1991-05-22

Hon. Warren Allmand (Notre-Dame-de-Grace):: Mr. Speaker, on May 21 and 22, 25 MPs and experts from 15 countries sponsored by Parliamentarians for Global Action met in Ottawa to develop a new approach to peacekeeping.
During the recent Iraq-Kuwait war there was much talk about a new world order. That war also taught us that the existing approach to peacekeeping was no longer adequate. It is mostly ad hoc, reactive, slow and underfinanced. In the case of the Iraq war, the force was overwhelmingly American and not under UN command.
What is needed is an early warning process that will provide for preventive peacekeeping. Under such a process there would be standing UN peacekeeping forces stationed in the different regions of the world which would be sent to trouble spots to deter and repel aggression such as that of Iraq against Kuwait.
It is easier and less costly to prevent the occupation of a country than to evict an aggressor once an occupation has taken place.
I ask the government and this House to take these proposals seriously and make the slogan "a new world order" a meaningful reality.


NATIONAL UNITY
Hon. Alan Redway (Don Valley East):: Mr. Speaker, I hope that Canadians who say they want to separate and other Canadians who say "let them go" realize that a
divided Canada will mean a lower standard of living for all of us.
Each portion of a fractured Canada would of course assume its own share of our national debt. But each portion would also have a much more narrow economic base. That would reduce our attractiveness to the lenders who finance our debt and result in higher borrowing costs, higher taxes and less government services for all of us.
In addition, Ontario and Quebec with economies that are so closely linked by massive two-way trade would be especially hard hit if the free movement of goods and services was in any way restricted.
Perhaps some Canadians think that a lower standard of living would be worth it, but I am not one of them.


PUBLIC WORKS
Mr. Chris Axworthy (Saskatoon-Clark's Crossing):: Mr. Speaker, the public works minister has turned the environmental review of the fixed link bridge across the Northumberland Strait into a farce.
Even though in 1990 the Environmental Assessment and Review Process said no, the minister's announcement that his department has invited three companies to submit proposals for the project means that the government is serious about going ahead.
As Minister of Public Works the minister had the responsibility to carry out an objective environmental review. But also as minister responsible for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency he publicly lobbied for the project, thereby flying in the face of EARP.
The Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency's annual report classed the proposed fixed link crossing between New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island as one of the new opportunities expected to benefit Atlantic Canadians and stated: "A favourable decision on construction of the fixed link is expected to enhance economic growth in the future".

May 22, 1991
The facts reveal that 700 jobs will be lost, major destruction of the fishery and environment, and in fact this megaproject will only benefit Conservative cronies.
The minister has made a sham of this Environmental Assessment and Review Process.


EDUCATION AND JOB TRAINING
Mr. Gilles Rocheleau (Hull-Aylmer):: Mr. Speaker, the Conservative and Liberal members from Quebec, especially the francophones, have every reason to be embarassed today. Indeed, the headline in the papers read: "Five Liberal MPs are hiding behind the curtains."


An hon. member:: Shame!


Gilles Rocheleau: It is nothing but the truth. Instead of protecting Quebec best interests in the fields of education and job training which are threatened, they are hiding behind the curtains. Some give as an excuse that they were late. Others denied the fact arguing that they agreed with the Bloc Quebecois motion to ask the federal government not to interfere in Quebec's exclusive jurisdiction in these fields.
If they were committed to supporting Quebec, they would not be hiding behind curtains nor would they arrive late for such an important vote. Quebec Conservative and Liberal members will certainly be severely criticized for this lack of respect, to say the least, toward Quebec. As I told them yesterday, Mr. Speaker: "They should be ashamed."


EDUCATION
Mr. Guy Saint-Julien (Abitibi):: Mr. Speaker, the conservative government knows that education is a provincial jurisdiction by virtue of the Constitution and respects that.
This government spends directly or indirectly some $11 billion a year on education and training.
I would not want to be in the shoes of the Bloc Quebecois member who would try to take away the Canada Scholarships the students have earned this year in Abitibi. I would not want to be in the shoes of the Bloc Quebecois member who would come and try to abolish
the job training programs, the Challenge program and the dropout programs in Abitibi.
Mr. Speaker, rest assured that Quebec Premier Robert Bourassa and the Minister of Education Michel Page will see to it that the province's jurisdiction as regards education is fully respected.



Ms. Catherine Callbeck (Malpeque):: Mr. Speaker, this government's attempt to make up for its lack of commitment to education by talking about national objectives and standards in last week's throne speech is nothing less than a charade.
Due to the government's cutbacks and the federal commitment to the provinces for education, the University of Prince Edward Island announced last week that tuition fees would need to increase by 15 per cent. This could cost students $280 more a year.
Here we have a federal government that has not increased the maximum student loan allowed since it came to office in 1984; a government that has imposed a tax on books, learning materials, further burdening students with more costs; a government that has implemented a 3 per cent administration fee on student loans, which is nothing less than a tax on the most needy students in our country.
Actions speak louder than words. We have had seven years of words. So when are we going to see some action on the part of the federal government to improve the accessibility and quality of our nation's education system?


TRANSPORTATION
Mr. Bill Casey (Cumberland -Colchester):: Mr. Speaker, the Port of Halifax is facing the possibility of losing a considerable part of its container traffic because rail costs from Halifax to central Canada are prohibitive.
This loss will result in substantially reduced rail traffic from Atlantic Canada to central Canada and could in fact jeopardize the viability of the entire rail link to Atlantic Canada. The final result could be a devastating blow to an economy already lagging behind the rest of the country.

Under section 3 (1) (d) of the National Transportation Act, the act states:
Transportation is recognized as a key to regional economic development and commercial viability of transportation links.
Under this act it appears the National Transportation Authority can instruct CN to provide competitive and quality transportation to the Atlantic region.
I urge the Minister of Transport to bring the NTA into this urgent situation and act quickly to resolve this important issue.


GOODS AND SERVICES TAX
Mr. Joseph Volpe (Eglinton-Lawrence):: Mr. Speaker, the ongoing difficulties the Canadian public and economy are having with the GST illustrates how out of step the government is with this country.
Last year the Prime Minister promised: "They're not going to pay a nickel more, not a nickel more" with the GST.
Yesterday The Financial Post announced: "Ottawa goofed on GST prices". The Toronto Star blamed the tax load for cross-border drain. And a survey conducted by the Consumers' Association of Canada found that close to 75 per cent of consumer items experienced a rise in cost thanks to the GST.
Moreover, revenue officials are reported to be stating that "the amount being collected by the GST far exceeds expectations". According to The Toronto Star "the GST collects billions of dollars more this year than the $24 billion expected".
Remember, the GST was supposed to replace only the MST revenue of $18.5 billion. But a 7 per cent GST on national goods and services valued at $410 billion annually will produce $28.7 billion, a full $10 billion more than the government claims.
Can the public be blamed for dismissing the Prime Minister's claims as nothing more than political puffery, totally divorced from reality?


VETERANS AFFAIRS
Mrs. Louise Feltham (Wild Rose):: Mr. Speaker, many allegations have been made that former Greek resistance fighters have used fraudulent documents to support their claims for the war veterans allowance.
I would like to acknowledge that action has been taken by our government in the following manner. As soon as the Minister of Veterans Affairs was informed that fraudulent documents might have been used by former Greek resistance fighters, the minister immediately asked the RCMP to conduct an investigation which is still under way.
In July 1990, when the RCMP provided proof that certain documentation was fraudulent, a new process was put in place to ensure that all new applications be verified by the Government of Greece. The department has also initiated a review of existing cases in pay.
To date, the Government of Greece has found a small number of applications to be fraudulent. In cases where these people have received money, the department has ceased payment and is acting to recover past payments.


WOMEN AND THE LAW
Mr. Ian Waddell (Port Moody-Coquitlam):: Mr. Speaker, the study by the Manitoba Association of Women and the Law on gender equality in the courts of criminal law is disturbing.
The report addresses the areas of wife abuse, sexual assault, incest and child sexual assault from the victim's perspective.
It shows that stereotypical assumptions about women including the myth of non-violent sexual assault and the concept that "no" from a woman may mean "yes" or "maybe" still play an important role in judicial decision making. We remember the recent decision of Judge Hood from British Columbia.

May 22, 1991
There is evidence that many women choose not to report sexual assault and wife and child abuse because they feel the system will not treat them fairly. This is terrible.
There is a conference coming up in Vancouver on Women and the Law that will be useful. But, more than conferences, I call upon the government and the Minister of Justice to implement some of this report's recommendations, including the establishment of a national task force on gender equality, improved training of judges and lawyers, and the appointment of more women judges to the bench.

[Translation\


UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE
Hon. Jean Chretien (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I welcome this opportunity today to speak on behalf of my constituents in Beausejour.
In these times of economic uncertainty, the people of Beausejour face all kinds of problems, but unemployment is the problem I want to discuss more particularly here in the House today. No steps have been taken yet to remedy the situation facing the unemployed in Westmorland. The rural residents of Westmorland have to live with an artificially low unemployment rate.

Under the present circumstances, the rate of unemployment for rural Westmorland and the city of Moncton is 10 per cent. But realistically the rate of unemployment of Westmorland should be comparable to that of Kent county, which is 16.4 per cent.
The people of Westmorland have the same lifestyle and work conditions as those in Kent, but they must work for a longer period of time to qualify for unemployment insurance benefits.
It is time for this government to stop this injustice and to change the unemployment insurance regions in my constituency of Beausejour so that all the unemployed people of rural southeast New Brunswick are treated in exactly the same way.


INCOME TAX
Mrs. Gabrielle Bertrand (Brome -Missisquoi):: Mr. Speaker, considering the government's undertaking in the last Speech from the Throne that it would review its policies in relation to the family, I would like to remind my government that improvements are urgently needed to correct the present situation. In fact, there are a number of major flaws in our taxation system.
Mr. Speaker, is it normal for a married couple with two children, where each spouse earns $17,500-a total family income of $35,000-to pay $852 more in income tax than a couple living common law, whose income and family situation are otherwise identical?
Is it normal to allow a married couple a deduction of $399 for a dependent child, when a couple that has decided to live common law can claim $5,141 for that child?
Is it normal for a man who is separated to be able to deduct from his income, as alimony paid to his exspouse, the total amount of living expenses of his dependent children, while the woman has to declare this as additional income on her income tax form?
Briefly, although the taxation system has evolved in terms of the changes that have taken place in the family structure over the years, the rules governing tax allowances have become inconsistent. The result is a system that is unwieldy, inefficient and unfair, and it should be reviewed and amended as soon as possible.


THE LATE RAJIV GANDHI
Mr. Doug Fee (Red Deer):: Mr. Speaker, the senseless and brutal slaying of Mr. Rajiv Gandhi emphasizes once again the benefits of living in our country.
We are going through a period of protracted discussion and negotiation about the constitutional concerns of Canadians.
Feelings are running high. As a group politicians are being condemned, but our greatest concern is that we might be harshly criticized in the media.
May 22, 1991

Oral Questions
Our hearts and prayers go out to the people of India, and especially the family of Mr. Gandhi. At the same time we should offer a prayer of thanks for the privilege of living in Canada and serving in a tolerant, open, caring society where violence is not acceptable as a means to achieve political ends.


NOVA SCOTIA
Mr. Peter L. McCreath (South Shore):: Mr. Speaker, the sun is shining in Ottawa as we begin Fitweek across Canada.
The warm weather also indicates that summer is coming and Canadians are beginning to think about vacations.
I would like to let all members in on a little secret. Indeed I will share it with all Canadians. The best place to spend part of your summer is on the beautiful south coast of Nova Scotia. Nowhere is there a more beautiful coast line or more beautiful beaches. Nowhere is the hospitality warmer or more friendly.
If you want the tranquillity of lakes and forests, a touch of Canada's history, hospitable accommodation or the best seafood in Canada, not to mention blue, sunny skies, come to Nova Scotia this summer.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD

['I will listen to a point of order from the hon. member for Shefford.']
Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister for International Trade. Today, the U.S. Congress is expected to give its approval for facilitating free trade negotiations between the United States, Canada and Mexico. President Bush already advised members of Congress of his objectives several weeks ago, clearly explaining what would and would not be included in the negotiations. I therefore want to ask the minister: When is he going to do what President Bush did? When will he advise the members of this House and the Canadian people of his government's clear and specific objectives for these very important negotiations?


Hon. Michael Wilson (Minister of Industry, Science and Technology and Minister for International Trade):: Mr. Speaker, the negotiations we hope will be commencing shortly on the North American free trade agreement which will involve, we expect and hope, an opening up of the Mexican market to Canadian exporters.
We expect also that there will be an element of the free trade agreement which will involve an opening up of investment possibilities between Canada and Mexico.
I have made it very clear that the question of cultural industries is not one that we are prepared to negotiate. We believe the position we took in the free trade agreement with the United States is one that we should continue in these negotiations.


Some hon. members:: Wrong.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Colleagues opposite say: "Wrong". I would suggest that they check with their leader before they comment in that regard.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, before President Bush can even begin fast track negotiations with Mexico, he has to get the approval not only of the committees of the Congress, but of Congress itself.
That process gave the American people a chance to express their concerns. When will the government give the Canadian people the same opportunity and agree to public hearings on these very important negotiations?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I have made a speech in this regard and I am prepared to appear before a committee.
I have had some preliminary discussions with the chairman of the Standing Committee on External Affairs and International Trade. We are also going to be following the same process of very open and ongoing consultations with people in the private sector, both business and labour.
We are also going to be having extensive consultations with the provinces so that they will be totally aware of the positions that we take in the free trade agreement negotiations, as well as be able to give us their advice, their guidance and their judgment as to positions we should be taking in relation to their own interests as provinces.

May 22, 1991
Oral Questions


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, in order to win support in Congress for these negotiations with Mexico, President Bush promised to bring in adjustment programs for American workers who will lose their jobs because of the trilateral trade agreement.
I ask the minister: What about Canadian workers? When will we see a commitment by this government, the government of the Canadian people, for a program of adjustment for the Canadian workers who will lose their jobs because of these negotiations?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, my friend opposite jumps to the conclusion that free trade results in lost jobs. I question that because in the last 45 years, as tariff barriers and non-tariff barriers have been falling, we have seen a continuation of growth in jobs from trade. Trade has grown from about 15 per cent of our economy to 30 per cent of our economy and has provided jobs for over three million Canadians. The automatic knee-jerk response of my colleague opposite simply is not borne out by the facts.
He asks what our position has been on adjustment for workers who lose their jobs. We have far better adjustment programs than the United States has.


Some hon. members:: Where?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: I do not know where this party has been if they do not know what we have in place. We have brought in the Canadian Jobs Strategy and other training programs. Since 1984, when the federal government had practically no training programs under the administration of the previous government, today with changes to the Canadian Jobs Strategy, the unemployment insurance program, we have $2.2 million worth of moneys going into training programs. That I believe is far greater on a per capita basis-


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Etobicoke North.


Hon. Roy MacLaren (Etobicoke North):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister for International Trade. One crucial aspect of the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, a clear definition of subsidies, is still outstanding. The government knows that the free trade
agreement will necessarily be reopened in the negotiations with Mexico.
What does the government intend to do with regard to Canadian subsidies, whether to agriculture or to manufacturing, when the United States will demand that all subsidies, whether Mexican or Canadian, be on the table?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I think my hon. friend forgets about the subsidies that the United States has. These are subject to scrutiny as well.
My friend also is aware of the extensive discussions that have been going on in the multilateral trade negotiations. Our approach as a government has been to participate actively and aggressively in those discussions to ensure that we can have a broad agreement on what constitutes a subsidy and on what basis countervailing duties might be appropriate. Those multilateral discussions are still under way. Once those are completed then I expect we will be able to tie down the agreement with the United States in a way that is consistent with the multilateral negotiations.


Roy MacLaren: Mr. Speaker, the minister knows full well that the chances of the Uruguay round being completed prior to the beginning of the negotiation of the Mexico agreement is non-existent. The negotiations of subsidies will be in the Mexican agreement. The minister knows that.
Also the minister knows that Mexico has said that its constitution does not permit it to negotiate on energy or transport. On the other hand, Canada agreed to the inclusion of energy and transport in the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement.
Will the minister now tell the Canadian people how such sectors can be excluded in the discussions with Mexico and included in the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, transportation was not a part of the discussions with the United States at the request of the United States. Energy was included in those discussions because we wanted to have access to the United States market-
May 22, 1991


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: We had access.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: He is saying we had access. The whole point, Mr. Speaker, is that the access was being interrupted by non-tariff barriers which we wanted to avoid through the free trade agreement with the United States. That is precisely the reason why we included energy in the free trade agreement with the United States. It is on that basis that we would continue to have discussions as far as Mexico is concerned.



Mr. Steven W. Langdon (Essex-Windsor):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance.
The Consumers' Association of Manitoba has just released a six province check of prices after the GST. Frankly, their conclusion is brutal. Of the 50 items surveyed, 36 cost more than the government had estimated. Only 14 items cost less.
Will the minister admit that this government has hoodwinked Canadians on the GST. Will he admit that in fact the economic damage to this economy is much greater from the GST than its estimates suggested?


Hon. Don Mazankowski (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, I would agree with the statement made by the Consumers Association of Canada, which said:
The CAC believes Canadian consumers deserve a full and
comprehensive quantitative study on the impacts of GST on prices
in the Canadian marketplace.
I agree with that statement.
What we have here is an incomplete, erroneous study. It is very difficult to do a study with any degree of accuracy with a tax system that has not been maturely put in place. It is going to take some time before all the benefits of the GST flow through ultimately to the consumer. That has not been taken into consideration.


Steven W. Langdon: Mr. Speaker, the details in this report are quite clear. Things like a wallet, which most Canadians can understand, includes a percentage change of 17 per cent increase, compared to the government's estimate of .8 per cent increase. I could go through detail after detail to demonstrate that, in fact, according to something which comes from a neutral party, the Consumers' Association of Manitoba,
Oral Questions
has found that across this country in case after case, the government's estimates were simply incorrect.
Despite that, what we also find is that business people are starting to talk publicly, saying that government officials have told them that GST revenues far exceed what was expected so far.
In view of this, will the minister give back this extra tax grab? Will he give tax cuts to the lower and middle-income Canadians who have paid for this tax bonanza which these figures demonstrate?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, in the news release that was issued yesterday by the Consumers Association of Canada, they have dissociated themselves from this particular report. I quote:
This has not been released as an official study of the Consumers' Association of Canada at the present time.
We have not made any projections with respect to specific price increases or decreases. What the government said, and we stand by this, was the fact that we anticipated a one-time rise in the consumer price index of roughly 1.25 percentage points and we stand by that.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Essex-Windsor, a short supplemental.


Steven W. Langdon: Mr. Speaker, I simply make the point that the document is here. It has been released by the Saskatchewan and Manitoba consumers associations.

Once again, Statistics Canada tells us that our ecoomic problems are continuing: retail sales dropped in March. The recession goes on, and what is the government going to do about it? How is the government going to respond to the needs of unemployed Canadians across this country?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, while it is true there was a reduction in consumer demand in the month of March by some 1.3 percentage points, it is considerably less than the reduction in demand in the months of February which was 2.1 per cent and January which was
4.1	per cent. It is less on a month-to-month basis.

May 22, 1991
Oral Questions
Instead of the gloom and doom the hon. member is advocating, we have in the month of April some positive indicators such as the improvement in business confidence, the improvement in housing starts, the improvement in housing resales, the employment improvements and the 5 percentage point reduction in interest rates. The prime rate in Canada today is 9.75 per cent and in the United States it is 8.5 per cent; that is a 1.25 per cent spread so we are making progress.


CULTURAL AFFAIRS
Mrs. Sheila Finestone (Mount Royal):: Mr. Speaker, earlier this week U.S. trade negotiator Hills repeated that the United States will demand that the Canadian government drop all protection for Canadian cultural industries in the forthcoming free trade negotiations with Mexico.
We have heard the Minister for International Trade say that this is not so, yet the Americans have cited, in particular, the federal postal rates that benefit Canadian publications and the limits on foreign ownership for broadcasting and publishing.
My question is for the Minister of Communications. When will the government tell the Americans that these policies will not be changed, that they are not unfair restrictive trade practices, but rather essential investment tools for our Canadian cultural development and our identity? Obviously the government is not listening and the Americans are not listening to our international trade minister. What about you, sir, are you going to tell them?


Mr. Speaker:: I would ask hon. members to put their questions through the Chair.


Hon. Perrin Beatty (Minister of Communications):: Mr. Speaker, yes, indeed, I am going to tell them, just as my colleague, the Minister for International Trade, told them and just as yesterday one of my other colleagues told them.
Canadian cultural products are for sale to the world. Canadian culture is not for sale.


Sheila Finestone: Mr. Speaker, this side of the House and Canadians will be very pleased
to hear this. I wish they could believe it. They have to use it or they are going to lose all their credibility.
This government knows that Canadian films only make up 3 per cent of our cinema screen and for the last four years this government has been promising a new law on film distribution. When will that law be tabled? When is the government going to act to increase that share? Are Canadians in control of their cultural destiny or has George Bush, in the context of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico free trade agreement, said: "No way, Jose"! What are you doing about it?


Henry Perrin Beatty: Mr. Speaker, the fact that Mrs. Hills is asking to have it re-opened simply demonstrates the excellent job that was done by the government in the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement to ensure that Canadian culture was protected.
We intend to follow exactly the same policy here. We will be taking a number of measures to enhance Canadian arts and culture. For example, as early as tomorrow, we will be introducing the new status of the artist bill. I will be looking for co-operation from all sides of the House to see this through the House of Commons by the summer recess.


Mr. Paul Martin (LaSalle-Emard):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister for International Trade.
President Bush announced measures to protect some U.S. environmental interests in the free trade agreement with Mexico. Unfortunately, the Minister said that as far as Canada was concerned, it could simply imitate or copy the Americans. Mr. Speaker, that is unacceptable. We have our own environmental requirements, even if the Minister does not want to admit it.
My question for him is: When does the Minister intend to table here in the House an independent policy that will protect Canada's environmental interests in these negotiations?
May 22, 1991


Hon. Jean J. Charest (Minister of the Environment):: Mr. Speaker, Canada's environmental concerns in these negotiations will be dealt with on three levels. The subjects negotiated in the agreement itself will have an environmental aspect involving Canada. As for subjects outside the agreement, Canada hopes that they will be covered in parallel negotiations.
Finally, Mr. Speaker, we already had the opportunity to say in this House that once the agreement is concluded, it will be subject to an environmental review, like all other government policies, when it is submitted to Cabinet. The government will then have to draw some conclusions and make them public, Mr. Speaker.


Paul Edgar Philippe Martin: Mr. Speaker, the failure of the minister to answer demonstrates very clearly that he does not understand the integration of the environment and the economy. The promise was not to make the environmental impact study available after, it was at the time the initiative was made, and you have broken your promise already.
Will the minister, or will any minister on the other side who is prepared to make a commitment, commit to meaningful, timely and public participation in developing the Canadian environmental position? Will the minister agree that there will be no signing of a free trade agreement until at the same time the parallel environmental agreement is signed? Finally, will the minister undertake that no trade measures, no trade procedures will be agreed to in the negotiations that would in any way, shape, or form inhibit Canada's right to protect its own environment?


Jean J. Charest: Mr. Speaker, it is quite a change in tone for the member for LaSalle-Emard today in the Houses of Commons. He found his way today from hiding behind the curtains yesterday on a vote here in this House.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Mr. Speaker:: I am sure the hon. minister would want to get on with answering the question.


Jean J. Charest: It may be of some interest to the member that it is the Minister of the Environment who is answering this question. I am working in very close co-operation with my colleague from trade, with all my colleagues in fact, in approaching these negotiations to assure ourselves that in so far as trade related matters
Oral Questions
are concerned within this agreement, they will be dealt with. Environmental matters that concern those trade related items will be dealt with in the negotiations. We want non-trade related items to be dealt with at parallel negotiations.
Finally, there is one thing that seems to me very central in all of this. Once an agreement has been concluded and before the policy is dealt with before cabinet and within our own system of government there will be an environmental evaluation. That in itself is a fundamental change for this government to do business and, in fact, for any government around the world to do business so far as the environment is concerned.


NATIONAL DEFENCE
Mr. John Brewin (Victoria):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of National Defence. Yesterday the minister announced contracts worth more than $1 billion for a radio communications system that apparently will be used primarily by our troops in Europe. Yet the Associate Minister of National Defence said yesterday that the government was reconsidering our commitment to keep our forces in Europe.
What is going on? Who is in charge at the Department of National Defence? How does this minister justify spending over $1 billion on a radio communications system for the army when the government is cutting back the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, cutbacks for which this minister was responsible?


Hon. Marcel Masse (Minister of National Defence):: Mr. Speaker, I believe that the hon. member asked a question:

I think what is going wrong is that the member is badly informed because there is no relationship at all with Europe and the communication system.

The contract announced yesterday in Calgary will enable the Canadian Army to be very efficient and modern in signaling and in the transmission of everything the Army needs to operate. That has nothing to do with the issue of Europe. It is for all the forces-in Canada, in Europe and serving with the United Nations.

May 22, 1991
Oral Questions


John F. Brewin: Mr. Speaker, the Institute for International Peace and Security says differently so I will have to sort that one out over the next few days.
Let me follow up with a question about the government's review of its defence policy. Yesterday the associate minister also said that she expects that the review will be made public in June. I would like to ask why the government is making a series of very important longterm decisions before any review has even been completed. How come it is doing this without any public input whatever?
Will the government make a commitment here today in this House that the public will be consulted before this government makes irrevocable restructuring of the Canadian forces?


Marcel Masse: Mr. Speaker, first, there was never any question of the foundations and basic policies covering the Canadian Forces' responsibilities being at issue.
Nevertheless, the hon. member, like all Canadians, has certainly realized that in the past few years, very important changes have taken place, particularly in Europe, and that all countries, both inside and outside NATO, must take account of this reality.
Obviously, the Government of Canada, like its allies, must also consider what has happened and the effects of this situation on the Canadian Forces, taking into account Canada's finances, especially the announcements made in the 1989-90 Budget where the Department of Defence was asked for more than $3 billion as part of Canada's deficit-fighting effort.
Therefore, in view of these two situations, the Government of Canada is reviewing its policy, Mr. Speaker, as Germany, England and the United States are also reviewing theirs.


