenders Act are so sophisticated that we are actually shackling the hands of our police forces. They do not feel that they can really develop any kind of an honest program of rehabilitation or even crime control because the youth use the refuge of this Young Offenders Act. The youth use this refuge and the criminal element is exacerbating the situation by adding to the numbers of people involved in youth crime because of its excessive support.
Any sort of review or any amendment to this act that does not take that reality into consideration is really avoiding or not listening to the advice of our police forces from coast to coast. We are not listening even to the parents of a lot of these children. I am actually hearing in my riding from some of the parents. Some of them may not have the economic resources to support their children as well as they would like and as a result the children are using all means they can to make their way through society. Of course when they know they
have the protection of the Young Offenders Act as it is structured right now, they are literally getting away at times with murder.
I think we have to be very dramatic in our reform of this bill. I think we have to listen and support not only our police forces but our community service agencies that are pleading with us to give them the tools to help rehabilitate those youth in our society that are using this act for their own negative purpose, which is ultimately causing a disservice to everyone in our community.


Derek Vincent Lee: Mr. Speaker, I could not help but note the good remarks of the member from Moncton. In the statistics that were cited, the 34 per cent increase for the period of time noted completely excluded the province of Ontario, Canada's largest and most populous province with its most populous urban area. Those statistics actually underestimate by a long shot the frightening increase in crime by youth and young offenders in this countiy.
We have to keep in mind that the purpose of this Young Offenders Act is to try our very best as a society to salvage a young life, to salvage it before it goes the way of the classic criminal life. These proposed amendments are premised on the assumption that we as a society are more likely to salvage a young life if the young offender is dealt with in the youth offender system rather than the adult system.
If we have to toughen the laws and increase the sentences, as we are going to, the thrust of these amendments is that the increased sentences to be spent by young offenders should be more appropriately spent in the young offender system rather than the penitentiary system.
Since the thrust of the government's amendments to this act is to better enable a transfer to the adult system, there is a fear on the part of the opposition and among a number of members that there will be a greater tendency or a predisposition to transfer more young offenders to the adult system and thereby lose the opportunity to salvage what is left of that life.
I wanted to point that out so that it would be on the record. There may be from time to time some apparent inconsistency as the opposition and government debate this but our position is that the young offenders ought to
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be given as much chance as society can possibly give them in the youth offender system.


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


Some hon. members:: Question.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: I remind all members that an affirmative vote on motion No. 8 will obviate the need to put the question on motion No. 9.
Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. members:: No.


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


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


Some hon. members:: Yea.


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


Some hon. members:: Nay.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: In my opinion the nays have it.


An hon. member:: On division.
Motion No. 8 negatived.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: A negative vote on Motion No. 8 will require the question to be put on Motion No. 9.
Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. members:: No.


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


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


Some hon. members:: Yea.


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


Some hon. members:: Nay.


Some hon. members:: On division.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: I declare the motion lost on division.
Motion No. 9 negatived.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: The hon. member for Westminster-Burnaby-Child care; the hon. member for Edmonton East-Carbon dioxide emissions; the hon. member for Nepean-World Summit for Children; the hon. member for Don Valley East-Employment; the hon. member for St. Boniface-Linguistic minorities.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Motion No. 10
That Bill C-12 be amended in Clause 5 by striking out lines 15 to
22 at page 7 and substituting the following therefor:
onment imposed in ordinary court, the young person shall, until attaining the age of eighteen years, serve the disposition, or any portion thereof, in a place of custody for young persons, unless it is considered in the young person's best interests not to do so, and after the young person has attained the age of eighteen years, the young person, in the discretion of the provincial director, may serve any remainder of the disposition or sentence in a place of custody for young persons until attaining the age of twenty years, or in a provincial correctional facility for adults or, where the unexpired portion of the sentence is two years or more, in a penitentiary.
He said: Mr. Speaker, we basically dealt with this in the other amendments so I ask leave to withdraw No. 10.

Motion No. 11 is a French translation, and we could discuss motions 12 and 13.1 wish to speak to Motion No. 12, Mr. Speaker.


Russell Gregoire MacLellan: Mr. Speaker, I respect the point of view of my hon. friend but I understand that the motions are still before the House and I still have an opportunity to speak. I wanted to talk about the youth court.
It has been stated that we are trying to mislead-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Order, please. I understand there is not unanimous consent to withdraw Motion No. 10.

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Ian Gardiner Waddell: Point of order, Mr. Speaker. I did not realize that the hon. member for Cape Breton wanted to speak on No. 10 and so I will not ask-


Russell Gregoire MacLellan: I can speak on the other.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: All right. We have pretty well done Nos. 10 and No. 11. I would ask for unanimous consent to withdraw those two and I would like to proceed on No. 12.


Rob Nicholson: I agree with the hon. member for Port Moody-Coquitlam about the withdrawal of motion No.
10.1	am not sure he would want to withdraw motion No. 11. I believe the wording suggested by him in No. 11 is better than what is now in the text of the bill. I suggest that he withdraw No. .10 if he likes but I believe No. 11 should be called by the House because the wording suggested better reflects the sense in both official languages.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Mr. Speaker, I would agree with that. I gather the government is going to accept my amendment. I could use one break today anyway, so I will accept that.
Perhaps we could proceed with No. 11.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Is there unanimous consent to withdraw motion No. 10?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Motion No. 11.
That Bill C-12 be amended in Clause 7 in the French version
(a)	by striking out line 43 at page 7 and substituting the following
therefor:
"motifs raisonnables de croire que Padolescent"
(b)	by striking out line 27 at page 9 and substituting the following
therefor:
"motifs raisonnables, l'etre sous forme ecrite, il"
(c)	by striking out line 17 at page 12 and substituting the following
therefor:
"(b) l'obligation de faire les efforts raisonnables".

He said: This is an amendment dealing with the different wording, especially les mots en frangais. I think it speaks for itself.


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


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: The question is on motion No. 11 standing in the name of Mr. Waddell. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
Ian Gardiner Waddell: Motion No. 12
That Bill C-12 be amended in Clause 7 by striking out lines 13 to
18 at page 9.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I would like to speak on this motion. The proposed section set out in this bill directs the court to take into account a number of factors in deciding whether to grant a youth conditional release from custody.
These factors include evidence of a pattern of persistent violent behaviour, psychiatric or psychological evidence of a physical or mental disorder or illness, reliable information that the young person plans to cause the death of or serious harm to another person, and whether alternative measures, treatment, and supervision are available in the community.
In my view the latter factor, whether alternative measures, treatment and supervision are available in the community, is unnecessary. It is an anomaly on the list and it should not be there and so my amendment would cut it out. The reason to me is obvious. Why should it be a factor for the young person who is being released or being tried in this matter whether there are places available in the community. There should be places available in the community. It is not for the young person to get them. It is up to the authorities to put them there.
It should not be part of judging whether a person can be released, whether there are facilities available in this case. That is the point of the amendment.
When I raised the question in committee, that requiring the court to consider whether supervision, alternative measures and treatment were available in the community could work against the youth, I think it was argued that it was a good proposal. I do not believe that
October 31, 1991

the provinces spend enough to ensure the availability of such supervision, treatment and alternative measures.
That problem has been further compounded by the federal government's decision in May 1989 to freeze the federal government's financial contribution to juvenile justice programs and services for a period of five years, and that finally, directing the court to consider this factor might effectively punish the youth, as I have said, for a lack of commitment of human and financial resources exhibited by both levels of government.
What the federal government has done is made the province provide the facilities and then some poor accused kid comes before the court and it says: "We can't release you because the facilities aren't there". I do not think that is the way to go at all.
I do not think it is encouraging that this factor comes at the end of such a grim list. I do believe that it will be subject to the type of negative interpretation that I have just described. That is the gist of my amendment.


Russell Gregoire MacLellan: Mr. Speaker, I understand the gist of the motion of the member for Port Moody-Coquitlam. I understand exactly how he feels. There is an inequity here. The problem is that there should not be this distinction that peoples in areas where we do not have availability of supervision should not be punished.
The problem is that in areas where there is the availability of supervision people incarcerated in that area may not get the advantage of the fact that that availability is there, so they may not be able to get the benefit of the doubt. It is a very difficult point. Do we go for the uniformity which I think my friend and I both would like to see in the act and feel should be in the act? Do we vote for this not to be there and deny those young offenders, who are in areas where they can take advantage of this provision and thereby be able to be on parole earlier, the right to be able to take advantage of that and to be out of incarceration that much earlier?
There is a real problem here because of the nature of the act and because of the federal-provincial involvement. This is not the only example of this. It is involved in the transfer provisions.
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My learned friend, the parliamentary secretary, has mentioned some of this. He talks about the fact that we are blind to the fact that those who commit murder can get life. That is a very stiff penalty and so there are stiff penalties in this bill. I agree with my colleague from the NDP who announced that one-fortieth of one per cent of the young crimes are actually murder. That is the problem.
We are not dealing so much with the murders, as horrendous as they are, we are dealing with youth crime in general. The problem is that now under the Young Offenders Act the charges laid will result in very short penalties, and we feel that the penalty should be longer to give more time for treatment and training and consultation in incarceration for those young people who need this, so that when they come out they are more aware of how to live within society. That is very important, not only from the point of view of punishment and deterrents, but it is a rehabilitation. There is time needed.
We had before the standing committee witnesses who said they object to the transfer provisions because it is wrong to put these young people in adult institutions. We feel, as my colleague from Port Moody-Coquitlam has said, that you really do not need more than five years. These witnesses acknowledged the fact that there are situations in which maybe some people do need more than five years to be fully rehabilitated. While they probably did not want that in the bill, they did not object to that too much as long as the youth court would be making the sentencing and that the offenders would be in a youth facility.
The transfer provisions are very, very unfair. The province of Quebec has probably the best record of any province. Only about 20 per cent of young offenders are transferred to adult courts. In one province as much as 80 per cent of young offenders are transferred to adult court. That is because of the large native population in that province. This is discrimination. It is blatantly unfair and something has got to be done to deal with that unfairness. We cannot allow that to continue.

