1991-10-08

Hon. Gerald S. Merrithew (for the Solicitor General of Canada) moved: for leave to introduce Bill C-36, an act respecting corrections and the conditional release and detention of offenders and to establish the office of Correctional Investigator.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Pursuant to Standing Order 68(2), the motion is deemed carried.
Mr. Merrithew moves that this bill be now read the first time and printed.
Pursuant to Standing Order 69(1), the motion is deemed carried.
Bill read the first time and ordered to be printed.


CRIMINAL CODE
Mr. Scott Thorkelson (Edmonton-Strathcona) moved: for leave to introduce Bill C-311, an act to amend the Criminal Code and the Parole Act.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Pursuant to Standing Order 68(2), the motion is deemed carried.


Scott Jon Thorkelson: Mr. Speaker, I would like to introduce this bill today.
This bill toughens up the parole provisions of the Parole Act. It provides for victim impact statements and says that sentences should be served consecutively.
This bill is in response to a meeting that the members of the Edmonton government caucus had with victims of Larry Takahashi last spring. We believe it will go a long way to meeting their concerns and the concerns of many other Canadians.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Mr. Thorkelson moves that the bill be now read the first time and printed.

Pursuant to Standing Order 69(1), the motion is deemed carried.
Bill read the first time and ordered to be printed.


PETITIONS
Mr. Ronald J. Duhamel (St. Boniface):: Mr. Speaker, I have here before me a petition on national unity from the citizens of Winnipeg, many of whom are from my constituency. It is in conformity with the rules and regulations governing such.
These petitioners point out that during the last several years there has been a great deal of work done on constitutional renewal. They point to the Citizens' Forum as another initiative and the joint Senate-House of Commons Committee on the process for amending the Constitution, the Beaudoin-Edwards constitutional committee.
The petitioners indicate as well that these have been supplemented and reinforced by several provincial and territorial studies. Of course they note that there is an initiative before the Canadian people today.

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The petitioners call upon the leaders of each political party to work together to build a stronger, more united Canada for this and future generations.


Ron J. Duhamel: I have a second petition to present with your permission Mr. Speaker. This one is on education. It is in conformity with the rules and regulations of the House of Commons.
These petitioners point out that the government speaks of globalization, competitiveness, increased productivity, a stronger economic and social system to respond to the needs of Canadians, but at the same time it reduces transfer payments to provinces for education in a significant kind of way, almost a half billion dollars this year.
Of course they lament the fact that there have been increases on students when certain taxes such as the goods and services tax have been imposed. They are particularly angry at the 3 per cent tax on student loans, that one which affects those students who need to borrow, the one where they have to pay cash up front before they get the loan.


Mr. Cid Samson (Timmins-Chapleau):: Mr. Speaker, it is indeed a pleasure for me to rise, pursuant to Standing Order 36, to present this petition signed by a number of my constituents in Iroquois Falls, South Porcupine, Timmins and the other areas that I represent.
They are calling on the government to support our rural way of life, to stop the devastation and to stop the closing of our rural post offices as we know them today. They are asking that the government understand that there is a rural way and for these post offices to remain open.


Cyril (Cid) Samson: While I am on my feet, Mr. Speaker, I also have two petitions to present signed by numerous Canadians from Cambridge, Foleyet, Timmins, Wawa and White River. They are asking that this government realize that the CBC is by far, in most cases, their only link with the rest of Canada.
They are asking that the services continue and that the funding remain in place. It not only keeps them linked with the rest of Canada, but it also represents some 1,200 job losses if this funding does not continue. They are
asking the government to come to its senses and renew this funding.


Mr. Guy Saint-Julien (Abitibi):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to table a petition from Abitibi, for residents of Malartic and Riviere-Heva. Whereas preventive withdrawal from the work force of pregnant women is a desirable and necessary option for working women, therefore your petitioners humbly pray and call upon Parliament to seriously consider the shortcomings of the Canada Labour Code during the review process and recognize the need for including in the Code certain clauses concerning the preventive withdrawal of pregnant women, with pay.


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
Mr. Albert Cooper (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons):: Mr. Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand.


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


Some hon. members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


Hon. Charles Mayer (for the Minister of Agriculture) moved: that Bill C-16, an act to amend the Agricultural Products Marketing Act and to provide for other matters in relation thereto, be read a second time and referred to Legislative Committee D.
He said: Mr. Speaker, we have in front of us Bill C-16 at second reading, which is an act to amend the Agricultural Products Marketing Act.
We have had a significant amount of agricultural legislation in front of the House since we have been the government, since 1984, and we have done it pretty much in consultation with the industry.



This is another example where producer input has been important in bringing the amendments to us that we have here today. They do not in any way dramatically alter the Agricultural Products Marketing Act but are necessary to increase the responsiveness of the act to the industry's current needs.
The bill will confirm that wood and wood products are considered agricultural products under the Agricultural Products Marketing Act. This covers any wood product, be it pulpwood, hard or soft wood, or wood produced on a farmer's lot or by non-farmers. Since the 1960s the Department of Agriculture has considered wood to be included in the definition of an agricultural product. Because of this interpretation a number of orders were passed for wood and wood products, particularly from the province of Quebec.
It is interesting to note that in 1981 the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations suggested that wood is not an agricultural product as defined under the act. More recently the committee suggested that the act be amended to include wood and wood products clearly in the definition. Members can appreciate, therefore, the desirability of moving ahead with the amendments before us today. Previously approved wood orders might be challenged and declared ultra vires and new orders cannot be approved until these amendments are passed.
There are several benefits to producers associated with an effective wood marketing system from the perspective of farm woodlot operators. These benefits include, first of all, increased income and employment opportunities from the production of wood in addition to the traditional agricultural commodities on the farm; second, the potential for greater diversification through research into new products and processes; third, a more stable farm operation; and, fourth, some improved environmental controls with respect to shelter belt and water course control.
Non-farm wood producers also benefit from the improvements in services provided by the wood producers marketing boards, services such as improved marketing information and co-ordinated marketing.
To clarify the status of wood and wood products further, the bill will also confirm the validity of previous-
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ly approved wood orders. Provincial boards and agencies have also asked that they be given the authority to recover unpaid levies through civil legal action. While the recovery of unpaid levies is not in any way a major problem at the present time, the boards and agencies noted that they have this authority when collecting levies under provincial jurisdiction and would like to have a parallel authority under the federal act. An amended clause to the bill gives them this authority.
I think this is a fairly straightforward amendment to a bill that has been in existence for a long time in this House. In conclusion, I would ask that members join with me in supporting these amendments which, just to reiterate, would include wood under the definition of an agricultural act as far as the Agricultural Products Marketing Act is concerned. Second, they would facilitate levy collection from producers within a marketing board. Third, they would confirm the role of this act in continuing to facilitate interprovincial and export trade.
These changes respond directly to the wishes of wood and other agricultural producers. They are another demonstration of our government's willingness to work with producers. They are very straightforward amendments. They simply respond to producers' needs and concerns over the way the present act operates. They also respond to what used to be called the stats and regs committee, statutory regulations. It is a joint committee. We think the amendments as far as the APMA is concerned will receive wide support in the House.


Mr. Maurice Foster (Algoma):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity to say a few words about Bill C-16, respecting the Agricultural Products Marketing Act.
This act is really the basis for orderly marketing by provincial marketing agencies such as those which exist in provinces for poultry, dairy and many other commodities. It gives them the legal authority to produce commodities and have agencies which will have a marketing thrust beyond the borders of those provincial boundaries. It is very important legislation especially to provincial agencies, including the agencies which market food for Quebec farmers. Much of the production and marketing of wood goes through an agency and that is what this bill is all about this morning.

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The statutory instruments and regulations committee back in the early 1980s called into question whether or not orders made under this act for the marketing of wood were legitimate or not. The then Minister of Agriculture, Mr. Whelan, was notified as to the validity of the federal government marketing orders which were made under this legislation as it affected the marketing of wood by Quebec producers.
The legislation which we have before us is really to legalize the wood marketing orders made as far back as 1983. In fact, the specific orders include Quebec wood orders made in 1981, an eastern township wood order, a Gatineau wood order, a Pontiac wood order, a Quebec south wood order. They were mentioned in a letter to the Hon. Eugene Whelan on October 12,1983, and were signed by Senator John Godfrey who was the joint chairman of the regulatory and statutory instruments committee of the day and by Mr. Beatty who was the co-chair and by Mr. Kenneth Robinson who was the vice chair at that time.
This legislation is of a technical nature. It is designed to clarify the legal status of those marketing orders which were made many years ago. It also gives the marketing agency the power to collect under civil action from those producers who have not paid their levies. Apparently in the past there were fines levied by the courts but often the fines were often less than the wood orders that the unco-operating wood producer had failed to pay. It was really questionable how effective the fine would be if they failed to pay it.
As I understand it, this legislation will give the marketing agencies in Quebec the authority to collect those levies which are placed on the producers. It also has a provision which would make those existing orders retroactive and legalize those wood orders made right back to 1983.
This legislation is long overdue and should have been brought forward in 1984 or fairly soon after the problem arose in late 1983. However, the government has procrastinated for some six or seven years. We believe that the legislation should go forward and should be approved as soon as possible because it will make for a more legalized arrangement for those agencies as marketing agencies.
One of the great problems in agriculture today, perhaps the greatest problem, is the lack of orderly
marketing. We do have it in some commodities, for instance, the Ontario Milk Marketing Agency and the milk marketing agencies, right across the country through the power of this legislation.
It is being called into question as to whether or not the government will be able to maintain that orderly marketing which has not only provided a stable farm income for those commodities which are marketed under the authority of the agencies in provincial jurisdictions but because of what is happening in negotiations at the General Agreement on Thriffs and Trade in Geneva this fall.
Certainly there is a great deal of concern. I met last Friday with the milk producers from Manitoulin and Sudbury districts, which are in my riding. They were expressing extreme concern about orderly marketing, whether the kind of orderly marketing which we had since 1965 in that commodity can and will be maintained. There are reports that the government may not be maintaining those international instruments of agreement to maintain that kind of orderly marketing. The same kind of orderly marketing that we seek for grains and oilseeds in the international realm is equally important in that realm.
Can we maintain an orderly marketing system wherever we have one as we have for supply managed commodities? Domestically we see stability, we see certainty, we see ongoing viability of that industry.
That is what we seek in our negotiations in the international field as well, because marketing that is chaotic, that is decided by powerful, international marketing cartels and companies is not to the benefit of the producers.
That is the greatest challenge I see both for us domestically and internationally this fall. It is to try to put in place regimes that will not see producers selling grain or oilseeds or whatever it is at half the cost of production.
Only by international agreements can we outlaw massive export subsidies or subsidy programs which are designed to drive the price down, push somebody out of the market, capture markets or to destroy producers. Not only is it destroying Canadian agriculture, but agriculture in other countries that are of comparable size such as Australia and other jurisdictions.
October 8, 1991