TRUCKING INDUSTRY
Mr. Sergio Marchi (York West):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transport.
Yesterday in response to the truckers parked in front of Parliament Hill, who have become a very powerful symbol for many Canadians across the country, the minister said, and I quote:
It is impossible to really discuss with a group of people who have
no authorized representatives.
Rather than pitting one group against the other and playing the politics and the game of "divide and conquer", when will the minister recognize that ultimately the federal government is the authorized and elected representative of these people who happen to be Canadians and who are legitimately demanding action, solution and leadership from this national government?
What is so wrong with that, Mr. Minister?


Hon. Jean Corbeil (Minister of TVansport):: The hon. member from the other side may try to distort what I said to the people yesterday, but he certainly will not succeed in making the Canadian population believe that we have not met with the people involved. We have met with all the stakeholders in the trucking industry. I just came out of a meeting with the representatives of the Canadian Trucking Association.
So, we have met with all people and we have listened to them. On Friday we told the people assembled on the street that their concerns have been expressed by the Coalition of Independent Owner-Operators in the task force that we have created. This task force has asked for studies. These studies are coming forward and they will be wrapped up by the task force. Then we will address the problems based on facts and not on misconceptions.


Sergio Marchi: The fact of the matter is that these truckers speak for more Canadians than this government's 14 per cent standing in the polls right now. That is the problem.
I ask the minister this: He said that he has met and talked with many people. He has had a nine-option plan proposed by this Liberal opposition party. He has had solutions from the truckers and their wives. He has had specific representations for over a year. I ask the minister, why is this government so reluctant to even usher in temporary relief measures?
May 22, 1991

Which will it be? Crossing every t and dotting every i of every study ever commissioned, or listening and responding to average Canadians and their plights?


Jean Corbeil: Mr. Speaker, I am happy that the member has given me the occasion to respond and make known to the general public the Liberal way of meeting crises: Spend more money.
I have here a brochure put out this week by an hon. member. I want to quote one of his suggestions, and I would like everybody to listen to this: "7. Federal-provincial trade-off: Financial co-operation to ease the provincial tax portion on diesel fuel can be attained by the federal government agreeing to roll back its share of revenues supporting the road infrastructure".
Then there is an explanation, because that needs an explanation. He says: "The federal government presently contributes approximately 5 per cent of total highway expenditures in Canada. In the U.S., the federal government contributes 20 to 25 per cent. Our federal government"-listen to this-"should increase its share of contributions of total highway expenditures to 20 per cent". Quick-fix spending by the Liberals.


PUBLIC SERVICE
Mrs. Marlene Catterall (Ottawa West):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the President of the Treasury Board.
A year after the report of the task force on Barriers to Women in the Public Service, the same old attitudes keep women below the glass ceilings.
Today, the Public Service Commission reported that women working for the federal government resign at twice the rate of men. They fill most of the short-term positions, with no benefits, no security, no rights and they make only 55 cents for every $1 a man earns.
What does the minister have to say to the women of Canada about this abysmal treatment of women working for the Government of Canada?


Hon. Gilles Loiselle (President of the TVeasury Board and Minister of State (Finance)):: Mr. Speaker, I believe the hon. member will realize that this has been a problem in Canada for many years.
Oral Questions
Our government, fortunately, has done much more than the Liberals did during decades of government. We have set very precise targets in each area to improve equity.
I fully agree that we need to continue to do more. We are doing that in every area. I remember, not so long ago, the Prime Minister giving numbers of achievements that we can be very proud of.
I can say that this government will continue to press with its effort. We have precise targets, and we are achieving them.


Marlene Catterall: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is for the same minister.
Targets require steps. Women make up nearly half the Public Service, but they got less than 25 per cent of management promotions last year, less than one quarter of the appointments to the management from outside the Public Service and just 20 per cent of the appointments within the management category.
One year ago, the former President of the Treasury Board said: "I can tell my colleague that the report is being acted on today. We are not going to hold up action on this report." When will the government give women more than empty promises?
When and how will this minister give women a chance at equality?


Gilles Loiselle: Mr. Speaker, since the hon. member has asked me for some figures, I am very pleased to give her some to explain just what progress has been made. Of course, I do not deny that much remains to be done. We live in a society that unfortunately has not always given equity its proper place. However, if you take for example the management categories when the Liberal Party, to which she belongs, was in power, there were 308 women in the management categories-that is, 7.3 per cent. We took power and today we have 730 women in management, or 15.3 per cent. We have more than doubled the number of women in the management categories and we will continue to move forward.

May 22, 1991
Oral Questions


TRUCKING INDUSTRY
Mr. Les Benjamin (Regina-Lumsden):: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance in his role as Deputy Prime Minister said yesterday that free trade was not involved in transport.
He knows that free trade has meant more U.S. imports hauled by U.S. truckers and Canadian exports hauled by U.S. truckers.
He talks about competitiveness when his own laws prevent Canadian truckers and railroads from being competitive.
Will the Minister of Finance act immediately to amend our tax law and regulations to ensure that depreciation allowances, which he knows something about, for trucks, tractors, trailers and railway rolling stock do not exceed those applied by U.S. laws?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, it is my understanding that our capital cost allowance and depreciation compares very favourably with the United States, particularly when you take into consideration that the United States has a 12 per cent heavy duty sales tax which applies to tractors and trailers. This drives up the price and nullifies any acceleration of the depreciation which the United States tax system has.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Mr. Speaker, I direct my supplementary question to the Minister of Transport. Since the truckers and the Canadian Trucking Association are complaining about the lack of enforcement of Canadian laws and regulations, whether by provinces or the national government on trans-border traffic, will the Minister of Transport ensure that his department, and other departments that have responsibility for enforcement, will increase their personnel, enforce regulations and on the spot collection of fines in the role as a regulator of cross-border traffic.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member knows, that is something that would have to be pursued at the federal-provincial level.
As a long time expert in transportation matters, he also knows very well that extra-provincial trucking is largely a provincial matter. What he and others have been trying to do for many years is to establish some degree of uniformity across the country so that truckers can operate with fewer barriers and obstacles than they now have. That is part and parcel of the problem.
If the hon. member wants to do anything for the truckers, he may get on the telephone this afternoon and call his friends at Queen's Park and ask them to do something about ratcheting down the sales tax or excise tax which they have on fuel, which will reach 14.3 cents a litre when the NDP government puts into effect the increases it brought down in the last budget.


THE ECONOMY
Mr. Alfonso Gagliano (Saint-Leonard):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Finance.
Yesterday, the Conference Board of Canada released its provincial economic forecasts. The report says that the economic situation in Quebec will continue to deteriorate and that during the coming year, the unemployment rate is not expected to drop below its current level of 12.5 per cent.
My question to the minister is this: When will he realize that the economic policies applied by his government are doing nothing to help the economy in Quebec, and when will he table new measures to give the economy a boost, not just in Quebec but across Canada?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, the slowdown was, in fact, anticipated in the budget of 1990 and reconfirmed in February when the budget was brought down. Clearly, because of the inflationary pressures and inflationary expectations which developed between 1988 and 1990, that issue had to be addressed or we would have ended up being in the same position that we were in 1981 and 1982 under the Liberals, where we had inflation rates of 13 per cent and 14 per cent and interest rates in excess of 20 per cent. We wanted to avoid that.
May 22, 1991

What has been indicated is that we have developed and put in place policies that will see us ease out of the recession in the second half. We expected the first half to be slow, but the economic indicators that we now see with respect to renewed business confidence, increased housing starts, increased housing sales and the decline in interest rates, we believe auger very well for recovery in the second half.


Alfonso Gagliano: Mr. Speaker, the minister referred to a recession that was not only anticipated by this government but in fact created by this government's policies.
My question is quite straightforward and is directed to the same minister. When will he reduce the spread between U.S. and Canadian interest rates so that Canadian businesses can compete and create jobs for the unemployed in Montreal, Quebec City and Trois-Ri-vieres? When are you going to do something?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, as I indicated in an earlier answer, the prime rate in the United States is 8.5 per cent. The prime rate in Canada is 9.75 per cent. That is a 1.25 per cent spread. That is the lowest it has been for a long time.


MISSING RESEARCH
Guy St-Julien: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. The town of Val-d'Or now has a new CAN-MET laboratory for mining research, at a cost of $15 million over the next five years. This laboratory reflects the Conservative Government's commitment to improving the competitive position of Quebec's primary industry, both in terms of technology and cost-effectiveness. Mr. Speaker, my question is as follows: Could the minister tell us today whether the technology to be developed in this new mining laboratory in Quebec can be used anywhere in Canada?


Hon. Jake Epp (Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: Mr. Speaker, we all know that we have to bring our research and development into a traditional industry
Oral Questions
such as mining. The Val d'Or research laboratory has been designed to do just that. In particular, we will have underground research in rock breakage and fragmentation. It will serve the entire mining community for all of Canada. It has had very good co-operation from the Canadian mining industry and particularly from my colleague who has asked the question. I thank him for his support and for his encouragement.


EXTRADITION
Louise Feltham: Mr. Speaker, the case of Charles Ng points to the ineffectiveness of our current system of extradition. The Minister of Justice must be aware that Canadians will lose confidence in our system of justice if our extradition system is not made more effective.
Can the minister indicate what she is doing to ensure that Mr. Ng's case is dealt with as expeditiously as possible and what she is doing to ensure that Canada does not become a haven for fugitives?


Hon. Doug Lewis (Solicitor General of Canada):: Mr. Speaker, I can assure my hon. friend that the decision which I made when I was Attorney General has been heard in the Supreme Court of Canada. The Minister of Justice fast tracked it through the procedures that were available to her so that it would be heard as soon as possible. That is the Ng case.
The actual issue of a review of the extradition laws is currently under way and I understand the minister hopes to be able to bring forward something in the fall.


REFERENDUM DEBATE IN QUEBEC
Hon. Lucien Bouchard (Lac-Saint-Jean):: Mr. Speaker, the press reports that Quebec Minister Marc-Yvon Cote is concerned that abuse of federal funds may upset the political balance when a referendum is held in Quebec. Mr. Cote said he intended to meet his federal counterpart as soon as possible to ensure that democratic standards of balance and equity are observed when a referendum debate takes place in Quebec. I want to ask the Secretary of State who, I believe, administers these funds whether he intends to respect the wishes of the Quebec minister?

May 22, 1991
Oral Questions


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, the hon. Minister Responsible for Constitutional Affairs is not in the House today. I.will take that question as notice and report back to the hon. member.


Lucien Bouchard: As far as
taking notice is concerned, Mr. Speaker, I would like to see everything transmitted to the responsible minister. Our other concern was expressed in an article published in Le Soleil and signed by Mr. Vastel, which mentioned a fund of $100 million to be used to oil a propaganda machine that would be started up very shortly-


Mr. Speaker:: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member but this is not a question but a statement.

The hon. member for Windsor West, a single question.


THE ECONOMY
Hon. Herb Gray (Windsor West):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Finance relating to the matter of retail sales. As he may know, retail sales fell
3.1	per cent in the first three months of 1991 compared to a decline of only 1.1 per cent in the last three months of 1990, last year.
I ask the minister: How can he describe this startling fall in retail sales as an easing out of recession? Does the minister not realize that the dead hand of the GST and the other faulty economic policies of this government are preventing a recovery of retailing in this country, and why does he not do something about it?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, my answer was based on the fact that in the month of April there were a number of positive signals that would lead us to believe that we are nearing the bottom of the recession and expecting that recovery will emerge in the second half, as was predicted by the Minister of Finance when he presented his budget in February.
What I did say, and I will repeat it again for the hon. member, is that there are indicators that business confidence is up. Housing sales and housing starts are up. The interest rates have declined by 5 percentage points and the spread between the United States and Canadian interest rates at the prime rate level is 1.25 per cent. Consumer confidence is improving. Automobile sales are improving. There is some reason to be optimistic. However, we do not underestimate the depth of the downturn. With sound, positive economic policies as were enunciated in the budget, we have every reason to believe that we will be on the road to solid recovery in the second half.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Vancouver East, a single question.


PUBLIC SERVICE
Ms. Margaret Mitchell (Vancouver East):: Mr. Speaker, my question was for the President of the Treasury Board. In his early absence, I will direct it to the Deputy Prime Minister.
This government has not dealt fairly with complaints of racial discrimination within the Public Service. As a result of complaining Dr. Chander Grover was dismissed by the National Research Council one month short of 10 years of service.
The contract of Frank Boahene, a CIDA manager, was cancelled despite minority advisory committee reports that this should not have happened.
Recently, the government disbanded the three Public Service Employment Equity Advisory Committees.
I want to ask the Deputy Prime Minister when this government will take employment equity seriously. Will the minister reinstate the Employment Equity Advisory Committees to monitor employment equity? What steps will he take to enforce mandatory employment equity with job protection for public employees who complain of racial harassment and discrimination?


Gilles Loiselle: Mr. Speaker, again I do apologize to the hon. member. I was asked by the Table to comment on something and I was away for the first part of the hon. member's question.
May 22, 1991

I understand she referred to employment equity. I will reiterate the commitment of this government and our very great determination to reach our targets. I can tell the hon. member that in each of the categories we are reaching them.
As far as equity for women I would like to give the hon. member some numbers that I did not have a while back. In the judiciary system, in 1984 when we came to power there were 37 women now there are 81. We had two ambassadors, now we have 13. We had seven deputy ministers, now we have 22. We had two women members of commissions, now we have 31. Equity is a commitment of the government.


POINTS OF ORDER
Mr. David Dingwall (Cape Breton-East Richmond):: Mr. Speaker, in response to a question which was put by my colleague, the member for Lasalle-Emard, the Minister of the Environment, I believe, breached the provisions of Standing Order 18. I wonder if the hon. member would do the appropriate thing and withdraw the statement in which there was reference made to how a member voted with regard to a particular matter before this House.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member has risen on a point of order and his point of order is, of course, well taken. The House will remember that when this happened I rose and asked the minister to get on with the answer to the question, which he did.
I will hear the minister.


Jean J. Charest: Mr. Speaker, so that there will be no ambiguity about this question, I wish to withdraw my comments and I do so without any hesitation.


RECOGNITION OF MEMBERS DURING QUESTION PERIOD
William D. (Bill) Casey: Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to express my disappointment at the lack of opportunity to ask a question in the House today.
Point of Order
We have more private members on this side of the House than any other party, but out of 25 to 30 questions, we only get two. I had an issue that was very important to my part of Canada, and I really wished to bring it up. I hope we will get more questions in the future.


Mr. Speaker:: I want to respond to the hon. member and to all other hon. members. The private members on the government side got two questions today.
It does not take very much arithmetic to realize, as I have had to say before, that with the way this present House is structured it is extremely difficult to satisfy everybody who wants to ask questions.
Now there is an answer to this. The answer is that hon. members on both sides of the House get together and negotiate some new approach, if that is what is wished by the majority of the members. That is the response which is necessary if the customs are going to change.
I would ask hon. members to please listen carefully to what I am saying. There are only so many minutes in Question Period. There was discussion before that maybe Question Period should be made longer. I am inviting hon. members, as there have been exchanges across this House on the question of Question Period, to engage in discussion, all of you. If hon. members wish to change the structure of Question Period then of course, as your Speaker, I shall be bound by your suggestions and your recommendations.


David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, on that point of order, we have heard, on a couple of occasions, members of the government side making objections with regard to their inability to raise questions on the floor of the House of Commons. I think it indicates a number of points, and I will be very brief.
One point is that members opposite are not having an opportunity to express their views in their respective caucuses. This is obvious with government members-


Mr. Speaker:: Just a moment. I would ask the hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond to leave the matter as it is and not to get into a discussion on the floor of the House as to what takes place or what does not take place in any other caucus.

May 22, 1991
Point of Order


David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, I certainly want to follow your direction. However, I want the record to clearly show and clearly state, in case there is any false impression, that those members of the opposition of my particular party have said, for quite some time, that we were concerned with regard to the length of answers which were given by members. In point of fact, we have tried very hard in our questions to make sure that they are succinct and to the point. We have made that point repeatedly. However, in no way do we accept the argument that members should pool their resources together and somehow change the format of Question Period. This is the last bastion of democracy for members of-


Mr. Speaker:: I am only reminding hon. members that ultimately the Speaker's role is to do what the majority of members in this House wish to have done.


Ms. Sheila Copps (Hamilton East):: Mr. Speaker, if you follow the logic of your argument to the fullest, I am sure that there are many members on the government side of the House, who are in the majority, who would like to see Question Period done away with.
Surely there has been a tradition, not just followed for 124 years in this Parliament, but also previously in the mother Parliament, to ensure that the opposition had a small period out of every day to put the questions of the nation.
I am seeking guidance, Mr. Speaker. However, if I understand your suggestion to be that somehow we are supposed to get together with the government members and divvy up the time of Question Period. Clearly this is the only time of the day that the opposition has the chance to put the questions for 24 million people. If the hon. member wants to ask a question of his minister then I suggest that he utilize his access to the minister as a government member and do so in the appropriate fashion. This is the Parliament for the people of Canada, it is not the Parliament for a backbencher who feels stifled by his own caucus.


Mr. Speaker:: I want to assure the hon. member for Hamilton East that the Speaker is not unilaterally changing the customs in this Chamber. All I am saying is
that if there are complaints, then members had better conduct some conversations among themselves and then discuss the matter with the Speaker. I think that the matter has been aired sufficiently. The hon. minister.


Hon. Pierre H. Cadieux (Minister of State (Youth), Minister of State (Fitness and Amateur Sport) and Deputy Leader of the Government in the House of Commons):: Mr. Speaker, I agree with you in principle that the matter has been aired sufficiently. However, I think that some facts need to be rectified.
When the hon. member for Hamilton says that the opposition has questions to put for 24 million people, I would humbly submit to her, Mr. Speaker, that every member of this House can put questions on behalf of all 26 million Canadians.
As regards the rules of the mother of Parliaments, Mr. Speaker, maybe it is a subject that we should look into and about which government members also have questions.
Now, on the question of concision and precision, I would suggest to my colleague the leader of the Opposition to look at a few of the questions asked today and determine whether or not they were concise and precise.


Mr. Speaker:: If it is the same point of order, I think there has been sufficient discussion about it. I would like, with the consent of the House, to move on to tabling of documents.


AERONAUTICS ACT
Hon. Shirley Martin (for the Minister of Transport) moved: for leave to introduce Bill C-5, an act to amend the Aeronautics Act and to amend an act to amend the Aeronautics Act.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the first time and ordered to be printed.
May 22, 1991

Mr. Peter Milliken (Kingston and the Islands) moved: for leave to introduce Bill C-205, an act to amend the Financial Administration Act.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to move to introduce this bill again this session. The purpose of the amendment to the Financial Administration Act is to prevent the kind of abuse that this House suffered under the government in 1989 when special Governor General's warrants were used and the regular supply proceedings in this House avoided.
The purpose of this act is to stop that kind of abuse. It will ensure that Governor General's special warrants may not be used between sessions of Parliament, but only after dissolution of Parliament and before the recall of the new Parliament.
I believe the bill meets with approval from most hon. members and I think it is unfortunate the government was unable to include this particular amendment in its recent set of amendments to this very important act.


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

Mr. Ron MacDonald (Dartmouth):: Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure today, now that we are back here, to once again present some petitions signed by volunteer firemen and by those individuals whose interests they look after in the Oxford area of Nova Scotia.
The petitioners are very concerned about the government's decision last year to raise radio licence fees primarily for municipalities and volunteer fire departments.
These petitioners ask the government to reconsider its measures to hike fees by up to 1,000 per cent because these are volunteer organizations which look after the welfare of the community.


Mr. Francis G. LeBlanc (Cape Breton Highlands - Canso):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to submit, pursuant to
Routine Proceedings
Standing Order 36, a petition on behalf of several hundred fishermen in the Gulf of St. Lawrence region of my constituency who are protesting the government's introduction of dockside monitoring fees.
The petitioners are calling upon the government to withdraw these fees, which are not only harmful and injurious to the fishermen, but as I mentioned earlier today are without legal standing.
The petitioners call upon Parliament, and the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans specifically, to withdraw these fees and to reimburse those fishermen who have unlawfully been charged.


Mr. Jim Jordan (Leeds-Grenville):: Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to present today a petition signed mostly by college students in my riding.
The petitioners object to the displaying of deteriorating beef shank in the name of art at the National Gallery.
By signing this petition, the students are telling the Canadian people something. They are joining with thousands of other Canadians expressing their disbelief in this ridiculous display in a publicly owned building.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to present a petition signed by numerous residents of Kingston and the Islands.
The petitioners are concerned that the destruction and desecration of the Canadian flag is an offence and insulting to all Canadians.
The petitioners call upon Parliament to pass a bill making it an offence to destroy or desecrate the Canadian flag.


Mr. Joe Comuzzi (Thunder Bay-Nipigon):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour today, pursuant to Standing Order 36, to present a petition on behalf of the entire Polish community in Thunder Bay.
The petitioners feel Marie Sklodowska Curie, a servant of mankind and a scientist whom fame could not corrupt and who has been honoured by many different countries throughout the world, should be honoured by Canada.

Point of Order
The leaders of the Polish community-Walter Kwasniewski, Stan Tedinka and the Malicki family-pray and call upon Parliament to honour Marie Sklodowska Curie by issuing a commemorative stamp on the occasion of the 125th anniversary of her birth on November 7, 1992.
I am sure that all people in Canada would like to honour Madam Curie with this commemorative stamp.


Sergio Marchi: Mr. Speaker, I would like to join my colleague from Thunder Bay in presenting a petition on the same subject.
I received a petition from Canadians in Toronto, including my riding of Rexdale. The petitioners suggest, as did my colleague from Thunder Bay, that Marie Sklodowska Curie be honoured as a woman of great achievement and distinction by commemorating her achievements and contributions.
The petitioners suggest the issuing of a stamp in her honour on the occasion of the 125th anniversary of her birth.
These petitioners feel that it would be an inexpensive yet very large symbolic gesture on behalf of the Government of Canada. These are the types of deeds that I believe ought to be of concern to this government.


Mr. Marcel Prud'homme (Saint-Denis):: Mr. Speaker,
I have here that a petition a colleague sent me from Barneys River, Nova Scotia.

As you know, the federal Department of Communications has imposed huge increases in licence fees for radio telecommunications, including all emergency service radio equipment. I know the rules, so I will not say all the "whereases", but these honourable Canadians humbly pray and call upon Parliament to exempt fire departments from these excessive radio licence fees because many fire departments are operated by dedicated volunteers who simply cannot afford these fee hikes.
I very humbly on their behalf present this petition to the House of Commons, hoping that the Minister of
Communications will read the petition and act accordingly.


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
Pierre H. Cadieux: Mr. Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Shall the questions be allowed to stand?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I will listen to a point of order from the hon. member for Shefford.



POINT OF ORDER


Hon. Jean Lapierre (Shefford):: Mr. Speaker, I find most unfortunate that I was not allowed to raise this point of order in due course.
You left us cooling our heels for a while. But I wanted to follow up on what I heard the Speaker say and I hope that I heard him wrong. I heard him say that he is here to do what the majority of members want to be done.
Mr. Speaker, I really hope I heard wrong because, if indeed the Speaker of the House claims his role is to serve the majority, this means that, tomorrow morning, the majority could decide that there will be no question period and no speeches by opposition members, and the Speaker of the House would go along with that.
Mr. Speaker, I think this is a misconception of the role of the Speaker and all that time, as a minority member, I thought the Chair was here to protect me. I would like, Mr. Speaker, and I probably will, to reserve the right to raise a question of privilege because, if the Speaker has now decided to serve the majority, this institution is in grave danger. It is facing the threat of becoming undemocratic.
May 22, 1991

Mr. Speaker, I want the senior Speaker to realize that this is a statement that has to be clarified as soon as possible because I refuse to believe that the Speaker is only here to serve the majority.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Ttiesday, May 21 consideration of the motion of Mr. Pronovost for an address to His Excellency the Governor General in reply to his Speech at the opening of the session.
Henry Perrin Beatty: Mr. Speaker, almost 125 years ago the first government of this nation was seized by a bold and a compelling dream.
The goal was to resist the unrelenting pull of the American states by stitching together a disparate group of northern colonies into the fabric of a nation. The government's vision was to bind the country together with ribbons of steel, providing the conduit for an entire nation's dreams, hopes and aspirations. And they did it.
New industry began to flow from one region to another, and ideas and dreams, packaged in letters, sped across thousands of miles. The railroad became the principal method for Canadians to share their goods, their culture and their need to communicate with one another.
Like most technologies, in time it was added to by faster, more efficient and cheaper methods. Railways were joined by aeroplanes, and rail cars by container trucks. The east-west bonds once again became susceptible to the tug of north-south industry and culture.
It was not just transportation that underwent this revolution; it was also communications.
In 1874, Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in Brantford, Ontario. A former native of my own home town of Fergus, Reginald Aubrey Fessenden made the world's first radio broadcast of voice and music on Christmas Eve in 1906.
The Address
By 1990, the Canadian telephone industry was employing almost 100,000 workers and managing more than 35 billion phone calls each year, or nearly 1,400 calls for each and every Canadian. Telecommunications rapidly became the electronic railroad of today. Telephones and fax machines, robots and computers, electronic mail and desk top publishing are the methods Canadians use today to share their ideas, their dreams and their aspirations.
In that sense, telecommunications and cultural identity are absolutely dependent upon each other. Without communication, Canadians cannot develop shared values. Without the shared values which form the basis of our culture, we cannot define our Canadian identity.
I made these links because culture and communications are key to the three themes developed in the Speech from the Throne of unity, prosperity and a responsive government.
Under the theme of unity, the Speech from the Throne states that:
The ability of Canadians to live together in harmony and the ability of Canada to make a major contribution to world affairs depend upon our understanding of who we are as a people.
A changing world is challenging our values and severely testing our sense of self as a nation. Many of the old images which used to define how we see ourselves no longer hold the same relevance for Canadians today.
For example, how many of us sang The Maple Leaf Forever with its refrain of "thistle, shamrock, rose entwined''-which are the emblems of England, Ireland and Scotland-in school with the same reverence normally accorded the National Anthem? Yet today, more than 15 million Canadians claim a heritage which does not include either England, Ireland or Scotland. The thistle, shamrock and rose entwined is not, and some would argue never was, an image that fully represents Canada.
[Translation\
The challenge which confronts us, as the Speech from the Throne points out, is to "create a climate in which Canadians can deepen their understanding of their history and traditions and their appreciation of their country's rich diversity."