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I think what we must get is fairness in the system. We must get equal opportunity and equal treatment across the country. We must get proper time for young people to be able to receive their rehabilitation and treatment, and we must get a fair period of incarceration so that we can have this.
It has been said that organized crime will not be influenced by the fact that the youth will get a longer period of time. In most cases organized crime cannot make the youth do anything they do not want to do. The youth are more susceptible to committing these crimes if they feel that they will not get a long period of incarceration. The longer period of incarceration may cause them to rethink exactly whether they want to become involved in that. I do agree that there is a tremendous inclination here for our young people to become involved in crime and to be subjected to the influence of organized crime and adult criminals. Hopefully this can be addressed but it is certainly not going to be addressed with this bill.


Rob Nicholson: Mr. Speaker, first of all just a point of clarification to make sure we all understand. Motion no. 12 is grouped with No. 13 and I did not hear hon. members address motion no. 13.
The Speaker earlier today ruled that a group of motions would be put together, and I think it is a good way to proceed. I would like to address my comments both to motions Nos. 12 and 13. If the hon. member who proposed No. 13, the hon. member for Port Moody-Coquitlam, would like unanimous consent to re-enter the debate and talk about motion No. 13, that would certainly be acceptable on this side.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Order, please. I apologize for interrupting the member. I think motion No. 13 will be debated separately. We are on debate on Motion No. 12.


Rob Nicholson: That is fair enough, Mr. Speaker.
I heard the Speaker this morning say they would be grouped together, but it is neither here nor there. I will confine my comments then to motion No. 12.
Motion No. 12 removes one of the considerations that would be before the court and, as the government thinks, should be before the court in determining the release of an individual who has been convicted of murder.
This section and the criteria involve the case of a young person, say a 17 year old , who has been convicted of murder but has remained in the youth court. The government has suggested that there would be a three year custodial sentence and a two year period of supervision.
I suppose I ask the public and I ask you, Mr. Speaker, and the House to see whether it is fair for a judge considering the application to release an individual who has been convicted of murder to take into consideration: "The availability of supervision programs in the community that would offer adequate protection to the public from the risk that the young person might otherwise present until the expiration of the disposition the young person is then serving".
We have heard the debate. Some would say it is unreasonable to put that section in there. I am suggesting to the House that when we are about to release an individual who has been convicted of murder, we should consider whether there would be adequate protection to the public from the risk of a young person and whether there is adequate supervision available. I think it is reasonable to put it in.
Others may disagree, and as a result I hope the House turns down the motion by the NDP to have that removed as one of the considerations that a judge has at his disposal.


James Capsey (Jim) Karpoff: Mr. Speaker, I rise again to support my colleague in his amendment. I do so from the basis that what is happening here is basically an application to be released.
The government is responsible for providing adequate supervisory services. That is the government's responsibility. It is not the youth's responsibility. What you are saying is if collectively we the community and the government have not met our responsibility, we are going to punish the youth. We are going to leave them in custody.
We are not saying: "Look, if we failed to provide these resources that should be there, we are going to punish ourselves". We are saying: "We are going to put the onus on the youth". Again, let us think of who we are talking about.
These are kids who have been in difficulty. Most of them have been in difficulty all their lives. They have been incarcerated and now they get ready to be released and somebody comes along and says: "Look, I am sorry.

We decided to not provide adequate supervision so you have to stay in jail".
I particularly find this offensive in view of the record of this government. It has put a ceiling in 1989 on cost-shared programs. It has stopped providing the provinces with funds to develop these services and so its solution is: "Let's just change the law to punish the youth some more".
It is time society started taking its responsibility for these children fully, and stop putting the blame on them and not always taking the attitude: "If we fail, we will punish youth".


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


Some hon. members:: Question.


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


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBIois):: All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.


Some hon. members:: Yea.


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


Some hon. members:: Nay.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBIois):: In my opinion the nays have it.


An hon. member:: On division.
Motion No. 12 negatived.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: moved:
Motion No. 13
That Bill C-12 be amended in clause 7 by striking out line 23 at
page 13 and substituting the following therefor:
"person has breached a"
He said: Mr. Speaker, this clause in the bill concerns the provincial director having reasonable grounds to believe that a young person has breached, and here are the words, "or is about to breach a condition of an order made under a subsection, he can do as follows".
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Other sections of the bill are similarly worded. I believe that these sections should be amended. I have proposed an amendment to remove the phrase "or is about to breach" as a condition of the youth's conditional supervision. The provincial director is about to release the youth on conditional supervision.
In my view the phrase "or is about to breach" grants too much arbitrary authority to the provincial director and other law enforcement officers and runs contrary to the statement of principles in this particular bill. It specifically interferes with the affirmation that the freedom of a young person should be interfered with as little as possible. In other words, if the provincial director has reasonable grounds to believe that the young person has breached his probation then hit him, but "is about to breach his probation" is pretty wide and could be abused. That is the content of my amendment.


Rob Nicholson: Mr. Speaker, the "about to breach" section would cover the case of an individual who is under supervision after having been convicted of murder. Very often there would be conditions concerning the individual's release. I suppose one of the most common is that he or she would have to remain within a jurisdiction. For instance, this section would cover a case when the individual might purchase airplane tickets. Reasonable inference could then be drawn that the individual may be trying to leave the jurisdiction.
Therefore I do not think there is anything unreasonable about it at all. There is a review process. There is the caveat that there must be reasonable grounds for believing this. I do not think it is out of line.


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


Some hon. members:: Question.


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


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBIois):: All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.


Some hon. members:: Yea.

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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 nays have it.


An hon. member:: On division.
Motion No. 13 negatived.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Motions Nos. 14, 15, 16 and 17 will be grouped for debate.


Russell Gregoire MacLellan: Motion No. 14
That Bill C-12 be amended in Clause 7 by striking out line 36 at page 13 and substituting the following therefor:
"section 26.3, a justice may, on application therefor by the provincial director,".

Motion No. 15
That Bill C-12 be amended in clause 7, by striking out lines 4 to 48 at page 14.

Motion No. 16
That Bill C-12 be amended in Clause 7 by striking out line 7 at page 15 and substituting the following therefor:
"forty-eight hours after the remand to custody, or after becoming informed of the arrest, as the case may be, either cancel the suspension of".

Motion No. 17
That Bill C-12 be amended in Clause 7 by striking out lines 13 to 30 at page 15, substituting the following therefor:
"26.5, the provincial director shall forthwith cause the young person to be brought before the youth court, and the youth court shall, after affording the young person an opportunity to be heard, review the decision of the provincial director to suspend the conditional supervision and shall make an order under subsection (2)."
He said: Mr. Speaker, I might add at the outset that the reason we are not pushing for a recorded vote on some of these amendments is that the bill is so flawed that even if these amendments are approved the bill is not going to be much of a help in dealing with the
problems of youth crime and urban crime. However we would like to improve the bill as much as we can, and there are some places where this bill can be improved.
I would like to deal first with Motion No. 14. It relates to page 13 and strikes out line 36, which says: "The provincial director may issue a warrant in writing authorizing the apprehension of a young person, and until the young person is apprehended the young person is deemed not to be continuing to serve the disposition the young person is then serving".
It is our feeling that this should not be the responsibility or the role of the provincial director, that this is subject to a good deal of abuse. The provincial director can very well become personally involved in a particular case and develop a particular attitude toward a young offender and may not be in a position to deal with it on an impartial basis, while a judge would be.
We are recommending that a justice may on application by the provincial director issue this right. This may seem to be a difficult and very time consuming process, but really it is not. An application can be made very easily and if the proper substantiation is given it would be granted. A matter of this importance should be the responsibility of a justice and not the provincial director.
Motion No. 15 asks for the striking out of lines 4 to 48 on page 14. The most important section of this and the one that really sets out the objection is subsection 3 starting on line 4: "Where a peace officer believes on reasonable grounds that a warrant issued under subsection (1) is in force in respect of a young person the peace officer may arrest the young person without the warrant at any place in Canada".
This is outrageous: "Where the peace officer believes on reasonable grounds". There is no reason that the peace officer cannot assure him or herself that the warrant is issued. There are computers, fax machines, all sorts of communications that police departments and police officers have linking each other that can provide this information.
My colleague, the hon. member for Port Moody-Coquitlam, said that a prior motion gave grounds for abuse. Certainly this can give grounds for abuse. It is a subjective test. If the peace officer acted arbitrarily, and grossly arbitrarily in some cases, there is no way of disciplining this peace officer because the peace officer can say that he or she believed.
if-