What we have in many realms domestically through our supply management system is an orderly marketing regime that provides producers with a reasonable return, provides consumers with a fair price, good supply and an opportunity for those agriculture producers to maintain and diversify activity, to be able to practise good conservation techniques, sustainable agriculture and concern for the environment.
That is what we seek in commodities like poultry, dairy, fruit and vegetables that we market domestically. We seek the same thing internationally. With respect to our grains and oilseeds, 80 per cent of them are marketed internationally.
I believe that is why so many Canadians are very concerned this year. They see producers facing destruction of their very viability, of their ability to produce basic foods that are needed both domestically and internationally.
The legislation before us this morning is really more of a technical nature. It legalizes the existing arrangements which have been provided over the years for marketing orders. In Quebec much of the wood production is by farmers through local wood marketing agencies and this legislation simply gives them the power, the legal authority for the arrangements they have had for many years. But it also puts those marketing agencies for wood on a more firm legal basis. It allows them to recover through the civil courts money from producers who fail to pay the levies that are provided under the marketing agencies, and it also legalizes those orders which have been made for many years, back to about 1981 or 1982 which have been called into question by the statutory instruments and regulations committee of the House.
We do not see any problem with this legislation. We wonder why the government has waited almost seven years to bring it in. We see it as a useful piece of legislation that should ultimately be adopted by this House and by the committee and added to the laws relating to the Agricultural Products Marketing Act.


Mr. Vic Althouse (Mackenzie):: Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to Bill C-16, an amendment to the Agricultural Products Marketing Act which has the effect of including wood in the definitions of agricultural products.
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As has been said, this is a housekeeping amendment but it presents an important principle which is, I guess, the reason why the government has put it forward. That important principle is that all law in this country and all power to act, in this case in the marketing of agricultural products, is a general rule of the law under a parliamentary system that things cannot be done by the cabinet without the passage of a law in the House of Commons, and its eventual approval by all of the Parliament of Canada, both the House and the Senate.
That is essentially what is happening here today. The current law did not include wood specifically in its description of what were agricultural products or natural products under the Agricultural Products Marketing Act. One of our standing committees, as long ago as 1981, pointed out that there could be some dispute as to whether wood was or was not covered. This amendment specifically includes wood as one of the natural products covered by the Agricultural Products Marketing Act. This amendment puts it in compliance with some of the acts that exist in provinces, particularly in Quebec, where wood is described as one of the products.
I think this type of business should go through the House very quickly. The committee agreed in 1981 that there was a probable lack of specificity in the act as it existed then. The federal government and some of the provincial governments had already acted as if wood was, in fact, a natural product according to the Agricultural Products Marketing Act. So what we do here today will not change anything except the future possibility of a court case revolving around the fact that wood had not been specifically mentioned until this bill passes. It is a relatively minor thing in the day of the House. I would think it is the kind of thing that we would generally do in all stages and have done with but that is not the choice that has been made by the government. There is going to be part of a day spent on it now, some time in committee and more time later on, as it goes through third and final reading.
The sector that it is intended to address is the forest industry. The two provinces that have the most at stake in this particular piece of legislation are Quebec and New Brunswick which have organizations within their provinces formed under the Agricultural Products Marketing Act. Quebec has already been granted, I understand, the power to carry its program beyond the borders

October 8, 1991
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of Quebec for wood products, and that has been the case for a lot of years. This simply makes certain that that is in fact legal and is a right that is granted from this House of Commons rather than only from the cabinet level.
The private woodlot sector in Quebec makes up 15 per cent of the territory of the harvestable commercial forest in that province but supplies 25 per cent of the province's softwood and pulp and paper products. It is an extremely important sector. To have the ability to market the product and promote the product through a marketing board is something of use to that province's producers.
About one-third of the people who are involved in the woodlot industry in Quebec are also farmers. Aside from the pulp and paper and sawmill products that are produced in those forests, maple syrup, essential oils, charcoal, Christmas trees and wood for heating also come from those privately owned forests. It is a relatively important sector of the agriculture and resource industry in that province.
As I said earlier, New Brunswick also has associations formed under its agricultural products marketing legislation. It has about 38,000 woodlot owners who sell some $90 million worth of pulp wood and saw logs on the slightly less than 2 million hectares of the province that are covered by woodlands.
The president of the New Brunswick Federation of Woodlot Owners points out that their province is in fact a net importer of wood, but they do export some to Maine and to Europe. They do not charge a levy at the moment on wood that is exported to Maine, but this legislation would make it possible and would make it legal for them to do so should they decide that that is the route to go.
The effect on the rest of the country is less clear because none of the other provinces have woodlot associations that are formed under the agricultural marketing legislation, although I am aware in my own province of a very active woodlot owners association which is attempting to encourage the production of wood on privately held land and on farms both as an environmental addition through fence lines and the provision of routes for wildlife to move and to live in.
It is also seen as useful in developing types of wood which will be useful for commercial purposes along with farming itself. While the trees can provide a wind break and a habitat for wildlife, they can also have commercial value as well. This is something that I think will become much more evident in the coming decade and in the next century where agriculture and the production of wood will begin to go hand in hand instead of the tradition in the pioneer era of agriculture where the trees were seen as the enemy and farmers worked as hard as they could to tear them down to open up land. So we are starting to see a companionship between agriculture and woodlot production which I think this legislation will permit to go on. As I say, it does not change any of the procedures that have occurred or will occur. It simply reinforces the fact that Parliament is supposed to pass legislation and grant the rights that previous cabinets had done and it corrects that anomaly in the system.
I am very supportive of us doing this and only question that we have to take so much time to do it.


Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, I was hoping to be seen by the Chair.
I understand that the hon. member for Lambton- Middlesex is about to make a speech and I just wanted to compliment the hon. member from northern Saskatchewan, who obviously has had a great deal of experience with wood-cutting and woodlot operations in that area of the country, on his speech this morning. The information that he provided to us is really valuable.
I just wanted to make those brief remarks. I know that the hon. member for Lambton-Middlesex is also going to speak on this topic.


Hon. Ralph Ferguson (Lambton-Middlesex):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be able to take part in this debate today because it was about 40 years ago last fall when we first became involved in the orderly marketing process.
This legislation goes back further than that, of course. It was legislation that was passed by the Government of Canada to bring order out of chaos, chaos in the marketplace, chaos that was caused by forces putting pressures on those who depend on the marketplace for their livelihood, really pressure that is caused by lack of co-operation, perhaps by the primary producers
October 8, 1991

themselves, but also caused by a concentration at the level of the buyer.
It is only too clear that if a fanner takes a load of wood to town or a load of wheat, he has to take what is offered. He cannot really negotiate very much without taking that load of product back home.
This legislation, of course, is to transfer the power from the federal government to the provinces. This particular piece of legislation is really to give the powers to collect the levies and make certain orders and regulations at the provincial level.
This act has served the nation well over the years, but like any piece of legislation, if society changes the legislation has to be amended and changed to keep pace with the needs of various sectors of the economy.
In 1972 we passed the Farm Products Marketing Agencies Act to enable producers to set quotas or certain levels of production, to establish levies and to establish control over its interprovincial and export trade. Of course, under the provincial legislation, they already had the power at the provincial level to control movement intraprovincially within the province.
These two pieces of federal government legislation have provided Canadian farmers with the option to bring order out of chaos in the marketplace and as a result we have the most sophisticated marketing systems of any country in the world, particularly, in our poultry and dairy sectors.
We have the Canadian Dairy Commission and the corresponding provincial marketing boards that have already received a very, very high level of sophistication and stability in that total industry.
It is interesting to note that with the exception of the $267 million that goes toward the industrial milk sector, neither the poultry nor the dairy industry has received any government assistance since their incorporation.
In relation to these two sectors, I wish to tell this government that it would be sheer madness to even consider giving up these systems in the GATT negotiations. I ask the ministers in this House today specifically to dig in their heels and not to give into these economic terrorists who are seeking to destroy our Canadian system, which is one of the best in the world.
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It is sheer economic terrorism when you see what is going on in the grain industry. I also ask the Minister of Grains and Oilseeds today to stand up, not only to the European Common Market people, but to dig in his heels and implement the provisions as laid out in the free trade agreement. Implement those provisions where it was agreed that we would not subsidize products in each others markets. Of course, under chapter XVIII of that agreement, we can ask for consultations and compensation. This should have been done immediately when we became aware of the export enhancement programs and how the Americans have been continuously violating this agreement.
I am pleased with the change in this bill today and I commend the government for bringing it in. I think it is a positive move. I hope that in the process that it will bring in other guidelines. I am particularly pleased that the ministry of forests is represented here today in the House because I believe this goes beyond just agriculture marketing. I realize, of course, that most farm woodlots are well cared for and harvested as the timber matures.
My son and I have a woodlot of about 80 acres on our farm. I am appalled at the damage done to woodlots during the mechanical harvesting procedures. I am completely appalled as well at the devastation caused by clear-cutting, which is mainly seen on Crown lands and not privately held woodlots. Woodlot owners in the province of Quebec are to be commended for the organization they have set up and for asking for legislation like this. I also think we should be examining some of the procedures and regulations, not as practised perhaps by these individual woodlot owners, but some of the commercial operators.
I am well aware that some of these owners of the small woodlots still use horses to minimize woodlot damage. I have used them myself in past years. On our own farm, my son and I designed and built a hydraulic drive winch skidder that mounts on the back of a small farm tractor. We did this after we saw the damage and devastation caused by some of the commercial skidders, damage that was avoidable if the equipment was used properly. But it was not used properly. The damage to younger saplings and regenerating growth will take years and years for Mother Nature to repair. It is because of this damage that I wish to ask if the Minister of Forestry will examine