May 22, 1991
The Address
We deepen our understanding of history by visiting our museums. We learn more about our traditions by rediscovering our heritage. And we come to appreciate our diversity by being exposed to the cultural expression which thrives across this country.
In that sense, art and culture must be the key to this government's priority of building a unified and prosperous Canada. Discussions pertaining to our constitution are essential, as it is one element of what makes us Canadian. But it is also essential that we talk about the soul and spirit of the country.
In society, there are two broad ways in which we communicate. One is as a collective voice, be it through the speeches of our own elected officials, or the editorials of leading newspapers, or the way in which our media reflect our activities back to us.
But the other, and the more powerful, is the individual voice which speaks without censorship, without editing, without rewriting, without a committee dictating what can and cannot be said, and simply shouts out whatever can, and must, be heard from a personal point of view.

When our artists speak, whether on paper, on canvas or in clay, through the movement of their bodies or the flickering light on the cinema screen, they express our deepest thoughts. They see into the hearts of Canadians and focus bright light on what is real and what is true. Those countries in the world which have flourishing artistic communities inevitably also have a strong sense of identity. Regrettably, the men and women who dedicate their lives to their talent are not supported as generously in Canada as their talent deserves.
As the arts community knows so well, it has always been difficult for artists to earn enough to support their families. The average artist in Canada hopes to earn from $13,000 to $19,000 a year. These are particularly unimpressive figures when we consider that the average artist also has a university degree and at least 17 years of experience. Many are forced to take second jobs, thereby limiting the time they can devote to honing their skills. They live with recurring unemployment and fluctuating and sporadic incomes.
They do not fit the standard business relationship because their work is a labour of love. More than half of
the Canadian artists surveyed recently by Statistics Canada said that they considered their art a vocation rather than a business or a profession.
Because they fall through the cracks, qualifying over the course of their years neither as employees nor as employers, they have no professional status in our society and have limited recourse to the social safety net that the rest of us enjoy.
I had the good fortune almost seven years ago, when I was minister of revenue to work with the leaders of the arts community in Canada on the government's response to the report of the subcommittee on the taxation of visual and performing artists and writers. Together, we sat down and wrote new rules which recognized that artists play a unique role in Canada and that they deserve special consideration in tax administration. It was a good first step, but the time has come to take that principle further.
Our artists in Canada need a framework in law which acknowledges their special and distinctive contribution to our country and which allows them improved access to certain rights and benefits that other Canadians are privileged to enjoy.
This is not a new idea. The government and the arts community of Canada have recently completed years of intense collaboration, which has resulted in a bill on the status of the artist in Canada. It has been prepared in collaboration with the Canadian Conference of the Arts, with the performing artists' associations including AC-TRA, L'Union des artistes and Actors Equity, with creative artists and producers' associations, and with the Canadian Advisory Committee on the Status of the Artist.
This issue has been thoroughly reviewed by the Standing Committee on Communications and Culture and the bill has been welcomed by our Prime Minister.
It provides recognition, unprecedented in federal law, of the professional status of our country's artists as well as their contribution to the development of our culture and our society.
It gives me great pleasure to confirm to the House that I intend to introduce this legislation on the status of the artist tomorrow. I am confident that all parties will recognize the value and the urgent need for this bill and agree to pass it as quickly as possible.
May 22, 1991

Improving the recognition received by Canada's artists is not a partisan issue. I will be seeking the support of my colleagues opposite in the hope that the bill can be sent to the Senate before we rise for our summer recess.
Each year the arts sector contributes billions of dollars to the economy and provides hundreds of thousands of jobs to Canadians, but the true value of the arts goes well beyond the economic. Their real value lies in their ability to civilize, to break down boundaries, to open up new horizons and to act as a mirror to our society.
The arts is an avenue beckoning us to discover who we really are as a people. And in helping us to understand who we are, the contribution of the arts to Canadian unity is both profound and enduring.
Just as art, culture and unity are intertwined, so are communications and prosperity, the second theme found in the Speech from the Throne.

Telecommunications is an essential building block to national prosperity, just as the railroad was a century ago.
Its chief value lies in its ability to act as an "enabler" to Canadians companies. Global telecommunications networks have made the flow of capital virtually instantaneous-transferring hundreds of billions of dollars daily among the world's major financial centres.
The markets of the world are now available to us with the bending of an elbow over the telephone, telex or fax machine.
But the telecommunications industry is also valuable in itself. Telecommunications is the premier high-tech industry in Canada today, one of only a few in which Canada is a world leader. It contributes 3.5 per cent of our GDP, or $21 billion a year-as much as agriculture, fisheries and forestery combined.
The opportunities for growth are substantial. The current world market for telecommunications equipment is estimated at beween $100 and $150 billion, of which Canada's share is but 4 per cent or $4 to $6 billion.
Our competitors are investing billions of dollars, which we cannot hope to match dollar for dollar. But we can strive to be more effective, to marshal our resources and
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target them to the areas where they can do the most good.
However, as the Prime Minister stated in Vancouver last year, there is a third value to telecommunications. To borrow his words: "It would be hard to exaggerate the importance of the communications industry to Canada. It is a powerful instrument of economic and social development".
Telecommunications and its related technologies have the power to do tremendous social good by reducing the inequities we find between people. For example, the Department of Communications has been very active in improving the lives of disabled Canadians. We have developed a National Broadcast Reading Service for those who cannot read. We have closed captioning on TV for those who cannot hear. We have also developed special computerized telephones for those who have problems with speech.
Telecommunications also has the power to reduce inequities found in the regions. For example, in Newfoundland, we are using satellites to link the health care centres of 140 small, rural communities to help with emergency diagnosis and to provide training and upgrading.
In Manitoba, teachers felt their children were not getting enough attention in the maths and sciences. In response, working with the provincial government, we set up a Homework Hotline, which allows children to phone in questions to teachers in a television studio. The teachers answer the questions and their images are beamed by satellite into the cable systems so that students can watch them on television.
And, up north, we are helping to implement a native cultural and educational broadcasting network which will give northerners greater access to information and cultural programs.

Our technology makes it possible for us to meet our social responsibilities and to open up whole new worlds of information and learning to Canadians who might have no other access. It gives us the ability to respond to the needs of all Canadians-the third theme found in the Speech from the Throne.

May 22, 1991
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Government responsiveness must play a large role in the future of telecommunications and culture in Canada. But our role must be fine-tuned to respond to the needs of today and tomorrow.
The days when governments could meet the needs of industry by simply handing over money are over. Our deficit is much too large and the competition much too sophisticated for that sort of an answer to work. If government is really to make a difference, it must concentrate on structural changes which will allow individuals and businesses to compete in new markets. The status of the artist legislation is a good example of a structural measure which governments can take to help Canadians help themselves.
A second example can be found in telecommunications. The industry is currently regulated by the Railway Act, 1904. It was a very good bill for the 19th century railroads, but it will not meet the needs of the 21st century telecommunications system. If we are to be competitive and effective, we will need a national, unified market. New legislation would help break down the barriers to trade between provinces, and I intend to discuss this issue with my colleagues both in government and in industry to see what can be done.
A third example can be found in the marketing and distribution of cultural products. In our enthusiasm to produce excellent products, we have sometimes forgotten to make sure that we have gained maximum access to the markets.
Larger audiences would go a long way toward ensuring growth in our cultural industries.
A few weeks ago, the Citizens' Forum on National Unity sent out a request to 2,000 visual artists living across Canada, asking them to send in works which expressed their feelings about this country. Last week, their entries were on display at the regional headquarters of the Ottawa-Carleton region. Some of the pieces were angry or critical, and that is fine. We were not looking for propaganda. We were looking for thoughtful expression. We were looking for people who were willing and able and talented enough to express what was deep inside.
There were two entries in particular which caught my attention. One, from Toronto, was a Canadian flag with a
fleur-de-lis and a maple leaf and a caption which read: "Keep building bridges", continuent a tisser des liens. The other, from Sydney, Nova Scotia, showed a Canadian flag with the maple leaf divided into 10 sections, one for each province, about to fall off to the side. Its caption was: "Unite or fall".
I was heartened by these entries because they expressed a sincere hope that Canada could resolve its problems and remain united. I think that is the way the vast majority of Canadians feel today.
As members of Parliament the demands on our time are many. We have no shortage of duties to fulfil. We have duties both in government and in opposition. We have duties to our constituencies, to our caucuses, to our parties, to our consciences. Whether we call ourselves Conservatives, Liberals or New Democrats, I believe that we agree our paramount duty is to the country that we love and cherish, the country which has allowed us to live in freedom, peace and prosperity.
Today that duty should speak to all of us. It tells us that we must discover the way to resolve the problems facing Canada, to rediscover who we are as a people, and to renew our appreciation of our history, our tradition and our rich diversity.
Most important, we must reject the claim by some that we can let our country slip away from us without enormous cost to every Canadian. We owe it to those who built this great country. We owe it to ourselves. And we owe it to our children.
May the Speech from the Throne, and this debate that follows, remind us of this most compelling of all duties.


Mr. Tremblay (Quebec-Est):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to inform the Chair that on the government side, we have decided to shorten speeches on the motion concerning an Address in Reply to the Speech from the Throne from 20 to 10 minutes, so that more members will have a chance to speak to the motion.


Sheila Finestone: Mr. Speaker, I was very pleased to hear the minister in his first speech in the House on the Speech from the Throne and very pleased to hear his commitment to the well-being of artists and the general population with respect to culture.

If there is anything that defines a country internationally or globally it certainly is the culture that is left behind-what is written, what is painted, its stories, et cetera.
I think it is unfortunate-and I hope this minister will not be too unhappy in his task-that the previous three ministers were not as successful as I sincerely hope this minister will be.
The minister spoke about telecommunications, the size of that industry, the fact that it was an economic lever. We have all known that for quite some time, the fact that it is 3.5 per cent of our GNP or $21 billion. Yet since 1985 this government has been promising us a new and updated Telecommunications Act.
I wish this minister good luck, good health and long life. I hope he is able to introduce this bill. I would very much like to know what this minister is planning to do, as he spoke of the fact that it is through communications and cultural products that we have access to the world of art, the world of literature, and the world of people out there.
I would like to remind the minister that next week is access week for the disabled.
Is the minister aware of the fact that Braille books are produced by the CNIB and that we do nothing to enable the production of books in Braille? Is he aware of the fact that we have a tax on reading and a tax on literacy and that this is absolutely against any kind of principle found almost anywhere in the world? Does he realize that his predecessors brought in an incomplete copyright bill and that there should be copyright exemptions for books with large print to enable the poor-sighted to learn effectively and efficiently? In every other way they are normal but they have a problem with their sight.
Children and young adults in high school and college have their learning circumscribed because of the fact that this government has not been clear in its copyright legislation. It has not exempted the printing of such material from the laws of this land.
In terms of access I heard the minister talk about native programs. I suggest he go back and find out how much the past Secretary of State cut from those programs. He is now the Minister of Multiculturalism and Citizenship. Let him tell you what he did to native
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programming in the north. Let the former minister tell you what was done about the satellite that was supposed to be provided so that there could be a proper distribution system up north.
We have a minister of good will and I would very much like to see him be successful in his task as it is in the best interest of national unity and the development of this country. He started off very well in his first speech to the constituency and everyone was very pleased to hear from him.
Last but not least I would like to know, before he tables his status of the artist legislation, which is very key to the well-being of the artist, if he recognizes the low income level of most artists in Canada. I believe it is around $12,000 a year, which is a nice starvation figure. If he does not address within that bill the kinds of tax measures that will make living viable so that artists can be productive, he is in effect window dressing and not looking at the real issues.
I ask the minister to do two things. First, tell the Americans that you are master of your own destiny as minister and bring in the film distribution bill in Canada. Second, for the artist and the creators, address the tax measures so that they are entitled to income averaging. If you know anything about the field of art and artists, you know that they have lean years and fat years, and they must be allowed to have income at-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The hon. minister.


Henry Perrin Beatty: Mr. Speaker, may I first of all thank my hon. colleague for her kind words and say how much I am looking forward to my new responsibilities in this portfolio. I will do my best to respond to the various points that she raised.
I am certainly pleased to indicate to her, as I said in my remarks earlier, that I am very much aware of the financial problems faced by so many artists across Canada today. As she knows, taxation matters are the responsibility of the Minister of Finance and I cannot introduce legislation here which deals with changes to the Income Hue Act in this way.
We are, however, as a government very conscious of this particular problem and will be seeking ways to provide assistance to Canadian artists in addition to what is done within the status of the artist legislation.

May 22, 1991
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The member will see tomorrow, when I introduce the bill in Parliament, that the legislation goes a long way toward addressing some of the major concerns of artists. When it is complemented by other economic measures which are designed to improve the status of artists in Canada, I think it will begin to give to Canadian artists some recognition of the tremendous contribution they make to our national life. She should not see it in isolation; she should see it in the context of other initiatives that will be taking place as well.
She asked that we serve notice on the Americans and on others of the fact that we in Canada want to have the ability to have our own unique culture. That was in essence the-


Sheila Finestone: No film distribution.


Henry Perrin Beatty: She mentions film distribution in particular, but in general the problem is one of ensuring that we have a unique voice in Canada and that it has the opportunity to be heard. Whether it is in films, book publishing, newspapers, radio, television, or a whole range of other areas, my goal is to ensure that Canadian voices are heard. My goal is not to prevent contact between Canada and the rest of the world. I think we are enriched by that contact. I do not believe that Canadian culture is frail and fragile and that it does not have something to offer the rest of the world.
Our voice to the rest of the world is strengthened and made more worth while to the extent that it is uniquely a Canadian voice. I have no hesitation in bringing in measures which help to protect the ability of Canadians to have their voices heard in Canada in a whole range of areas.
I look forward to working with my colleague opposite and with others on ways in which we can do that.


Margaret Anne Mitchell: Mr. Speaker,
I would like to ask the minister if he would take a special interest-and I have written to him on this subject-in the whole question of media sensitivity and stereotyping, particularly as it applies to racial and ethnic minorities.
In particular, the Vancouver community is very, very concerned about a recent CBC series called The Dim Sum Diaries. There is not time to describe it, but I have written him about this. This is about the third time there have been programs-in this case on CBC, formerly on CTV and so on-that really stereotype a minority group.
I would like to ask the minister what he can do within his jurisdiction to try and encourage greater sensitivity in the media. Will the minister review CRTC policy and guidelines? Will the minister also take a look at how the Employment Equity Act and the multicultural bill itself is being applied within his jurisdiction?


Henry Perrin Beatty: Mr. Speaker, I would be pleased to look into all the areas raised by my hon. friend. She raises in particular the issue of stereotyping and problems with a particular program on the CBC. I did notice in the newspapers that she had raised that issue on the west coast.
I know my hon. friend is as sensitive as I am to ensuring that governments do not reach into the CBC to instruct it as to what it can and cannot run in terms of specific programs. The principle of ensuring fair treatment, or the principle of ensuring that stereotyping does not take place, is a matter that is of concern to all members of Parliament. It is entirely legitimate for Canadians concerned about the content of any broadcast to raise those concerns with the broadcaster, with the minister who will convey those concerns to the broadcaster, and with the CRTC, where the regulator will try to ensure that licensees operate in an effective and fair way.
I could indicate also to my hon. friend an area that I bring with me from my old responsibilities of particular concern is that of image portrayed in the media particularly of women and children and the effect it might have on issues related to family violence.
When I was Minister of National Health and Welfare,
I asked that more be done to try to sensitize Canadians, particularly people within the media, to concerns about dehumanization of women and children, and portrayals of roles which could foster or could encourage violence in our society. This is certainly one of my concerns.
The issues she raised are all legitimate areas to be looked at.


David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, I rise on this important occasion for the purpose of participating in the debate on the last week's Speech from the Throne. That speech was really a declaration of despair. It should have set new goals for our country and put in place a concrete plan of action to help Canadians climb out of the economic recession in which they now find themselves, an economic recession that this government brought on itself.
May 22, 1991

The Speech from the Throne offered no new hope and no new progress. This government has failed, and has failed Canadians once again. What unites my colleagues and me and gives urgency to our task is the need to define Canada's destiny and shape the society we all want. While the hopes of the Fathers of Confederation have become our record of Canadian accomplishment, it is the Liberal Party of Canada that has embodied the story of Canada's development for many decades.
For over 100 years, Liberals have sought to fulfil the aspirations of those Canadians seeking a better life and a better land. Traditional Liberal principles have given us purpose and direction, but we have also been innovative. We have responded to new concerns and new realities: from Alexander Mackenzie's political and electoral reforms in the 1870s to Pierre Trudeau's Charter of Rights and Freedoms a century later; from Wilfred Laurier's efforts toward self-government and foreign affairs to Mike Pearson's new Canadian flag and the Canada Pension Plan. This commitment to national progress has been a tenet of Canadian Liberalism when Liberalism was at its best. It developed railways, built the Trans-Canada Highway, the St. Lawrence seaway and the pipelines. The same commitment created a national airline, a major energy company and one of the world's best health care systems.
Our purpose and our progress was shaped by a faith and a power of hope over adversity. That purpose still lives. The Liberals did it and the leader of my party can and will do it again.
Progress has been our heritage; not that of the Conservatives or the NDP, and certainly not that of the Reform Party. The policies of the Mulroney government are policies that punish provinces and working people, deny education, destroy jobs and diminish opportunities. It is a government that presides over people who live on the edge of economic fear or who are experiencing the full and painful realization of those fears. Whether it is the savaging of rail passenger service, budget cuts at CBC or the tightening of purse strings for health care and higher education, the results are the same.
National institutions are being dismantled and destroyed. The destruction of Atlantic Canada is particu-
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larly frustrating and sad to many of those Canadians who live in that region. Trains are gone, the planes are gone, our health care system is being threatened and the education of our young people could be limited. It is disheartening to see small towns filled with character, close families and unique identities slowly but consistently crumbling.
Rarely has a government in Canada been given such an historic opportunity to demonstrate vision and rarely has a government failed so badly.
Last week's Speech from the Throne and the budget that was brought down earlier this year completely failed to address the many problems and concerns all Canadians have and the hurt and the hardship that many Canadians must endure. The government had to prepare a budget and a throne speech in an economic situation produced by the cumulative effect of its own policies.
The size of the annual budget deficit since 1986-87 has not been reduced and the national debt has been about doubled in size. Unacceptably high interest rates and exchange rates have been maintained, producing a ma-de-in-Canada recession. Canada's competitiveness has further declined, bankruptcies have reached a record level, unemployment is rising and so is the tax burden and inflation.
The balance of payments in Canada's foreign indebtedness has seriously deteriorated and government revenues are falling.
This is the record of this government: a major recession, public finances out of control and the country itself in serious difficulties.
As recently as last September the former Minister of Finance declared before the Canadian Chamber of Commerce: "Our policy is working."
The minister was referring specifically to his monetary policy, which has caused the recession that all Canadians are now suffering through. One of the most remarkable features of the former Minister of Finance, in his tenure in office, is that over the years, in each and every budget speech, he maintained that his policies were working. His forecast of budget deficits, interest rates, growth rates and inflation rates have been consistently and repeatedly wrong time after time after time.

May 22, 1991
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Another hallmark of the hon. member's career as Minister of Finance must surely be his aptitude at crafting a mythology instead of facing up to reality.
There are so many examples, but none more disturbing than the concluding words of the minister at second reading on the GST on January 29, 1990, when he said:
I believe that in the months following January 1,1991, when the cut and thrust of partisan debate on this issue has calmed down, when the controversy has subsided, when Canadians can see our economy even more vibrant and growing, they will conclude, as I have, that this is the right policy for the right reasons at the right time.
We are now in the months following January 1, 1991, and if our economy is now "even more vibrant and growing", it is only I suggest in the minister's mind. It is because the former Minister of Finance was more interested in crafting the myth than dealing with reality that he and his government must bear the full responsibility for Canada's current financial and economic situation.
Perhaps we should talk to the truckers, those many men and women who are losing their jobs and their homes. They see no solution to their tragedy but to come to the front steps of the House of Commons and plead for help from the Minister of Transport.
Perhaps this Minister of Finance should speak with senior citizens, perhaps he ought to speak to students and single parents across this country, those Canadians who are among the least able to pay more in tax and those Canadians who are suffering so unfairly. These are the Canadians on whom the burden of the Mulroney government's new taxes have fallen and will fall again.
This government must stop attacking the middle class and the working poor, those many Canadians in every province and territory who get by each day on nothing more than pennies and yes, prayers. This government has raised the taxes on working Canadians 31 times since 1984. In fact, income tax revenues collected by this government have increased by 70 per cent since the Conservative government was elected in 1984 with most of the increases being taken from middle-class families.
This government has doubled the national debt and has in fact piled up more debt than all of Canada's Prime
Ministers since Sir John A. Macdonald. In this government, tax reforms have had the result of raising personal income taxes by replacing deductions with tax credits, by deindexing tax brackets and by introducing the so-called clawbacks of social welfare legislation such as family allowance and old age pensions.
Our goal must be a simpler and fairer tax system. The Conservative government has tried and has failed. As well, the incomes of middle-class families have not kept ahead of inflation since this government was elected and these families are finding themselves increasingly in debt as they struggle to attain the goals of a middle-class life; a home, a college education for their children and a comfortable retirement.
These are hard times for these honest people. The tax policies that favour the few and punish the middle class are unacceptable to my party and I believe they are unacceptable to Canadians across this country.
There are many ways to raise money or to save money than to increase an already unfair tax burden. We do not accept the belief that savings in federal spending can be achieved only by eliminating or devastating programs that help the poor, the elderly, the ill, the young and the disadvantaged.
Even the minister's seventh and last budget was an economic failure. In point of fact, this budget has been characterized by one of Canada's leading financial institutions, none other than the Toronto-Dominion Bank and I quote: "It is probably the most economically inept and destructive budget since 1930s". These are strong words, but words that are warranted when the record is examined.
The 1991 budget papers' treatment of the recent economic performance is particularly damning. It confirms that the retrenchment in interest, sensitive consumer demand, cuts in business investment and manufacturing decline, all signs of an impending'recession were evident at the time of the 1990 budget. A year ago, there was an unmistakable set of warnings about the trouble the Canadian economy was heading for. The then Minister of Finance had an opportunity to change course and stop pursuing policies which were driving the country into a recession. But, no, he stuck to that policy.
May 22, 1991

Even more surprising, in 1990 the minister continued to daydream in spite of the harsh reality depicted in his own budget papers. Once again he expressed confidence that after a short economic slowdown in the first half of 1990, the imbalances would be corrected, mostly by natural forces in the economy and sound non-inflation-aiy growth would be resumed in 1991.
Last year the minister's predictions were regarded by most economic observers as totally unrealistic. The reality is that the macroeconomic policies pursued by the Minister of Finance did not work and they have produced this recession. The government has also failed to deal responsibly with big budget deficits.
Those with long memories will recall how the Minister of Finance described his strategy for controlling the national debt in his first budget of May 1985. He called it the: "clear and realistic medium-term plan". Those were the buzzwords.
Last year, that is five years after the plan was launched, the minister was still referring to it in his budget, in spite of the consistent failure of his plan to reduce the deficit. The record speaks for itself.
The cost, however, paid by all Canadians for these and the minister's other mistakes have been a dramatic increase in the tax burden, particularly upon individuals. Sadly, Canada has joined the ranks of the most internationally indebted countries and our future ability to manage monetary policy will be even more restrained in the future.
For all these reasons the former Minister of Finance and this government will be judged severely, not only for their poor or indifferent economic management, but for the gross lack of vision when we faced the greatest current challenge to Canada's existence as a dynamic and a united country.
The clear and realistic plan of budget deficit reduction has failed. The economic renewal plan has failed and the five-year plan for further deficit reduction is in the course of failing.
Nowhere is the Tory record of failure more evident that in my own province of Nova Scotia. The Atlantic Provinces Economic Council predicts that real growth in my province will be limited, with almost no growth at all in the economy. In Cape Breton, unemployment is running at about 20 per cent or double the national average where statistics can be found. Many stores and
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restaurants in the Sydney and Glace Bay area have closed their doors. Jobs are disappearing and hope of finding another one does not exist any more.
Hotels and restaurant operators in Cape Breton say that the number of bus tours fell by as much as 14 per cent last year, with American tourists complaining about high prices and high taxes. American tourists, like so many Canadians, do not like the Prime Minister picking their pockets every time they go to a local shopping mall, see a movie, go out to dinner with their family or visit the comer store.
Times continue to be tough in fishing towns such as Lockeport and Digby, where the fish processing plants closed and put a town out of work. And now in my own small town of Louisbourg, signs are evident that real danger is on the horizon.
Halifax, the capital of our province has its problems too. The Metro Food Bank is feeding more than 7,000 people a month, 40 per cent more people than it did in
1989.
There are many things one could refer to with regard to the throne speech. But let it be said that this is a very, very difficult time for this country both economically and politically.
I believe that young Canadians want their leaders to exercise prudent judgment on their behalf, not only for the short term but certainly for the long term as well.
The essential question facing our country has always been the reconciliation of Quebec nationalism with Canadian nationalism. While we can point with pride to our past, Confederation's agenda remains unfinished. Quebec and its people must become a full partner in our national life. Greater efforts must be taken to ensure that that occurs. Whatever the differences between English Canadians and French Canadians, it is vital that French Canadians be assured of the future of their language and culture.
Beyond these concerns, we must work to strengthen the common ties that bind together, ties of history and of kinship. Whatever the differences between Quebec and the rest of Canada, they must be overcome because the relationship between English Canadians and French Canadians is essential to the nation at the present time. More, it is critical to our own future and to the very meaning of our Canadian way of life.