October 31, 1991

It is so open-ended and such a big loophole open to abuse that I think it should be corrected.
I would ask the government to do so.
The next one is with regard to clause 16, on page 15, striking out line 7 at page 15 and substituting the following therefor: "forthwith after being informed of the arrest of a young person, the provincial director may review the case and within 48 hours' cancel the suspension of the conditional supervision".
I would suggest that the 48 hours is not sufficient because it says: "the provincial director shall review the case". That is the first portion of that. The second one is: "within 48 hours".
How long is it going to take the provincial director to review the case? How long would it normally be necessary to review a case? The section states: "48 hours after reviewing the case". I think that again leaves a reason for abuse so we are saying: "48 hours after the remand to custody or after becoming informed of the arrest, as the case may be" to cancel the suspension of the right. I think it puts much more of a burden on the authorities to deal with this expeditiously and not, once again, to give grounds for abuse which can occur.
With respect to Motion No. 17 it says striking out lines 13 to 30 on page 15. I just want to read a portion of it: "Where the case of a young person is referred to the youth court under section 26.(5), the provincial director shall, as soon as practicable".
"As soon as practicable" is not very good wording. It is not even good legal wording. I just do not think there would be any way of predicting what "as soon as practicable" would mean. I think it once again opens lots of opportunity for abuse, once again at the expense of the offender, once again at the proper disposition of justice in this country.
We are saying that term should be replaced and should read: "the provincial director shall forthwith cause the young person to be brought before the youth court" to tighten this up and to make this system, if this bill passes, which we hope it will not, at least in some moderate ways more efficient and more realistic to the needs of the young people and the needs of society. We hope these motions are successful.
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Rob Nicholson: Mr. Speaker, we are dealing with Motions Nos. 14 through 17. Beginning with Motion No. 14, the hon. member from Cape Breton-The Sydneys is suggesting an extra process should be involved with the issuance of warrants.
The people we are referring to are those people I referred to earlier who have been convicted of murder and they are in the two-year supervision portion of their sentence. The section refers to an instance in which if a provincial director believes a breach has occurred of the conditions upon which this individual is free he may issue a warrant.
The member from the Liberal Party has suggested there should be a two-step process and that therefore you should apply to a justice. I agree with him that society moves very quickly, that there are fax machines and so on, but my comments on this are the same as I will make on the next one. There may not be time. There may not be time to have a number of applications for an individual whom the provincial director believes has breached the privilege to be free. I do not think it is necessary to have an extra step. It is judicially reviewable and I think the House should turn down that motion.
Likewise with Motion No. 15 which says that where a peace officer believes on reasonable grounds that a warrant issued under subsection (1) is enforced he or she may arrest that young person with a warrant in any place in Canada.
In a perfect world when somebody who is out free after having been convicted of murder and a police officer believes there is a warrant out for that individual's arrest we would want to give them every benefit of the doubt because they may not be the person. However time is of the essence in most of these cases. Again, these are subject to judicial review. I might add that these provisions parallel those in the Parole Act as well. They are consistent with other provisions of the Criminal Code.
Quite honestly I am not sure what clarification Motion No. 16 adds. I think the section is pretty straightforward, and I will not read it again. I do not see what value there would be in accepting the recommendation.

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Under Motion No. 17 the individual is brought "as soon as practicable" before the court, or the individual is brought forthwith to the court. I do not think, as does the hon. member, that the former wording leaves a huge hole for abuse. As well I note that he also removes the burden of proof from the individual who appears before the court. I think that goes far beyond just tightening up the language.
I do not see any particular improvement in the last two amendments. As for the first two I have serious concerns about adding any extra process in a case where somebody reasonably believes that someone has breached the conditions under which they have been released for murder.


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


Some hon. members:: Question.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: I remind all members that a vote on Motion No. 14 will be applied to Motions Nos. 15, 16 and 17. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: All those in favour of the motion 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 nays have it.


An hon. member:: On division.
Motion No. 14 negatived.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Motions Nos. 19, 20, 22, 24 and 26 will be grouped for debate. Each of them deleted a clause of the bill. They will be grouped for debate but each will be voted upon separately.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Motion No. 19
That Bill C-12 be amended by deleting Clause 14.
Motion No. 20
That Bill C-12 be amended by deleting Clause 15.
Motion No. 22
That Bill C-12 be amended by deleting Clause 16.
Motion No. 24
That Bill C-12 be amended by deleting Clause 17.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: On a point of order, the hon. member for Cape Breton-The Sydneys.


Russell Gregoire MacLellan: In light of the motions that have been defeated prior to this I do not feel that motion No. 26 will really add anything and I am prepared to withdraw it.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Is there unanimous consent for withdrawing motion No. 26?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.
Motion No. 26 withdrawn.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Mr. Speaker, I will speak to these amendments together. They would delete certain clauses of the bill. Those clauses were designed to amend the parole provisions of the Criminal Code in order to relax parole ineligibility periods for young offenders convicted in ordinary court of first and secondary murder.
Our basic position was and still is that we would like to deal with juveniles as juveniles. We want to deal with them in juvenile court. If we send them to adult court they are going to be adult criminals.
That means facilities. The provinces have to provide the facilities and the federal government has to help them with some money. It means also, as my friend from Cape Breton-The Sydneys put it very well today, that we are not being tough on them. We are gong to hit them hard but we are going to hit them as juveniles.
Finally we are going to attack the whole notion of why there is crime by juveniles. It is because of poverty, child abuse, literacy and other factors, with the difficulties they present.
That is the way to approach juvenile crime. We should not be blown away. The Toronto Sun and the Sun newspaper chain had a big story. It continued every day, as one witness told us. It was featuring, featuring and
October 31, 1991

Government Orders
featuring the fact that someone got three years for murder in Scarborough.
The person got three years for murder because it was a mistake. Neither the Crown counsel or the defence counsel asked that the person be transferred to adult court because they thought the person was going to be declared insane and therefore be locked up for even longer, perhaps for life. That did not happen so the person got three years. It was wrong, but it does not mean that the whole act is wrong.
People did not focus on that. The judges have a terrible choice. On a murder case the choice is either three years or 25 years. We have tried to make some changes so they would not have to face that choice.
If transfers are not abolished then relaxation of parole ineligibility seems to me to be the next best option.
Let us deal with a youth as a youth. Let us have the facilities and let us try to eliminate the causes.
I have to be careful of the rules of this House. I am not supposed to comment on how many people are in the House. Let me put it this way. It is not exactly overflowing.
The fact is that Canadian people are really interested in young offenders. I just want to conclude by saying that these are the last of my motions. I am particularly pleased that the parliamentary secretary has been amenable to a couple of amendments. I wish he would accept another couple of these. Perhaps he might consider them.
I am especially pleased with the co-operation of the member for Cape Breton-The Sydneys who was solid as usual. Mr. Speaker, I thank you for listening to me, at least today.


Raymond John Funk: Mr. Speaker, I just want to take a few minutes to enter into this debate for a number of reasons. First, I would like to pay tribute to the work the hon. member for Port Moody-Coquitlam has put into this bill over the years.
This bill has been around a long time. In addition to his many other duties he has done an excellent job of helping to focus the debate in this country on the real issues involved in this Young Offenders Act.
Second, I would also like to recognize that in my own community of Prince Albert this is a very lively issue. It is an issue that was debated from many different sides because Prince Albert is a community that has a number
of correctional facilities, including a federal penitentiary, provincial jail, a women's jail, and other facilities.
As well it has a school of human justice run by the Gabriel Dumont Institute, a native institution that is trying to grapple with the emerging justice issues in the native communities. Many of these issues are very hotly debated within our own community and I want to pay tribute to the contribution people in my own community have made to this debate.
A number of points that have been made here do deserve underlining. A number of points have been eloquently made by other members. Certainly principal among them is the need to get at the causes of crime. Dealing only with the consequences and the correctional aspect of crime, with what happens after a crime has been committed does not solve the problem at all.
The problems of abuse, poverty, illiteracy, and hopelessness-youth seeing no future for themselves-are endemic in many communities and certainly in my own.
I would feel much better about this kind of legislation if I saw a concurrent commitment to deal with the causes that lead young people to be in trouble with the law in the first place.
I do not see that kind of commitment to deal with the causes of crime. Therefore I am somewhat sceptical about the underlying philosophy which is driving this whole process forward.
Second, I am somewhat disturbed and certainly disappointed that this whole process has not taken into account the whole question of the emergence of a distinctive aboriginal view on justice matters. Many of the young offenders in this country are of aboriginal ancestry. Certainly in the province of Saskatchewan, my own province, too high a majority of the young offenders are of aboriginal ancestry.
This legislation does not recognize that there may well be an unique situation within our country that might call for unique responses. Looking at what is happening elsewhere in the country, the Manitoba justice inquiry and inquiries under way in my own province of Saskatchewan and in Nova Scotia, I think that we are all becoming aware that there is an emerging recognition in this country that we need to evolve an approach to justice issues unique to the aboriginal community. That would serve not only the aboriginal community but the whole community by ensuring that the aboriginal people in our communities are in a position where they feel that

October 31, 1991
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the justice system works as well for them as for everybody else.
Last, in keeping with that I would like to pay tribute to people in our community who are preparing a proposal to establish a healing lodge for aboriginal women prisoners who will be sentenced to our community when the Kingston penitentiary for women is closed. I think the process being undertaken by that particular group is one to which all of us should pay attention. This group of people is concerned about justice issues, corrections, and the security and future peace and order of our communities but are using a healing approach.
I do not see any recognition of the need for healing in this legislation before us. I see legislation that in many ways deals with justice issues from a punishment point of view and not from a healing point of view. That is the approach that we need to take in our country and I just wanted to put that on the record. I think that is the direction we need to go in the future, not the direction that is incorporated in this bill.


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


Some hon. members:: Question.


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


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: All those in favour of the motion 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 nays have it.


An hon. member:: On division.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: The next question is on motion No. 20 standing in the name of Mr. Waddell. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.


An hon. member:: On division.
Motion No. 20 negatived.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: The next question is on motion No. 22 standing in the name of Mr. Waddell. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.


An hon. member:: On division.
Motion No. 22 negatived.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: The next question is on motion No. 24 standing in the name of Mr. Waddell. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.


An hon. member:: On division.
Motion No. 24 negatived.


Hon. Kim Campbell (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada) moved: that the bill, as amended, be concurred in.


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


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: All those in favour of the motion 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. Carried on division.
October 31, 1991


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBIois):: When shall the bill be read a third time? At the next sitting of the House?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.



PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS


Ms. Dawn Black (New Westminster-Burnaby) moved:: That, in the opinion of this House, the government should consider the advisability of taking action to reduce the numbers of unwanted pregnancies in our society by reinstating a Family Planning Division at Health and Welfare Canada; reinstating funding to the Planned Parenthood Federation of Canada at its previously adequate levels; establishing new programs to combat sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies; establishing a national clearinghouse on family planning; and increasing funding for research on safe and effective methods of birth control.
She said: Mr. Speaker, I could quote a lot or statistics to you, and I will later, but first I want to make it clear in very human terms what we are discussing here today.
A young woman walked into a clinic recently to get the results of her pregnancy test. Her period was late but she had always used birth control and she did not seriously think that she could be pregnant, but the test results were positive. She sat in that clinic and cried for 20 minutes. She had to decide whether she should quit school and go on welfare to raise a child, whether she should have an abortion or whether she should go through nine months of physical discomfort and emotional bonding and then give her baby up for adoption. The father was also young and unemployed.
There are consequences for all of society on each of these decisions. They all involve a great deal of spending on health care, on social service agencies and social assistance. They embroil our society in emotional debates and all of it is preventable.
One in six Canadian teenagers will experience these decisions because they were not educated thoroughly enough about family planning or did not have access to safe and effective contraception. They think that condoms are foolproof. They do not know that condoms fail
Private Members' Business
12 per cent of the time. One in 10 times that a couple uses a condom it will fail if it is not used in conjunction with spermicidal foam.
Many people from teens to seniors do not know that. Even with spermicide, condoms are not a 100 per cent effective form of birth control.
A McMaster University study which was released just today has clearly shown a link between family planning programs and a reduction in teenage pregnancies. Sheltering teens from information about birth control and sexuality simply results in unwanted pregnancies, fear, guilt, shame, abortion or single parenthood spent in poverty.
The study in question was a comprehensive research project on teen pregnancies, abortion and family planning. It was conducted in Ontario over a 10-year period.
The report begins with two sentences. The first is: "It cannot happen to me". That is what teenagers and even some adults think. The other is the institutional response: "We do not have that problem in our school, in our group". The study concluded that the substantive decline in adolescent pregnancy in Ontario paralleled the growth of preventive programs.
In Ontario, public health units have been offered 100 per cent funding to provide comprehensive family planning. Not every one lives in Ontario. Access to family planning is uneven across this country and is especially uneven in schools. Fifty per cent of Canadian schools have no family program planning of information, although a poll showed that 83 per cent of Canadians feel family planning should be a part of school programs, 83 per cent.
Some people believe we should rely on parents to impart family planning knowledge to their children. In many cases, parents themselves do not have enough information to guide their children.
A large percentage of Canadian adults are ignorant about family planning issues. Parents do not always feel comfortable about discussing these issues with their children and some parents are morally opposed to telling their children about birth control.
Although I have focused my comments on unwanted teen pregnancy, I am hoping for education and action that is aimed at adults as well as adolescents. A Gallup poll also found that 46 per cent of Canadians felt they had too little access to contraception and family planning

October 31, 1991
Private Members' Business
services. That is rather bizarre in an industrialized country like Canada.
Some people assume that everything is okay, because Canada has a low fertility rate. There are over 66,000 abortions performed in Canada every year and much of that pain, the agonizing of that decision, is preventable with proper access to contraceptives and family planning education.
It is well known in this Elouse that I believe strongly in a woman's right to choose. That right to choose must include accurate and accessible family planning education. No one wants to face an unplanned or an unwanted pregnancy and have to make that decision about whether to have an abortion.
One of the few sources of family planning education is Birthright. It draws in young women with a promise of a free pregnancy test and confidential counselling. Once that young woman is drawn in, she is inundated with anti-abortion propaganda. We cannot let this stand as one of the few sources of information for women. Not giving people information about reproductive health leads not to abstinence, but to unwanted pregnancy and to abortion.
Catholic girls and women have the highest abortion rate of any identifiable religious group in our society. Everyone is entitled to accurate information about their own bodies. Lying to people, misleading people or blocking their access to information is really what is immoral. It was only in 1969 that the dissemination of birth control information became legal in Canada and perhaps this is one of the reasons that Canada lags so far behind in this area.
Many of us have grown up in silence about these matters and some feel that everybody today already has adequate information about contraception.
A study from the Health Science Centre in Winnipeg indicated that the pregnancy rate for adolescent girls in Canada is five times the rate in the Netherlands and three to four times higher than in Scandinavian countries where contraceptive information is school-based and readily available to the public.
Twenty-six per cent of Canadian grade nines and over half of Canadian grade eleven students do have sexual intercourse, that is the reality.
A 1988 study found that the majority do not use contraception on a regular basis. They believe again that it cannot happen to them. Over 66,000 abortions are performed in Canada every year. Most of these are preventable with knowledge and access to family planning information.
Our children learn information about sexuality from television and movies in which actors do not stop to use contraception, that is not part of the script. They learn from pornography, they learn destructive roles and behaviour and they learn lies about their own bodies and about their own self-worth as people.
Unwanted pregnancy can lead to poverty, misery, crime and escalating health costs due to increased abortions. This is no trivial matter. It is a national problem.
Since last year when the Senate defeated the proposed abortion legislation there has been no movement in this area at all. This motion that I am presenting today fills the very needed gap in our society.
The government has stated that it is committed to family planning, but has taken no legislative steps in this area. This motion provides the government and all members of this House an opportunity to express themselves on this matter that is so important to Canadian society.
Everything that I have mentioned in the motion is a federal responsibility. The federal government has already played a role in this area. What is shameful about the whole situation is that the federal government has been decreasing its role in this area for over a decade now. Access to family planning education is very uneven across the country. The previous government, the Liberal government, began to decrease funding to planned parenthood from $627,000 in 1977 to $237,000 in 1984 when it was voted out of office.
The Conservative government decreased the funding from $237,000 to $146,000 in 1989-90 at which level the funding has been frozen until today.
October 31, 1991

Year after year the value of the funding decreases because it does not keep up with inflation and so you have the situation in which the funds have been cutback, cut back, cut back and there is no consideration of inflation.
The government itself disbanded the Health and Welfare Canada Family Planning Division in 1985.
A current proposal to establish a non-governmental sexuality information and resource clearing house is in jeopardy because no further federal dollars are forthcoming. Although the initiators were given start-up money to do the research, there is no money to continue the program now that all that work has been done. It seems like a foolish waste of money to hand them this money for the start-up costs and the research to plan a program and then not to fund it for a period of time until it can become self-sustaining.
Not spending money on family planning is very shortsighted. Family planning is a cost saving measure. Not spending a few dollars on family planning now means spending a lot more later. Not spending money on the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases now means spending a lot more later on health care and infertility treatments.
The choice is not between spending money on family planning now or reducing the deficit. It is between spending some money now or a heck of a lot more a few years down the road.
Since the defeat of the abortion bill last year there has been little discussion, as I said, in this House about family planning issues. I do not think there has been any discussion.
The motion I introduced today states that the House believes the Family Planning Division at Health and Welfare Canada should be reinstated. Health and Welfare engages in a number of primary prevention activities. It launched a national anti-smoking and anti-drug campaign. Unwanted pregnancies also endanger the health and well-being of individuals. Sexually transmitted diseases threaten the health, life and future fertility of individuals and the health of any infants born to a person who is carrying this sexually transmitted disease.
Many of the provinces have not picked up the slack from the federal withdrawal in this area. In fact, with health care funding to the provinces diminishing, prov-
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inces are now in a worse position than ever to even begin to pick up the slack.
In this day of AIDS, education on prevention of sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancy is all the more important. We must break down that "It can't happen to me" attitude. We will only do that through education.
When I checked last year to see who at National Health and Welfare was working on family planning issues, I found only one full-time staff person out of the whole, huge health and welfare bureaucracy. It is a huge bureaucracy and only one person was working on family planning issues. That says a lot about where family planning is on this government's agenda and list of priorities.
Criminalizing abortion was high on the agenda. Preventing unwanted pregnancies is not even there at all. This government wanted to put women and doctors in jail for having an abortion, but does not want to do anything to prevent that situation from happening in the first place.
Unintended pregnancy has been identified as the number one problem by health specialists who are dealing with people 15 to 19 years of age. Health and Welfare Canada has not been exercising its mandate to promote health in this area for Canadians, particularly young ones. My motion also seeks the agreement of the House to reinstate funding for the Planned Parenthood Federation of Canada. Funding has decreased by over $400,000 since the 1970s.
Planned Parenthood has family planning information centres that are often the first, and maybe the only contact adults and teens have with accurate information about their bodies and about what is available to them for contraception.
My motion calls on the government to establish new programs to combat sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies, and a national clearing house on family planning. Young people under the age of 20 account for 22 per cent of reportable sexually transmitted diseases, 22 per cent. Young women aged 15 to 19 have the highest rate of gonorrhoea in this country.
Sexually transmitted diseases have serious health consequences which even include death. This is a completely unacceptable situation. Why has there been so little government action over the past decade on this issue? The government granted $264,000 to assess the feasibility of a national clearing house for sexual and reproduc-

Private Members' Business
tive health information. Out of that came the establishment of a sexuality information and resources clearing house, or SEARCH, for short.
Well, SEARCH is up and ready to go. It has a full-time staff person. It has the resources available. It has dedicated people who have been working on this project now for five years. It would provide materials to parents, educators, public health nurses, doctors, social workers, counsellors, group leaders and other service providers.
Since health and welfare backed out of this role some time ago, and two-thirds of Planned Parenthood's funding was cut, there was no comprehensive source of this information anywhere in Canada. There was no comprehensive source. The government is once again backing out in this area. It will not provide the funding to SEARCH for even one year of operation, after giving them that grant to get started.
In 1986, the Health Protection Branch at health and welfare conducted regional meetings. One of the recommendations in that report was for a national clearing house on fertility control.
In 1990, the summary report of the special adviser to the Minister of National Health and Welfare on child sexual abuse identified a federal role in encouraging healthy attitudes toward sexuality as one of the factors in preventing sexual assault and child abuse.
A 1990 report on adolescent reproductive health said that effective education is the cornerstone of primary prevention. Therefore, it is essential that such education be universally available and accessible. The Canada Health Act, Mr. Speaker, states that the federal government is responsible for ensuring that health care is universal and accessible.
A Gallup poll found that 46 per cent of Canadians felt they had too little access to contraception and family planning services. Obviously, there is a gap across the country in the provision of these services.
A rapidly growing multicultural and immigrant population in Canada needs access to culturally appropriate information and services. Information about sexual orientation is also needed. Individuals often do not feel
that they can discuss these issues with their family, friends, teachers, co-workers or even the family doctors.
There is apparently a higher than average rate of suicides among gay teens. There is no unbiased information for them.
I have been working on the issue of warning labels for alcohol. Many pregnant women do not know how much alcohol intake can affect the foetus that they carry. They deserve the right to make informed choices about their bodies.
My motion also calls for more research into safe and effective methods of birth control. A 1990 U.S. study found that there was a paralysis of the development of new, safe and effective contraceptives, leaving millions of women without adequate birth control.
The threat of lawsuits, inadequate government funding and pressure from social and religious groups have forced all but one major U.S pharmaceutical company to abandon the field of contraceptive research.
There are new contraceptive devices available in Europe, but the Canadian government seems to be stalling on improving them in Canada. No currently available method of birth control is foolproof. There is no one method that is safe for all Canadians to use.
Up to 25 per cent of Canadian women cannot use the pill for medical reasons. The pill fails in 3 per cent of cases even when it is used properly. That may not sound like a lot, but it is more than one in fifty. Hundreds of women have become pregnant while on the pill. We must seek improved methods of birth control.
I know that the minister of health has been receiving letters from citizens demanding that health and welfare begin on RU-486, otherwise known as the abortion bill. If proved safe, it should be allowed in Canada as soon as possible. They are discovering now that it may be effective treatment for a type of infertility that women suffer as well.
Family planning issues, I know, are still controversial in our country, but most Canadians do have a desire for more information. Currently, they get their information about sexuality and reproductive issues from friends who may not themselves be well informed, or from pornography which does not foster a healthy or realistic attitude toward sexuality. There have been cases of women in
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October 31, 1991