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a set of standards that should be adhered to on a national basis during the harvesting process.
For example, guidelines toward woodlot management will have to be done with the co-operation of the provincial authorities because the harvesting of those woodlots within a province will be within provincial jurisdiction. But I think at the national level we should perhaps set up a set of standards to adhere to.
I believe we should have a set of standards, for example, that would reflect the damage done by acid rain. On our own woodlot I see this damage. I see the tops of the maple trees dying. Certain trees will survive depending on the soil types, but certainly not the hard maple. I think we should be looking at ways to try to save those forests, to save those trees. In southern Ontario where I come from I believe less than 7 per cent of the land is forested, but I see the ongoing devastation that is being caused as these woodlots shrink in size.
We complain about the cutting of the rain forests in Brazil, but we have not been very good managers of our own resources here in Canada. I am particularly appalled that some of the woodlots in the north that took years and years and years to develop will be completely cut off in a matter of a few decades.
I think we should be looking at what is happening with acid rain. Perhaps we can neutralize its effect through the aerial spreading of limestone to counteract the acidity and bring it up to a seven on the scale. I believe that we have to look at it very seriously. A well-managed woodlot will subsidize farmers' incomes from their crops, which are at the worst level in terms of real dollars of this century.
This act, if amended and I hope it will be, should go a long way toward providing the owners with a reasonable return, not only for the years of investment toward the development of a woodlot but a return for labour, management and risk.
I am well aware of the need for environmental concerns. If those producers could collect levies, they could be used to enhance their marketing system. Some could be put away to be used to improve the woodlot, to plant new trees or to help with the regeneration process. That alone is well worth the effort.
I would further like to suggest that in the maple sugar industry we do have a surplus of products in some of the provinces that have been held by the government so they will not be allowed to go on to the market to create a surplus and undermine the price structure. Again, that is federal legislation which is being put to extremely good use to allow these people to take advantage of the price at the marketplace.
In summation, I am pleased that this legislation has been brought forward. I would ask that the government, under the Minister of Forestry, look at setting up a set of national standards in co-operation with the provinces. The woodlots across Canada could be brought under a uniform type of management. Certain standards could be set for the harvesting of those woodlots so we would not have the devastation or damage caused by mechanical harvesters and certainly acid rain could be looked at even though we know there is going to be a cutback. Some of those soils definitely have to be neutralized before the regeneration that is required will take place.
I believe that under this legislation part of these things can be accomplished if the producers get a proper return for their product. It is in this context that I support this legislation and hope for a speedy passage through this House.


Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, I did not really have a question for the hon. member for Lambton-Middlesex. I just wanted to comment. I think there have been suspicions around the House that there is agreement to deal with this bill in committee of the whole so I would suggest that we might be able to move toward committee of the whole now.


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, I can confirm that there have been discussions among the parties in the House and that we are prepared to complete the second reading stage now and then go into committee of the whole and complete third reading stage on this bill shortly thereafter.


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


Some hon. members:: Agreed.
October 8, 1991


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and, by unanimous consent, the House went into committee thereon, Mr. DeBlois in the chair.
The Assistant Deputy Chairman:: The House in Committee of the Whole on Bill C-16, an Act to amend The Agricultural Products Marketing Act and to provide for other matters in relation thereto.
On clause 1-Definition of "agricultural products"


Steve Eugene Paproski: Shall clause 1 carry?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.
Clause 1 agreed to.


Steve Eugene Paproski: Shall clause 2 carry?
On clause 2-Debt due to board or agency [English]


Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Chairman, I thought in reading the amendments that we were making an amendment in the article immediately following section 1 of the act. Is the minister moving that or what is happening here?


Charles James Mayer: Mr. Chairman, I am not so sure I understand the hon. member's concern. If he could be a little more explicit it would help us in dealing with the matter.


Maurice Brydon Foster: Yes. I just did not catch the words, Mr. Chairman. Have you passed section 1.1 adding wood to the agriculture product?


Charles James Mayer: Yes.


Steve Eugene Paproski: Clause 1 includes both clause 1 and subsection 1.1 and has been agreed to.

On Clause 2-Debt due to board or agency


Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Chairman, I would be interested to know from the minister and the officials if there have been occasions where the wood marketing agencies in Quebec have been unable to collect the levies which have been placed on producers because this legislation did not have the authority, and how many fines have been levied.
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As I understand the background of this legislation, fines have been levied and collected in a court of law but they have not been able to collect the levies. I am just wondering how many times in the past 10 or 15 years since the agencies have been using the authority of this legislation that they have been unable to collect levies and how many times fines have been imposed where they were unable to collect levies.


Charles James Mayer: In direct response I am informed that there has been one case in Prince Edward Island. In general the legislation will provide the basis under which you can impose or collect the levies. If you cannot collect the levies, then you can go with fines.
The situation presently is that when there are no means of enforcement, there would be very few cases where anyone would proceed because there is no basis on which to proceed. Someone resisting the payment of levies would be on pretty solid ground and the agency trying to collect them would have no real legal foothold on which to pursue any action.
I think it is not so much a question of how many fines have been collected. It is a question of how many times there have been cases when people have wanted to proceed in which they had no basis to proceed. That is in effect what this legislation does.


Maurice Brydon Foster: In the background information provided by the government it was suggested that marketing agencies have been able to impose fines for not paying the levies but they have been unable to collect the levies because there was no legal authority.
I am surprised that there is only one case where they were not able to collect the levies because there was no legal authority. I just thought it would be an interesting matter, since we are going to the trouble of bringing in this legislation and the amendments to put wood under the Agricultural Products Marketing Act, as to just the number of occasions when they have not been able to collect the levies that have been imposed.
It is my understanding that even under this legislation they will not be able to necessarily collect the levy except through a civil action by the marketing agency against the individual producer who fails to pay his levy for the services provided by the marketing agency.

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I would be interested to know if that is the way the minister and the officials understand the legislation.


Charles James Mayer: Mr. Chairman, as I interpret section 2, which we are on, levies are charges imposed by a board or agency pursuant to the authority granted to it under subsection (2) and constitute a due debt to the board or agency and may be sued for, and recovered by it, in any court of competent jurisdiction.
If I read the section correctly, I think that answers the hon. member's question.
With regard to the first question that he had, I am informed by officials that in the case in P.E.I., we were notified by an agency that it would have liked to have proceeded but did not feel that it could because of the lack of authority that we are granting, or making available, to people under the amendments.


Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Chairman, is the P.E.I. case the only one on record where they had wanted to collect levies and had been unable to do so because there was no apparent legal authority to do it?


Charles James Mayer: Mr. Chairman, that is the only one that we are aware of. There probably were several other cases in which I would suspect people would have liked to have proceeded but did not have the legal basis under which to proceed. It is a very difficult question to answer. It is almost like saying: "Would all those who are absent please indicate." I mean, if you are absent you cannot indicate. We do not know what in fact would have happened had this type of legislation been in place. So it is a very difficult question to respond to with any amount of clarity.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Mr. Chairman, my question probably bridges both clause 2 and clause 3, which we still have not got to. It is because clause 3 in effect legalizes the practice that has gone on before and since there may or may not be cases where outstanding levies or outstanding fines are being pursued by one or another of the provincial marketing agencies before the court, can the minister or his officials tell us in particular what we can expect if there are outstanding cases now which may be coming before the court?
Does this in fact strengthen the hand of the marketing agency to pursue those or will it still be a legal defence
for some of those producers or handlers of wood to say that this had not followed all of the legal procedures and did not have the authority of the Parliament of Canada behind the actions and, therefore, they were not responsible for carrying out some of the directives of the board as applied to movement of wood outside of the particular provincial jurisdiction?
Does clause 3 permit, under clause 2, the clear ability and authority to grant that authority retroactively? I think we are all agreed in this House that we should do this retroactively, though I am getting a little ahead of myself as this is part of clause 3. It is not a practice that we normally follow and I want to make sure that before we do follow it that we do not catch a number of cases in the legal system. If there are not any, or only one or two pending, perhaps they could be dealt with under the old procedures and we could make it clear cut. Otherwise, it makes for rather questionable law making if we are going to go backward in time quite a number of years and change all of the laws that apply. It is a precedent that I do not think the House is particularly eager to get into if there are any or very many outstanding cases before the courts now.


Charles James Mayer: Mr. Chairman, perhaps I can help. They really are two separate issues. Clause 2 applies to everything, not only wood, but to everything under the act. I believe there some 160 commodities named under the act. I can speak on clause 3 now or when we get to it. But clause 3 applies just to wood. We are just talking about actions that are presently under way. I am informed that there are two presently in process and two more pending. We are talking about a very limited number that would be referred to and covered under clause 3.
I agree with the hon. member's last comment. The last thing we want to get into is retroactivity. I think that is more than questionable law making, it is very bad law making. The two clauses are entirely separate, if that helps.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Mr. Speaker, for clarity, the maximum we are aware of is that there might be as many as four cases that might get caught in the transition.


Charles James Mayer: Mr. Speaker, to confirm that number is accurate. Yes, four is the maximum we are aware of.
October 8, 1991


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Shall clause 2 carry?
Clause 2 agreed to.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Shall clause 3 carry?
On Clause 3-Deductions from receipts


Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, my questions with regard to clause 3 really relate to the whole question of retroactivity. I assume that we do not normally pass legislation in this House which is retroactive because it is obviously a very bad precedent to follow.
I know what the government is seeking to achieve here. Orders have been made and the stability of the industry is important. Clearly, when these agencies' orders were made back in 1983, or earlier, the government and the agencies thought they had the power to pass these marketing orders. However, the question is, if we are going back seven, eight or nine years, I wonder if the minister and his officials could have sought the legal advice of the law officers of the Crown as to the legal authority, or the legal precedents, to make retroactive legislation going back seven or eight years. The Regulatory and Statutory Instruments Committee struck down those orders to some extent, or called into question the legality of those orders, because it was not sure whether wood was a valid agriculture product.
The question now is, did the government seek the advice or a report by the law officers of the Crown? If it has, what does it say, and will it make it available to members of the committee this morning so that we will know we are not passing something here which is in violation of the advice of the Department of Justice?


Charles James Mayer: Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. member raises a good point. The information I have is that this is simply a validation of the delegation of authority that the Government of Canada did back in 1983. From discussions with officials, I am informed that legal people believe this is something that is useful as far as proceeding and seeing that we can bring into force, if those are the right words, the delegation that was granted back in 1983. This is something we would see as being in order.
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With regard to a legal opinion, I do not know that we have that available. I do not know what the status would be. Whatever it is, we do not have it with us this morning in the House.


Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, I do not suppose the world is going to turn in one direction or another because the government failed to get that legal opinion from the law officers of the Crown. I would hope that the minister could provide assurances to the committee this morning that this was at least drafted and approved by the Department of Justice and, in the opinion of the Department of Justice, is a valid retroactive amendment to be making. Surely that is the least we can expect from the government. I am surprised that it would not have the legal opinion from the Department of Justice available for the committee's consideration this morning because it is very seldom that we pass legislation here which is retroactive for eight or ten or twelve years.