May 22, 1991
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Surely the hope of this nation lies in the acceptance of our differences, our distinctiveness and the recognition of our common problems and our common purpose. That is what John A. Macdonald and George Cartier had in mind in Charlottetown in 1864, when beneath the old gas lamps in the old Prince Edward Island legislature, they committed themselves to building a new nation with a new Constitution.
Today, that same challenge faces us anew. Today, more than ever, Canadians need a vision of what their country can become. We can choose, as parliamentarians, between industrial vitality or industrial decline, between national renewal or national ruin.
If we do not try to change things today, we may not have a chance tomorrow. We must demand a fair deal for families and a fighting chance for our young people. To be involved in that effort is to be involved with the same spirit that fired the imagination and efforts of the first settlers to New France several centuries ago.
In closing, every one of us can be a pioneer in our own time, blazing by thought and service a trail to a better and brighter future. Together, my colleagues and I on this side, are determined to carry our great democratic experiments proudly forward; rekindle the commitment to the human spirit on which the greatness of our country depends; and yes, to pledge our future to building a better Canada in every region, province and community across this great country.


Mrs. Dorothy Dobbie (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs and Minister of State (Agriculture)):: Mr. Speaker, I listened with a great deal of interest to what my hon. colleague had to say about the Speech from the Throne.
I must say that for much of his intervention, I really had a difficult time in processing what I was hearing because he was painting such a black, bleak future and such a black, bleak picture of Canada. I was almost not able to get to my feet because I fell into the depths of depression.
I would suggest that what we have to do is begin to look for answers and solutions. It is not enough to criticize what the government is doing and then say that the country is falling into disrepair, disrepute and that
terrible things are happening from one end of this country to the other.
We must have a plan. It is clear in the Speech from the Throne that Canada does have a plan led by the Prime Minister and that the budgets on the financial side which have been produced by the finance minister previously have given us hope for the future. The policies this government is putting forward paint a brighter picture for the future than we have had in the past, certainly in the past 20 years.
I would suggest again that it is not enough to criticize. I think we need alternatives. Canada needs hope, not hopelessness as painted by the member opposite.
I would ask the hon. member to give us his personal blueprint, a positive blueprint, for the future of Canada-not just a lot of rhetoric, but a real blueprint. Tell us what your plans are.


David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the observations and the question of the hon. member opposite. I am not prepared to apologize to the hon. member for the picture I had painted for her in terms of what is out there across this country. The hon. member must realize that, notwithstanding the fact that she is a member of the government and enjoys a majority at this point in time, there are many, many Canadians who are in deep economic anguish. However, the hon. member asked for my answer and I will respond if she would just be a little bit courteous and listen to my response regarding her observation. There are many Canadians who suffer great, great economic anguish, who are greatly concerned about what is taking place politically in this country in terms of national unity.
I do not make apologies for standing up on behalf of those truckers outside. I make no apologies for standing up for the unemployed in my constituency. I make no apologies for standing up for those individuals, both young and middle-aged, who want a fair shake from government and have been denied it. I make no apology whatsoever for putting on the record that there are thousands upon thousands of Canadians whose economic plight has been driven into the ground, down through the ground, by the policies of the government opposite.
May 22, 1991

The hon. member has posed a very specific question: What is my blueprint? I will give the hon. member just a little sample.
The other day we had an opposition day where we put forward a motion regarding the trucking industry. The transport critic for our party laid on the table nine specific points that the government could pursue without great cost, many of them without great cost to the taxpayers, either provincially or federally. All the government did was thumb its nose at them.
That is one point I want to bring to the hon. member's attention.
Second, the hon. member talks about the blueprint. One of the essential ingredients of an economic blueprint has to be monetary policy. The monetary policies of this government, in terms of its high dollar and high interest rates, are choking small and medium-sized businesses across this country. It is preventing companies from going out and hiring individuals they would normally want to hire.
I believe, as I am sure the hon. member believes, very much in the private sector. We have to facilitate the private sector, which is the engine of growth in this country. That certainly cannot be done with a monetary policy which chokes small business and medium-sized business. You don't do that. That is what this government has done in the regions of this country, in my own region of Atlantic Canada.
It is absolutely devastating. I am not joyful about standing on the floor of the House of Commons and telling members of the plight of those Canadians, but that is the responsibility that I have as a member of Parliament.
The member can speak from her seat and say: "your specific plan". There are three items that the member could act upon. However, the member won't act upon it, just as the member failed to act with regard to what Canadians were saying on the GST and a host of other things.
The hon. member knows very well the answers, the courses of action that have led to this economic recession. The government refuses at every opportunity to accept cogent, prudent advice and change its ways.
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We hoped that with a new Minister of Finance we may see some light at the end of the tunnel, but unfortunately he is sticking to those old policies.


Mr. Geoff Wilson (Swift Current-Maple Creek-As-siniboia):: I, too, have similar concerns to those raised by my hon. friend from Winnipeg, and that is the lack of answers.
I think we have suffered through a 20-minute litany of all of those things that are wrong. Correction, there were a couple of minutes of praise for those good old Liberal times, the times when we had capital gains tax, the national energy policy, the scientific research tax credit, the Katimaviks, and the 22 per cent interest rates, the airplane manufacturers, VIA Rail and all the rest of it done on borrowed money year after year, the borrowing piling up to the point where in March 1985 the national debt reached some $207 billion. Of course, our friend suggests that this government has doubled the debt since that time.
It is almost true. It is up to $390 billion now. My hon. friend knows that almost all of that increase is compound interest on that legacy of debt left to us as a result of the mismanagement and gross overspending of his regime.
The fact is that the deficit this year is something like $30 billion. If his party had continued to be in charge the deficit this year, based on those trend lines, would be $99 billion. The national debt would be in the area of $700 to $800 billion. Canada would be on the verge of bankruptcy.
What have we done? Based on what was left to us, yes, this government has increased taxes and has reduced programs and reduced spending. Every single measure was opposed by the members opposite.
What I want to ask him, and I would like an answer, not this nonsense of fixing interest rates and the absence of the rest of the world, as if we did not have an increasingly interdependent global economy, not this nonsense of a lower dollar, as if we are suddenly going to magically pluck a figure out of the air and lower the dollar-Bangladesh style-and suddenly prosper. What I would like to know is what would the Liberal Party do with the deficit? Apparently it would not increase taxes, it would not reduce spending. What would it do? Just a simple straightforward answer, please.

May 22, 1991
The Address


David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member asks what we would do in terms of the deficit. I think it is very clear that-


Geoff Wilson: Borrow, borrow.


David Charles Dingwall: The hon. member does not want to give me an opportunity to respond. The fact of the matter is that his monetary policies and the policies of the Minister of Finance, as echoed by the Bank of Canada, in themselves have contributed more to this national deficit than anything. When people are unemployed, people are not paying their fair share of taxes. Those kinds of things contribute substantially to a national deficit.
The monetary policy is what must be changed by this particular government to get the deficit and economy under control.
In conclusion, I am somewhat surprised that the hon. member would stand in the House and make reference to the national energy program, when the former premier of Alberta, Mr. Peter Lougheed, signed the deal here in Ottawa. The hon. member ought to be ashamed of himself for taking shots at the former premier of the province of Alberta.


Douglas Fee: Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege for me to add a few of my thoughts and words to this debate on the throne speech. By their nature, speeches from the throne are usually pretty general. Other speakers and media commentators have pointed out that they tend to lack specifics. They are not unlike a motto though, something that sets a tone and a direction.
Before being elected to this place, while serving as mayor, I wrote a motto for my municipality. We said that we had pride in our past and faith in our future.
That same motto should apply to our country today. The Royal Canadian Legion borrowed our motto for its diamond anniversary celebration. I am proud to share anything with the Royal Canadian Legion. I would like to take advantage of this opportunity to compliment the Dominion Command of the Legion for its recent initiative on national unity.
There is no group in Canada that has more invested in this country than do its members. The men and women who stood strong to defend our way of life are now, through their national unity campaign, continuing to
fight to preserve the country in which they have invested so much.
I believe in the Canada they have worked for. I am very proud of our history.
In reflecting on that motto, one of the reasons that Canadians today may look to the future with discouragement is that they have not learned enough of our past. They do not have the pride in our Canadian history that they should have. Ours is a history of strong people who were willing to put aside individual differences and build a nation, a nation that exists today and is the envy of much of the world.
As members of Parliament, we have all had the opportunity to attend citizenship court. The most recent one I attended in Red Deer had 34 people from 18 different countries. Every one of them was there, not to become a hyphenated Canadian, but to become a Canadian.
In discussing with them afterwards, a number expressed amazement at how little Canadians knew about their own history. There is an old saying that if you do not appreciate what you have, you are going to lose it.
During the recess we each had the opportunity to spend some extra time with our electorate. We must have all heard that which we know, that we face serious challenges in our country and we are at a turning point in Canadian history.
There is a great malaise across this nation of ours. Canadians are concerned. They are also frustrated and upset. It is my strong personal opinion that we must be open to discussions on change in this very institution. However, the throne speech points out many other areas of change that Canadians must be open and receptive to.
There are many agendas across the nation and each is important to the people in those areas, and indeed to Canada as a whole. In my own province we want to see the Senate made responsive to the needs of Canadians and capable of defending the rights of the provinces. It is time for a major change.
I appreciated the comments of the Minister responsible for Constitutional Affairs when he said that Senate reform would be one of the items that he would be addressing.
May 22, 1991

Challenges present opportunities and I see a major opportunity given us right now. The ongoing discussion, indeed the conflict and the questions have Canadians involved and attentive to the happenings in this House. The level of involvement and concern possibly makes politicians uncomfortable, but I think that is healthy. People should be aware of what goes on in their political institutions, and those of us who serve in political office have to be ready to accept comment and constructive criticism.
The economy and our ability to compete internationally is another reason why we must work together. A diminished Canada would diminish each of the regions as well. Those who believe otherwise are fooling themselves. It is true that in an individual sense the day-today activities of our lives might not be affected. We would still live in the same house, drive the same car, shop in the same store. The sun would still shine, the rain still fall and the seasons pass, but Canada would be diminished and there would be an economic price paid by all. We would lose our place at the G-7, our international prestige would diminish, and the resulting uncertainty could tie up courts and political effort for years. International monetary markets would question investment in this country. None of us can afford that uncertainty, and no thinking Canadian wants it.
Executives at major Canadian corporations were quoted in the press last week as saying:
The separation of Quebec would do more than divide Canada. It would eliminate jobs and send investment, plants and opportunities to the United States, Europe and Asia.
It went on to say that our unity is strengthened by a strong economy and prosperity is enhanced by a united country, but that disunity in the face of global economic challenge invites decline.
I love this country. Canada is a great nation. I believe it became the great nation it is because of the core values it was developed upon: the belief in God and the dignity and worth of the individual.
Our society was built on the foundation of faith, family and community. I was encouraged by the one sentence in the throne speech where His Excellency said:
My government will review its policy in relation to the family, the most fundamental building block of Canadian society.
There is systemic discrimination against the traditional family. It is wrong when a single parent will question
The Address
whether he or she will get married because of the income tax implications and the child tax credit. It is wrong that two senior citizens would question whether to marry because of pension implications.
One sentence in the throne speech is not much, but I will be joining other members of our caucus in this House to encourage the government to act on it.
In many areas of the world the conflicts that exist within Canada today would be the basis of armed conflict. The hon. member for Edmonton Southwest recently remarked that we are engaged perhaps in a form of civil war in Canada, only in typical Canadian fashion we are trying to talk ourselves to death. We have problems and we are talking, and I believe we have the resolve to address them and to work out amiable solutions.
I feel it is very important that we try to understand and get to know people in all regions of Canada.
Recently the hon. Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs told rural Albertans that he and his family still live on the same land that was farmed by his father, grandfather, great-grandfather, back 11 generations. Nobody loves the land like an Alberta farmer, and to think of one family inhabiting one piece of land for 325 years gave them cause for serious thought.
Last summer I had the occasion to attend a special anniversary for the McAllister family in the Antler Hill district. It was celebrating the 100th anniversary of the arrival of the first McAllister to farm that land. This year, I plan to join the residents of Willowdale as they too celebrate the centennial of their rural community. These people are proud of their land and they are proud of their heritage. Their forefathers rode across Canada by wagon, by horse and by train to come to an unknown and uncertain part of this country. By coming to the west they helped to build a nation. We, their descendants, are very proud today of what they built. We are proud to be Albertans, but above all, we are proud Canadians and we know that any reduction to Canada is a reduction to us all.
In closing, I have a short poem to which I am sorry I cannot ascribe any author. I have checked it and it is listed as anonymous.

May 22, 1991
The Address
I stopped to watch them tear a building down Some working men in my hometown.
With a heave and ho and a yes, yes yell,
They swung a beam and a sidewall fell.
I asked the foreman,'Are these men skilled?
The type you'd hire if you were to build?"
He chuckled and said, "No, indeed.
The commerce of labour is all I need.
For I can destroy in a day or two
What skilled men worked many years to build".
And I thought to myself as I wandered away Which of these roles do I plan to play.
During our constitutional discussions and during the debate, there are all too many people in this country who have been willing to play the role of the destructor; the person who is willing to sit back, criticize and tear down the efforts of the others who are trying to build. We are the recipients of the efforts of many men and women who have constructively worked together in a struggle to forge a consensus and who have toiled with their minds and their bodies to develop the land, a land that is the envy of the entire world and a country that sits as an example.
I am confident that we can ignore the naysayers and overlook those who would simply criticize and tear down for their own political or personal reasons, because the needs of Canada are greater than the needs of any individual. Canada is worth fighting for. Should we succeed in our efforts to overcome the many problems and challenges that face us today, history may record this period as nothing more than a footnote. Should we fail, we will have to explain to our children and grandchildren what we were doing when Canada was ripped apart.
I was elected as an Albertan. I was also elected as a Canadian. I was not elected to see this country torn apart and I want my efforts to be recorded on the side of those who are willing to work and add my skills to the building of the greatest nation in the world, my Canada.


Margaret Anne Mitchell: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my friend who just spoke if he would comment on an article in Quorum today which stated, I believe-I do not have the exact quote in my hand-that he does not really support the present government policy of multiculturalism. Particularly, I think he referred to the funding of ethnocultural organizations. I would like to ask him to explain his concept of multiculturalism and his views on the government's policy and why he said this.
I would also like to know whether he represents many of the groups in Alberta, where there have been many ethnocultural organizations that have been very active and form the backbone of the population of Alberta and our western provinces, generally.
I would also be very interested to know whether his concept of multiculturalism looks at employment equity, racism and the needs for us to implement equality in society. We need to have an affirmative multicultural program that will work toward those goals.
I really think he needs to explain his position.


Douglas Fee: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to reply to the question of the hon. member for Vancouver East. It is not often that those of us who inhabit the backbenches get their name in Quorum and not too often do we get a chance to explain.
As the member well knows, each one of us in this House is very often interviewed by people from the media. They take our comments and they write them up. Quite often they attach their own headings and they editorialize a little bit in the comments.
The comments in Quorum today attributed to me were part of an extremely long interview that I did with one of my weekly newspapers. It took about a page and a half of the paper to do the whole thing. There were certain elements taken out of it and recorded, one of which was my comments on multiculturalism.
I touched on this very briefly in my comments when I referred to the citizenship court. Canada is made up of different ethnic groups, and Alberta is a tremendous example. In that diversity there is strength. It is also beautiful that we have so many cultures come together. I personally encourage those people to pay attention to their heritage because we have to know our heritage. If we do not appreciate our heritage, we do not appreciate what we have in the present and we cannot plan for the future.
At the same time, there has been no period in Canadian history when we needed to develop a sense of being Canadian more. My comments were critical of any funds that went to a hyphenated Canadian group. I do not feel that we should be encouraging people to stress their differences. Encourage them to recognize their own heritage, by all means, as that is important, it is the strength of Canada, but my comment was that the Government of Canada should not be funding people to be hyphenated Canadians. It is important at this juncture of our history that we develop a sense of community, being together, and what makes us the same, not what makes us different.
May 22, 1991


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


Mr. Greg Thompson (Carleton -Charlotte):: Mr. Speaker, on July 1, Canada will be 125 years old. It is going to be an uneasy birthday because we are wondering if we are going to reach 126, and if we do, what kind of Canada we will have. Will we have a unified Canada, a divided Canada or a Balkanized Canada? Those are the questions that are going through all of our minds and we are very worried about our country.
I mention that because there seems to be a mood in this House that has not been evident in past years: we do want a strong Canada, a united Canada. We have to work a little bit harder to ensure that happens, especially as we approach Canada's 125th birthday. We are only a month and a half away and I think that thought is really bearing pretty heavily on our minds.
Just to emphasize this, last evening I was leaving the House of Commons with a Liberal member of Parliament from the Moncton riding. He had with him a couple of relatives. Their names were Georgie and Murray Seeley from London, Ontario. They wanted to talk about Canada, and we talked very freely.
One of the things that Mrs. Seeley pointed out to me was that she and her husband, who are both World War II veterans, are very worried about what might be happening. Her question to me was: "Do you think we will get through this thing?" That seems to be the dominant question, the theme that is on everyone's mind.
That generation seems to have more of a feeling for this country than maybe the rest of us, because it knows what it is like to have to work for something and to preserve something worth preserving.
In the course of that conversation she asked about one of my. constituents, whose name is Lome Groom. They served together during that war and when Mr. and Mrs. Seeley mentioned the relationship with Mr. Groom, it brought back a lot of memories.
The Address
I mention this again for a very specific reason: to point out the sacrifices that many Canadians have made for our country.
Lome Groom was a very young man in World War II. He is a double amputee who worked very hard and went through university. He raised a fabulous family and still resides in St. Stephen. In fact last week he experienced a great hardship when his wife passed on very unexpectedly-
When we look at people like the Seeleys, the Grooms and others around this country who have sacrificed so much, it really explains in toto why they are so nervous and upset with what is happening. They want to see us confident that we are going to get through this thing.
To me, the mood in this House is that we want to work together to ensure that we do get through our difficulties. We do want a united and strong Canada. We have to work to make it happen. We have taken so much for granted in this country in the last 25 or 30 years. Maybe it has been too easy for us. Maybe it is time that we reflect on the past and the sacrifices that Canadians, who in many cases are older than us, have made for the country and why they are so worried about it.
Despite all the difficulties that we are going through, we tend as Canadians to ignore the positive. There is so much happening in this country that is positive.
I am going to quote from a speech the Prime Minister gave in Calgary on April 22 of this year: "Those who claim that Canada's standard of living and quality of life, our social safety net and our legal system, our culture and our international status add up to failure must have a very strange definition of success. The evidence proves the contrary". The Prime Minister went on to point out that we could not afford to be complacent in this country.
But we are successful. Do we throw that success down the drain? Do we throw it all away? No, we do not. Canadians do not want to throw it all away. We simply have to work harder to continue the kind of success that Canada has enjoyed in the past number of years.

May 22, 1991
The Address
In terms of economic strength Canada is number eight in the world, although in terms of population we rank 31st. We have earned our place and we have to maintain it. We have earned our place at the economic summit. We sit beside countries like the United States, Japan, France, United Kingdom and Italy. We have earned our place. We have to maintain it, but we are not going to do it by being complacent. We have to get at the reasons why we were successful in the past. We have to respond to changes that have to come about but which are not always easy.
We have to take a very strong look at our educational system in this country and what we are doing. Some of the alarming statistics point out that we are not doing it all right. It is estimated that 40 per cent of new jobs created by the year 2000 will be highly skilled. Today, that figure is only 24 per cent.
One of the things that we are very conscious of is that at 30 per cent Canada has one of the highest high school dropout rates in the world. It is 30 per cent. As a nation we spend more on education than 90 per cent of all other countries in the world.
Yet, we have statistics that are so alarming. They point out that a large percentage of our population is not functionally literate. Given those alarming statistics, do we have any hope of competing in the future? Do we have any hope of competing against countries in the world that are changing or have changed with the times, that are willing to commit and have committed resources to those changes that are being dictated to us? We cannot go on in the old sense of doing things, the old ways of doing things.
The Speech from the Throne simply indicates that Canada and this government are willing to move with the times and make the changes that are necessary to ensure that future Canadian generations will be as prosperous as we have been in the past. We are going to commit the resources to ensure that happens.
When Canadians look at us and scrutinize us very carefully in this House in the coming weeks, I hope they can identify that sense of urgency, that we realize what has to be done and we are going to work together to make it happen. A unified Canada is a prosperous Canada. We need to have that economic prosperity, that dedication to task, to make it happen. I am convinced that we will and it will not be the politicians who do it. It will be Canadians themselves who will do it.
The cynicism that surrounds politicians is very understandable. From time to time in this House Canadians
witness unnecessary heckling and criticism back and forth across the floor and they wonder what we are doing here to resolve some of the difficulties.
I think the urgency of the times has drawn a line across that type of behaviour and we realize we have to work together. We can have our differences, but we are going to have to work very hard to get through this thing.
On July 1, when we celebrate our 125th year, maybe we will have that sense of optimism that we are going to make it to 126. We are only going to do it by working together, working for that common goal which is a prosperous Canada, a unified Canada.


Catherine S. Callbeck: Mr. Speaker, I have listened with interest to the hon. member. I certainly share his concerns about national unity.
I want to comment on the lack of concrete plans in the Speech from the Throne for jobs for Canadians at the present time. I have a question that I want to ask the hon. member.
I know that in my own province of Prince Edward Island the unemployment rate is running roughly 2 per cent more than it was at this time last year. We have a lot of people looking for jobs, as we have all across this country.
We look to this Speech from the Throne to offer them some hope, and here again the government has let them down. Not only that, but last week in my province we were told that the GST centre which was to open in the fall of 1992 will now be delayed one year until 1993.
When the Prime Minister promised this, he said it would be open in the fall of 1992. Then it was delayed until January 1993, then to June 1993, and now we are into the fall of 1993.1 must say that last weekend I had a number of people speak to me who were beginning to doubt the commitment of this government to ever open that centre.
I have never heard a logical reason for this delay. It has been reported in the press that some government officials have said that the delay has to do with the battle that this party, my party, waged against the GST. That is absolutely foolish. It does not make any sense. I do not think that this type of nonsense has any place in an issue where the economic survival of a community is at stake. This government started the GST on the date that it had planned and continued through with its plan to collect the tax. If it can do that, surely it can continue with the construction of that GST centre and get it open, if it has the will to do it.
May 22, 1991

I want to ask the hon. member: Does he agree that the lack of job creation possibilities in the Speech from the Throne, coupled with delays like the GST centre in Summerside, are completely unacceptable?


Gregory Francis Thompson: Mr. Speaker, in direct answer to the question regarding the GST centre, that would probably be more appropriate if it were answered by the minister in the House. I am sure the hon. member will put that question to the appropriate minister soon, if she has not already done so.
With regard to the big picture of the economy, one of the things that the opposition fails to recognize is that Canada is part of the western world. The decline in the economy, and if you want, to a recession in the western world, is something that we cannot avoid because we are international players, international traders, and we cannot escape that reality.
If the member would look beyond just Canada, and I know that she does, the devastation in the U.S. with regard to the slowdown in its economy, has been greater than it has been in Canada, far greater. That does not remove us from our own responsibilities. In that sense we have a tremendous responsibility, no question about it, to get the economy moving again.
I believe that we will because I believe that the policies we are putting forward are the types of policies that will get us through the hard times and will create a stronger and more vibrant Canadian economy.
We cannot remove ourselves from the real world. We cannot buy our way out of problems. That was the tendency of previous governments.
Mr. Speaker, if you give me just a minute, I want to explain this. This pen-I often do this when I am speaking to groups-I pull it out of my pocket and I say, this has been the biggest enemy of the Canadian taxpayer since Confederation, especially the last 25 or 30 years. For the last 25 or 30 years successive governments and politicians from all sides-I am not just picking on the Liberals or the NDP, I can say it about Conservative
The Address
governments as well-have pulled this pen out of their pockets and just written the cheque, knowing dam right well the money was not there. What did we do? We saddled the Canadian people with a huge debt because the easy answer for those 25 or 30 years was write the cheque, buy off the Canadian people. What we were doing was mortgaging the country.
I do not want to see that happen. It will not happen with this government. It did not happen in the last budget brought forward by this government and it is certainly not reflected-


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


Mr. Len Hopkins (Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke):: Mr. Speaker, I think that some people in this House realize that this is probably one of the most important debates so far as a throne speech is concerned that we are going to have because it will be during this session that many of the national problems concerning the national unity of this nation will have to be grappled with and, indeed, solved.
Therefore, we must take a very serious approach to this whole business of national unity and the economy. I am a firm believer that when people are dissatisfied over the economy, it certainly gives them more to complain about what is happening in the country. It is weakening national unity at the same time.
In previous speeches in the House, I have said that what this good old nation of Canada needs is a good dose of healthy national spirit. I do not think we are going to get this if we are going to keep on complaining inwardly about ourselves and if we are going to be downgrading ourselves in the eyes of the world.
We have indeed been given a great nation to manage. What we have to do is talk more about our opportunities in this country. We have to talk about the assets that we have been given, that we have inherited in this nation. We have to talk about what the Fathers of Confederation set going-and not just the Fathers of Confederation, but those people before them who for years built the colony which eventually became the nation.