Canada who did not even know when they were pregnant. That is how much they knew about their bodies.
I want to challenge the members of this House to say that this is no longer acceptable, that we will save costs and save lives by implementing family planning, education and sexually transmitted disease education programs now.
I urge all members of this House to vote in favour of this motion.


Mrs. Lise Bourgault (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Supply and Services):: Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the hon. member's speech, and I know she is very concerned, very interested and very articulate on matters that concern women, family planning and children's issues.
Mr. Speaker, I must admit I am not sufficiently familiar with the programs that exist in other Canadian provinces as they relate to the services available to people in various locations. I am familiar with the programs in Quebec, and although there are a number of shortcomings, I believe that in Quebec, with our network of LCSCs, we have some very useful programs that serve Quebec families very well.
Mr. Speaker, the federal government is fully aware of the need for effective programs for sex education and family planning, especially for young people. And speaking of young people, not long ago, a pilot project was launched, which the hon. member may not have heard about, and this project has now been started in the LCSCs and deals with prevention of sexually transmitted diseases, AIDS and, of course, teenage pregnancies. There is some rather innovative material which I have not seen yet. I only saw the adds that appeared in the various media which mentioned a brochure that, I am told, speaks in a veiy direct style to young people, to make them realize that their health is at stake, and that this is for them. I think we should all have a look at this material.
Mr. Speaker, the hon. member may not know that in 1977, there was a conference of provincial health ministers, and they declared unanimously, at a federal-provincial meeting, that family planning services came under provincial jurisdiction.
Private Members' Business
After this declaration in 1977, the role and impact of the Canadian Federation for Planned Parenthood and even the Serena Group started to shrink somewhat.
Mr. Speaker, I have a lot of notes here, but I would like to stick to the essentials. Responsibility does not lie exclusively with the State. I think the churches, provincial governments, volunteer groups working in our ridings and all Canadians should stop playing hide and seek and start speaking openly about these matters to the young people we meet.
Mr. Speaker, the Canadian Federation for Planned Parenthood has done remarkable work since 1955, because it set the scene for a host of provincial volunteer organizations to start dealing with the important question of family planning.
That being said, I will admit, and I agree more or less with the hon. member-it is a personal matter-after the debate we had on the Abortion Bill, it was said repeatedly by the people and groups that came to testify before the committee that there was a great need for information and family planning and prevention.
Today, we have a federal-provincial system. The hon. member for the New Democratic Party is in favour of a strong central government, if I am not mistaken. That is her view of Canada, and it is her right to have this vision of Canada. Personally, there should be a division. We must have programs administered by the provinces who are in a better position to know how to serve the target population. As you know, education is exclusively a provincial matter. Now I think that a family planning program must be pursued in cooperation with the Department of Education and the Department of Health. The federal government could use its spending power to help the provinces set up such programs, which have become absolutely necessary.
Mr. Speaker, I often wonder about it because a great deal of documentation exists and much has been done. It seems absolutely incredible to me that in 1991 we face such an alarming number of unwanted pregnancies. The hon. member mentioned the number of abortions performed in Canada. I agree with her and I also think that women must be able to choose whether or not to have an abortion, which is an extremely difficult choice, as we know.

October 31, 1991
Private Members' Business
The Planned Parenthood Federation of Canada receives a $146,000 grant. That may not seem like much, it is true, but with that statement by provincial health ministers at a federal-provincial conference, the provinces now have programs and I think they have some good ones. As I said earlier, we obviously need research on reproductive health throughout Canada. The government set up a royal commission of inquiry on reproductive methods that I hope will give us good results. The minister responsible for the status of women also made an announcement concerning a national study on violence against women and violence against children.
Mr. Speaker, I know that my time is nearly up. You know that as members of Parliament, we are all amazed at the tremendous work done by volunteers in our ridings. You know that volunteers do a remarkable job in community health, hospitals and local community service centres. We often cannot find words to express how much we owe to these many Canadians who give their time. Certainly national organizations like Serena and the Planned Parenthood Federation of Canada should receive more funding to help the provinces, groups and volunteers throughout the country set up good prevention programs for young people, because I think the situation has become a tragedy to which we cannot remain insensitive.
I hope that the government can play a leading role, but with the help and support of the provinces and the youth protection branches in the various social service systems. For example, the Laurentian region has the youth protection branch in St. Jerome. In short, a whole series of organizations should get together to come up with a good policy that I think should begin in early childhood, in the schools. We should stop being afraid of calling a spade a spade and tell children the facts, tell them from their first days in school that drugs and sexual abuse are intolerable and that the problems related to sexually transmitted diseases are serious. If these children are educated about it from a young age, I think that we could have results. But I must say that parents have to be convinced that it is necessary and through concerted effort we can do that.
I conclude, Mr. Speaker-you are indicating to me that my time is up-by again congratulating the hon.
member for New Westminster-Burnaby who moved the motion. I encourage her and my colleagues in all parties in the House to continue trying to solve this serious problem so that in future our young people will know what it is about before they have sexual relations.


Mary Catherine Clancy: Mr. Speaker, it is with somewhat mixed feelings that I rise today to give my strongest support to this motion of my hon. friend from New Westminster-Burnaby.
I support her motion in every way possible. I underscore and underline everything she said with regard to the drastic importance of reinstating the family planning division at Health and Welfare Canada, reinstating funding to Planned Parenthood of Canada and, perhaps most important, establishing new programs to combat sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies.
I appreciate the remarks of the hon. parliamentary secretary. I think, in a non-partisan way, I know where she stands on many of these issues as well. I know there have been issues that have been very divisive in this House, that have split all our caucuses. Sometimes it has been hard for women on all sides of the House regarding certain issues, particularly those relating more specifically to questions of gender and sexuality, but I appreciate the hon. parliamentary secretary's beliefs and statements.
However, I have to take a little exception to what she says not in the pure philosophical sense, but in the practical sense. It is with regard to the question of volunteers and programming.
I would be the first to admit that in the area of social programs Quebec probably leads the nation, but it does not deny the statistics that Quebec has the highest rate of unwanted pregnancies. It does not deny the statistics that there is, and I stand here as a Catholic and say this, a connection between religion and these unhappy statistics. If we think that we can solve this very deep-rooted problem through a volunteer program we are dreaming. I think the only thing that is going to solve this problem is direct government action.
Some of that government action can come from the provincial governments and some of it can come from the federal government, but the federal government,



particularly with regard to provinces such as the hon. parliamentary secretary's and my own, will have a dual role to play because of the funding necessary for provincial governments to put in place in my province and in the province of Quebec such programs as we are talking about.
I think our problem goes even deeper than that because although we are in the 1990s, if I can say that Canada and Canadian society is still sicklied o'er, if you will, with a pale hue of Victoriana. We still refuse to come to grips as governments, provincial or federal, with questions of sexuality. There is this left over idea somewhere that if we keep on ignoring it, it will go away.
The hon. parliamentary secretary and the hon. member for New Westminster-Burnaby and I suffered, and I use that word advisedly, through the legislative committee on Bill C-43. We suffered abuse, we suffered insults, we suffered threats and we suffered, I think, as women parliamentarians trying to deal with the legislative response. If I overstep I apologize to the parliamentary secretary, but I think that not one of us felt what we did was really adequate in the long run.
I think that we have a unique opportunity through a motion such as this one to look at the root of the problem and try to solve it at the root where it belongs. There is not a woman in this House, I doubt in this country, I doubt a woman in this world, who is in favour of abortion. To each one of us, on a personal level, it is a terrible option, but for a number of women it is the only option and it is the only option because governments have not acted, because governments have not put money in place for programs to educate.
Someone once said to me in a debate some years ago that I thought education was the answer to everything. I want to say that I guess I plead guilty to that accusation because if education is not the answer then I fear there is no answer, but I refuse to believe that.
We have to look at the question of education and the tools to give young people, and I agree again with the parliamentary secretary that you have to start at a very early age. We have to ensure that there are family life programs at every age level. My own personal idea, and I have held this idea for some time, is that the federal government could contribute significantly to the educa-
Private Members' Business
tional side without getting into a jurisdictional hassle with the provinces if it looked at some sort of national advertising program.
We have seen, and it has been done by the province of Ontario, it has been done by other provincial governments as well as the federal government, advertising campaigns that can be fairly explicit and that will have an impact.
Twenty years ago, as a university student, I was a resident's assistant and many of the younger students would come to me with questions. I was absolutely appalled at the level of ignorance they held about their own bodies, about procreation, about biology. What horrifies me even more today is that while in some areas through some school programs, through some public education, we have managed to alleviate that ignorance a little bit, there is more ignorance out there in a broader and a more dangerous sense.
The ignorance about sexually transmitted diseases, for example, and not just AIDS which kills but also other venereal diseases such as gonorrhoea which leaves women chronically ill, chronically infertile, in chronic pain and so on, is absolutely appalling. Yet we do nothing as a national government to combat it.
I use as an example the programs that were put in place by provincial governments to deal with impaired driving. That is one example. I do not say it is the only example but it is a start.
I refer back to what I said about the Victorian mindset that still holds Canada in a death grip. I use the term "death grip" advisedly. We are not prepared to say to our young people: "Yes, we understand that your sexuality drives you, particularly strongly the younger you are, in your teens and in your early twenties". We throw them out into this kind of a world with a great number of people saying: "Just say no". Just saying no does not work. Just saying no does not answer the question. What has to answer the question are national programs and a national commitment to assist provinces on the educational level and on the funding level for family planning and education.
If we do not do that, then the lives it is going to cost will be laid at our doorstep.