Charles James Mayer: Mr. Chairman, I do not think either one of us are lawyers and I am not sure we are using the right terms here, but we are really proceeding as a result of the Joint Committee of the House and the Senate on Statutory Regulations. We were advised by the Department of Justice that this was the proper way to proceed as far as validating the delegation that was granted back in 1983. Really that is why we are here. The delegation, when it was granted, had some concerns associated with it as outlined by the Joint Committee on Statutory Regulations and so what we are doing here is proceeding on the basis of legal advice that we have from the Department of Justice.
I am not so sure that in any way this should be looked at as being retroactive because this delegation of authority occurred, as I said, back in 1983 and there was concern that there was not the proper authority with that delegation to see that the delegation could be used.
So, to suggest, as the hon. member for Mackenzie did, and I agree with both of the members, Mr. Chairman, that this is retroactive, I am not so sure this is accurate. What we are doing simply, just to say it again, is providing the necessary parliamentary approval, authority I guess, to use and make valid a delegation that was given to the provinces back in 1983.

October 8, 1991
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Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Chairman, time has passed, some seven or eight years, since this report of the statutory instruments and regulations committee. Could I ask the legal officials with the minister if there is a statute of limitations or anything that invalidates this amendment? Clearly this thing has been sitting on somebody's desk since October 12, 1983, when the statutory instruments committee recommended to the Minister of Agriculture that these amendments be brought in to validate these five or six wood orders. I am just wondering whether, with the passage of more than six years, one can retroactively take something back that far, whether it is legal regardless of the length of time going beyond the normal six-year period of the statute of limitations.


Charles James Mayer: Mr. Chairman, I am not aware of the joint committee saying anything about that. I am informed by officials that there has been no concern raised along these lines as far as any legal proceedings are concerned. I think we are just bringing parliamentary authority into line with the delegation that was granted back in 1983. If there is any problem we are not aware of it. I think very strongly that if there had been a concern there that the same committee that advised that it had a concern over this would have advised us to proceed in a different way to correct it. We are proceeding in precisely the way that it suggested as far as correcting it in this legislation.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Mr. Chairman, this is not directly affecting this legislation, but I seem to recall when I was new here that corrections to various pieces of legislation as proposed by the committee on statutory instruments and regulations were often brought in as a sort of omnibus series of amendments. There would be one bill that might amend 15 or 20 different pieces of legislation, somewhat as the two that we have before us, except that they would have simply been listed as one bill.
I am wondering if there is a reason for dividing these amendments into specific legislation rather than to bring in a host of minor amendments, which a lot of these bills essentially are, in the interest of House time and making the corrections much quicker.
I recognize the problem of having this bill and another one that we are going to be doing later today sit waiting for parliamentary time. Perhaps he can comment on why
they are no longer bunched together and why they are introduced as separate bills, recognizing that it can take a lot longer to get it through as separate bills.


Charles James Mayer: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member and myself were elected at the same time. We both came here in the 1979 general election. I know being in opposition and since being in government listening to the opposition, the previous government and ourselves have taken a fair amount of criticism for bringing in omnibus legislation that put a host of legislation in one bill.
Whether it was ourselves or the previous government, we were accused of trying to railroad certain things in because one bill was judged as being rather innocuous and another bill would have some consequences. The question then was: "Are you tiying to force something through? It is an all or nothing situation".
I think in direct response to the member's question that the reason we are doing this is to provide a maximum opportunity for opposition parties to take a look at the legislation in isolation and raise concerns, so that we do not get a situation, as I said, where you have many different bills coming through as one and either you accept all of them or you do not get any of them.
I think just as a matter of principle that this is probably a better way to proceed. This is not taking a lot of House time and certainly gives everyone a chance to look specifically at one piece of legislation by itself.


Ralph Ferguson: Mr. Speaker, I notice clause 3 refers to section 2 of the Agricultural Products Marketing Act. I wonder in view of the wording at the start of clause 3 if the minister envisions other orders and regulations that may be required by the people in the province of Quebec other than the imposition and collection of the levies themselves?


Charles James Mayer: Mr. Chairman, I am informed that if there are any we have not been notified and we are not aware of them. As far as we know, this is it.


Steve Eugene Paproski: Shall clause 3 carry?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.
Clause 3 agreed to.
October 8, 1991


Steve Eugene Paproski: Shall the title carry?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Title agreed to.
Bill reported, agreed to, read the third time and passed.
Albert Glen Cooper: On a point of order. Mr. Speaker, I believe you will find there is unanimous consent to amend the order that will now come before the House to send this bill to a legislative committee and that the unanimous consent would rather be to deal with it in Committee of the Whole immediately following second reading stage today.


Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, that is agreeable to our side.


Charles James Mayer: In view of the urgency of this measure, I would ask that it be referred not to the standing committee but to Committee of the Whole.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Is that agreed?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

Charles James Mayer: that Bill C-23, an act to amend the Canadian Wheat Board Act, be read the second time and, by unanimous consent, referred to a Committee of the Whole.
He said: Mr. Speaker, again this is a rather straightforward bill. It is a technical bill. I do not intend to speak long on the bill, just perhaps a few introductory remarks and then some specifics on the bill.
As most people in the country will know, the Canadian Wheat Board is a Crown corporation that is over 50 years old. It is a well-run Crown corporation. It operates very independently of government and operates with a head office in Winnipeg with five commissioners that are appointed by the federal government but once ap-
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pointed, operate very independently from government.
Over the years the commissioners have been responsible for the marketing of, first of all, wheat, then barley, then oats and latterly, just wheat and barley. They are the sole marketer of wheat and barley now in the international market, so that anything a barley or wheat producer in the designated area, which is basically western Canada, produces and wants to sell for export has to go through the Canadian Wheat Board.
Additionally, producers in the Wheat Board designated area that wish to sell for domestic human consumption also have to go through the Canadian Wheat Board. So the Canadian Wheat Board plays a very large role in the life of rural western Canada. It has over the years established a very good reputation as a selling agency. It regularly sells to some 60 countries around the world and, as I said, has developed a reputation second to none for being able to execute any contract or agreement it signs with a country or a customer. Their reputation as far as delivering on that agreement is very good. That has served us well over the years in terms of maintaining our market share even though prices have been very depressed.
There were concerns raised in 1989 and 1990 by the Auditor General as to the type of authority that the Canadian Wheat Board had from the Parliament of Canada for credit. As things have changed internationally, the use of the credit has become much more of a factor in international sales. Many countries offer concessional credit. By that I mean credit that is below prevailing rates of interest for long time periods at rates below commercial credit. The Wheat Board is not in the business of operating with concessional credit, but it has been able to make use of credit to increase its sales. As economic conditions have changed in the world, the use of credit has become much more of a factor.
There was a time when less than 10 per cent of the board's operations was based on credit. We are in a situation now where closer to 20 or 25 per cent of the board's operations is based on credit.
Bill C-23 simply provides for proper parliamentary authority with respect to its accounts receivable arising from credit grain sales that are approved by cabinet. This simply means that the Canadian Wheat Board as a Crown agency operates with guarantees from the Government of Canada. It has been doing this since 1972

October 8, 1991
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when the minister of the day sent a letter of comfort to the board, in effect saying to the board that because we, the Government of Canada, have agreed with you, you can continue to sell on credit. We regularly established lines of credit for various countries around the world based on all kinds of things, but mostly the number of tonnes or the number of bushels a country is going to provide for us and our estimate of the need for credit.
Therefore, when we provided this credit the Auditor General was concerned that we did not have the proper parliamentary authority for the government and the Parliament of Canada to grant the credit to the Canadian Wheat Board that it needed to operate properly. Therefore, we are proposing to amend section 19 of the Wheat Board Act to provide proper parliamentary authority for the Wheat Board to use the credit it needs more and more to be able to sell.
Basically, it is a technical amendment. It means that the board will continue to operate in exactly the same way that it has in the past, except that we are responding to concerns raised by the Auditor General to put what he considers a better legal basis for that type of operation to continue.
The second amendment is under section 33 of the Canadian Wheat Board Act. I should explain that one of the main principles under which the Canadian Wheat Board operates is the use of a pooling or an averaging system. So, whether a producer sells at the beginning of a crop year, which is August 1, or he sells at the end, which is July 31, a 12-month period, a producer will receive the same price per bushel and the same price per tonne that he would have if he had sold at any other time during the year.
They do this on the basis of a pooling or an averaging system. When a producer takes a load of grain into an elevator and sells, for instance, on September 15 or October 8, he receives what is called an initial payment for that product. Throughout the crop year the Canadian Wheat Board then goes ahead and sells and takes all the prices it receives for the various products it sells to different countries, and you can understand that the price will vary over a 12-month period. At the end of the 12-month period, it does the arithmetic to arrive at an average price. As long as the average price for the product the producer has sold throughout the 12-month period is more than the initial payment, the producer receives a final payment. The final payments are usually
available three or four months after the closing of the crop year.
Again the Auditor General was concerned that the Canadian Wheat Board did not have the proper legal basis, the proper parliamentary approval to go ahead and make final payments until, as the Auditor General said, payment had been received in full. Under this amendment to section 33, we are providing a legal basis for that to occur. I think everybody would agree that if you are going to provide a loan and it is guaranteed by the Government of Canada that once those moneys are advanced or borrowed by the Canadian Wheat Board, they should then be in a position to go ahead and make final payments even though the repayment of the moneys owing on sales that had been made in a previous crop year have not yet been received.
Just to summarize, we are providing better parliamentary authority for the Canadian Wheat Board to operate in two areas; first, as a result of a guarantee by the Government of Canada, the granting of credit to various countries and customers that the Canadian Wheat Board sells to; second, once that credit is granted, to provide whatis considered a better parliamentary authority for the Canadian Wheat Board to distribute funds to producers once the sale has been concluded.
This does not alter the way the Canadian Wheat Board operates with regard to any of its procedures, whether it is the pooling system or the way they sell or the way they deal with customers. It is simply responding to two concerns that the Auditor General raised in both 1989 and 1990 with regard to two sections of the Canadian Wheat Board Act, namely section 19 and section 33. That is what Bill C-23 does today.


Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have a chance to say a few words on Bill C-23.
The minister suggested that this is just a technical amendment. I guess anything that we do in this House is a technical amendment from the point of view that it is changing a clause or a word or a sentence in a bill, but clearly this matter that is before the House today was important enough that the Auditor General raised it both in his 1989 and 1990 reports. He pointed out that the Government of Canada had not sought parliamentary authority to guarantee $4.2 billion owing to the Canadian Wheat Board. If this is only a technical amendment, it is the largest technical amendment in
October 8, 1991

history when we look at the $4.2 billion owing to the Canadian Wheat Board and not having parliamentary authority.
It is a very important issue and certainly one that the Auditor General has picked up on two occasions. Clearly the necessity of passing this legislation is apparent.
I think most of us in this country are very supportive of the Canadian Wheat Board because it provides a great deal of stability in the way we market our grains in this country, especially in western Canada. There are similar wheat boards, not quite the same but of a similar nature, in Ontario and in some of the other provinces, but the granddaddy of them all, of course, is the Canadian Wheat Board which operates in the four western provinces and brings a great deal of stability to that industry.
Without the Canadian Wheat Board, I think our ability to compete in international grain markets would be sharply diminished. We not only have the expertise of this agency, which is able to move into all kinds of markets that individual producers would not have the opportunity to do, but it provides stability to the marketplace. Without it we would have four or five big grain companies carving up the market and seeing how they could drive down the price.
In this way the Canadian Wheat Board offers producers right across the prairies a stability which they, in my opinion, could never achieve. We only have to look at some of the grains and oilseeds which are not under the Wheat Board authority to see how they are able to carve up the markets to their advantage.
I think that whatever we can do to strengthen and support the Canadian Wheat Board is very important. Even though it is really a farmers' agency for the marketing of their grains, it is under the authority of the Minister of State for Grains and Oilseeds. I was pleased this morning to see him supporting the Canadian Wheat Board because he has not always been seen as a great supporter of it. Clearly when he took oats away from the authority of the Canadian Wheat Board he was seen as very unsupportive of the board, and I don't think farmers have benefited by the removal of oats from the board. It was seen as something to give away to those who are
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opposed to the Canadian Wheat Board after the 1988 general election.
The various grain producing associations or groups in the west who were opposed to it pressed the minister to give them something in return for the support that they gave him in the free trade debate and the general election of 1988. And so oats was removed from the authority of the Board, even though the Canadian Wheat Board Act itself really provides for wheat but barley has historically been under the authority of the board as has been oats.
This is a very important piece of legislation from the point of view that it gives legal authority to the Wheat Board to make sales internationally. We have never faced such a disaster in grain prices in history. Those of us who work in the field of agriculture in the House of Commons complain that regardless of how serious the disaster is, that seldom if ever is it carried on the national news. Certainly it is never carried to any extent in the major daily papers like The Toronto Star. However, the disaster in Canadian grain and oilseeds has been so intense this fall that we have seen a three-day period of full page coverage in The Toronto Star and major stories in other newspapers as well as major coverage on the national news. I guess we are glad to see this coverage from the point of view of agriculture being reported in the daily and national press. We are sorry to see it covered because of the magnitude of the calamity, the disaster facing this industry today.
I spoke earlier about the need for orderly marketing. That is what every agriculture group, certainly the producer groups, are seeking in the international realm today and that is what we hope will ultimately come out of the negotiations at the multilateral trade negotiations in Geneva this fall. If it does not, the disaster which is facing our producers will continue.
We have seen a quantum decline in the production of grain and the viability of the industry in countries like Argentina and Australia, and to some extent Canada faces the same kind of financial disaster because our exports are so large-some 80 per cent of our production goes into export sales-relative to the size of our urban society, and ultimately the resources of the country come from all sectors of society. Clearly the European Community with its 340 million people, the United States with its 250 million people, have more capacity per capita

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to withstand the kind of international trading war that we have faced since 1985. The United States decided in their farm bill in 1985 that it was going to bludgeon the European Economic Community into submission and stop the export subsidies.
Unfortunately it has not succeeded. It has spent billions of dollars. This year the commitment is $900 million. Next year it will be $1.2 billion. God only knows how much the European Community has spent. In any event, that trade war goes on and on and on.
For farmers in Canada this year the initial price is the lowest in 16 years at $95 a tonne for No. 1 red spring wheat. It is less than half of what it was 10 years ago. Of course the cost of production has probably doubled in those 10 years, leaving farmers in the most desperate situation which we have seen in a lifetime.
That is why we see parades of tractors 30 miles long south of Lethbridge in Alberta on our televisions screens. That is why we saw mass rallies of farmers, 3,000 or 4,000 strong, last week at Rosetown, Saskatchewan, to protest the lack of action by the Government of Canada.
We do not know when the government is going to act. Clearly it must act soon. We thought the kind of proposal the government made last spring before the House of Commons would be carried through, that the government would provide a third line of defence. There were three mechanisms inculcated in the safety net system. One was the Gross Revenue Insurance Program which was to provide a guarantee to producers of gross revenue per acre, so that regardless of whether the world price for wheat went down or whether there was a drought and production was low, there would be a sort of gross revenue income mechanism.
Then there was a second provision, the NISA, the Net Income Stabilization Account. It was to allow farmers to put money into a stabilization account which was to be matched by the two senior levels of government to ensure stability over a long period of time based on some
2 per cent of their gross sales and allowing for additional contributions.
For 1991 the third element was the most important. That was the third line of defence, a mechanism to provide an injection of cash when the first two systems failed to function.
If there ever was an occasion when the third line of defence mechanism should have triggered, it was last spring. Producer group after producer group came before the agriculture committee that studied this bill and said: "We agree generally with the GRIP and NISA proposals, the first two lines of defence, but there is a problem. They are for the 1991-92 crop year. Our problem is the 1990-91 crop year, the crop that was grown last year".
Unfortunately 1990 was the year the United States export enhancement program provided the maximum amount of subsidy and drove world prices down well below $100 a tonne.
The exact figures are not known yet, but it is way below the cost of any reasonable production.
At the same that those world prices for grain and oilseed commodities were going through the floor boards, the government was reducing its support program in western Canada by $1 billion.
At the same time in eastern Canada they were reducing their support program by $300 million. Every grain and oilseed group that came before the agriculture committee said: "Look, we agree with those two first lines of defence for stabilization of our grain and oilseed economy. The problem is that the 1990 crop year has been such a disaster. There has been such a pulverizing of farm income that there must be a third line of defence".
This spring we want to see an immediate cash injection of assistance not only to cover the reduction in price of the grain, but to cover the reduction in support programs which the federal government unloaded on Canadian producers.
The government brought in a program called FSAM, Farmer Stabilization and Assistance Measures. Unfortunately, there is a very small amount of cash in that system and none of it has been delivered. It is a

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mechanism to reduce premiums. Big deal. There never were any premiums on programs like the special grains measure. There never were any premiums on programs like drought assistance in 1989.
Those programs provided for crop cover programs but the actual cash is a very small portion. It is a kind of mixed up measure under the Net Income Stabilization Account program. The assistant deputy minister told us in the agriculture committee back in late August that they hope to have some cheques out by Christmas.
Christmas is far too late. We want the assistance now, we want it in cash and it must come.
We are really facing a very difficult time in the whole grain and oilseeds industry. The government has removed oats from the Canadian Wheat Board and the United States is bludgeoning us daily with the Export Enhancement Program. The Minister of Agriculture is quoted as saying he is going to take retaliatory action against the European Community by the end of this year if the subsidy war continues.
It is strange to me that no action has been taken against the United States. Although the Europeans are a major grain producer now, they were not in the 1950s. I still believe that the United States has a more profound influence on what the world price of grain will be.
I would hope that since the government has entered into a free trade agreement that it will take the same retaliatory action against the United States as it is taking against the EEC.
Clearly the biggest player on the block is the United States. The European Community is important but the same action should be taken against both governments.
The Canadian Wheat Board is playing an important part in distributing income fairly among the producers so that whenever a producer markets his grain, whether it is in the fall or the spring, if it is of similar quality and category it will receive the same benefit.
This legislation which is before us today will legitimize the credits which the federal government has provided in the past for those sales abroad which amount to billions and billions of dollars. We hope that the price of grain will soon rise so it will be even more billions of dollars and those producers will have an adequate return for their investment, their labour and their expertise.
The second part of course is that it provides for the funds to be paid off and the credit to be provided before the pool account can be closed and those payments of both principal and interest are made.
We support the bill. It is of a technical nature. It is one that is very important because obviously we seek markets around the world in eastern Europe, Poland and other areas, especially the Soviet republics. This legal authority for sales of grain will be important in the years ahead. It will provide an adequate and proper legal authority from Parliament to give credit to the Canadian Wheat Board for the excellent job it does of marketing our grain abroad.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Mr. Chairman, I rise to support the amendment that is being proposed to the Canadian Wheat Board today which has the effect of correcting an anomaly that has existed. It puts into words and into law by authority of this House of Commons the authority of the Canadian Wheat board to make sales on credit, the contingent liability of which rests with the Government of Canada. In fact it does not change anything in terms of the operations of the Wheat Board. Since 1972 when the then minister Otto Lang sent a letter to the board authorizing them to make credit sales, it has done so. It has not shown those credit sales in any way as a liability to producer accounts. It has always assumed that the payments were made on time even when they were not because the Government of Canada, in the eyes of the Wheat Board and in the eyes of the farmers, had already committed itself to being liable for any shortfall or any inability of a borrowing country to make payments on time.
From the point of view of the Wheat Board the payments to the producers were made annually as if the sale had been completed and as if the account for the loan was up to date.
Not only did they consider that the loans were up to date but they also had to consider, for purposes of accounting, the surpluses that would accrue annually to the farmers which are paid out as a final payment.
They considered that interest due on the loans was also up to date and received and the Government of Canada made certain that the cash flow persisted and existed to make the Wheat Board accounts good so that

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those final payment cheques would in fact be good cheques.
The only thing wrong with this process that has been going on almost 20 years according to the Auditor General is that the authority of the House is never asked for. Today with the amendments the government is putting before the House it is asking for the approval of the House for the Governor in Council, that is the cabinet, to in fact provide the loan guarantees that have been a fact of life in the conduct of international grain trade since 1972.
There are some questions of course that this raises. In 1972 there were no qualms anywhere about extending credit to purchasing countries. The world economy seemed to be going into an upward spin which is now sometimes described by some economists as an inflation-aiy cycle. At any rate, in 1972 going into debt was not considered a problem by any of the borrowing countries which needed the food in any case and had very little choice except to feed their people.
That contingent liability has accumulated to the point where in the last Auditor General's report he pointed out that the government still had not received parliamentary approval for a guarantee of $4.2 billion which is owed to the Canadian Wheat Board to finance troubled foreign countries.
I was told by officials out in the hall today that that contingent liability accumulation is now in the neighbourhood of $4.6 billion. That is not necessarily in the form of bad accounts, it is simply in the form of loans that have been extended, and some of them are being kept up to date and some of them are not.
It raises some problem for all of us as parliamentarians because it is this body here that authorizes the expenditures of money and when we have a contingent liability, as we have in this case, Parliament does not, in my view, seem to have a very good way of handling this kind of authorization. All we can do on an annual basis is see a number in the budget which might be applied for possible bad loans or possible default and approve that on an annual basis.
We have no way that I am aware of that easily tells us as parliamentarians how much contingent liability we are backing as a country at the end of any one year. With a great deal of diligent research one might find it going
through all of the agencies and departments and various commitments to foreign debt and foreign loans that the Government of Canada has made, but we really do not have an accumulative total that tells us as parliamentarians just where we are going.
I know that in good times none of us as private citizens or as people acting as representatives of private citizens really spent too much time worrying about the notes that we have co-signed or the contingent liabilities that we have taken on. But as the debt situation in the world and the apparent recession fills more and more countries, it is something that we would probably have to be aware of. That is one of the things that this particular legislation brings to mind in that we know and we realize in this House that it is absolutely vital that the Government of Canada stand behind the export trade credits that organizations like the Canadian Wheat Board incur. There are a number of other loans that we make through other agencies and through other departments which are vital to the continuance of the Canadian economy and to the ability of importing countries to buy our products. It has both commercial justification and human rights justification.
A lot of the countries that buy Canadian food, for instance, have to do it on the basis of long-term credit. They are not paying for the food when it is consumed. They are committing themselves to a long-term debt to pay for the food that has been consumed in the year that it was imported. There is really no choice for those countries except to import food other than to watch their population starve.
As I say, it has basic human rights. Questions have to be answered with this question of contingent liability and loans. We also as parliamentarians are responsible for the money that taxpayers expend and those taxpayers expect us as their representatives to have a handle on how much of these commitments we have been making and to have a handle on how we expect to handle the situation if foreign governments and foreign customers are unable to make the payments. The whole system of these loans and the trade that is incurred by credit sales makes some assumptions about the viability of the international monetary system, the kinds of guarantees that each country provides to each other to make sure that their currency is still sound and that their credit is still good.
October 8, 1991