May 22, 1991
The Address
The Fathers of Confederation had great insight for people in that particular age. Many things have happened to date that they could not visualize any more than we in this House today or anyone across this nation is going to visualize what is going to happen in the next 25 years of Canadian history. The country will have to adjust accordingly. We may well have to adjust our Constitution along the way to meet those challenges.
I think we, as Canadians, have to realize that God has given us a great land. We have indeed been blessed. If we do not manage it correctly, then we have no one to blame but ourselves. But there must be the right attitude. You cannot do it if you have a lot of negative attitudes. If you do not have a positive attitude, you are not going to build anything.
We in this nation have seldom been without the necessities of life. Indeed, there have been some people across the country who have experienced hard times and who have had difficult moments in their lives looking after their families, but we have found that for Canadians generally, be it at the community level or be it with our social programs in Canada, a great deal has been done to help everybody over those rough periods here in this nation of ours. We must never lose that feeling of empathy, that feeling of concern for our fellow individuals, any more than we should lose that feeling of empathy and concern for the international community. No nation in the world has been able to build the international highways of good will that have been built up by former statesmen in this House, former public servants in Canada and former Canadians generally.
It is indeed a great time. People say: "Oh, they are challenging times, things are difficult, my goodness what are we going to do next?" Well, what we do is sit down and get going on the challenge. You don't sit around wringing your hands, complaining and bickering and badgering.
I want to mention the economy one more time at the beginning of my speech. During modem day times when the economy goes flat, it affects far more Canadians than it ever did before. Even during the "dirty thirties", as people called them, by far the largest portion of Canadians still lived on farms and in small rural communities, were able to plant a garden and grow potatoes and kill the pigs in the fall, and they got by. They got by, but why? What added quality was there?
They got by because those Canadians, in many cases our parents, came through that because they had a faith. That is something that we have got to develop, within our own minds and our own mentality today. Do we have a faith to go ahead and build this nation? Do we have a faith to go ahead and work hard and be productive? Do we have a faith to believe in Canada?
I don't say this by way of criticism, Mr. Speaker, but I have heard people get up in this House and say: "I am an Albertan", "I am a Quebecer", "I am so-and-so". Well, Mr. Speaker, I am a Canadian. I may live in Ontario, and I am proud to live in Ontario and to have grown up there, but as a federal member of Parliament, I am a Canadian. If we are going to start building a national spirit in this country, we have got to forget those former terminologies that describe us, and from day one we are Canadians. We must make up our minds that we are going to build a national spirit in this country that will give great pride to Canadians at large.
Leadership is very important. Every time we get up in this House and start talking the blues and bickering and bantering with one another, we are discouraging Canadians. We have to stand up in this House and say first of all that we need to have faith in ourselves and we need to have faith in our fellow members in this House and in the other chamber. We have to realize that we are here to do a job for the people of Canada. We have to realize that we are here as federalists and that we are going to build a nation that we are going to be proud of.
We are very vocal at times in criticising the Americans and the way they build up their country and their pride and so on. We sometimes look upon that as being a bit artificial, but when the President of the United States gets on national television and asks the American people to pull together for the good of the nation, they do it. We must have a strong base where we, ourselves, have faith in this nation, where we implant that faith in all Canadians.
People came here from other countries and are Canadians today. They have adopted this country. Some of them have greater faith in this nation than we have demonstrated. I think that is a shame. Let us begin with that premise.
May 22, 1991

The other thing that sometimes bothers me in this House is comments about politicians. Yes, we know. I have been around long enough to know when people are angry and when they are in good humour. That is a cycle in politics. There are difficult times. A certain generation of politicians may start arguing and bickering at one another and give people the wrong impression. People blame it on television in the House, but there were wars on the floor of this House of Commons long before television was ever heard of. People ask me: "Does television make a difference?" Television makes a difference, but people across Canada see what is going on here.
However, if we would have had television in this House in 1917 when we had the great debate on conscription across this country, people would not have thought too much of politicians at that time either. This is not a new phenomenon, but it does mean that we have to clean up our act. There is nothing wrong with having strong debates, that is the name of the game. This House is not going to become a puritanical temple where people are not going to argue with one another in honest and earnest debate from time to time. There will always be very strong debate in this House.
Politicians sometimes downgrade themselves by admitting that they are not really showing a good image of themselves, that the people are angry with them because they are not doing their job properly or because they are debating. The first thing we have to realize is that this is a debating institution. From there on, as far as behaviour is concerned, it comes down to the question: "Do we have faith in ourselves and do we have faith enough to have earnest debate back and forth across the floor of this House without getting nasty?"
There is a good old rule in politics that I always use, and in my experience it normally works. If you treat the average individual with a little sense of decency and common sense, they will respond twofold. If we, once in a while, gave them a little encouragement verbally in this House, that would do a great deal to encourage them to go ahead with their daily jobs.
Do not downgrade ourselves as politicians. I am proud to be an elected member of this House of Commons. I am proud to be an elected Canadian who can get up and speak on behalf of my constituents, and even for the larger community abroad from coast to coast to coast in
The Address
this nation. We must realize the great assets we have, the great things we have to work for. We must take examples from those who came to this country with nothing and have succeeded. That is what we have to do. We are only going to do it if we have the energy and determination to do it ourselves.
I want to discuss regional development factors. If we are going to develop a Canadian nation, it has always been the case, over the decades of Canadian history, that as regional development goes, so goes the nation.
Northern and eastern Ontario are in a downturn now. What is happening in Toronto? Toronto is in a downturn because it is losing industry. The larger urban centres of our nation suffer when the regions that feed them suffer because they do not get the same input and do not have people doing the same kind of business with them from right across that particular region.
These are basic economic issues for the future development of Canada. What are important issues in regional development? Well, it has to be admitted that the free trade agreement, regardless of what we think of it on either side of this House, has hurt agriculture in this country. There is no question about that.
The dairy industry is very concerned and has been for some time. There is no question whatsoever that the famous memorandum of understanding, signed by a former Minister of International Trade who now has the delight of sitting in the Senate as a reward, putting a 15 per cent export tax on softwood lumber to the United States hurt the lumber industry. We in northern and eastern Ontario, and in particular this region, have seen the effects of that since day one. There is no question about it.
When we see 300 people walking away from a sawmill, we think of the 15 per cent export tax, we think of high interest rates and an artificially high Canadian dollar. Then we think of all the added expenses the truckers have to put up with in order to transport those goods to market.
How can we succeed under that? Again, I come back to my original theory. If we are going to have faith in this nation, we have got to correct some of those inequities and not just sit back and complain about it. I wish some of us were on the government side of the House so we could do something about these issues. When we get there, we will clean it up.

May 22, 1991
The Address
We are no sooner reeling from the results of free trade with the United States than the government is running headlong into free trade with Mexico. We have already seen what can happen. Of the eight industries that left the town of Renfrew, in my riding, one was the Playtex plant. Some of that business went to Mexico because of cheap labour. Some went to parts of the Far East. Those interests go wherever the low wages are.
What are we going to do to handle that? Are we going to lower our wages in this country down to poorhouse wages? We have more faith in ourselves than that. We may have to adjust and do other things we can do better. It has to be done.
The government had promised that company that it was going to take the tax off the raw material that came into Canada from the United States. So the company thought: "Great, we will stay in Canada". It waited until after the free trade agreement was passed, and what happened? The tax on the raw material coming in from New Jersey, or wherever, was not taken off. So the company felt betrayed and left.
Those are just some examples. It is true that there is a big link between the economy and national unity in this country, as I said in the beginning. It is too bad it has taken the government so long to find that out.
I was delighted to see the recognition in the throne speech, just as I was delighted to see our leader's term: "the Canada round", referring to the next round of negotiations to try to amend our Canadian Constitution and create a base for national unity.
The term "Canada round" was used by the leader of the Liberal Party months before this throne speech came into play. We do not mind them picking up some of our good points. We can give them lots of good points if they would use them. We hope they will.
It is too bad the government is seen to be so eager to produce quickly with free trade agreements. With the deindustrialization of places like Ontario, with what has happened to the lumber industry, as I have outlined, you almost begin to wonder whether this government really knows for which nation it is the national government.
We see the trucking industry in the United States getting preference over our industry and the forest industry getting preference. I just want to say here that on the defence side there are all kinds of contracts. The Americans are holding back some of those contracts for themselves in the United States. Are we really on a free trade basis?
This government was elected in 1984 and stated that it was going to do everything possible for the Department of National Defence. We heard all these great comments, but the fact remains that the defence department personnel certainly are not very proud of what the government is doing for them now.
It wants them to go abroad. It wants them to go into the Persian Gulf and anywhere in the world for peacekeeping. When the soldiers came home from the Persian Gulf, the Prime Minister, the Minister of National Defence and the Associate Minister of National Defence were all there shaking hands with them when they came off the plane.
About two weeks later, they said: "We are going to cut you by 25 per cent." That was their reward. Some of these things have great effect on the regional development of this country. The then Minister of National Defence even mentioned this while some of the troops were still in the Persian Gulf. You can imagine what encouragement that gave to them.
Regional development involves post offices and various industries, government departments and so on.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Wilson (Swift Current -Maple Creek-Assiniboia)):: I regret to inform the hon. member that his time is up.


Mr. Len Gustafson (Parliamentary Secretary to Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, I have a bit of a statement and a question.
Basically the hon. member is promoting a protectionist approach to government direction. There is no question there is a world-wide recession. We cannot blame the free trade agreement for the problems we are facing. In my opinion the free trade agreement should have happened 20 years ago. The world is becoming a smaller place in which to do business.
May 22, 1991

The hon. member mentioned agriculture. For instance, in wheat and grains alone Canada has exported to the U.S. an additional 16 per cent since the free trade agreement.
I was talking to a businessman from Winnipeg who has a leather factory. He tells me business has never been so good. It employs 60 people in Winnipeg and the same number in Nova Scotia. You cannot lay the blame of a recession on the free trade agreement.
Would the hon. member, if his government were elected, support removing the free trade agreement? Would he support tearing it up?


Leonard Donald Hopkins: Mr. Speaker, I never blamed the recession on the free trade agreement. As all Canadians do, I blame the recession on the Government of Canada. You are the ones who created it. To have the gall to stand up here and misinterpret my remarks I think is pretty weak.
As far as saying that I was giving a protectionist speech, my goodness, I just explained what happened with the softwood lumber industry. This government signed a protectionist agreement with the United States just moments before it signed the official free trade agreement. Why did they do that? Because that was the last nail in the Canadian coffin that the Americans wanted. They are hard bargainers, we all know that. They are great neighbours but they are hard bargainers. That was the last nail in the Canadian coffin and they wanted that nail in there before they would sign the free trade agreement.
This government used a protectionist measure to destroy the softwood lumber industry in Canada in order to get its free trade agreement. It will not have to use the same thing with Mexico because they will probably want us there anyway.


Leonard J. Gustafson: Are you going to keep it or tear it up?


Mr. Reid:: Would you tear it up?


Leonard Donald Hopkins: What would we do when we are elected? We are going to look at that free trade agreement and use common sense. We are not going holus-bolus down the road and we will change the things that are hurting Canada. We are not going to coast along with this.


Leonard J. Gustafson: He won't commit himself.
The Address


Leonard Donald Hopkins: The hon. member is trying to say something here about something I never said.
I want to say to him, if the Conservatives are so all interested in free trade, why did they not first of all tackle the provincial barriers in Canada to get them out of the way? They have not done that. They have been in power for seven years and they are still blaming the previous Liberal government. They will still be blaming the previous Liberal government the day they are defeated and the Liberals are back in power again. Then we will have the mammoth job of fixing up all the things in Canada that they have destroyed.


Ian Angus Ross Reid: Mr. Speaker, I just want to comment very quickly. As usual my friend from the Ottawa Valley makes a tremendous amount of sense, particularly when he talks about regional development and that sort of thing.
To suggest, first of all, that a world-wide recession is the fault of the Canadian government is a bit beyond even this government's capacity and I think his credence. He cannot deny there is a world-wide recession and he cannot blame that on the Canadian government.


Jim Jordan: Tell your Prime Minister that.


Ian Angus Ross Reid: He cannot blame that on the Canadian government.
People ask me what I think about the free trade negotiations with Mexico. I have to say, I do not know, because I do not know what the proposal is. I also say to them that it strikes me as obvious that if the Americans are going to sit down with the Mexicans, and we are on the same continent and the Americans are our biggest trading partners, we should be at the table.
Would a Liberal government, if that remote possibility could ever be imagined, allow the Mexicans and the Americans to negotiate a trade deal and not sit at the table?


Leonard Donald Hopkins: The Conservatives are great at asking hypothetical questions.


Ian Angus Ross Reid: Well, you're talking hypothetical economic theory.

May 22, 1991
The Address


Leonard Donald Hopkins: The hon. member obviously does not want an answer because-


Ian Angus Ross Reid: What should we do?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The hon. member has just asked the question. I would hope that he would allow the hon. member to answer.


Leonard Donald Hopkins: Mr. Speaker, I get the distinct feeling that he is afraid of what I am going to give for an answer, because he is not going to let me answer.
The Liberal government will use common sense in its trade deals. It is not going to go holus-bolus down the road with anybody if it is going to hurt the economy of this nation.
Why is the Prime Minister finally over in Asia to talk? He is over there because he wants to take some of the heat off the negotiations with Mexico. He wants to take some of the heat off the American free trade, as they call it. It is not very free to many people in Canada. The truckers would not agree with the government that it is free trade. They do not agree with it on deregulation either.
The real essence of Canadian government is that the government of the day, any day, must use common sense, reasonable business management and a little financial management too. While this government thinks it has done everything in the world, that it is just one of the finest bankers going and one of the best financial managers going, the fact is that it has indeed more than doubled-it is on the way to tripling-the national debt of this country in six and a half years.
After the previous Minister of Finance had the gall to say in August 1984: "We don't have to increase taxes to pay off the deficit or pay off the national debt. All we have to do is cancel government programs". The government has cancelled programs day in and day out. It has raised the taxes of this country 33 times since taking office and it has not made an impact. The national debt is still going up by leaps and bounds. That is the kind of managers these people are. It is time they are the customers rather than the managers.


Mr. Rob Nicholson (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to talk about the subject of
Canadian unity, the theme in the Speech from the Throne.
It has been said many times, but I think most Canadians realize that this is a critical and difficult time in the constitutional history of Canada. Most Canadians are coming to the realization that it is a fact of life and something that we will have to come to grips with, that there will have to be a constitutional accommodation within Canada. I think that can be a very healthy thing.
When you look at the Canadian Constitution, there is no particular reason why an individual should be married under provincial law and divorced under federal law. Hopefully a look at our constitutional documents will yield a new accommodation that will make more sense and will be to the benefit of the Canadian Confederation. It is going to be a difficult job and everyone knows that.
Sometimes partisan considerations can get in the way of making a good accommodation for Canada. I do not denigrate partisan politics. I take pride in the fact that I am a partisan. I love partisan debate. I love the Progressive Conservative Party and I have been a member of it since my childhood but, at the same time, I do not think that either my partisan views or the partisan views of other members should get in the way of coming to the accommodation that we will need in Canada.
Let me give you an example of what I am talking about. I remember, shortly after my election in 1984, sitting down with one my constituents who was very much identified with a political party other than my own. It became obvious after awhile that it was very difficult, these partisan differences between the two of us, to talk about what, in effect, was a mutual problem. After awhile I said to the man involved, "Look, let's make a deal here. I am not going to look for your vote. I do not expect your vote. I am going to take a chance that I will not win or lose the 1988 election by one or more votes. So let's you and I agree that you are not going to try and change me because you will not. Let us get on with the problem and see if there is something that we can come up with."
I do not think that is a bad way for Canadians to proceed. Quite apart from whatever their perceptions are of me or the Progressive Conservative Party, this government or of politicians, it should not colour their perceptions about the need to come to an acceptable solution to Canada's constitutional needs.
May 22, 1991

If we can solve that, there will always be plenty of time. We have a long, great democratic tradition in this country where there will always be room and time for partisan politics, but this is too important an issue for that. I believe the stakes are very, very high.
I was at a meeting of the Royal Canadian Legion, the Stanford branch, several weeks ago. One of the veterans there, a man by the name of Frank Simon who lost an arm in World Word II, told me and those assembled that night that the veterans had fought for all of Canada, had fought for all of the provinces and all the territory of Canada, and the veterans, he said, are counting on the politicians and, indeed, all Canadians to keep this country together. I think those are good words to remember in this debate because when all is said and done, this is a wonderful country. You only have to visit other countries in the world, you only have to talk to any of the people who come into our office who want to emigrate to Canada, to know just how lucky we are as Canadians. I think it is important that we remind ourselves of that sometimes.
All of us have had conversations where we dwell on the problems that Canada is facing. All of us have letters that enumerate all the things that are wrong with Canada. Of all the letters I get, the ones that bother me the most are not the ones that criticize me personally. They are not the ones that criticize this government. They are not the ones that criticize politicians. They are the letters and comments that seem to take aim at Canada itself. Those are the ones I find very difficult and upsetting, even after being in this business for six or seven years.
What I say to them, to all Canadians, and to my constituents is: "Okay, there are many problems in Canada. I think we can solve them". Perhaps we have even made a list of all the things we think are wrong with Canada. But in every argument there is another side. Is it not equally valid, once we have talked about all the provinces, to talk about all the great things about Canada? Is that not equally valid? I think it is.
Whenever I mention the wonderful things in Canada, the obvious counter argument is: "Well, there are still problems with that. It is not perfect". To which I reply: "The list of things that are absolutely no problems or the list of things that are perfect is a very, veiy short list". If we acknowledge that, which can be the perennial criticism, we should talk about, we should list, and we should
The Address
think within ourselves as Canadians about all the things that make Canada the great country it is, if we could possibly list them.
I have been saying to people for many, many years that we have the best health care system in the world. The best health care system in the world is right here in Canada. People say that there are problems with it, that it is not perfect. I acknowledge that it is the best in the world, right here in Canada.
This parliamentary system is one of the wonderful things about Canada. This is an open system. This is a Parliament that gives an opportunity to individuals who are not rich or are not born into an aristocracy. This Parliament is open to all who have ambition and who have something to say about Canada. That is one of the wonderful things about Canada.
We can check all the judicial systems in the world, but I know of none better at balancing the public interest and individual rights than our judicial system.
We have an open, accessible, affordable education system in Canada.
Someone said to me recently: "The geography and climate in Canada mean that we are spared most of the natural disasters we read about almost every night in the paper. Those are things we should be thankful for". However, if this country is going to pull together, if it is going to solve the problems we face, it will take all of us looking at the big picture. It will take all of us looking beyond whether we like politicians. It will not just be politicians that will be able to solve this. We need the special interest groups that will say: "Okay, let us look at the greater good of Canada at the same time as looking at our needs".
We will have to ask the media to say: "There is a bigger picture here".


An hon. member:: Good luck.


Rob Nicholson: One member says "Good luck" to me on that. Mr. Speaker, you can check my record. I have not been a basher of the CBC. I do not think I have ever mentioned it. However, I was a little distraught two weeks ago to read an article in Maclean's magazine. I am not going to get into it because there may be rebuttals for these things. I see how difficult it was for us if Dr. Meisel's comments are correct about the coverage of the Meech Lake Accord.

May 22, 1991
The Address
I would say to the media, to politicians, to partisan politicians, to all of us: "Let us give Canada a break this time, because Canada needs some help from everybody". It is worth it.
Sir John A. Macdonald said that if Canada wants to have its own country, if Canada wants to pursue its own destiny, there will be prices to be paid to be Canadians. That was true in 1867 and it is true today. I believe that when Canadians look within themselves, they will come to the conclusion that Canada is worth the effort.


Mr. Guy H. Arseneault (Restigouche - Chaleur):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a few comments with regard to the hon. member's speech.
First of all, I think most members would probably agree with him in the sense that the constitutional debate should be a non-partisan type of debate. I would tend to agree with that also. But the difficulty I have with that and the difficulty that people have with that are the actions of the present government.
The present government, as I see it and as many Canadians see it, has contributed to the problem in Canada. It has contributed to disunity, mistrust and the loss of confidence in the system. Rather than developing the proper attitude and esprit that is necessary, this government has been dismantling many of the institutions that have kept us united over the years.
I can mention the CBC, VIA Rail cuts, and even Canada Post. In many areas in Canada the only federal presence they have in their communities is the post office with the Canadian flag on it. Right at the present moment, even in my own area of Restigouche-Chaleur and in northern New Brunswick, we see what they are doing to Canada Post. Recent announcements indicate the possibility of laying off 11 workers in an area where the unemployment rate is 18.5 per cent. They are going to lay off 11 workers for the sake of rationalization. There is no way that Canada Post can convince me that it is going to be more efficient to send mail 200 miles east to be sorted only to come back west later. At the present time it is being sorted right in that area and then sent directly west.
I find it very difficult to believe that it will be a non-partisan debate. I hope it will be for the sake of the country, but now the biggest malaise out there is not necessarily a mistrust in the politicians but a mistrust in
this government. They see that the government has contributed to the problem of unity in this country and dismantled many of our national institutions that were there to keep our country united.
Does the hon. member agree with the type of program that his government is carrying out in the sense that it has announced cutbacks in public servants, some 90,000 of them since its mandate started? It is proud of that and wants to continue that. Does he agrees with the Canada Post policy of completely closing down rural post offices?


Rob Nicholson: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member just enumerated, I believe if I counted right, eight different things he sees wrong with the government and with the programs of the last six or seven years.
If the hon. member wants a non-partisan debate, I will tell him something that may sound partisan to him, but it is something I deeply believe in and something I believe to be correct.
Contrary to comments that I read that were reported by Dr. Meisel about the motives of our Prime Minister when it comes to national unity, I can tell the hon. member that I have listened to the Prime Minister carefully throughout two Parliaments now, the 33rd and the 34th Parliaments. I have listened to him speak to our national caucus every Wednesday morning for the past six and a half years. I believe as strongly as I believe in anything else that the Prime Minister of Canada sincerely wants the best for all Canada. He will go to any lengths to preserve the unity of this country in reasonable, fair terms by which all Canadians live. I believe he is capable of doing that. I believe the leadership is in other political parties as well to come together and take that kind of non-partisan approach that will act in the best interests of this country.
I say that because I saw it at the time of the Meech Lake Accord when it was very difficult for political leadership in this House and throughout Canada to come together. Not only do I believe that the Prime Minister can do that. I believe that kind of leadership exists within other political parties in Canada as well.


Mr. Robert E. Skelly (Comox-Alberni):: Mr. Speaker, I want to express my appreciation for the opportunity to take part in this throne speech debate and to express some of my concerns arising from the government's current economic and other policies which I believe are contributing to the state of this country today and are tearing this country apart.
May 22, 1991

I listened with interest to the speech of the member for Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke. It is important to understand that many Canadians, when they express concern about the unity of the country, are concerned about the economic issues and their status within the national economy. I think that is a serious part of the problem this country is facing today.
I listened to the Minister of Communications when he opened the debate today. He talked about what the Fathers of Confederation were facing in the period between 1864 to 1867 when as the Minister of Communications said they were looking at putting or stitching together a disparate set of colonies with stitches or ribbons of steel.
I am not sure that when he talked about the vision of those Fathers of Confederation that that was actually the vision they had. I think the Fathers of Confederation were probably more concerned at the time in addressing the economic and various social problems they were facing as partisan politicians of the day. They were trying to deal with the problems of their relations with the United States economy, trying to deal with the problems of transportation and communications within what was then British North America, trying to deal with the problems of two very disparate cultures that existed in the North America of the day. Essentially, they were not politicians with long-term visions; they were pragmatic politicians who were trying to deal with the problems they perceived were facing British North America at the time they set out on their project of nation building.
The other thing in the process of nation building that these politicians were facing was the fact that they were operating against the natural geography of North America. Those disparate colonies that the Minister of Communications was talking about were in essence extensions of the geographic systems of North America: the Atlantic provinces are an extension of Appalachia; central Canada is an extension of the central United States.
They were trying to create a nation in British North American that ran contrary to the normal and natural boundaries and process of human communication within the geographic areas of North America.
The Address
It was a great challenge. It was an inspiring challenge to those of us who are trying to deal with similar problems in the current day because what those politicians were attempting to do was ignore the natural boundaries of North America and create a nation which, rather than running from north to south, ran from east to west across the natural barriers of the country.
Given what they had to work with I think they did a terrific job. The Canada of today is a tribute to the foresight of those Fathers of Confederation and also of subsequent Parliaments which generally followed in their pragmatic footsteps. To the credit of the founders of the Canadian nation they ignored those natural boundaries, the pressures and the pulls from the United States, and they created this country of Canada.
I think they had to recognize, Mr. Speaker, as you and I have to recognize today, that we are living in the third largest national state in the world, one of the largest countries on the globe. We have a very small population, 27 million people spread in general over a tiny belt of land adjacent to the United States boundary. The logistics of trying to create, manage, and sustain a country that is built on that basis is very difficult for any Parliament, for any government, for any politician and it requires a tremendous amount of pragmatism, of looking at the problems facing you, the circumstances facing you, and dealing in real terms with those problems.
I think over the years that is precisely what we have had. We have been well served by parliaments in terms of their pragmatic approach in dealing with this country-which defies national order-and keeping this country together.
We have been, I think the operative word is pragmatic. Unfortunately, within the last few years, governments have tended to become more and more ideological. In those terms they are following the political culture of the United States, which is becoming more and more polarized in terms of right wing politicians and liberal politicians. As a consequence it appears that the government in this country is becoming more and more oriented to the kind of free market theory that seems to have been adopted by the Reagan Republicans in the United States.