Private Members' Business


Bill Attewell: Mr. Speaker, first of all I would like to compliment the hon. member for New Westminster-Burnaby on her initiative in this important motion in which she recommends programs to combat sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies. Her motion speaks to family planning and also the need for research on safe and effective methods of birth control.
Most of us, if not all on this side of the House, agree with the urgency and the seriousness of these problems but I guess we will differ a little about how we go about solving them.
I would like to make a few remarks. Research in the area of sexual and reproductive health has been identified as a priority by this government. The government is aware that peer and applied research related to the biological and psycho-social aspects of sexual and reproductive health will improve educational programs and service delivery.
It also argues that medical research will improve the present reproductive technologies and will assist in the prevention and treatment of reproductive health problems.
This year a report on adolescent reproductive health, written by a provincial/territorial working group and published by the Department of National health and Welfare, was distributed across Canada. The report outlines recommendations for future action in the area of sexual and reproductive health. The report recognizes reproductive health as an important component of adolescent health and calls for a focus on sexual and reproductive health as a separate field of research.
The adolescent reproductive health working group indicates that the report on the national consultation on research needs and sexuality and reproductive health, a public health perspective, should be used to set priorities. This 1988 report identified and priorized research needed in the field of reproductive health. Twenty five experts from across Canada, sponsored by Health and Welfare Canada, met in Banff, Alberta to develop the report.
The report on adolescent reproductive health acknowledges the existence of inadequate standardization of collection methods and terminology for reproductive health statistics as well as a shortage and inadequate use
of Canadian data on sexual and reproductive health in adolescents. The government is committed to support provinces, territories and organizations to address these research needs identified in the report on adolescent reproductive health.
A major initiative of this government in this area of reproductive health research has been the establishment of the Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies. The commission has undertaken a comprehensive research and evaluation program to provide data about the critical analysis of the issues surrounding the new reproductive technologies.
The commission set up a research and evaluation program that will study, among other areas, causes and prevention of infertility. The commission's mandate is broad, involving consideration of social, ethical, health, legal and economic implications of the public's interest. Public input has been considered as extremely important in the over all data collection.
Written submissions as well as many public hearings across Canada have been effective means of gathering this information.
In the spring of 1991 the royal commission released a guide to the research and evaluation program of the Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies. This brochure has been extremely popular among members of the research community and the general public. The commission's final report will be completed in the fall of 1992. The recommendations of this royal commission will have a substantial impact on the future directions of research on contraceptive technology and sexual and reproductive health services.
Research results in these areas will also provide Canadians with a greater understanding of safe and effective family planning, methods, and reasons for infertility.
This government's commitment to research in the area of contraception is also evident in the research funded by the National Health Research and Development Program, known as NHRDP.
Since 1986 the government has allocated funding to research through this program, specifically in the area of family planning. NHRDP funded research projects totalled $3.7 million over the last eight years.
October 31, 1991

The research studies have dealt with subjects such as the use of condoms and the pill, adolescent contraceptive practice, vaginal contraceptive devices, and clinical efficacy of the cervical cap. Much of the research focused on aspects of reproductive health other than contraception. Therefore the government made an additional commitment and issued a special call in 1990 for research into family planning, including contraception and problems associated with fertility.
To ensure adequate follow-up the government directed $500,000 a year for the next three years to this special research competition. The research was required to address particular areas of research to be eligible. One of the priorities identified the need to examine the accessibility, availability and acceptability of family planning programs and services to various populations, for example the handicapped, the economically disadvantaged, different cultural groups, and adolescents.
Another area of required research concerns the evaluation of the impact of educational programs, peer counselling models, and the media on sexual practices and contraceptive use.
Finally analysis of the reasons for use or non-use of contraceptives and prevention and effective management of problems related to sub-fertility or infertility is needed.
To this date NHRDP has received 14 proposals. These will be reviewed by a scientific committee in November 1991, just next month, to determine successful research projects.
In summary I again want to compliment the hon. member for New Westminster-Burnaby. Hopefully together, government and opposition parties, we can make a significant and real headway on these vital social issues.


John R. (Jack) Whittaker: Mr. Speaker, I am really pleased to be able to speak on this particular motion today. I think back to the very emotionally charged debate on the abortion issue. One of the things I talked about was about my having spoken to a number of women, some who had to go the route of seeking and obtaining an abortion for an unwanted pregnancy and others who made the choice to continue with pregnancy to term, having the child, and then
Private Members' Business
having to deal either with single parenthood in many cases or with giving that child up for adoption.
At that time I emphasized that the answers did not lie with abortions but that women should have the right to choose whether they needed to terminate the pregnancy. What I emphasized over all was that there was a crying need for proper education, for proper funding, for proper facilities and for proper counselling so that particularly young women but not exclusively young women do not have to deal with the horrible choice of whether to terminate the pregnancy or not.
Certainly for the women I have spoken with over the course of my lifetime it is not and never is an easy decision. One way or the other there are psychological ramifications for whatever choice the young woman takes.
I wanted to get up and speak on this motion because I believe that everybody on all sides of the House, and I believe anybody within Canada, would see the good sense in supporting the motion of the member for New Westminster-Burnaby with respect to education on reproductive technology.
Within that motion, and I think it might be beneficial to read it once again into the record, it asks the government:
-to consider the advisability of taking action to reduce the numbers of unwanted pregnancies in our society by reinstating a Family Planning Division at Health and Welfare Canada; reinstating funding to the Planned Parenthood Federation of Canada at its previously adequate levels; establishing new programs to combat sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies; establishing a national clearinghouse on family planning, and increasing funding for research on safe and effective methods of birth control.
If we look at the the beginning of it we can certainly see the advisability and need for reinstituting the Family Planning Division in Health and Welfare Canada. It is not good enough to say that this is a shared responsibility. I believe that certainly in the western provinces of British Columbia and Saskatchewan we will now see some of these things being dealt with on a provincial level. However I believe the federal government has the primary responsibility for health care and I think it has admitted that to some extent by forming the Royal Commission on Reproductive Technology.

October 31, 1991
Private Members' Business
It should stand up and take that step to ensure that those 66,000 people, usually young women and in some cases older women, who are forced to terminate a pregnancy do not have to take that step in the future. With money properly put into programs for education and counselling, and proper research into reproductive technologies these young women, and in some cases older women, will not have to make that final horrible decision about which way to go.
In my life as a lawyer in British Columbia, I acted for almost 10 years on an ad hoc basis for the Ministry of Social Services and Housing dealing with child paternity suits. I dealt on an ongoing basis with young women, and almost always young women often under the age of 20, who had chosen to have the child but could not bear to give up the child to adoption, to somebody else. By making that decision, unfortunately in almost every case that I dealt with over that 10-year period of time, they were sentenced to a life of poverty.
We did not have the proper and adequate support systems to help these young women. What did they do? Normally they were forced by government policy to sue the father for support. Often the father, in those cases, did not have a good job. He had a low paying job. He was often uneducated and unable to properly and adequately support the child. Yet he was forced to make payments out of his meagre income and the young woman lived a life below the poverty line using the services of social services and housing.
They should not have to make that choice. Those levels of assistance should be there both federally and provincially. As I say it is not adequate to cop out and say it should be done voluntarily or it should be done by the provinces.
The buck stops here. I think it is time that we, as parliamentarians, in the government and on the opposition side began to put our money where our mouth is and say to these people: "We will ensure that we will reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies through the methods set out in this motion".
It is broader than that. I think the statistics presented by the member for New Westminster-Burnaby have pointed out there is and has been a problem of sexually transmitted diseases. All of the speakers have spoken to some extent on that.
We have to bring that level of awareness up within our school system, and I think the parliamentary secretary was correct in saying that we must start at the primary levels to educate the children and talk about sexuality, talk about the consequences of our actions as we grow up and discover our sexuality. I think the point has been very well made that if we do not deal with it now through counselling and services to begin with, the costs into the future are horrendous.
A dollar added now to a program, I believe firmly, will save thousands and thousands of dollars in the years to come on welfare payments, on difficulties with the children in poverty. We now have identified over one million children in poverty. Establishing those programs will also ensure that the problem of sexually transmitted diseases is blocked at the start so that we do not have to pay to assist these people in very expensive hospital care in the the future.
Finally, the government must realize that money put into research is money invested in the future. I implore everybody in the House to support this motion and pass it when it comes up for voting.


Mr. Jean-Marc Robitaille (Terrebonne):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate briefly in this debate on the motion from the hon. member for New Westminster- Burnaby.
I thought I was going to be allowed ten minutes, but I realize that I have barely two minutes, so it will be very difficult for me to say everything I expected to say on the subject.
Like my colleague for Argenteuil-Papineau, I would first congratulate the hon. member for Westminster- Burnaby on having made this issue the subject of a debate in the House. It is a very important subject and we all know how active the hon. member is on social issues, the statut of women, and so on. So I congratulate her.
Mr. Speaker, I will be very brief in saying that the government has taken many initiatives; I cannot list them all, but there are a lot. There is for instance the creation of the Sexually Transmitted Diseases Division, at the National Laboratory for Sexually Transmitted Disease Control, as well as other initiatives. Mr. Speaker, I see you are telling me that my time is up. I was

extremely pleased to have an opportunity to elaborate on such an important issue.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: The time provided for the consideration of Private Members' Business has now expired. Pursuant to Standing Order 93 the order is dropped to the bottom of the list of the order of precedence on the Order Paper.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

[Stage Direction]
A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 38 deemed to have been moved.