As I said earlier in my remarks, this whole system is becoming a little more fragile as the recession sinks in, as countries whose economies appear to be going through a vast disruption, countries such as those in central and eastern Europe, but also countries in Africa that have been going through drought, famine and civil war and the apparent collapse of their social, economic and political structure. When all is said and done, these countries do need our food.
It is in the best interests of the country for this Parliament to grant the authority that we all thought was in place over the last 19 years to back the loans and guarantee the loans that the Canadian Wheat Board makes to finalize sales to countries which need food and our products but do not have the immediate cash, and that this continue.
The farmers of this country recognize that this is of assistance to their efforts to produce food for hungry people and to facilitate the movement of that food from their farms to the mouths of those hungry people. I believe it will generally be applauded. As I have said, as parliamentarians we also have to find a better way of handling the whole question of contingent liability because we do have concerns and responsibilities to our taxpayers for not only the accumulated debt of the country which seems to be fairly clear cut-we can count that, it is now over $400 billion-but we have no immediate way, without a great deal of research, to find the accumulated contingent liabilities of all the departments and all the commitments we have made through agencies on behalf of ourselves as the Government of Canada.
I simply wanted to point that out as a question that has to be answered for backbenchers and ministers as well if this Parliament is going to continue with its function of approving all of the expenditures and all the commitments the executive branch makes on our behalf.
I applaud the government for bringing this legislation to the House and requesting approval to grant cabinet the authority to make these loans, which it has been making over the last 19 years.
I am pleased that with the passage of this legislation we will have followed the proper procedure of going to Parliament before the expenditure of money takes place.
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Charles James Mayer: Mr. Speaker, with regard to the two points the hon. member was making at the end, if he wants to look at page 48 of the last annual report of the Canadian Wheat Board, he will see that there is a number shown there about one third of the way down the page that shows $4,625 billion. It says: "See note 2." That in effect is a listing of the contingent liability of the Canadian Wheat Board.
In the case of this Crown corporation it does not take a lot of work to dig this out because it regularly publishes it. He will also note that the year previous it was $3.7 billion. So, it is shown very clearly as a continent liability. Nobody is trying to disguise anything. It is there for full public disclosure.
Second just to make the point, and I will just speak for the board, when the Canadian Wheat Board makes a grain sale to a country and the country signs the guarantee, it is considered sovereign debt and ultimately collectable or repayable. That is the position that we take as a government and that is consistent, as I understand it, with accounting procedures. Now, there have been cases in the past where there has been rescheduling through an agreement, the Paris Club is an example, where some of this debt has been set aside. That is by general agreement of all the countries involved and one has to deal with whatever is going to be rescheduled or set aside at that time.
Just to make two points: The contingent liability for the Canadian Wheat Board is shown and published in every annual report. The loans that the board makes are to other sovereign countries and are therefore ultimately repayable. So if anything changes, then that has to be reflected in the way the Government of Canada keeps its books.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: I do not think anything I said contravened the information that the minister re-entered on the table. The point that I had been very much aware of, and in fact I used some of the figures from the Wheat Board's annual report, was that it provides accurate figures on the contingent liability of the Government of Canada, as do most of the other agencies. It is just that when we come to passing budgets in this House, private members of Parliament are generally not confronted through the budget documents with the accumulated contingent liabilities from all of the various agencies and

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departments that have accrued over the intervening years. We do have a final figure for the national debt, we do have final figures for a whole host of things, but we generally don't get a list of the accumulated contingent liabilities from all of the various nations with which we deal. I reiterate from my speech, this has generally not been of any concern to anyone because all of the countries of the world had, until very recently, been considered not to be having any great difficulty as sovereign nations meeting their debts and obligations.
That is changing, however, with the onset of this last recession or depression and will probably require some consideration from this House, and from the Ministry of Finance, as to how to present those contingent liabilities for the approval of this Chamber in the coming years. The situation is changing and not all of those loans and liabilities are going to be repaid on time. We are still presuming that all of those sovereign nations will still exist and that the debt will be recognized and honoured, but that changes over time as well.
We may in fact find ourselves having to write off some of them, although I think that the debts which have accrued through the sale of Wheat Board grains, wheat, oats and barley until recently-now it is just wheat and barley-have been made with due appreciation of the ability of the debtor to repay the debt.


Mr. Joseph Volpe (Eglinton-Lawrence):: Mr. Speaker, as you know, Eglinton-Lawrence is not in the farming community but I felt I had to intervene in this debate. I have been impressed by the fact that the debate has been so gentlemanly, with all due deference to the female members in this House, that there has been a tone of courtesy and deference from one side to the other, and you know, Mr. Speaker, I really cannot understand it.
We are talking about a bill that has enormous consequence for one of the major resource industries of this country, for one of the major social components of the fabric of this nation, a fabric that is being tom apart by international affairs, international conditions, and by our own domestic problems. And everybody is very polite. The minister says we are only dealing with a technical change. The tone is muted. Attention is vivid. We have members on both sides talking about relativity of some problems from one sector to another, as if this were an academic exercise.
About the only thing that I heard that was of significance is what my hon. colleague who just finished speaking said about members of Parliament in this House being responsible for expenditures from this Parliament and this government.
He is right because we are responsible for every cent that we spend. There is not one cent that is better spent than those that we spend on our own citizens, whether we do it through ensuring credit sales or whether we do it in outright relief.
At this moment in Canada in the agricultural community, farmers require assistance by this government. We have the highest quality of wheat and grains in the world. Bar none, bar none. We are very efficient in the way that we produce those products and yet we have no sales.
We have an anomaly. We have farmers with bins full and cupboards bare and we are talking about a technical amendment to the bill. We should be talking about what is happening world wide in the agricultural community. In Saskatchewan, 4,000 farmers felt that their livelihood was in such jeopardy that they had to abandon all that they normally do at this time of year and protest their conditions. We in this House and those who are in a position to make a decision should make one that is favourable to the fabric of Canada and the livelihood of the farming community. We should stand up and take notice.
We are polite. Our tone is muted. We are talking about jobs. We are talking about livelihood and a way of life. We are talking about a farming community that is slowly but surely being eroded before our very eyes. We are talking about families who can no longer plan for a livelihood within a family with respect to a profession that was both noble and useful.
I was at the International Ploughing Contest a couple of weeks ago. There was a very important button that I saw with a slogan. It said: "No support, no farmers, no food." We are talking here as if this is again an academic exercise. When we talk about food shortage world wide, who in heaven's name is going to produce while we sit back and watch our farmers disintegrate before our veiy eyes as their industry collapses because "You know, we were going to have a discussion on technical purposes of this bill."
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I do not mean to diminish the interest of the House or the interest of the government, or the minister. Most of our members here are quite aware of what is going on in the agricultural community.
I am speaking from the view of an Ontario member, one from an urban environment such as the city of Toronto. It is almost criminal that we can point to retail prices for food products that have escalated dramatically upward over the course of the last 10 years while farm gate prices have remained at the same level that they were at the beginning of the last decade.
We can talk very politely about bushels of wheat being at the same price in absolute nominal dollars as they were a decade ago. It is just insane. It is just insane. We expect our farmers to maintain not only their way of life but an annual production, improve their quality, make themselves more efficient and make Canada much more aggressive in world sales of a much needed product.
We do not do that in the industrial sector. One of my colleagues from Broadview-Greenwood in Toronto was the first to tell us in this House that one of the things that happens in the industrial sector is bang, bottom line, out we go, because we are not making the dollar.
We are essentially asking people in the farming community and in the agricultural community to subsidize a very luxurious way of life for us. We are paying top dollar at the retail level for some food products while the farmer at the farm gate is getting what he was getting 10 years ago.
If I take a look at what has just happened in my own province of Ontario, farm income projections for this year indicate that the net farm income for Ontario will have declined by 27 per cent in the last four years. Twenty-seven per cent. Imagine maintaining an industrial enterprise with those kinds of figures, knowing that at the same time during the same period interest costs and operating costs have increased by 15 per cent.
On the one hand we have interest expenses increasing by 15 per cent over four years and net income decreasing by 27 per cent. It is no wonder that the farming community is in chaos, total chaos. We have high quality wheat, international prices that are low, and no sales or relatively little. We are talking about one major deficiency. One of the problems that my colleague from Algoma has pointed out is that we have not really
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addressed the implications of the free trade agreement and its impact on the agricultural industry. We have noted that there is a subsidy war, a trade war, between the United States and Europe and who is getting caught in the crossfire? Our agricultural community in Canada and most of all those of us who are consumers.
We have not looked at the implications of the free trade agreement when it comes to subsidies. We are supposed to eliminate tariffs on profits. I thought and the general impression I dare say among most members in this House is that subsidies that would be deemed unfair would not be applied. Yet we have the United States artificially maintaining a low price for many of our agricultural products, preventing our farmers from being able to sell a product on the world stage that will bring great benefit to Canada.
In fact again, for Ontario and Ontario alone, with total farm cash receipts of over $5.6 billion annually, we are not talking about an insignificant industry. In fact it is so important that agriculture in Ontario alone generates a further $17 billion a year for the Ontario economy. Seventeen billion dollars. That is similar to the total amount of money that is spent in the province of Ontario for health benefits.
Can you imagine what would happen if that kind of industry were allowed to go in the direction where it appears to be going, thanks to our lethargy. For those of us who are concerned about jobs and employment, I hasten to remind everybody that the agricultural business and associated business provide 12 per cent of all jobs available in Ontario.
Can we sit idly by and allow that pool of job creation opportunities to lapse and to collapse? We sit here with courtesy, with appropriate demeanour. I tell you, Mr. Speaker, I am shocked. I am shocked that we have not seen Canadians-maybe this is characteristic of the way that we deal with things as Canadians- out here at the front of the Commons ensuring that we pass legislation. My hon. colleague who spoke before me suggests we account for kinds of expenditures that go for the benefit of our citizens. If we do not spend our money for the benefit of our citizens and if we do not spend our money to maintain a lifestyle and a quality of life that we hold dear and we say characterizes Canada and all of its inhabitants, for what purpose are we in this place?