May 22, 1991
The Address
It is that orientation towards the free market theory that has undermined and destroyed the pragmatism that generally governed politicians in this country up to the present government. As a result, we are seeing the forces that are tearing this country apart coming from an ideological commitment and from a dismissing of the pragmatic approach to governing Canada.
As the Fathers of Confederation saw it, Canada was a very large land mass that had to be held together to support a very small population. Well, how do you do that? You cannot do it simply with private investment because no investor in his or her right mind would invest money in such a very small market distributed over such a very large land area. So there was a necessity for government involvement in these kinds of investments.
The Government of Canada became involved in the building of the national railway system. Essentially it was a joint venture between private entrepreneurs and the Government of Canada, so there was public money as well as private money involved in what the Minister of Communications called that ribbon of steel that stitched the colonies of British North America together.
In addition, when the time came to have an airline in Canada, that initiative did not come from the private sector because there was not sufficient market to serve in order for the private sector to make a profit. The Government of Canada became involved and set up the trans-Canada airlines system, which became Air Canada.
The government also became involved in other areas of transportation and communications. The post office became a communications system that extended through every part of Canada, as our leader likes to say, from coast to coast to coast. You could send a letter to any part of Canada whether you sent it next door or you sent it up to northern Canada, it could all be done at the same rate. All Canadians have the right to communicate with their fellow Canadians on an equal basis.
All of these things were done through government investment, because the government and the pragmatic politicians of the day realized that if they were going to keep a small population welded together into a nation
over the huge land mass that is Canada, it was going to require a more pragmatic approach than could be provided by the ideologies of the day.
One of the problems that Canada is facing today is that they have an extremely ideological government that ignores the pragmatic requirements of this country and in fact has adopted economic policies that are tearing the country apart.
What has this government done? It has virtually eliminated passenger rail service in the country. That ribbon of steel that the Minister of Communications was talking about no longer serves Canadians in the same way that it served Canadians before. There is no continuous passenger service across this country because the Tories in applying their marketplace test to that institution, decided it did not meet the test. It may have met the national unity test; it may have been important from the point of view of national unity, but the Tories decided that it did not meet the marketplace test and therefore they undermined the VIA Rail passenger service that was used as a link to keep Canadians together from one end of the countiy to the other.
The same thing is happening with the post office. It used to be that if you went to any community in Canada, from the east coast to the west coast, to the north coast, there was Canada Post with the name of the community on the side and with the Canadian flag flying overhead. This party with its ideological rigidity decided that even though the post office system met the test of national unity, something that Canadians could perceive as an institution in their community, whether they lived in eastern Canada, western Canada, northern Canada, central Canada, it did not meet the market test.
Therefore, the Conservatives dismantled the Canada Post system by privatizing rural post offices, by putting postal services into Seven-11 stores in communities all over the province. When we go to buy our stamps, money orders and pick up our parcels and mail, where do we pick it up? Do we pick it up in an institution with the Canadian flag flying overhead? No, we pick it up in a private enterprise store owned by the Southland Corporation of the United States.
May 22, 1991

In that way they undermine the unity of this country for market reasons, for ideological reasons. It has created serious divisions between Canadians, serious divisions within the Canadian community. The same thing has happened with virtually every other national institution that was put together, not with a market test in mind but with the national unity test in mind in order to keep this country together.
It is unfortunate that the Tories have allowed themselves to be strictly hidebound to this market test, to this ideological test while ignoring the requirements for national unity.
As the Fathers of Confederation determined, sometimes it does not make sense in terms of geography and the economy to build a nation where there was not a nation before. Sometimes it required a commitment beyond the market test. They challenged that commitment, they met that commitment and they built this nation.
Now unfortunately what we are perceiving in the Conservative economic policy is that they simply apply the market test, whether it is to CBC, whether it is to VIA Rail, whether it is to Air Canada, whether it is to Petro-Canada, and they have failed to apply the national unity test. As a result they are dismantling many of the national institutions that Canadians perceive as necessary to keep this country together.
One of the serious cracks that have occurred in the system of national unity in the last few years is as a result of the so-called free trade agreement between Canada and the United States.
Before I discuss that, I want to discuss social policy because it is not simply the concrete and the steel, and the communication and transportation systems that are the bulwarks of national unity in this country. Pragmatic politicians in later days also saw that there was a necessity to maintain a consistent standard of social programs across Canada so that someone who entered a hospital in the provinces of Nova Scotia or New Brunswick, or someone who entered hospital in the provinces of British Columbia, Ontario or Quebec, could enjoy the same standard of care regardless of where they entered that hospital.
The same is true of social programs, such as welfare, child support and that kind of thing. The same is true of old age pensions and family allowances. All of these things became a part of the bulwark of national unity so that Canadians in one part of the country felt they were equal in terms of the benefits they received from the
The Address
government as Canadians in any other part of the country.
Conservative economic policy, based on Conservative ideology, rather than on a pragmatic need to keep this country together, to sustain and to maintain it has begun to tear that system of social benefits apart, so that soon in the ultimate goal of this Tory ideology is to disassemble that system of social benefits so that some Canadians benefit more than others or some Canadians in some regions of this country are going to benefit more than others.
The result of that dismantling of social policies, of that bulwark of national unity is going to be threats to national unity, a decline in the sense of nationhood among Canadians because of the feeling that some Canadians are going to benefit more greatly than others.
The same thing has happened with Tory fiscal policy, with taxation policy. I think everybody who reads the statistics of Statistics Canada will know that the changes in the tax system, the so-called tax reform that this party has brought out, have resulted in the rich in this country becoming richer and more secure while the poor in this country have become poorer and less secure.
I ask you members, sitting in the House here today, how you would feel about a Canada that treats rich people differently than poor people, one that oppresses its poor people and makes the rich people richer. You will not have a very good sense about Canada if you are one of the millions of poor people and poor children in this country who see the system treating them unequally.
Before we get involved in the discussions around national unity which look at the Constitution, the distribution of powers and the mechanics of amending the Constitution, we must walk back through the damage that the Conservative Party has done over the last few years, since 1984, to the economic system in this country.
I think Canadians have always felt that, almost exclusively among countries in the world, in this country there was at least a measure of fairness from their government and that they would not be taxed more heavily than other Canadians or would not be excused from taxes because they enjoyed a certain amount of wealth or power. Canadians always felt that there was a certain amount of fairness in a progressive tax system; that the benefits they received from this country would be received equally and fairly no matter where you lived across the country. Family allowances were the same in Nova Scotia as they were in British Columbia. All of those benefits were fairly distributed.

May 22, 1991
The Address
The Tories have begun to tinker with and undermine that system. As a result, many Canadians feel that there are now different gradations of Canadians, different classes of Canadians and that some people benefit to a greater extent while others pay to a greater extent. That is not the way to encourage national unity.
I would encourage the current government to examine some of its social policies and some of the policies that it has brought about over the last few years and find out how they have contributed to undermining a sense of national unity among Canadians. It is not too late to change those policies, to reverse them and to start moving back toward a system in which Canadians feel equally treated by the Government of Canada and equally responsible toward maintaining this country and maintaining the unity of this country because they certainly do not now. It does not matter where you go in this country, there are people who feel they are unfairly treated by the federal government and that some people are treated much better.
Once we restore the balance and restore the equity, we can start talking to people convincingly about national unity. We certainly cannot do it until then.


Dorothy I. Dobbie: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member began his remarks by talking a little bit about the history of this country. He prefaced some of the things he said by suggesting that-if I have got this down right-no investor in his or her right mind would take money and invest in such a sparsely populated country. He then went on to tell us how they-I guess the government is what he was referring to-took public money to build a railroad and this, that and the other thing.
I wonder where the hon. member thinks "they" got the money. It takes investment. It takes people with businesses, people willing to risk the money that they have brought from other places to build an economy so that the government, "they", can take some portion of that money and reinvest it in areas where it seems to be doing the most good for the most people.
I would ask the hon. member how he thinks that by spending $1.20 for every $1 or $1.30 for every $1 the
government is capable of taking in over a long period of time, this can possibly produce the kind of Utopian world that he is talking about in which everybody has equal access to every single thing and to every single benefit of living in a country like Canada. How can we do that over a long period of time when the debt continues to build and build and build?
Surely at some time we have to allow those people who create the wealth in the country to take the money that they have earned or built through their activities and risks and build some prosperity for the country.
I think that right now we are in a mood where we must begin to develop a new prosperity for the country or all the wonderful things-I have much sympathy with my hon. friend-he talks about simply will not be possible. Perhaps my hon. friend could tell me where governments would get money if it were not for people willing to invest and risk the money that they have in the first place.


Robert Evans Skelly: Mr. Speaker, there is more than one way to invest in a country. I come from a forest industry community.
It is made up of workers who have invested all of their lives, skills, talents, ability and strength in that forest industry community. Out of that community-I am talking about Port Alberni-Canada has taken millions upon millions of dollars in taxes, income taxes, resource royalties, and products that have been sold overseas such as plywood, paper, pulp, construction lumber and other things produced in that community.
Those things are produced with the investment of labour on the part of hundreds of workers. Those workers invest that labour not without risk because many of them-it is the highest risk work force in the world-die on the job every single year because of safety problems.
They pay their money to the government. They often pay more than the company they work for. That is where the government gets its money to invest in social programs, in new infrastructure development and in those kinds of things that we need in order for this country to survive.
May 22, 1991

I am saying it does not come simply from one place and that our ideologies should not tell us that it comes strictly from one place. We should not be using only the market test. We should be using the national unity test before the Tories decide to disassemble programs in Canada. Both tests are valid when we are talking about saving a country, not simply the market test but also the national unity test.
I might point out that as a reward for the investment those people in the plywood plants in Port Alberni made over 20, 30 or 40 years in some cases, they were all fired on April 30. They all of lost their jobs in spite of what they risked and invested on behalf of Canada and on behalf of their community over the last many years. Not everybody is rewarded equally in this country.
[Translation\


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The hon. member for Rosemont, for a question or comment.


Mr. Benoit Tremblay (Rosemont):: Mr. Speaker, I was very surprised at some of the comments made by the hon. member for Comox-Alberni.
First of all, his view of the Fathers of Confederation surprises me, coming from a Socialist member. He saw them and the birth of Canada as part of a great vision. Well, there were two major reasons behind the birth of Canada: Wealthy British capitalists, backed by the Bank of Montreal which actually was the Bank of Canada for a long time until the thirties, needed solid guarantees to build railroads. There was no thought of a great symbol of unity or a great vision. Financial guarantees were needed on the London market, and these very wealthy capitalists made a lot of money on the railroads with the guarantees they got from the people. So this had nothing to do with a great vision for the people of this country.
The second reason for Confederation was that since the union of Lower and Upper Canada had become unworkable, it was necessary to resume the original divisions and give back to Quebecers a certain degree of autonomy within their own territory.
The Address
I think the hon. member has become as obsessed as the Prime Minister and the Governor General who always see the birth of Canada as something arising from a great vision. It was a bunch of capitalists who got together to make money, and that was it.
Now, should we keep symbols of Canada like the post office? As far as I am concerned, 90 to 95 per cent of my mail consists of advertising flyers and the rest is bills, although increasingly, these will be debited directly from my bank account.
So if that is a symbol of Canada, I don't think this country will be around much longer.
I realize, Mr. Speaker, that the hon. member, speaking for English Canada, wants to maintain national standards and keep something that defines them. The only problem is, and we have seen it now in the field of education, when the Speech from the Throne announced that the federal government intended to interfere in this area. It's the old story. I understand this desire to intervene where there is a certain social cohesiveness as there is in English Canada. I understand this desire to have national standards and to reinforce those standards within a national perspective.
However, in your speech you forgot all about the situation in Quebec. You can have as many standards as you like, but we still have the situation in Quebec, and there we have a major problem, Mr. Speaker. Quebecers-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: If the hon. member does not put his question, he will not be able to get an answer.


Benoît Tremblay: Mr. Speaker, when you gave me the floor, I understood that you said this was a period for comments and questions. So-

May 22, 1991
The Address


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: We are now three minutes over the time for questions and comments. I am allowing the hon. member his comment. If he will put his question, I will allow the hon. member at least a minute to answer it, if that is possible.


Benoît Tremblay: I would like to ask the hon. member how he could make a long speech about national unity without referring to the people of Quebec? That takes some doing, Mr. Speaker.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The hon. member for Comox-Albemi, one minute.


Robert Evans Skelly: Mr. Speaker, I can make it shorter than that.
During my speech when I referred to Canadians, I was also referring to the people of Quebec.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Questions and comments are now terminated. Debate. The hon. member for Strathcona has a 10 minute speech, then I return to the hon. member for Cape Breton-The Sydneys.


Mr. Scott Thorkelson (Edmonton -Strathcona):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to give my response to the Speech from the Throne.
The throne speech addressed three major concerns of Canadians: unity, prosperity and government responsiveness. All are intertwined.
The fragility of unity becomes apparent when our economy falters. It has also become apparent as our national debt has grown, compound interest on compound interest. We as a government must address these economic matters. We must also address the constitutional matters, and we are.
Today I would like to speak about Canadian unity from a different perspective. It is a narrow perspective, but it is one of utmost importance. I would like to discuss the importance of Canadian symbols.
I agree with all the debaters before me who have talked about the health of the economy and the structure of the Constitution and division of powers. Those are of paramount importance. However, we as Canadians have symbols. We must look back at what has united us as a country and at our common historical reality.
We have many, many symbols in this country. We have the flag, we have our institutions, we have common celebrations like Expo '67 and the Centennial celebrations of 1967. We will have one in 1992. We have common rituals, such as the singing of the anthem and the citizenship ceremony. All of these create a feeling of patriotism. We should increase and expand our use of symbols so we can quietly be proud of what we have achieved as a nation and as Canadians. These are positive things we can do to unite our country and our people.
All too often we forget about the benefits we have enjoyed as Canadians and our accomplishments as Canadians. I have been fortunate enough to do a little travelling. When I am in other countries, I realize how good we have it in Canada and for how much we have to be thankful.
We look inward as Canadians, when often we should be looking outward. We have made contributions to peace and freedom through two World Wars, the Boer War, the Korean War and the recent war. Our achievements continue. These are the achievements of Roy Brown and Billy Bishop.
Next year, Canada will celebrate its 125th birthday. In 1927, Canada celebrated its 60th birthday. At that time, celebrations were held and Canadians rejoiced about Canada and the contributions they made to the world.
The Prince of Wales, the future Edward VIII, toured Canada to celebrate our Diamond Jubilee. That year, the Confederation Building, which is part of the House of Commons, was opened. It was to commemorate Canada's 50th birthday. During Canada's 50th birthday we were involved in a war and celebrations were postponed for 10 years.
Canada should commemorate our 125th birthday by opening our Parliament Buildings to Canadians. The Parliament Buildings are one of the most important symbols we have as Canadians. They have become crowded, overused and overworked.
There are plans to reallocate space and build a visitor reception centre in the basement in the entrance under the Peace Tower, where there could be a theatre, public washrooms and some displays. We should do this without hesitation or trepidation. A small expenditure like this is money which is not wasted.
The Government of Canada should help Canadians to recognize their achievements by building symbols like statues and monuments. For example, we could participate with the city of Edmonton to build a statue to commemorate the achievements of the five women who pursued the Persons case-Louise McKinney, Henrietta Edwards, Nellie McClung, Emily Murphy and Irene
May 22, 1991

Parlby. These women's historic accomplishment was in pursuing the right for women to vote. They took the case all the way to the Privy Council of London, England.
The Government of Canada should not be afraid to erect a statue of these women on the lawn of the Supreme Court. We may want to commemorate other historical figures. For example, those Canadians who have won the Victoria Cross. We think of them fleetingly on November 11 each year. Why, for example, could we not erect statues of Victoria Cross winners in the towns and cities of their birth? Perhaps we could erect one or two each year to ground in reality our achievements as Canadians and to celebrate our common historical experience.
Canadians are imaginative and we, as a government, should share in their sense of how to recognize Canadian achievements. It seems only prudent to ask Canadians to come up with ideas on how to do this.
The confusion of our historical reality manifests itself in the fact that departments and ministers create award after award to recognize achievements of Canadians. For example, the Secretary of State has a National Volunteer Award. The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council has recently established a gold medal for science.
We see a proliferation of awards throughout departments and ministers. There are awards for business excellence and many other awards. Perhaps as a government we should take a look at these awards and bring them together under one administrative unit and then re-examine what we are doing and where we are going.
We have national institutions in Ottawa which people rarely see. We should try to bring our national institutions out to Canadians. For example, why should many of the National Art Gallery's treasures be locked away in storage? Could there not be more travelling exhibitions, more co-operative exhibitions with galleries across the country? Perhaps we might even consider building branch plants: a western art gallery or an eastern national art gallery.
The same could be said of our other institutions such as the Museum of Civilization and the Museum of Science and Technology.
Canadians feel very proud when we think of our international accomplishments such as peacekeeping, fighting apartheid, or emergency relief. We give aid to developing countries but Canadians complain that the money might be better spent at home.
The Address
We help countries to develop their economies, train their people and protect the environment. This is largely unknown to Canadians. I believe we must recognize in Canada our international accomplishments.
We have to achieve much more. For example, the member for Etobicoke-Lakeshore has suggested that Canada aggressively pursue the idea of an international green cross, an international environmental disaster clean-up organization. I think this is where we could symbolize our achievements to the world, and I believe that the government should pursue this with vigour.
We might also think of pursuing with the United Nations an international environmental agency, something along the lines of the International Atomic Energy Agency. As you know, Mr. Speaker, the International Atomic Energy Agency provides expert advice to countries as well as funding to develop nuclear energy. It also serves as an enforcement agency in checking to make sure that the countries adhere to the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
We might develop an international environmental agency along the same lines. This environmental agency could provide expert advice as well as funding to developing nations on environmental matters such as energy efficiency and renewable energy. It could also serve to set and enforce minimum environmental standards.
We have much to offer the world. As a middle power we are limited in what we can do, but perhaps we can stretch our boundaries to move beyond our well-known and effective traditional intermediary role.
I would like to close by reiterating that we as a country should continue to build our symbols and continue to develop and share our common historical reality with Canadians so that we can be proud of our accomplishments.


Sheila Finestone: Mr. Speaker, I listened with a great deal of interest to the speech of my colleague from Edmonton. I must say that I could not agree more strongly with the principle of national unity, the concerns for prosperity, and certainly the division of powers with respect to the Constitution.
I find it a little bit difficult to accept the fact that all we are really addressing is the Constitution when we should be looking at the issues, as the hon. member put it so well, that bind us rather than those that divide us. He pointed to the importance of Canadian symbols and expressed some creative ideas which could certainly add to the concepts of Canadian unity, and for that I want to thank him.

May 22, 1991
The Address
However, I want to ask him about two things. When we look at the Canadian symbols we could perhaps recognize that the Speech from the Throne does not particularly relate to all the issues that he talked about. In fact I would suggest that the Speech from the Throne has obfuscated the issues of national unity and national economic well-being. Could the hon. member consider that we have to honour those people who have contributed to the two world wars and to the history of Canada by putting some financial wherewithal into our Canadian Museum of History, the national monuments as he has pointed out? I think they are seriously underfinanced.
To date we have been busy building museums in most of Canada, particularly in Quebec, and I think we have ignored one of the most important major symbols that has united us as a country.
The second symbol which I would ask him to address is: What would he do if he were the minister with respect to the Canadian broadcasting system? Can he think of a mechanism that can unite this country from coast to coast better than that which transmits, broadcasts and shows Canadians one to the other?


Scott Jon Thorkelson: Mr. Speaker, I will first address the issue of the CBC. Certainly the CBC is an important national institution. I believe it can contribute to national unity.
As Gerard Veilleux has said in his speech, stable multi-year funding is important. He has qualified that by saying that probably more important than the amount of money is the knowledge of how to plan and proceed. I would tend to agree with that.
We have set a level for this year, and I would not think it would be too hard to set certain levels for other years.
On the museum issue, as I said in my speech, we should take our museums out to the people. There are ways we can do that through partnerships with provinces and with the private sector. Although I am not as experienced in the cultural field as the hon. member is, I certainly would be prepared to take a look at budgetary matters, but I cannot comment on those right at this moment.


Mr. Russell MacLellan (Cape Breton-The Sydneys):: Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to have this opportunity to speak in the debate on the Speech from the Throne.
This is a very important juncture in our country's history. We are faced with gargantuan problems as a nation and as politicians. Following our recent recess, it was reasonable for the people of Canada to assume that the government was going to deal with these problems
in a meaningful way in the Speech from the Throne. Unfortunately, all we have are meaningless platitudes and generalities, not coming anywhere near what is necessary to deal with the daunting problems with which we are faced.
The major concerns of Canadians are not addressed. The major concerns of Canadians today are high taxation, unemployment, the Constitution, and the environment. Yet we see in the Speech from the Throne mere generalities and conversation. Where is the fodder, the seed needed to develop answers to the problems that we have as a nation? It is completely absent. This government has indicated that the problems of the country are not first and foremost in its mind. What it hopes to do is be able to skate through the next few months and hopefully along the way, by perhaps tapping into a poll here and there, be able to generate some answer that will be pleasing and meet the approval of the Canadian public.
The Canadian public is not going to be fooled. The Canadian public realizes the seriousness of the problems that face this nation at the present time. The Canadian public realizes, as we do here in this House of Commons, the possibilities of this great country. Yet these possibilities are not being honoured by this government. The government is completely sloughing off the duty which is before it at the present time.
What is it sloughing off, what does it refuse to deal with? Well, it essentially refuses to deal with problems that are of its making. This is what most annoys Canadians. The government entered into a trade agreement with the United States. Now it is talking about a tripartite trade agreement with the United States and Mexico. Yet the trade agreement with the United States is a very ill-conceived document in many ways.
What is happening as a result? We have not received the benefits of the trade agreement that were promised by the government. In fact, we are losing industry to the United States. States from the United States are setting up offices in Canada, presumably trade delegations, with the main purpose of influencing and encouraging Canadian industry to move south of the border. They are doing it. We are not competing with the United States. Our industries are leaving Canada because of high interest rates, because we are not providing for Canadians what the Americans insisted on having for their own businesses and their own citizens. That is a level playing field.
The government would have us believe that we have high interest rates as a result of inflation.
May 22, 1991

That is part of the reason for high interest rates, but the main reason for high interest rates is that the government has to sell Treasury bonds. The government has to sell bonds to pay the interest on the debt. The reason the government is doing this is because it has not found the answers it promised the Canadian public it would find in the 1984 election campaign. It was horrified that a debt existed in Canada, it was horrified that the debt was approximately $170 billion in 1984.
This summer the debt of this nation will reach $400 billion. Four hundred billion dollars. The government says: "Well, don't look to us, we inherited this problem". The fact that it is almost more than double what it was when this government came to power is not important to the government. It sees this as incidental. It sees the fact that the deficit was there, albeit a much smaller deficit, as the most important thing.
The government will say to us: "We couldn't deal with it, we inherited it, it is not our fault". I would say to the government that it more than doubled the debt in a period of time when the economy of Canada was in very, very good shape indeed. We were going through very good economic times between 1984 and 1990.
If the government is saying it could not deal with the debt at that time, when can we as a nation deal with it? Can we deal with it now, when the government through its poor and misguided economic policies has plunged us into a made-in-Canada recession? No, we cannot. We cannot do it now. Of course, we have to be mindful of spending. However, the fact that the debt has been allowed to grow to $400 billion because this government did not keep its word to the Canadian public has put in peril the programs that this country holds dear, that this country holds as pillars of its society and foundations of the Canadian way of life.
We are now in a position of listening to the government question programs that we as Canadians had reason to believe would be there-hard fought programs which the Liberal government put in place, such as the national medical plan and the old age pensions.
These are programs that Canadians now feel are not solid. They look to the government saying: "My heavens, you have broken the promise of solidifying the economy of this country. You told us that there was not going to be any danger to the programs that we fought for and won. Now, we look at the situation that exists in Ottawa and
The Address
we are afraid, afraid for our Canadian programs, and afraid for our social programs. We are very concerned about where this country is going".
If it was the plan of the Government of Canada to do away with our social programs, it could not have handled it any better than the government did. The economic mess it created put the Canadian public in a position where they assume that anything can happen. This is a very sad legacy indeed.
No wonder politicians are just one notch above loan sharks in the minds of the Canadian public, when they see what this government has done in taking the country of tomorrow, as we liked to regard Canada, and jettisoning its future, its immediate future. No wonder the Canadian public is upset. They have every reason to be upset.
What has the high interest rate done? The high interest rate has created a high Canadian dollar. That was the whole idea, to make our Treasury bonds attractive. Of course, it has also raised the value of the Canadian dollar. What do we have now as a legacy from this government? We do not have a solid commercial economy. We do not have a solid commercial and industrial base. We have, thanks to this government, ever increasing cross-border shopping. Cross-border shopping is a situation that is going to devastate the border towns and communities in Canada.
Why is it happening? It is because the people of this country are fed up. They are showing their distaste and anger with the government by getting into their automobiles and driving into the United States. This could be corrected if we could reduce the value of the Canadian dollar to where it should be. Then the products in the United States would be more expensive and there would be no incentive to go to the United States. We cannot because the government refuses to reduce interest rates and the resulting high Canadian dollar.
Because of the high Canadian dollar and high interest rates, businesses in Canada are finding it very difficult to compete. They are finding it difficult to sell into the United States. They are moving into the United States because they find they can have reduced expenses if they are located in the United States, and this is not helping Canada.
Whether we get out of this recession this year or next year, we are going to be faced with a smaller number of commercial enterprises in this country. We are going to lose these industries and organizations. This is going to be another sad legacy of this government and another problem with which the Canadian public will be faced.