Dawn Black: Mr. Speaker, the previous motion will come back for two more hours of debate. Some of the members on the other side may be interested in knowing that.
I asked a question some time ago about whether Canada would honour its own commitment to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which clearly requires the government to ensure the development of institutions, services and facilities for the care of children whose parents are working outside the home.
Sadly the response I received was inadequate. The Minister of National Health and Welfare simply stated that his government came up with a proposal in 1988 and that the Senate turned it down. In fact, the senators never had an opportunity to turn it down. The Prime Minister called an election a few hours before the bill was to be voted on in the Senate, in one of the most manipulative manoeuvres I have ever seen. But the bill itself was not even a good one. At the time, it looked even worse than simply continuing under the Canada Assistance Plan, which is how child care in this country is currently funded.
Adjournment Debate
That was before this government capped the Canada Assistance Plan for the provinces of Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia.
There is a child care crisis in this country. Almost three million Canadian children require child care. There are only 300,000 regulated child care spaces in the entire country. The minister tried to sidetrack the question by claiming to be spending $136 million on child poverty and on violence.
But it is a funny thing, every time I ask a question in this House, that same $136 million keeps popping up. It is supposed to be for women, and then it is supposed to be for seniors, and then it is supposed to be for aboriginals and then it is supposed to be for child care. In fact, it is not $136 million, it is $49 million that will be spent before the next election that is supposed to solve just about every social problem we have in this country. A lot of that money is going to research.
We do not need more research. We know what the problem is. We need action. What is more, not a single red cent of that money is going to eliminate child poverty.
We hear over and over again from the other side of the House that you cannot just throw money at a problem. The people who say that have enough to eat. They have jobs. They are not the people who line up at food banks, who cannot get job training. They are not the battered women with children who are turned away from shelters because of a lack of space.
In fact the Tory reduction of funds to the Canada Assistance Plan amounts to more than $155 million over the next two years. It funds programs to help poor people to get back on their feet. It helps families of poor children. Some 37 per cent of all welfare recipients are children. The lack of affordable child care is a barrier for people looking for jobs. Fifty per cent of Canada's poor live in the three affected provinces. The poor in these provinces are just as poor as those in other provinces in Canada. The children who need child care in those provinces are in just as much need as the children in other provinces. This government is playing political games with people's lives.
The second part of the question I asked dealt with how Canada was going to keep the commitment that it made to the UN on a child's right to health care and education

Adjournment Debate
services. How can it do this when it has cut back already on these services?
The minister's response was that we had to consider Canada's ability to pay. That is just fine. Why did this government not consider Canada's capacity to pay before it made that commitment to the UN? Why did the government make a commitment it had no intention of keeping?


Lise Bourgault: Mr. Speaker, I am particularly proud to speak this evening to reply to two points raised in this adjournment motion by the hon. member. First, as regards the United Nation Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Prime Minister clearly said this week that he thought that the provinces which must ratify the convention before the federal government should do so by year's end. The Prime Minister also told the House that, in his opinion, there was no doubt that the convention would be ratified within the timeframe to which we are committed.
As for me, I sent the complete text to all the churches and elementary schools in my riding to remind my constituents that a convention had been signed, because it is extremely important that all the people in our ridings know about this. As you know, Mr. Speaker, each and every one of us must do something about the issue of daycare.
Do you know what I did? In 1988,1 held a meeting for business people from the St. Janvier region, in Mirabel. I convinced them that daycare also concerned them. And do you know what happened? Through the national Child Care Initiative Fund, we were able to finance a small study that cost $25,000, and the province of Quebec, through I'Agence de garde en milieu familial, provided 60 daycare spaces. Moreover, with the help of three large companies, Bombardier (Canadair Division-Military Aircraft), Bell Helicopter and Air Trans-at, and the City of Mirabel, we opened a daycare facility for 60 children last week, thanks to the initiative of your humble servant in this House. It is a unique concept in the work place in Canada. I invite hon. members to do the same, because I think this is an example that could be followed across the country. Because we were able to get daycare spaces for 120 children, Mr. Speaker, I am convinced that.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Two minutes to reply is very little time. I must now recognize the hon. member for Edmonton East.


CARBON DIOXIDE EMISSIONS
Mr. Ross Harvey (Edmonton East):: Mr. Speaker, when is a cap not a cap? When it is ethereal, a gaseous vapour, a hovering mist dissipating and reforming in mysterious and unpredictable fashion. The government claims to be firmly committed to capping Canada's emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases at 1990 levels, by the year 2000. Unfortunately, upon close examination this commitment which seems not just firm but rock solid, vaporises into some ghostly, shifting ethereal mist.
There are three ways in which this commitment is less substantial than most people think. First, there is good evidence that the government's commitment applies to net emissions, not to gross emissions. Page 102 of the green plan indicates that the government is considering action to limit net emissions of greenhouse gases. The reference to net emissions is repeated in Canada's intervention to an international climate change convention on September 18, 1991 in Nairobi, Kenya.
The apparent insistence on net emissions could be very important. It is a rather straightforward task to compile an inventory, as Environment Canada currently does, of gross emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. It is much more complicated to estimate both sources and sinks for these gases. Canadian estimates could very well be tied up in scientific controversy even as we approach the year 2000 and the cap from a practical standpoint will have been useless.
Even if Canada decides to make monitoring easier and caps gross carbon dioxide emissions, that commitment remains vague because within the government there seems to be no agreement on how much CO2 was emitted in 1990. In the national action strategy on global warming the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment estimated 1990 emissions at 467 megatons. A document dated July 18, 1990, issued by the energy and fiscal analysis division of Energy, Mines and Resources, offers an estimate of 508 megatons. The National Energy Board's June 1991 estimate for 1990 CO2 emissions is 517 megatons. These three government
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estimates for Canadian 1990 carbon dioxide emissions differ by 11 per cent. This is hardly precise for a cap. However there is a third problem. According to a senior government official, 1990 might not mean 1990 after all.
On October 3, 1991,1 asked the deputy minister of the environment: "Is it reasonable to assume that the 1990 emissions level will not absolutely and without variance be the basis used for comparison by the year 2000? Is it possible that it might change as a consequence of international negotiations and of methodologies within the country?"
The deputy minister, Dr. Good, replied: "It is quite possible". So the government's own estimates for carbon dioxide are significantly divergent. Small wonder then that few people seem to take the government's commitment seriously.
My question is clear and simple. When the government says it wants to cap CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions at their 1990 levels by the year 2000, what in heaven's name does it mean?


Mr. John A. MacDougall (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: Mr. Speaker, the government remains to committed to stabilizing the emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases at 1990 levels by the year 2000.
Our efforts to address the issue of global warming are taking place at both the national and international levels. Internationally, Canada has participated in intergovernmental negotiations and framework conventions on climate change. It is important that Canada act in concert with the international community on what is after all a global issue.
On the national front, the federal government's commitment to address climate change is clearly spelled out in Canada's green plan. We are pursuing a comprehensive, flexible approach to limiting net emissions of greenhouse gases, addressing both sources and "sinks", while at the same time acknowledging regional differences.
Carbon dioxide is one of the main greenhouse gases, and most man-made CO2 comes comes from our consumption of fossil fuels. Consequently my department is developing a series of initiatives to promote energy efficiency as a cost effective way to reducing energy
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consumption and CO2 emissions. Measures will be announced in due course to regulate minimum efficiency levels in energy using equipment, to label products regarding their energy use, promote more energy efficient building codes and to initiate a further round of fuel efficiency targets for new vehicles. These are but a few initiatives at the federal level.
The accelerated development and market penetration of alternative motive fuels, as well as research and development of alternative energy is also being pursued. In addition, we shall be initiating information and education campaigns for the public on the wise use of energy. These, along with other measures yet to be announced, are an indication that this government is committed to taking action to meet our stabilization goal.
Provincial and territorial governments, as well as municipalities have important roles to play. Many provinces have undertaken measures to limit CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions. Others are planning to do so. My government is pursuing discussions with the provinces and territories on this matter in order to better co-ordinate actions and share information and data.


WORLD SUMMIT FOR CHILDREN
Mrs. Beryl Gaffney (Nepean):: Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to stand here and to again ask for answers to the question I asked of both the Secretary of State for Canada and the Secretary of State for External Affairs. Specifically I was trying to learn from the Government of Canada what steps it would take in honouring and moving to honour the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
I listened very carefully to the parliamentary secretary who responded a moment ago. Although Canada has certainly indicated its interest, and has signed the agreement at the United Nations on the Rights of the Child, it still has not ratified it. Many countries around the world have ratified it.
My question was simply to ask why this was not happening.
In addition to that, I have also written to the Minister for External Relations and International Development. I had asked these questions in the House, and I had written, and still, I am not any closer to getting an answer. What I really need to know is what steps the government still has to take before honouring this

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agreement. I want to know about the process for ratifying this agreement and these are the answers that I need.
The facts on the convention are that just over a year ago representatives of a 159 nations around the world gathered at the United Nations to begin the process of ending child poverty world-wide. It is interesting to hear the member for Burnaby in her private member's motion talking about child poverty and then her adjournment proceedings with regard to the rights of the child.
There is incredible child poverty, not only in this country but around the world. The summit's main goal was to encourage governments to sign and ratify this agreement. The convention is committed to recognizing the right of every child to a standard of living adequate for the child's physical, mental, spiritual, moral and social development.
As I review Hansard over the last few months I note that every time the government is asked about the convention's ratification it becomes defensive or, in my case, each time that I have posed questions it refuses to answer.
There is reason to believe that Canada will have trouble ratifying the convention because several areas of minimum standards for children, including health, health care and education, fall under provincial jurisdiction.
The federal government has put a cap on the Canada Assistance Plan which pays for many of the programs needed by impoverished people, the majority of whom are children.
This week the Child Welfare League of Canada, the Canadian Welfare Association, and the Canadian Council of Children and Youth held a national symposium in Ottawa to review the state of Canada's children and youth as it relates to the UN convention. At the closing of the symposium they stated that the Canadian government's disastrous social and economic policies have turned child poverty into a national scandal.
One of the conference organizers, Patrick Johnston, said it best when he said: "We are getting tired of hearing reasons why kids cannot be made a priority. We deal with the Constitution. We deal with interest rates, but we never talk about Canada's children. "One in six children lives in poverty. Poor children experience a 50
per cent higher death rate from all causes. Poor children are more than twice as likely to suffer long-term disability and other health problems. The average life expectancy for aboriginal children, for example, is eight years lower than the national average. The high school drop-out rate is more than 90 per cent in some parts of the country for poor children."
Surely if other countries around the world can ratify this agreement then Canada can. We know it probably will be costly. But, for goodness sake, let us get on with it. I and others in this House are very tired of asking why, when, and how, and we have yet to receive an adequate response.
We are all on the side of children I would hope in this House of Commons. I am not attacking the government. I just want an answer, Mr. Speaker, thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to ask my question again.