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We are talking essentially about seeing an integral part of Canadian society being transformed completely.
We are seeing farms abandoned on a daily basis. We are seeing families abandoning a livelihood that has been there for generations and moving to cities. At the same time, we are seeing cities like those of Toronto, specifically Toronto, experiencing an enormous increase in unemployment. There has been a 73 per cent increase in welfare costs over last year and a 50 per cent increase in unemployment since the beginning of this year. We are seeing the collapse of an industrial base that would be required to absorb this enormous migration from rural Canada to urban centres.
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that the minister wants to put forward a bill that would allow us to go into the traditional form of sales with the appropriate caution. We have to safeguard, of course, the hard-earned dollars of all Canadians.
I wish that we would be a little more energetic when it comes to selling the product that is second to none in the world and when we come to guaranteeing a livelihood for Canadians who have sweated by dint of their brows to ensure that we are vigorous and productive world-wide.
I do not really want to say much more. What is happening is that we are getting very high retail prices for a product that is very, very good and we are recognized as being a very efficient producer, but we are providing our producers with very little. We seem to be taking a secondary position to some of the more aggressive nations in the world when it comes to selling our products.
Mr. Speaker, I know you want me to finish but if you would give me a moment, I just want to refer to some statistics of destinations of Canadian agricultural exports coming from Canada's trade in agricultural products in 1986, 1987 and 1988. It shows, for example, that we have had a precipitous decline in our agricultural products everywhere around the world, most specifically in the United States. We can see why with the artificiality of the low cost of their products.
We see an enormous decline in exports to developing countries. The only place where we seem to be holding our own is Japan. To the EEC, thanks again to this trade
subsidy war that we are engaged in with the United States, we are going downhill.
What is required, Mr. Speaker, is not just simply minor amendments and technical bills. What is required is an aggressive action by this government, its agencies and the Canadian Wheat Board to sell the products that our producers have so diligently and so properly put together and provided for the marketplace and for consumers world wide.
We owe it, Mr. Speaker, not only to ourselves and the agricultural community in Canada but to the world market and all consumers world-wide to be aggressive and dynamic in selling a product that is so purely Canadian.


Charles James Mayer: Mr. Speaker, we certainly appreciate the intervention of the member opposite, especially somebody coming from an urban riding. I agree with him and I think there is a lot of concern out there over the agricultural situation. I would like to just give him a few numbers to help put the issue into perspective.
First of all, the hon. member talks about prices that were as bad as they were 10 years ago. It is even worse than that. Prices are basically the same in some commodities as they were 30 years ago. In fact, if you want to do a direct comparison, the price of wheat now is essentially what it was in 1971, which is 20 years ago. The point he makes is well taken and that is to try and think of a farmer making ends meet or a business operating with today's expenses on the income that he had 20 years ago.
Second, I want to suggest to him that the situation is the same right across the country, whether it is in Ontario, the prairies, the maritimes or Quebec. If it is the grain and oilseeds side of things, prices are very, very bad. There is no question about that.
Third, you talk about the free trade agreement, Mr. Speaker. Members in the House should know that as a result of the free trade agreement, the U.S. is now becoming more and more a customer of Canadian products. The U.S., believe it or not, is the second most non-subsidized market that Canada has. We sold over one million tonnes of all grain and oilseeds to the U.S. in the last crop year. When you think about it, the U.S. is the largest exporter of grain and oilseed products in the

world and yet it is about our fourth or fifth largest customer. So the free trade agreement has provided a more secure access to the U.S. market than we have ever had before. A result of that is that the Ontario Wheat Producers Marketing Board, the Canadian Wheat Board, other agencies and individuals who sell into the U.S. market have done so in increasing amounts. So the free trade agreement has actually helped us in terms of quantity going into the U.S. Also as I said, after Japan it is the second highest market in the world.
When the member is talking about the free trade agreement, he should take some of those things into consideration.
The last thing I wanted to just point out is that he talked about our markets going down. In fact, that is not the case. Canada has maintained its share of markets but we have done so at horrendous costs as far as price is concerned. So we continue to sell.
The reason we do not sell as much to the European Community as we did previously is that it has what is called variable import levies in place that very much keep the Canadian product out of their market. We can be as aggressive as we want but unfortunately there are no trade rules that apply to agriculture products the same as there are for other products. That very much keeps us out of that market.
We are being very aggressive. In fact Canada and the Prime Minister have taken the lead in putting these issues on the table internationally to try to get a resolution to them.
We are not sitting idly by, by any means. The record is there to indicate otherwise.
I want to conclude by agreeing that this is a very serious situation. I intend to say some things at third reading that point out the problem that we have and how absolutely criminal it is in many ways that when the world needs food and we can produce it, prices go down and we see more people going to bed hungry.


Giuseppe (Joseph) Volpe: I welcome the intervention of the minister who took great pains to agree with some of the statements that I made. I acknowledge that and I thank him very much for understanding that we do have a serious problem. The real value of income coming back into the agricultural community is akin to that which it was 20 years ago, or in some instances 40 and 50 years ago. That
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already shows that we have a problem of disastrous proportions.
I have to take some exception to the attempt to correlate a positive component of sales with the free trade agreement. The minister has given us an indication that we have maintained our market share but that does not indicate for the producer in Ontario and Saskatchewan, Alberta and elsewhere that we have actually continued to sell very productively. We have already talked about the value of the sales that we have made in real terms and that value, to all intents and purposes, has gone down. You can maintain a market share all you want if you are not getting the appropriate income from it.
With respect to the United States being a major consumer of our products, that is one of the misfortunes of our marketing strategies. It might be true and it is true that the EEC has some very prohibitive legislation for our products but the EEC is not the only market in the world, nor is the United States.
We have just learned that one of our major flour mills, Ogilvie, is actually importing U.S. wheat for its milling operations. The situation is not as the minister would have us believe that we have secure access to a market in the United States. One of the things that the United States is doing is buying our product knowing that the prices are so low, handling the sales and turning right around and selling the product on the international market.
I can see the minister saying: "Well I cannot believe that that is true." Well, it is true. All he has to do is go down to the brokerage houses in Toronto and he will see what is happening.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: I have just a brief comment, Mr. Speaker. I am impressed with the enthusiasm that we are getting from some of the urban members. I wish that more of them would be as interested and supportive in what is happening to their food sources.
I guess because I have been here 11 or 12 years watching with great concern the decline of rural communities that it is not as easy for some of us who live it every day to be as enthusiastic as he was in our presentations. When one is watching the decline of the place where one grew up, and the families one knew, and the problems that your own family is having, it is not easy to become enthusiastic. I appreciate and applaud what he has done

October 8, 1991
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today by putting a fresh approach on the humdrum presentation of the facts, and by an acceptance of dealing with the legislation that we have before us.
What we are hoping to do with the quick passage of these two pieces of legislation here today is to make room on the parliamentary agenda for the government to present legislation that will provide a $1.3 billion pay-out to farmers this year, which is the shortfall that exists in net farm income for the 1991 crop year.
We are very enthusiastically awaiting the announcement by the Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance and the various ministers responsible for agriculture for that to occur.


Giuseppe (Joseph) Volpe: Mr. Speaker, my enthusiasm should not be confused with any kind of eagerness. What it should be interpreted as is the kind of energy that is required I think to drive home the point that this is an issue that affects all Canadians. That is where I come from on this. It is not a situation where I am getting enthusiastic because I see farms collapsing on a day-to-day basis. Nor is it one where we see Canadians suffering virtually everywhere in this country.
In fact, it comes from a desire to ensure that a very important component of our social fabric and a very important dimension for the Canadian economy is not only preserved, but is nurtured, maintained and moved forward for the benefit of all Canadians.


Charles James Mayer: I have just a brief comment, Mr. Speaker. The member made reference to Ogilvie importing wheat from the United States. I believe he is talking about a shipment of some 19,000 tonnes. That sounds like it is too much. I forget the number. It may have been 19,000 tonnes. The information I have is the reason Ogilvie did that is because of what happened with the grain inspectors. Because the grain handlers refused to cross the picket line, Canadian supplies were not available.
The member should be a little bit careful when he talks about linking that kind of a purchase which is, as I understand it, a one-time shot simply because Canadian supplies were not available. If he is criticizing that, then he should have been voting for the legislation that put public servants back to work, including the grain inspectors which, if they had stayed at work, would have not meant that Ogilvie had to go outside the country to buy wheat. He should be a little careful when he uses some of that information.
Second, I agree with the member for Mackenzie. I think this kind of support and enthusiasm, and I say enthusiasm in the best possible use of the word, is very helpful as far as having urban people understanding farm issues. I would be very happy to spend some time with the member. I invite him to come to committee and we can air some of these things and he can get a better understanding.
Again, I am not saying that his understanding is not useful, but he could understand fully some of the implications of the trade war and some of the things that we are trying to do to support farmers. I think this kind of support in the House from urban members is very welcome.


Giuseppe (Joseph) Volpe: Mr. Speaker, I just could not let the minister's comment go unchallenged. The fact of the matter is that Ogilvie with its one shipload, which is a substantial amount of wheat that will have been imported if we accept the minister's calculation, does not come necessarily from the grain inspectors. One of the problems is that we have had an erosion of a transportation system in this country, thanks in large measure to his government's policies over the course of the last seven years that are not permitting us to move grain as efficiently as we need to move it in order to get it to the markets where it is required. That has been the problem. It has not been the legislation that was before the House last week.


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


Some hon. members:: Question.