May 22, 1991
The Address
We entered into a trade agreement with the United States that did not define a subsidy. We do not have a subsidy. We have five to seven years to determine what a subsidy is. A subsidy is not defined. It is defined in the minds of the American people, the American agencies and the American government. They know when Canadians receive a subsidy.
I have a plant in my riding, Sydney Steel Corporation, that is being subsidized because it received federal and provincial government assistance in the 1970s and the early 1980s, long before the free trade agreement was even contemplated with the United States. It is being countervailed against because the Americans are saying that this company received a subsidy.
What about the tax free period of time being offered by the United States to industries that will leave southern Ontario and relocate? What about the free land that is being offered in industrial parks to have these industries move to the United States? Are those subsidies? Of course they are subsidies. Our government is not sticking up for and protecting the Canadian commercial base the way the Americans are obviously protecting their industry and their economic future.
We are saying: "If the Americans want to do it, it has got to be fine, it has got to be great". I am not criticizing the Americans. The American government is obviously sticking up for its own people and its own commercial base. All I am saying is: Why is our government not doing something to protect the Canadian economy? Why are we leaving? Why are we jettisoning our Canadian public?
Something has gone wrong here. What has gone wrong is that this government does not know what to do. No wonder it cannot put anything in a Speech from the Throne. It does not know what it wants to do.
All of the points I have made are to me and to most Canadians extremely serious. The most serious economic difficulty we face is our constitutional problem. Fortunately, we still have investment that can be made in Canada, but a lot of people who would like to invest in Canada will not invest in Canada with this uncertainty with respect to our constitutional future and our unity is up in the air.
What is the government doing? It is dragging its feet. The government is saying: "Well, we are going to bring forward a plan in the fall." Then it says: "Now don't you say anything, opposition, because we want this to be non-partisan." If you are a Canadian and you feel for this country and you see that this government is doing
absolutely nothing to try to correct the differences and to try to bring this country together, you have got to say something. You have got to complain that you feel frustrated by what is going on, that we are just marking time and we are going to roll the dice perhaps at the last minute to try and solve the problem again.
You have got to say something to voice your disapproval. According to the government, if you do you are being partisan. Well, I am being partisan because I find that what this government has done is woefully inadequate. It is woefully inadequate to deal with the problems that face this country; the unity question and the economy. How is this government going to deal with the problems of the future if it cannot deal with the problems of the present? What are we going to do with our environment?
The government has a green plan. That was deep sixed like nothing we have ever seen. It saw the light of day and like the groundhog, it saw its shadow and went back underground again. The whole question of the environment is just a real bad joke in this country. We have a very serious environmental concern in Canada and this government is saying: "Wait now, we do not want to get this started. We may be starting something here we are not really ready to handle." It is saying that this is something that can wait. Well, it cannot wait.
Child care in this country cannot wait. This government cannot define economic success and it cannot see that what it has created is an economic hole for itself. It cannot see that regional disparity is increasing. It is referring now to the 1990s in Nova Scotia as the mean decade. It sees transfer payments being cut off. It sees equalization payments disappearing. It sees regional development as a thing of the past. We are losing our support from the federal government. It is now talking about closing more bases in Atlantic Canada. It is closing bases when it does not even have a defence policy. How does it know what to close? It does not know what it is doing.
This is chaos, this is not government. People of Canada are concerned and they have every reason to be concerned.
How can the Canadian public possibly even consider supporting this government in a subsequent election? What the people of Canada want is action. They want us to bring back the Canada that was being evolved through years of hard work by politicians and by Canadians. They do not want the government to deep-six the future of this country. They want the government to deal with the questions. They want their concerns addressed. They do not want any more burying of the problems. They do not want Parliament just to sit every now and then. They do

not want the government to be more concerned with polls and public opinion than with the needs of Canadians.
Canadians have a right to have their concerns addressed and it is time this government realized it and it is time this government did something about it.


Dorothy I. Dobbie: Mr. Speaker, another interesting talk by a member opposite who has a very deep insecurity problem because what I heard as I listened, and I did tty to listen to everything that the hon. member said, was a lot of worry, a lot of doubt and a lot of basic inability to come to terms with reality as it is in the world today.
I guess that inability to come to terms with reality is part of what was wrong with the Liberal government prior to 1984, when it was in power over such a long period of time, when it developed a burdensome debt that we are still trying to get out from under and left a legacy in this country that probably our children and perhaps even our grandchildren will still be dealing with.
I am not surprised, given the sense of insecurity and self-doubt that the hon. member epitomizes on behalf of his party, that they were so incapable of dealing with these problems and these challenges in the past.
Fortunately, the electorate saw the light and elected a government that does have a plan, a government that does have the ability to take the kind of action that the hon. member calls for and a government that has the courage to do things that are necessary, even when perhaps they are unpopular, because we know that we must do what is right over what is perceived to be popular.
I would suggest to the hon. member that change is precisely what we have created in this country. We have done these things, taken these actions that the hon. member calls for. We have addressed some of the problems that were burdening the economy of this country. Maybe our reward for that is to be at perhaps less than a desirable point in the polls right now, but I think that really just points to the fact that there is courageous ability on this side of the House to take the kinds of actions that are necessary.
The Address
Our job is to create a climate of security, a climate of hope, a sense of a future for this country where people will be prepared to make the kinds of investments that are necessary to ensure our prosperity in the future. I suggest that is the positive kind of action we are taking.
I would just ask the hon. member opposite if he would tell us what the Liberal government would do to reduce interest rates below the already low rate they are at, at around 9 per cent, when in their term of government, interest rates reached the all time high of over 22 per cent.


Russell Gregoire MacLellan: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member opposite talks about courage. They do have courage. The fact that they show up in public is in a sense a form of courage. The hon. member also talks about the Canadian electorate as if the Canadian electorate has bestowed some kind of support upon them, a party at 14 per cent. I say to you, Mr. Speaker, more people think Elvis is still alive than support this government. It is absolutely incredible that it would even contemplate this. I mean, holy cow.
Something about reality is that the deficit this year is $30.5 billion. It is as high as it has ever been. This was a government that was going to reduce the deficit. There are 5 million poor people in Canada. That is reality. There are 1.5 million unemployed. That is reality, and
1.8	million Canadians depend on food banks. That is reality. That is the reality that this government has imposed on this country.


Sheila Finestone: Mr. Speaker, I cannot let this moment pass without a comment, which would indicate that I find the question of the member opposite with respect to the fact that she has shown courage, that her government has set a climate of security and hope, for prosperity in the future and has taken the right action and there is nothing better than being right, sanctimonious.
I would like to ask my hon. colleague: Is life any better for the citizens of Sydney? He gave an enlightened speech. He knows what is going on in this society. Perhaps he could tell us how his community feels about the enlightened remarks of our colleague across the floor.

May 22, 1991
The Address


Russell Gregoire MacLellan: Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for her question.
In my constituency, in industrial Cape Breton, the unemployment rate is 22 per cent. That is the figure that Statistics Canada will admit to.
We are continually losing jobs. Our unemployment rate is growing constantly. Our young people are not coming back to Cape Breton. There are no jobs available. The older workers are retiring or going on pre-retirement or disability. Their jobs are disappearing after them. We are losing these salaries in our community. Our communities can no longer afford to provide the essential services that Canadians have every right to take for granted in this country.
We are in a deep problem in our municipalities. The future economically is of grave concern. To even suggest that this government has addressed these problems is ludicrous.
I would like to say that what Canadians want is hope. We still hope. We still hope that this government can change. We still believe that this country is the greatest country in the world and this country will have its future, but not as long as this government is imposing policies and running the country down like it is at the present time.


Mr. Benno Friesen (Parliamentary Secretary to Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak, albeit 10 to 20 minutes late. I want to thank you for recognizing me now.
I want to join my colleague from Edmonton-Strath-cona in expressing my pleasure in having the opportunity to speak to the address from the throne. The throne speech itself gives a blueprint for what the intentions of the government are for the rest of this Parliament. Partly it is built on the record of the past, and it looks backward, but it uses that backward look in order to establish a plan and a blueprint for the future.
In this particular throne speech the focus has been on unity and the economy. It is difficult to bring unity to a country and tranquillity to a nation when there are economic barriers to that kind of security that people long for. When unemployment is high, as it is in parts of Canada today, it is difficult for those people to think in terms of unity of the country, even though they want that for our land. Their first concern is for a job. When there
are business failures across Canada, it is difficult for those business people, who have experienced that loss, to think in terms of unity, even though that is one of their first desires. It is very important that we address the economic issues in our land together with the unity questions.
I want to say how pleased I am to be part of a government that has been making the tough decisions that should have been made years and decades ago in order to usher us into the 21st century and prepare us for that.
So much of what we have done in the last six or seven years has been in the nature of restructuring the nation, restructuring the economy so that we can be ready to move with the rest of the countries of the world into a new and emerging economy of the world. Therefore, we have been dealing with such things as pension reform so that our people can have confidence in the future for their own personal lives. We have been dealing with tax reform, whether it is sales tax, corporate tax or income tax. We have dealt with issues like tax reform so that our economy can adjust itself to the future competitiveness of our nation which we are are going to have to face if we are going to trade around the world.
We have dealt with trade liberalization because the world is changing. We cannot expect the world and the economies of the world and the trading patterns of the world to stay the same in order to accommodate us. If the rest of the world is changing, we have to change along with it in order to be competitive, in order to provide jobs, in order to provide the security that our people long for.
We have dealt with the restructuring of our economy and we have dealt with making our country as competitive as possible in order to help our people. When there is unemployment, when there is poverty, when there is any other difficulty, nowhere is it felt more keenly than at the level of the family. So I am pleased that the throne speech included a statement that dealt with a look at the family. It says:
In addition, my government will review its policies in relation to the family, the most fundamental building block of Canadian society.
"The most fundamental building block of Canadian society." Mr. Speaker, if we are going to have a confident, unified and sure approach to the future, we have to do it in the context of happy families, of sure and secure families.
May 22, 1991

There are probably a lot of people here in the House and across Canada who ask themselves why have we come back to the notion of the traditional family unit; why is the traditional family unit so important?
I want to take a minute just to commend the member for Calgary North for the extensive research he has done on the way the tax policies of our country have prejudiced the traditional family. I would commend his speech of May 15, pages 125 and 126 of Hansard, to members. They should look at how, since 1917, the tax policies of successive governments of Canada have ignored the pressures that tax policies are placing on the traditional family.
As I said, some people wonder why we keep harping on this. It is a part of reality to recognize that the family unit is not what it used to be. We can think of Leave it to Beaver or Father Knows Best or any number of those folksy kind of shows that were popular in the fifties and sixties, and think that that is the traditional family unit. Well, it is not that way.
Statistics show us that in the family today, in 62 per cent, both spouses are working; in 27 per cent, the husband only is working; in 7 per cent, neither husband nor wife is working; and in 4 per cent, only the wife is working. When we consider that in 62 per cent of the homes across Canada both husband and wife are working to make ends meet, we recognize that what we think of in a fanciful way as the traditional family no longer exists.
There are strains on the family, and it should not be the role of government to add to those strains. People ask; why is it so important to deal with family issues? I refer again to a gentleman whom I quote often, a famous sociologist from the University of Bordeaux, Jacques Ellal. He says that if a relationship is to be authentic, the other must be able to rely on the continuity of my behaviour, and know that he can expect certain kinds of words of help or refusals from me. Without such continuity, a relationship becomes impossible.
That is why the family unit is so important. The fact is that marriage introduces a regime of dependability in relationships. Dependability creates security, and security is important not only for the adults in the relationship, but for the children also.
The fact is that through the family we build the relationships that provide that security, but we also have
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the vehicle that creates the transmission of values which are so very important for our society. Yet, as I indicated, and as my friend from Calgary North has pointed out so vividly, the tax policies of our governments through the years have created tensions for the family.
I quote an example from his speech on page 126. The family earns $60,000:
One family lives a traditional life-style and has one income and three children, two under seven and one child over seven. One of the parents cares for the children at home. They are married-The other family-is the same in every respect except that one of the younger children is unrelated to the others. Both parents work, earning $36,000 and $24,000, for a total of $60,000.
In the second example, the adults are not married.
It may seem incredible, but the total taxes paid by these two families differ by over $12,200. That is $1,000 per month more tax that the traditional family pays. Almost half of this can be related to the $36,000-$24,000 income split. The other half is due only to the fact that the traditional couple is married.
That is not the intention of any government. This began in 1917 and has carried on right to the present. It is important that our government take note of the fact that taxation policy is putting pressure on people who value the traditional family, who believe that tight, dependable, secure human relationships are important, who believe that children grow up best in families and who want to transmit their values through the family to the children.
It is important that we deal with this. I am happy to say that the Speech from the Throne indicates that the government is prepared to look at the traditional family as a building block for our society.
There is no doubt that poverty is an important question for our nation, but on this issue it is not a question of poverty. It is a question of fairness and taxation policies that deal fairly with all people. There should not be an advantage for one group of people over another.
I applaud the Prime Minister for taking this initiative to signal to the Canadian people and to the Parliament of Canada that he wants to see a regime introduced in Parliament whereby the traditional family is going to be dealt with equally with other families, and that the taxation policies of this government are not going to penalize those who want to build a traditional family unit.

May 22, 1991
The Address


Alfonso Gagliano: Mr. Speaker, I welcome this opportunity today to take part in this debate on the Address in Reply to the Speech from the Throne.
The speech pronounced by the Governor General on May 13 this year outlines the themes, principles and initiatives that the government intends to pursue in the months to come. Several journalists called this Speech from the Throne a straight repeat of the one pronounced on April 3, 1989.
In fact, Mr. Speaker, we find the same themes and the same ideas in both speeches. In other words, in the months to come, the government will follow the same path it has followed since it came to power in 1984. It promises to be a rocky road, if we consider the results of the initiatives announced in the Speech from the Throne in April 1989.
Canadians realize this, because the path this government forced us to take proved to be a dead end. For the first time in our history, we have a recession made in Canada by the Government of Canada. That is where we are now, thanks to the ideas set forth in the Speech from the Throne on April 3, 1989. That is why, Mr. Speaker, I am concerned, because if the government intends to take the same path that led us into this recession, the situation can only get worse.
As I just pointed out, the present Speech from the Throne generally repeats the themes and objectives announced two years ago. Consider the four main objectives the government intended to pursue in its speech in April 1989.
The objectives mentioned were as follows: to build a strong economy; to preserve the environment; to maintain a caring, compassionate society; and finally, to renew the government's commitment to national unity.
Undoubtedly, these four objectives were, and still are, very noble and significant.
Unfortunately, the Conservative Government has failed miserably in these four major areas that are so important to the well-being of all Canadians.
Consider the first component of the April 1989 Speech from the Throne: to build a strong economy. Two years ago, the Conservative Government said it wanted to build a strong economy, encouraged by incentive. Today, the Conservatives seem to have been on the wrong track.
As you know, Mr. Speaker, we are experiencing one of the worst economic recessions we ever had. This is not only a serious crisis but a crisis created by this government as a result of unsound economic policies.
The government's so-called incentives merely discouraged Canadians, Mr. Speaker. Just ask them. The incentives mentioned by the Tories two years ago merely worsened an economic situation already vulnerable as a result of high interest rates. Today, the Conservative Government says it has managed to bring down interest rates down, but it created this economic crisis by raising them in the first place.
In April 1989, the unemployment rate in Canada was
7.8	per cent. Today, it is 10.5 per cent. This is the highest unemployment rate since May 1985. In Montreal, the figures are even more depressing. In April 1989, the unemployment rate in the Montreal region was 9.7 per cent, and today, it is up to 14.2 per cent.
Mr. Speaker, the Montreal region has been severely affected by the economic crisis created by this Conservative Government. Today, nearly one out of four persons in Montreal, in other words, 25 per cent of the population, is living below the poverty line. This is shameful, Mr. Speaker. Across Quebec the situation is not much better. During the first months of 1991, the number of bankruptcies rose 40 per cent. According to Statistics Canada, 1,818 persons filed for protection under the Bankruptcy Act.
Clearly, the objectives pursued by this government since the April 1989 Speech from the Throne have done nothing to improve the lives of Canadians living in the Montreal region. If with this new Speech from the Throne, the government intends to follow the same path, the economic situation of the people of Montreal can only get worse.
In 1989, the then Minister of Finance promised that the deficit would go down to $28 billion. The exact opposite happened, Mr. Speaker: The deficit is now up to 30.5 billion. As far as the national debt is concerned, my leader, the Leader of the Opposition, explained in his speech how the Conservative Government had accumulated in only six years a debt equivalent to the debt accumulated in 117 years by all previous governments.
In the Speech from the Throne two years ago, the government told Canadians that it would offer incentives, but since then we have seen cuts in unemployment insurance benefits and cuts in the Job Development Program, subsidized housing and medicare.
May 22, 1991

This Speech from the Throne claims to help those in greatest need, but the truth is, this speech offers no respite for the unemployed, poor families, students who pay GST, the elderly or the sick. There is absolutely nothing in this Speech from the Throne that gives any hope to the neediest in our society. The government seems to be saying that the jobless will have to wait until the year 2000 to find jobs. That is unacceptable.
Mr. Speaker, the question we should be asking ourselves today if we give credence to the government's Speech from the Throne is this: what is going to happen to Montreal's 225,000 unemployed workers between now and the year 2000? Will they starve to death or will live with the hope that, one day, the sooner the better, they will be able to find a job and preserve their dignity? Cutbacks in all support programs during a time of crisis do little to inspire confidence.
Canadians are also sceptical about the latest Speech from the Throne. It states that the government wants to double the number of graduates in mathematics, the sciences and engineering to increase Canada's competitiveness. It is true, Mr. Speaker, that we need scientists and mathematicians if we want to encourage research and development. The fact remains that, in 1987, the total level of federal spending in research and development represented 1.4 percent of our GNP. Today, it is down to 1.28 percent, Mr. Speaker. Yet, I can remember well this Prime Minister stating loud and clear during the 1984 campaign, that he would double investment in research and development. Now, he has just reduced whathever little there was.
So, Mr. Speaker, how are we to encourage our young people to pursue their studies in science when the government makes no effort to promote research and development. This is evidenced by the fact that we spend less in that area so vital to our economic progress than any other industrialized country.
This government admits that the Canadian economy needs to be revived. The way to go, according to them, is to negotiate a North America-wide free trade deal. As
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you know, Mr. Speaker, I represent the riding of Saint-Leonard, a riding seriously hurt by the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement. In my riding there is an important manufacturing industry and companies like Maxim Canada Inc. and Rosita Shoes suffered the consequences of this government's disastrous economic policies. How can you expect the Canadian workers to compete with the Mexican workers who earn $2 an hour on average?
Mr. Speaker, the government seems to link national unity to economic prosperity in the Speech from the Throne. I have to say that, if indeed the unity of our country depends on the economic prosperity promised by the Conservatives, we are in serious trouble.
A key factor contributing to national unity, Mr. Speaker, is the promotion and strenghtening of our national identity. Our identity is based on cultural achievements. It is clear that this government does not care as much about this aspect because there is only one short reference to it.
One of the best tool for promoting and strenghtening our identity is the CBC. Unfortunately, the government has closed down stations in Calgary, Saskatoon, Windsor, Comer Brook, Sydney, Matane, Rimouski and Sept-Iles. How can we talk about culture and identity while, at the same time, dismantling a tool that has served us well in that respect? I believe that the task is becoming harder and harder, Mr. Speaker.
This Speech from the Throne, just like the one of April 3, 1989, clearly shows the Conservatives' lack of leadership on the Constitution and national unity. Since the Meech Lake Accord failed, Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives have no constitutional position or platform. Canadians have a government that offers no solution to the country's constitutional deadlock.
The government's answer to this dilemma is to create another committee, Mr. Speaker. Canadians have enough of being studied; they want answers, they want results. This committee is not to report until January 1992. That means Canadians must wait eight more months before finding out the Conservative government's constitutional position.

May 22, 1991
The Address
Once again, Mr. Speaker, this government is waiting till the last minute to solve such an important problem. It is playing poker with Canada's future. It would seem that the government has learned nothing from the failure of the Meech Lake Accord. Every minute that the government lets go by on this issue is wasted time that could have been used to solve the constitutional problems and finally concentrate our efforts on the economy and job creation for all Canadians.
Obviously, the government lacks leadership. However, on our side, Mr. Speaker, my leader, the Hon. Jean Chretien, has shown his real leadership qualities by outlining his approach for solving the constitutional problems.
On April 21 in Montreal, the Liberal leader presented his approach for a constitutional framework based on principles that are fair to Quebec and all of Canada. This approach requires the government to take a stand and make public before June 1, 1991 a concrete reform proposal resulting in a Canada-wide referendum. This referendum would cariy with the support of the three main political parties represented in this House, Mr. Speaker. Of course, if these three parties did not support it, this referendum would be illusory.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to quote you a passage from the Speech from the Throne that seems to justify the Liberal leader's proposed approach. It is found in the section on national unity and reads as follows: "A constitution should unite a nation. Canadians should be able to see themselves mirrored in their constitution."
That is exactly what the Liberal leader proposes with his winning popular consultation formula. Canadians must be given an opportunity to express their feeling of belonging to this country. What finer way is there is there to help Canadians identify with their Constitution than to have it so directly approved by all citizens?
Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada on his courage in putting forward a concrete constitutional proposal while the country waits another eight months for the government's proposal. Mr. Speaker, the Liberal leader has clearly understood that the time to act is now.
Another point that I would like to raise is the question of Canada remaining a generous society. Those words are from the Speech from the Throne of April 1989. Mr. Speaker, caring means open and accessible. Unfortunately, under the Conservatives, Canada has become far less accessible and caring for its citizens and would-be citizens.
Honourable members know that we have two long lists of people waiting to enter Canada. Some of these people have their spouses already settled here, but they are refused admission into this country, and worse of all, they are refused access to their own families. There are couples who have been living apart for four years, one spouse being here and the other in another country. This is unacceptable, especially from a country which claims to be caring and tolerant. Had we had this policy years ago, Mr. Speaker, you and me would not be here today. So, if we are a caring and tolerant nation, we should open the doors, and allow family reunification. This is another of the fundamental policies of a caring Canadian nation.
Mr. Speaker, as I already pointed out, Canada has become less caring towards its own citizens when it decided to cut programs aimed at the less fortunate among us. The fate of the middle class, the fate of the unemployed in the Montreal area, the fate of the sick do not matter, what counts is big business, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, in the few remaining minutes I would like to talk about Montreal. Last Friday, we learned that Pascal Hardware had gone bankrupt. This bankruptcy adds 2,600 unemployed to the 225,000 already without work in April.
Mr. Speaker, Pascal was a big company for sure, and this is why it made the big news. We put the question in the House and asked the government what policy it was going to put forward, what was it going to do to help those 2,600 workers who lost their jobs, who have no hope left for the future.
But, we tend to forget that many small companies are going out of business every day, that many jobs are lost with the failure of those small companies. No one ever mentions them. But, there are thousands upon thousands of jobs lost every day. And still, as we are facing the worst recession brought upon by this government, here we are, listening the same Throne Speech as in 1989, Mr. Speaker.
May 22, 1991

The Address
As I already asked him earlier today, I would like the Minister of Finance to tell me, what he is waiting for before introducing new measures to revitalize the economy, so Canadians, especially young Canadians, can have faith once again in this country. It is a fact that if there are jobs, and if young people can find hope, we will be able to find a solution to many constitutional problems that plague this country, as any other modem country confronted with important changes, Mr. Speaker.
But, for almost seven years, this government has been rebashing the same speech. It raises interest rates-true, after having raised them, it is slowly starting to get them down-but it is too late, Mr. Speaker. People have lost faith. We just have to look-we just had a long week end, and that is where the tragedy is-never had we seen so many Canadians crossing the border to go shopping, Mr. Speaker. This is very serious.
How many victims are there? I am not only talking about Pascal. How many other victims have there been who are not important enough to be make the headline in our dailies? It still goes on. Why have Canadians lost confidence? Why do they not buy in Canada anymore? Here is the crucial question we must ask ourselves. How can we stimulate our economy if our Canadians people do no longer trust our economical system and our products and if prefer to cross the border. They even charter busses to go shopping across the border.
Every day, my colleagues ask the government some questions. What are its answers? It does not have any. But it is necessary to look at the whole situation, Mr. Speaker. Canadians are fed up with the GST, free trade and high interest rates and the time for good sounding rhetoric and studies is over. The Canadians people, as I was saying earlier, are fed up with studies. They want to see some concrete action, they want to work and they want their children to have hope in this great country of ours.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Questions or comments. The hon. member for Glengarry-Prescott- Russell. There are four speakers left to speak. I would appreciate it if the hon. member would make a short comment and ask a question.


Mr. Don Boudria (Glengarry-Prescott-Russell):: Mr. Speaker, I listened very carefully to what my colleague had to say and I am sure all hon. members would like to join me in congratulating him on his remarks.
My comments will deal in particular with the Canadian footwear industry, because this is one sector of our economy which has been badly hurt. Our footwear industry was dealt an almost fatal blow. Once again the policies of this government are responsible for the hardship this industry went through.
In my riding, when I was elected in 1984, there were 450 jobs in the footwear industry. Nowadays, for both plants, the Alexandria Footwear, which is the Rosita Shoes Company my colleague knows quite well, and the Brown Shoes Company, that figure is down to about 100 jobs at the very most.
So, wouldn't my colleague agree with me that all the hardship suffered by our Canadian footwear industry including first the effects of the quota reduction, second, the incidence of the Free Trade Agreement, and third, the recession which has, of course, reduced our footwear consumption by limiting our purchases, that all this is a complete disgrace?
I would like my colleague to comment on that.


Alfonso Gagliano: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for his question.
As I pointed out, when I was elected in 1984 there were about 2,000 jobs in the footwear industry in my riding. Today, Mr. Speaker, there are about 100.
There was Rosita Shoes, a big factory that employed between 600 and 800 people. Today, the factory is closed, and that was almost two years ago. Excelsior Shoes also closed. Only Christina Shoes is left, with about 100 jobs. In a riding like Saint-Leonard, with a lot of small businesses, a lot of factories specializing in clothing or footwear, all these factories are gradually disappearing. In addition to factories closing down, the POWA program to help older workers who lose their jobs in these situations, especially in the footwear, textile and clothing industry- To avoid having to pay these benefits, the government introduced a rule which says that to be

May 22, 1991
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eligible for the program-this in a region with a population of over 500,000 residents-the factory or business that closes down must have at least 100 employees. However, more than 75 per cent of Canadian businesses are small businesses with fewer than 50 employees. So no one qualifies, and every day-and I am sure you have the same situation in your own riding, Mr. Speaker, I know that the hon. member does in his-we have people coming to our riding offices. They are over 55. They have no unemployment insurance. They don't have jobs, and the chances of finding one are practically nil, Mr. Speaker, and the government is playing games with the rules.
That is the human tragedy we are seeing today, as a result of this government's policies.