Lise Bourgault: Mr. Speaker, we all know that the Convention on the Rights of the Child at the United Nations was an historic event and the culmination of almost 10 years of discussions that began shortly after the International Year of the Child in 1979.
The member knows very well that many of the convention articles apply directly to provincial and territorial governments and the services they provide.
Aware of this reality and within the human rights tradition of the Government of Canada, steps were taken in 1982 to establish a federal-provincial-territorial committee of human rights officials to provide full Canadian input into the drafting of the conventions and, more recent, to review federal and provincial law to ensure Canadian compliance with the convention. This process has been thorough, consultative and successful.
I am informed, as I said earlier, that the final stages of the review are almost completed. Governments have been asked to signify formally their support for the ratification by the Government of Canada of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Much has been made recently of the observation that Canada has not yet ratified the convention, the implication being that the Government of Canada might be delaying or purposely avoiding ratification. This is not the case. It was never the case. In fact the reverse is true.
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Canada's commitment to the ratification of the convention has never wavered, nor has our policy to work closely and in collaboration with provincial and territorial governments with a substantial stake in the convention.
I know the member would like the Government of Canada to overrule provincial obligation and responsibilities, but we do not.


EMPLOYMENT
Hon. Alan Redway (Don Valley East):: Mr. Speaker, for over 30 years EFL Furs International was a thriving and a growing manufacturing business.
Its founder, my friend Simos Papadopoulos, came to Canada from Greece with virtually nothing. Through his hard work and the hard work of his family, his late wife, his two sons, Harry and Peter, built a thriving and a very prosperous business which employed close to 100 people. It developed a very significant export trade for Canada in the United States and in Asia. It paid very substantial taxes and provided the basis which allowed the Papadopoulos family to participate in a great many volunteer organizations and charitable organizations in the wider community which did all of us an enormous amount of good.
Now EFL is gone. It has gone bankrupt and the Papadopoulos family has been wiped out. It did not miss an interest payment on its bank loan, but the bank called its loan anyway. Simos voluntarily mortgaged his own home and put all that money into the business. The bank took the money and Simos lost his own home.
Harry sold his home. He put his money into the business on a voluntary basis. The bank took his money and now Harry and his family have been left without a house.
They asked the government for help, for a temporary loan, not for a grant, and the government let them down. They prepared a business plan to show how they could pay off all of their debts. "No", said the bank, "we would rather lose millions of dollars than give you a little more time".
Perhaps EFL and the many families which relied on it for their living, for their jobs that provided them with
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their living, could have been saved if we had only had in place a U.S.-style chapter 11 bankruptcy law.
The formal Liberal government promised a law of that sort some six times over a period of 25 years and our own government promised that sort of a law in the 1989 Speech from the Throne. Finally this past June a bill of this sort was introduced in the House, Bill C-22. It is now before the House for its second reading.
If we are going to prevent any more tragedies, like the tragedy that happened to EFL, if we are going to prevent any more tragedies like the tragedy that has happened to the Papadopoulos family and so many other like families, we have to get on with passing this legislation and passing it as quickly as possible.
Tonight I want to call on the minister to ensure that this bill gets passed just as quickly as possible and gets put into place at least by January 1, 1992 so that we will never again have a tragedy like the one that happened to EFL and the Papadopoulos family.
Mr. Bill Kempling (Parliamentary Secretary to President of the Treasury Board and Minister of State
(Finance)): Mr. Speaker, on June 13 of this year, to overwhelming stakeholder interest and applause, the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs introduced Bill C-22, the reforms to the Bankruptcy Act.
This new legislation is the result of extensive consultation with provincial and territorial governments, labour, business, consumers, legal and insolvency experts. This government knows that saving business means saving jobs.
Accordingly, the focus of this bill is on rehabilitation, not on liquidation. By making reorganization provisions more flexible and more accessible, the reform package provides a greater latitude for debtors to get back on their feet. The new act will strengthen the Canadian business to make it more competitive. The new act also is an important initiative for other segments of the Canadian economy. It will provide greater protection for the most vulnerable participants in the economy, the wage earners, consumers and unpaid suppliers.
Wage earners will be guaranteed a minimal level of protection for the recovery of moneys owed to them in bankruptcies. The program will be accessible, user-friendly, and designed to put cash in their pockets. The Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act will give consumers an opportunity to negotiate arrangements with creditors in

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order to avoid bankruptcy and start all over again. That is what my colleague is talking about with his friends in the fur industry.
The reforms offer broader protection for unsecured creditors. Unpaid suppliers will be given the right within 30 days to reclaim goods from a firm that is subsequently declared bankrupt.
The new bill offers flexible, modern rules that recognize natural market forces. It is an important element in the framework that will allow this government to foster a competitive, productive and national economy.
We feel that in giving viable enterprises the chance to reorganize we can avoid many bankruptcies and save thousands of jobs and avoid losing the expertise essential to encourage Canadian competitiveness.


LINGUISTIC MINORITIES
Ron J. Duhamel: Others may recall that on June 17 I stood in this House and asked a question of the Secretary of State with regard to the kinds of protections that might be given official minority language groups. There were rumours at the time that the government might be thinking of changing that.
I am here this evening to quote the response and to raise a few questions. For example, part of the response says, and I quote: "his government was standing for the rights of linguistic minorities outside and inside Quebec". When people heard that they said: "Where was the government when Bill 178, the sign law, was passed?" Some questions were raised. What was it able to do? Where was the government? Was anything said about this poor elderly gentleman? He was around 65 years old I believe and was the bus driver who was dismissed even though he had driven the bus for 18 years. Apparently he was not able to speak the language sufficiently for the students. He was dismissed in spite of the fact that the parents supported him, the parents wanted him. Where was the government, for example, when the French language rights in Saskatchewan and Alberta, just a few years ago, were diminished significantly?
When the government says it is standing for the rights of linguistic minorities outside and inside Quebec, people are just a little nervous. They ask: "Where is the government with respect to the Supreme Court decision that says that French language groups outside of Quebec
should have governance over their educational systems?"
There is a second part of the answer that I want to address, and it is referring to the govemment:"It is a commitment that we maintain and it is a commitment that we will respect in years to come", that is with respect to the protection of minority language groups.
Some of you will know that in current constitutional proposals there is a reference to the preservation and promotion of the distinct society. I have no particular difficulty with that. I understand the desire of people to want to do that. Those same words were there in the Meech Lake Accord with respect to the minority language groups. Now we know with respect to minority language groups, the French language group, that the only word that is there is "preservation". Why has "promotion" been dropped? Was it an accident?

Nothing is more sensitive or touchy than this language issue, and one really has to be careful. As you know, there was an incident last week. Some young aboriginal hockey players wanted to go to Quebec, but were apparently not allowed or accepted in French-speaking homes. I tried to talk to both sides in order to find out who was right. I still have not found the answer, but I can tell you that this issue generated a lot of calls.
It is a sensitive issue and one must tread very carefully. That is why I asked the question; I said that the national government must protect its minorities. We must know where it stands on this issue. We need leadership. If it is not done for these minority groups, others will also be afraid.
I am trying to be very, very reasonable and I request an answer.


Lise Bourgault: Mr. Speaker, I went to a meeting with the Federation des parents francophones in Winnipeg, in the hon. member's riding I believe, in St. Boniface.
He knows perfectly well that Francophone parents and Franco-Manitobans are very grateful to the Prime Minister of Canada, the Right Hon. Brian Mulroney, for saying that he supported and stood behind Franco-Manitobans in their struggle, in 1984, after the Supreme Court's decision on the province's statutes. The hon. member knows perfectly well that the Conservative

government and the Prime Minister enjoy great respect in Manitoba, in his riding.
Mr. Speaker, the reform of the Official Languages Act is the best indication of this government's commitment and vision with respect to the interests and concerns of official language groups.
Our commitment goes further, Mr. Speaker. As partners sharing the same values, the federal government, the provinces and the territories have concluded new bilateral agreements on minority language education and second language education. We have also signed co-operative agreements with nine provinces and territories, to promote an increase in minority language services. We have also increased support for organizations and institutions in official language communities.
The hon. member alluded to a minor problem that occurred in connection with children who wanted to play
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hockey in Quebec. Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. member either had a poor interpretation or perhaps misunderstood, because that is what often happens. People tend to misread the facts. I know the hon. member did not pass judgment. I know him well, and I know that he would be the last person to pass judgment on this matter, being the perfectly bilingual member for Manitoba. However, it is all a matter of understanding and occasionally of being more open to our minorities, and so we have these minor problems.
That is all I wanted to say. Thank you Mr. Speaker.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 10 a.m, pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 6.32 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Friday, November 1,1991