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


Mr. Gaby Larrivee (Joliette):: Mr. Speaker, I welcome this opportunity to take part in today's debate on the Speech from the Throne. I would like to start by saying how proud I am to represent my constituents in the riding of Joliette in a responsible government that looks to the future.
In 1984, this government inherited a country that was divided, poorly governed and in debt to a dangerous degree. That is why we will probably need more than one generation to correct the deficit problem.
Since 1984, our government has made a number of courageous decisions in order to put the country's finances in order and reduce government spending. We have reduced a government apparatus that had become far too unwieldy and costly. We modified our taxation system to make it fairer and more equitable. We improved our relations with our trading partners, which helped us develop new markets and conclude a free trade agreement with the United States, our principle trading partner. In fact, 70 per cent of our exports go the United States. Thanks to this agreement, we have found new outlets for our goods and obtained more secure markets.
We have updated our structures to improve productivity. One example was our decision to eliminate a hidden sales tax-the manufacturer's sales tax which created unemployment and made our industries less competitive-and replace it with a visible tax that is much fairer because it protects the neediest through a system of regular refunds. This is one more example of this government's determination to put the country in a better position to meet increasingly strong competition on external markets. We embarked on deregulation and privatization to make our domestic market more competitive and more productive.
In 1984, we started implementing a strategy for improving our competitive position, and we did so successfully. Of all industrialized countries, comparatively speaking, Canada has created the most jobs and has attracted unprecedented levels of private foreign investment.
All these structural reforms do not necessarily produce tangible results overnight. However, we know the result will be increased productivity in the years to come, for the greater benefit of Canadians. However, we cannot stop there. There is still a lot to be done to achieve the prosperity we want for ourselves and for future generations.
The Speech from the Throne tells us how.
North America-wide free trade is the logical next step if an acceptable agreement can be negotiated with Mexico and the United States.
We will have to maintain controls on government spending. Steps will be taken to cap federal program spending. Legislation will also be introduced so that all GST revenues as well as monies from further privatization of Crown corporations will be used to reduce the national debt. And I think, Mr. Speaker, that this meets the expectations of the people.
We will work with provincial governments to eliminate interprovincial trade and investment barriers by 1995.
We are also planning to generate 2.5 million new jobs over the next nine years, while raising the real incomes of Canadians by 25 percent by the year 2000. That will require the cooperation of business, labour and the various levels of government.
May 22, 1991

However, all these efforts will not produce the expected results if we keep putting all our energies in a debate over constitutional issues. Since the Constitution was patriated in 1982 without Quebec's consent, our national unity has been in jeopardy.
All my government's efforts to rectify this situation and bring Quebec back to the constitutional table were sabotaged. The proposal which was signed by all the provinces would have allowed us, had it been ratified, to undertake with much more serenity the thorough reform the entire Canadian population wishes. Unfortunately, that is not the case.
Therefore we must do all we can now, in that difficult context, to overcome all obstacles, dispel the people's doubts and ready Canada to go forth with confidence into the 21st century. We must do so while protecting the rights of all Canadians. Throughout the country, Canadian men and women must be able to identify with their Constitution and recognize in it their hopes and aspirations. That is why our approach relies on public consultation. And that is what we are doing now with the Citizens Forum and the Beaudoin-Edwards Parliamentary Committee.
And we will continue to consult the public through a parliamentary committee when we will deposit our propositions in the fall. Our propositions will have to reflect Quebec's unique or distinct character as well as the special interests of all the regions of our country. They will have to be based on fairness and efficiency.
Mr. Speaker, any commitment must necessarily be based on a reasonable compromise and conciliation. To reach the objective of a more united and more prosperous Canada, we will need the cooperation of every Canadian man and woman of goodwill who will show tolerance, generosity and fairness.
Economic prosperity is first of all a matter of human resources. While entering a knowledge era, our quality of life will depend on the quality of our knowledge.
In the Speech from the Throne, we are made aware of the fact that four out of ten Canadian adults cannot read or do math well enough to perform everyday tasks. Three out of ten students dropout of high school before graduating.
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Mr. Speaker, my government recognizes that education is a provincial responsibility and respects that fact. But, if we do not act to change that situation, at the beginning of the next century, one third of our people will have no jobs to ensure our prosperity.
Canadians are concerned about these statistics and expect their elected members to propose ways to tackle this problem. That is why our government has included in the Throne Speech goals to cut, by the year 2000, illiteracy rates in half, to ensure that 90 percent of Canadians attain high school diplomas by age 25, and to double the number of post-secondary graduates in mathematics, sciences and engineering.
Of course, we want to pursue these goals within the jurisdictions of the provinces, but with their cooperation.
Canadian industry spends half as much on training its employees as American industry does, a fifth as much as the Japanese and an eighth as much as the Germans.
We have to close the gap. The governement establishes for himself the goal of quadrupling the training provided by employers to their employees. Mr. Speaker, if we want to ensure prosperity for future generations, we must resolutely follow that path.
Mr. Speaker, I do not have enough time to expand on what the government proposed in the Speech from the Throne to do for the environment, the family, the handicapped and the natives.
However, I can assure you and my constituents that I will continue, under the leadership of our Prime Minister, to work with courage and determination for Canada's unity in the greatest respect of the aspirations of our peoples.


Alan Redway: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to say a few words this evening concerning the Speech from the Throne, a speech aimed primarily at finding a way to solve our national unity and constitutional crisis, a crisis which most certainly concerns two fundamentally different visions of Canada. On the one hand is a vision based on the concept of the two founding nations, on the other hand is a vision based on the concept of equality-equal-

May 22, 1991
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ity for all Canadian cultural origins, equality for all 10 provinces, and equality for all Canadians.
For a very substantial number of English-speaking Canadians, at least, this crisis goes well beyond the Quebec issues. It also involves the concerns of native Canadians, of women, Canadians whose heritage is neither English nor French, national standards, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, multiculturalism and our system of government itself.
It is veiy much a crisis of confidence in our present system of government. Those feelings were clearly evident in the Meech Lake debate, and again, they are now very clearly evident in the findings of the Citizens' Forum on Canada's Future. However, in the face of this lack of confidence and trust in our present system, both the minister of constitutional affairs and the Prime Minister have said that we are going to solve our unity and constitutional crisis by using the very system that so many Canadians do not trust to represent their interests. That is, the present House of Commons and the present Senate.
With the greatest of respect, that will not solve this crisis. When the minister of constitutional affairs says, as he did last week in this House, that members of this House and members of the Senate will solve this crisis in, and I quote: "the most open and innovative way", does he truly believe that the real decisions are going to be made here in this House in an open way, and not by the Prime Minister behind closed doors?
When the Prime Minister said last week that there is no greater constituent assembly than the House of Commons, and that the House of Commons will assume national leadership, did he really believe that the members of this House would assume the leadership role in this crisis rather than he, himself, as the Prime Minister of this country?
If the press and the media truly believed that the House of Commons will assume the national leadership role in this crisis, would the Press Gallery not be packed tonight? It is not. They were here for the speech of the Prime Minister and for the party leaders. They are not here now.
If there truly is no greater constituent assembly than this House of Commons, should Canadians not be hearing their members of Parliament in this very crucial debate deal with the issues that Canadians have raised
before the Citizens' Forum in an open and an innovative way?
It is no wonder, then, that so many Canadians have no confidence in the ability of this House or its members to speak for them. That is why Canadians want to be involved in this process themselves. That is why we need a truly representative constituent assembly, one that Canadians will have confidence in, one that truly speaks for them, and that they feel truly speaks for them.
Ideally, such an assembly should be directly elected and made up of men and women, native Canadians and Canadians born elsewhere, represented proportionately and geographically as they appear in Canadian society itself. It would be very difficult within the time set for the Quebec referendum by the Belanger-Campeau report to design geographic constituencies for an elected assembly which accurately reflect the demographics of Canada. It is quite possible to establish a non-elected but representative constituent assembly within such a time frame.
The 1991 Canadian census will be carried out on June 4. By mid-Januaiy 1992 we will know the present demographic and geographic composition of our country. At that time all Canadians interested in sitting as a member of the constituent assembly could file an application, pay a deposit and submit nomination papers signed by at least 200 persons from the demographic and the geographic category that he or she wished to represent in the assembly.
Two hundred and ninety-five of the applicants, the same number as the present number of federal constituencies, would then be chosen by computer, as suggested by former Supreme Court Justice Estey, to constitute a representative assembly as reflected by the 1991 census. Present politicians would be eligible to apply but they would have no better chance of selection by the computer than any other Canadian.
The assembly would convene 30 days after its selection, choose its own chairperson, establish its own procedure, consider all submissions, concepts, ideas that were presented to it in writing and make its constitutional recommendations to Parliament four months later, just as the United States constituent assembly in Philadelphia did in 1787.
These recommendations would then be subject to ratification by all Canadians in a federally sponsored referendum, tabulated on a province-by-province basis. This would ensure that all Canadians were involved in
May 22, 1991

the constitutional process and that their feelings were made clear to this Parliament and to the provincial and the territorial legislatures.
The recommendations and the results of the referendum would then be submitted to Parliament and to the 10 provincial legislatures to be dealt with in accordance with the amending formula of our present 1982 Constitution Act. This approach would ensure that Canadians get the Constitution that they want and not the Constitution that we, the politicians, want them to have.
It has been said that Quebec will not participate in a constituent assembly. Mr. Remillard has said so publicly. To the best of my knowledge, Premier Bourassa has not. Premier Bourassa has said that he will not talk to anyone else but the federal government and that it is unacceptable to Quebec to talk to the other provinces. It is just as unacceptable to Canada that Quebec talk only to the federal government, a federal government and a Parliament that it really does not trust.
The only real solution is a truly representative constituent assembly in which we all participate. If Quebec refuses, the constituent assembly can be used to develop Canadians' response to Quebec, a response that Quebec tells us it is waiting for.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: On debate, the hon. member for Sarnia-Lambton. I would just like to thank hon. members for deleting questions and comments so that we could get all these speakers in, and then starting on Monday we will probably have a new routine.


Mr. Ken James (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Labour):: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to participate in this important debate.
Apart from the over-arching importance of the need for Canadian unity, the section of the Speech from the Throne of particular personal interest to me is the section on participating in prosperity. In particular, this section places appropriate emphasis and federal government attention in human resource development and in the field of education.
In the area of human resource development, the speech rightfully notes that in the interdependent world we live in prosperity will, more and more, be a factor of knowledge, skills and innovation. Increasingly-thanks for the support back here-economic prosperity is first
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and foremost an issue of the people. Canada's ability to prosper in a global economy will be determined by the level of Canadians' educational achievement, by the sophistication of our management skills and by our attitudes to work and to change.
Globalization requires a new strategic alliance between government, labour and business. It means striking new effective partnerships, new forms of co-operation and collaboration between all major stakeholders if we are to meet the challenge of the integrated global economy.
While technology is certainly an important component of competitiveness, it is not by itself sufficient. A high quality work force and organizational innovations are required to capture the full potential of the new technologies that are around us.
The message is clear: Canada needs to build on its past performance in human resources to maintain its high standard of living and to ensure prosperity for future generations.
Canada ranked third, after the United States and Japan, out of 23 OECD countries, in terms of its human resources according to the 1990 edition of The World Competitiveness Report. Canada did poorly, however, in areas such as managerial initiatives, 15th; vocational training, 16th; and availability of skilled labour, 15th. These areas are now, more than ever, of key importance to competitiveness in Canada.
While Canada's education and training systems have served us well in the past, it is not clear that our systems are geared to meet the new job requirements of the emerging global economy. Nor is it clear that they can respond to demands for continuous learning and retraining brought about by a technology-driven, rapidly changing system.
If we are to meet future competitiveness challenges, we will need to increasingly view the development of human resources as an investment as opposed to a cost item.
The thrust of the Speech from the Throne is that the potential for gains in productivity, flexibility and responsiveness offered by the new technologies can only be realized through the skill and innovation that workers and management bring to their adoption and to their use.

May 22, 1991
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It has been said that intelligent machines work best when paired in innovative ways with skilled workers. In this light, the challenge for all major stakeholders is to craft a way that ensures new workers entering the labour force of the capability to learn new skills many times in their working lives. Once they are in the labour force, they will probably have to be retrained a number of times. So they should be encouraged to learn new skills, to accept new challenges and job changes.
The Speech from the Throne is essentially about preparing us for the 21st century. For example, it is about developing a strong training culture in this country and continuing to move toward a more active training system than one that is based strictly on income maintenance. Our wealth and resources, both material and human, have led us to a point of complacency about the importance of skilled and innovative workers that must be drastically altered if we are to meet the challenge of a knowledge-driven economy.
In the wake of strong growth in the labour force over the past several decades, we have developed a weak training culture and thus have failed to adequately recognize that investment in human resource development is just as important as investment in plants and equipment. So we must do these things to be competitive.
The demographers tell us that by the year 2040, Canada will change from a country with abundant labour and scarce capital to a country with scarce labour and abundant capital.
Throughout the 1990s it is anticipated that the labour force will grow at a slower rate than in the previous two decades. It will grow at only an average of 1.2 per cent. What does this mean to Canada? It means we must put greater reliance on the current labour force and the pressures of adjustment will affect the existing work force much more directly than in the past.
Predictions of future job prospects also tell us that more and more will require higher skill levels with the growth of this information-based society. Fuelled by changes in technology and economic restructuring, Canadians have begun to witness the occupational transformation which is occurring in this country. We have experienced a shift from primarily a goods economy to a service economy. The problem arises in that there will be
a general increase in the skill content and education requirements in most occupations and many future jobs will require higher skills.
Almost half of the jobs created between 1990 and 2000 will require more than five years of combined education and training beyond the completion of high school. The problem is that these requirements will exceed the current education and training levels of many workers.
Some 60 per cent of the workers today possess no more than secondary school education. In the absence of action there could be an increasing mismatch between the skills available and those that will be in demand. In the end Canadian industry and our economic prosperity depend upon a flexible workforce capable of taking on new jobs, changing occupations, acquiring new knowledge and developing new skills.
As we emerge as an information-based society, the need to adapt to the new skill demands on a regular basis will affect increasingly the number of Canadians. In tomorrow's society our workers will have to maintain a core of specific occupational skills, i.e. literacy and numeracy. They have to access skills up-grading and will need to be multi-skilled.
In effect, workers will increasingly be required to undertake a lifetime of learning in the work force. The convergence of these demographic and technological trends raises important questions about how well equipped we are to maintain and improve on our relatively high standard of living in Canada. For example, as envisaged in the Speech from the Throne, an important vehicle or mechanism through which the problem of skills-training can be addressed is our education system.
In the field of education, the speech correctly notes that in the dawning knowledge age how well we live will depend on how well we learn. Canadian men and women must have access to both the skills and the life-long learning opportunities necessaiy to improve their job prospects and ensure their prosperity.
Like our approaches to training and human resource development, our education system is under pressure to reform its curriculum so as to better prepare students to contribute effectively to a rapidly changing knowledge and technology intensive economy. There appears to be considerable agreement that schools should provide
May 22, 1991

students with the basic skills they will need for a lifetime of learning so they can be trained and retrained.
Canada is near the top of the OECD countries in terms of spending on education. Currently Canadians are investing some $50 billion in education and training systems, $45 billion in formal education, and $5 billion in adult training. The federal government spends over $10 billion a year in education, a terrific amount of money, but it raises some great concerns about the results.
Despite the high levels of money poured into it the current education system produces something short of world-class results. The commitment to a discussion paper on learning is not intended, as noted in the throne speech, to violate provincial jurisdiction. That is set out or acknowledged in the speech itself. It is looking beyond jurisdictional squabbling to what is good and best for the country as a whole.
This is a commitment targeted toward a system apparently in need of direction and reform. The question is seemingly one of quality in education. Our education system is facing challenges.
The discussion paper will be out in a short while. All Canadians will be asked to participate and we will be looking forward to setting some new directions in education, as we have noted in this speech and in the throne speech, which are so needed for the development of our people so that we keep them in our schools, reduce the drop-out rate from our high schools and reduce this business of 17 per cent functional literacy and numeracy on graduates.
We are looking forward to important results from this discussion paper so we can carry on in developing our human resources in Canada. We must move in to the 21st century in the right way so that we maximize our prosperity in Canada.


Miss Deborah Grey (Beaver River):: Mr. Speaker, after nearly seven years in office, this government has brought in a throne speech which was heralded as the most critical and important in Canadian history.
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While we have heard about the need for new ideas, we can find few new ideas in the path the throne speech has laid out.
There were some positive signals, however, although they were vague.
First, there is no doubt about the importance of eliminating interprovincial trade barriers to ensure Canadian competitiveness. The Reform Party has advocated this for some time. It is hard to imagine an economic policy which has free trade with the U.S. without free trade within Canada. However, it has taken a long time to realize that problem.
Second, regarding the call to improve education and training, there is little doubt of the need for Canada to do this to ensure economic prosperity. However, defining the problem is not a prescription.
Third, the government description of the changes in the way Ottawa works are almost directly out of the Reform Party manual and were a primary reason for my party's creation. However, one has to ask whether description of problems equals the will to change. If Canadians want reform of interprovincial trade, education system and the Parliament of Canada, they certainly need to send reformers.
Of all the issues facing Canada, the issues of national unity and constitutional change are the ones which are to be of key importance in this session of Parliament and to Canadians outside these walls.
Our ability to settle the fundamental question of Canada's unity will decide whether Canada enters the 21st century on a sound footing as a united country or whether it staggers into the next millennium still seeking solutions to problems that have gone unanswered.
For the record, the Reform Party proposes that the Constitution of a new Canada ought to be built on the following basis:
First, new Canada ought to be built by those who want in. Canada should not be built by accommodating those who wish to divide it in order to remain united.
Second, new Canada ought to have a genuinely federal system, including a strong national government with strong regional representation through a Triple E Senate

May 22, 1991
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and strong provinces to protect cultural identity and regional character.
Third, new Canada ought to have a division of power which fulfils the needs Canadians share, especially the needs for a competitive economy, a sustainable environment and a responsible community.
Fourth, new Canada ought to be a country which respects the democratic values that Canadians share and protects the interests of Canadians in the current constitutional situation. It ought to have a new Constitution which is accepted by demonstrated popular consent. It should not be a federation where powerful interests succeed in getting their ideology entrenched in the Constitution of Canada so the public cannot choose a new course even if it wanted to.
In summary, the Reform Party believes that new Canada should be a balanced democratic federation of provinces, distinguished by the conservation of its magnificent environment, the viability of its economy and recognition of the equality and uniqueness of all its citizens and provinces.
In the 12 months since the defeat of Meech Lake, the Reform Party has put forth its view. The Liberals, NDP and various provincial governments have also put forth their views on future constitutional development. The federal government has yet to put forward any concrete constitutional proposals of its own.
Almost a year after Meech Lake we have had hearings, committees, forums, the Prime Minister's committee of committees, the promise of more committees, and yet no concrete proposals of where the government actually stands on this issue.
We have been given vague proposals and high-sounding platitudes, talk of economic costs and benefits, but no vision of exactly what the government wants for this country, except that it remain united, which most Canadians, including myself and the Reform Party desire as well.
Certainly, one of the major reasons that Meech failed to win public support was the top-down, closed-door process. From the Reform Party's perspective, if the process is not correct, there is little chance that the content will bear the public's approval. The process followed is as important as the content, because the proper process will ensure that the content is good for Canada and acceptable to the Canadian public.
It is almost unprecedented for a government which has lost the confidence of the Canadian public and has already seen its major constitutional agenda fail to announce its intention to keep control of the entire constitutional process in upcoming negotiations before obtaining a new mandate.
While all of us who sit in this House have a constitutional responsibility to deal with major areas of concern to Canada, it is an undeniable fact that the parliamentary institutions and individuals are held in some degree of contempt by the Canadian public. This undermines the ability of Parliament and the government to propose even truly good constitutional changes to a suspicious public.
If the old Canada parties close ranks, the public will think they are trying to put something over on them. If the old Canada parties act on partisan lines, then the public is just as likely to consider it to be political posturing.
Reformers believe that the process of constitutionmaking in Canada must be as open and as broadly based as possible. Even before Meech, the Reform Party was a strong advocate of constituent assemblies, a concept which has very much come into vogue.
Of course, we would like to see a process involving directly elected delegates to these assemblies held on a provincial or regional basis as well as one held for aboriginal people.
Reformers believe that aboriginal people should be given the opportunity to define among themselves their position in the new Canada, their relationship to the federal government, and their rights and responsibilities, and not merely to have their conditions simply studied further.
Reformers believe that constitutional conventions held on a provincial or regional basis before a national convention is convened help to ensure that the hopes and aspirations of all provinces are put forward. This will help to ensure that the best opportunity to reach consensus is reached.
Many Canadians are suspicious of a call for a single national convention before each region has had time to develop its position and, for that matter, of the Prime Minister's insistence that the the House of Commons, with 50 per cent of its seats representing only two provinces, deal with constitutional negotiations on behalf of an entire federation.
May 22, 1991

Reformers believe that ordinary citizens would best be able to stand for an election to a constituent assembly. While Canadians recognize the hard work and dedication of their elected officials, they also recognize their very partisan nature, the excessive party discipline and the deeply held ideological bias of many elected representatives, characteristics which most Canadians simply do not share. This leaves Reformers to prefer a non-political, non-partisan convention.
Also, the short-run vision of our politicians to gain electoral success contrasts with Canada's need for a long-lasting Constitution and united country.
Of course, Reformers believe that once a constitutional package has been developed by a constituent assembly and ratified by the elected provincial legislatures and Parliament, it should be ratified by a referendum of each province.
Reformers believe that a constitution developed in a bottom-up process with a constituent assembly at the front end followed by a referendum is the best way to achieve the consensus which Canada needs and which Canadians are now demanding.
When Canadians and Reformers speak of consensus, they mean a consensus of the people of Canada, not the traditional mythical consensus of old Canada's politicians, which was a consensus of political elites, the Canadian establishment and other people who matter.
Old Canada's supporters will say that consensus cannot be worked out if too many people are involved. Certainly, this is a slightly warped view of what true consensus is. Consensus, it is said in old Canada, can only be worked out in secret and behind closed doors. Compromise in old Canada can only be achieved when a majority government can force through compromise when it cannot achieve consensus. Compromise in new Canada can only be worked out through a genuine process of give and take, where each side is involved.
Reformers believe that, free of threats or ultimatums, the process of a constituent assembly and a referendum is the best way of assuring that genuine compromises are developed and reached so that each region has an opportunity to ensure that their hopes and aspirations are addressed and embodied in the Constitution.
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A constitutional package developed in a public consensus-building process, as the Reform Party has suggested, stands the best possibility of being a deal that will bear the will of Canadians and of being a package that will withstand the test of time.
If, however, this constitutional package is reached by bullying threats and coercion, especially over economic circumstances, if a deal is developed as the result of panic to meet a deadline or an ultimatum or else Canada will not survive, if a deal is reached that is perceived, like the 1982 Constitution, to exclude a province or region of Canada, or if a deal is perceived to be for the benefit of one province and the exclusion of the others, like the 1987 accord, if the deal finds accommodation without finding solutions to deeper underlying problems, if it addresses the concerns of one group and excludes others, if it is a deal where people are spoken to but neither listened to nor understood because of a top-down process, then the deal reached will either fail or only be a temporary solution that will help only to inflame underlying tensions and divisions.
It will ensure that Canada stumbles into the 21st century, uncertain about its future, its direction and its unity.
For three decades various political leaders and political parties have proposed solutions to Canada's problems. They have not solved our problems, and in many cases have not even addressed the real problems.
One of the primary reasons Canada's major problems, especially those concerning Quebec have yet to be answered is that Canadian politicians have failed to believe, or comprehend, the honesty of some positions taken.
It has often been said that Canada should not separate because we have built a country that is the envy of the world. Canadians all know that Canada is a country worth preserving, and Reformers have always said that we want to preserve Canada as one country if possible; however Canada cannot continue to be a house divided against itself.
Almost 2,500 years ago there came into existence a great confederation which produced a golden age which was the envy of the ancient world. Its architecture, philosophers and poets are still held in reverence to this day. At the centre of the confederation of ancient Greece there was a great city surrounded by great walls which no army could breach. Inside these walls was the rich city and culture and the first democracy known to . man. While the confederacy was vast, the democracy was limited to those few who lived within those walls; those living outside the walls began to perceive and those living

May 22, 1991
The Address
within the walls began to believe that the purpose of this confederacy was to build a civilization that would be the envy of the ancient world.
Despite its greatness, the ancient Greek confederacy and its great civilization crumbled because of internal dissension, the result of failing to listen to the hopes and aspirations of the confederation outside the walls of Athens.
Now parallels can be drawn from events of 2,500 years ago. The historian of the great dissolution of that confederation, Thucydides, wrote "The Greeks did not understand each other any longer, though they spoke the same language". Some may say; well, I am speaking of the two major language groups in Canada. However, what some others see in Canada is the inability of the politicians of old Canada, living behind these walls, to hear and to understand the people already living in new Canada.
Finally, a country cannot be founded or maintained merely by threats and fear. Neither can a country be built merely upon the economic benefits to the participants or to make the world envious. Debate about a commitment to Canada should be more than just a discussion about the economic costs and benefits. A country can only be maintained by a clear commitment and a feeling of belonging on the part of all its citizens and all its provinces.


Mr. John Manley (Ottawa South):: Mr. Speaker, The hon. member spoke about a vision of a new Canada compared to an old Canada. I guess I come from the old Canada and I identify with the old Canada. It has proven to be, in spite of a small population, one of the most prosperous in the world, an old Canada that has carved out a place for itself in the history of the world. It stands as a symbol of what can be done when people come together and work with vision and commitment, a symbol of which it can be said that there is a vision that understands that bigger and stronger is not always better, where compromise is of value and not just confrontation.
I find it peculiar that the Reform Party presents itself as a party of the grass roots, and yet when I sat at my television set and watched their convention I discovered that of all of the parties in this country, it is the Reform Party that is the least grass roots, because one individual stands at the top and spreads his gospel down. I ask the hon. member to respond as to how that happens.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: She can come back Monday and respond.
It being 8 o'clock p.m. this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 10 o'clock a.m. pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 8 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Thursday, May 23, 1991