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


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and, by unanimous consent, the House went into committee thereon, Mr. DeBlois in the chair.
October 8, 1991
Steve Eugene Paproski: Order. The House is constituted as a committee of the whole to consider Bill C-23, an Act to amend the Canadian Wheat Board Act.
Shall clause 1 carry?
On Clause 1-Guarantee [English]


Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Chairman, I have a couple of questions to put to the Minister of State for Grains and Oilseeds.
In the Auditor General's report he suggests that there is some $4.2 billion which is not properly authorized by Parliament. I wonder if the minister could say who the five top largest debtors are, or who owes that money to the Wheat Board. What countries are involved in that?
In the Auditor General's report of 1990, reporting on the fiscal year 1989, the Auditor General suggests that some $3.4 billion of this money is from financially troubled countries. I am not sure if that is a great exclusive club because it seems to me a lot of countries which are supposedly rich countries are also financially troubled countries, including our own. But I am wondering just which countries are in debt to the Canadian Wheat Board.
The Auditor General's report goes on to suggest that the value of the board's troubled receivables is impaired by at least $2.1 billion, and this impairment continues to grow at the rate of $300 million a year.
I am assuming that that word "impairment" might better mean that they are not able to repay at all, or are incapable of repaying, since it is suggesting that some $300 million a year is added to the account or the debt. I wonder if the minister could tell us just which countries owe the $2.1 billion that appears not to be able to be repaid, and whether the government is planning to write that off, or whether it just continues to build up at the rate of $300 million. In fact, it was suggested by the hon. member for Mackenzie that the $4.2 billion that was in the Auditor General's report for 1990 had grown to $4.6 billion.
What we are trying to do is to give legal authority for new shipments of grain that are bought on credit by
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countries and by individuals around the world. We are trying to give legal authority to the existing debt. I wonder if the minister could tell us about those details.


Charles James Mayer: Mr. Chairman, with regard to the member's first question of who owes the Canadian Wheat Board money as a result of credit sales, I am sure the member will know that this is a very competitive market and what goes on as far as transactions is very sensitive and, therefore, is commercially confidential. We make every effort to comply with customer's concerns, even over the price that a sale has taken place for, for an appropriate period of time.
For me to stand in my place and signal to everybody, because this is full public record, who is owing money to the Canadian Wheat Board would not at all be appropriate and I do not think would be very useful. In fact, it would be very destructive to the board in its sales efforts.
With regard to the rescheduling and what the Auditor General says there, I made the point with the member for Mackenzie previously, that again we consider all of the debts as being sovereign because the Canadian Wheat Board signs agreements backed by central banks and governments of countries that we do business with. Therefore, from our point of view, if it is a sovereign debt it is ultimately repayable.
On the occasion when there is rescheduling that takes place, and there is a standstill, and we give countries breathing space, and a judgment call is made, then that is handled differently. That is put on the books in a different way. But until some of that rescheduling takes place, then the amount outstanding, because it is sovereign with other countries, is considered fully collectable.
The last point the member asked about is the rescheduling. If one looks at page 43 of the annual report, again it is not appropriate at all for anybody to talk about which countries are rescheduling, but there is a number there toward the right hand side of the page at the bottom. As of July 31, 1990, total rescheduling amounted to $3.3 billion, including $1.25 billion which is the Canadian equivalent of $1.8 billion receivable in United States funds.

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In terms of countries, again it is a very difficult thing to do because we in no way want to impair the Canadian Wheat Board's ability to sell based on information that would not be useful in a commercial relationship. The numbers are there in terms of the total amount. If the member wants to turn to page 48, again as I pointed out to the member for Mackenzie, there is a listing which could be considered contingent liabilities. It is up from $3.7 billion in the previous crop year to $4.6 billion as of the crop year ended a year ago. The annual report for the just concluded crop year is in preparation. It will not likely be available for, I would think, another month to six weeks.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Mr. Chairman, the minister has the annual report open. Perhaps he could put on the record the amount of federal monies that went to the Wheat Board account by way of interest that was not paid by the defaulting countries that was paid into the account so that the farmers and the board were not responsible for those losses.


Charles James Mayer: I am wrong when I say that the report will be available. It is not available until some time, I believe, in February or March. I just wanted to correct that.
Again, it is not appropriate. If we were to put that kind of information out it would be very simple to calculate from the interest back to what the principle would be. If the member wants to look at page 43, there is a list of the various countries the board does provide credit to.
Just so that we use the right words, I am not so sure that "default" is the right word. As I said, because the debts that are incurred, or the loans that are made, are to sovereign countries and they are considered, therefore, as part of a country's sovereign commitment, we consider them collectable until they are rescheduled. So, I am not so sure that the member should use the word "default."


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: For clarification then, were there any funds that went from the Government of Canada to the Canadian Wheat Board account in lieu of either interest missed or debts not paid in any of the past years and if so, what would that amount be?
I am not asking for commercial information. I am simply asking something that taxpayers and members of Parliament should be aware of. Flow many tax dollars
did go to the Canadian Wheat Board, if any, to pay for either interest or loans that had not been kept up to date so that the farmers or the Wheat Board did not have to carry that liability?


Charles James Mayer: Let me try to explain it this way if I can. It is simply that when you think about transferring money from the Government of Canada to the Wheat Board to the farmers, that is not really what we are talking about here.
When the board makes a sale, if in fact the people who they are selling to do not pay fully, it goes to the market and borrows money.
We put a bill through the House, the hon. member will remember, about three or four years ago to give the board better opportunity to operate on the market. It can now issue its own paper in Canada and the United States. It is expanded to credit unions, trust companies and the whole thing. The member will be aware of that.
The board then decides how it is going to raise the money. It does so on a sovereign guarantee from the Government of Canada. If in fact that country or that individual cannot repay, the board has to keep borrowing. As the interest piles up or increases, the government guarantee just increases with that.
To suggest that the Government of Canada pays money into an account as a result of interest accruing on debts that have not been satisfied is not the right way to think about it.
If the member is talking about money on a deficit in the pool account for which the board has not been paid, then there is provision in the act that the government pays interest. I think the member will know what I am referring to there.
There have been cases when there has been a deficit in the pool account. Because the board has not received the full amount of money from its purchaser, the government pays interest from the end of the crop year for an appropriate period of time to satisfy that requirement so that the producers are not out.
Again, I do not think it is right to say that the Government of Canada actually puts money into a Canadian Wheat Board account to satisfy interest as a result of a customer not paying its loan when they anticipated they would be able to.
October 8, 1991


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Perhaps the minister or his officials could explain the impact of the amendment to section 33 of the act. It refers on the second page to the principal so guaranteed and any interest that accrues during that pool period with respect to sales of wheat on credit, et cetera.
The guarantee of the interest was part of the act before this change. That was why I was curious as to whether any payments had in fact been made under that particular portion of the act that has been in existence for the last two or three years, or whether this is simply something anticipating a situation.
From what the minister has been telling us, apparently there has been no transfer of funds to pay interest foregone or interest that could not be paid and that is really all I need to know if that is in fact what he was telling us.
There has not been any requirement for money to move from the Government of Canada to the Wheat Board under this particular section of the act.


Charles James Mayer: Mr. Chairman, that is precisely my understanding of it.
What simply happens is that the line of credit or the credit limit simply gets raised to take into account the amount of interest that has to be paid by somebody to keep that loan outstanding.


Ralph Ferguson: Mr. Chairman, I rise to make some comments on this bill today. I must say that I am very much in support of the amendments to the Canadian Wheat Board Act that would allow the government to authorize the Minister of Finance to make these payments.
As I indicated earlier this day, every piece of legislation has to be amended from time to time. In that context, I think there has been an oversight here and I want to propose a very simple technical amendment that requires the addition of two words to correct a huge error that was made a little over a year and a half ago.
I am sure in the minister's own mind he realizes the blunder that was made in early 1989 when oats were removed from under the jurisdiction of the Canadian Wheat Board. We all know that the price of oats plummeted shortly after the decision was made and the price never recovered.
Of course the positive impact I believe for the minister himself, because I am aware of the criticism levelled at him when this was removed from under the jurisdiction of the Wheat Board, is that this amendment would ensure that such a mistake would never happen again. If such a move had to be passed by this House, we in the Liberal Party would never allow it to happen.
So this removes the government discretion and makes this inclusion mandatory that these grains are included in the act itself. Therefore, I move:
That Bill C-23 be amended by adding thereto the following clause: "3.18(2) of this act is repealed and the following substituted therefor: 3.18(2) Except as directed by the Governor in Council, the Board shall not buy grain other than wheat, oats and barley."
I move this amendment, Mr. Chairman, seconded by the hon. member for Algoma.


Steve Eugene Paproski: The Chair takes under advisement the amendment moved by the hon. member for Lambton-Middlesex.
It being one o'clock, shall I rise, report progress and request leave to consider the bill again later this day?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.
Progress reported.

It being one o'clock p.m., I now leave the Chair until two o'clock p.m.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 2 p.m.

Mr. Rey Pagtakhan (Winnipeg North):: Mr. Speaker, 20 years ago today multiculturalism became official Canadian policy. It came alive here in the House of Commons. Then Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau christened it with these words:
"A policy of multiculturalism commends itself to the government as the most suitable means of assuring the cultural freedom of Canadians-National unity, if it is to mean anything in the deeply personal sense, must be

October 8, 1991
founded on confidence in one's own individual identity; out of this can grow respect for that of others and a willingness to share-"
Indeed, multiculturalism as a policy affirms that "freedom to be ourselves cannot be left to chance."
Canada is home to all who have chosen to live here. The people of many cultures have built this country. The nation is living, breathing and always changing.
It was in Canada's interests that this House proclaimed multiculturalism as an instrument of national unity 20 years ago today. It is in Canada's interests that today this House reaffirm its commitment to multiculturalism. National unity may depend upon it.


DEMOCRACY IN HAITI
Ms. Nicole Roy-Arcelin (Ahuntsic):: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Haitian community, I wish to thank and congratulate our Prime Minister for his firmness in defending rights and democracy in Haiti.
The thanks of the Haitian community also go to the Secretary of State for External Affairs for his courage and determination and to the Minister for External Relations for her firm stand.
Many organizations, associations and friends of the Haitian community in Quebec and Canada have assured me that they would never forget this remarkable stand our government took to restore democracy in Haiti, despite some difficulties.


AIDS AWARENESS WEEK
Mr. Ross Harvey (Edmonton East):: Mr. Speaker, the Canadian AIDS Society has declared this to be AIDS Awareness Week. The theme across Canada is AIDS: Our Challenge for Life.
If the government's original response to this challenge, the National AIDS Strategy, announced in June 1990 is to succeed, there must be more funding and support. The organizations in Canada working to control and reverse the AIDS epidemic are having to deal with increasing numbers of cases without a corresponding increase in funding. Even the current limited and increasingly inadequate federal commitment will end on March 31, 1993.
Mr. Speaker, AIDS is not the disease of the 1980s. It is still with us in the 1990s and the crisis is far from over. We must increase resources and extend our commitment to fight this terrible disease, as the Ontario government announced yesterday it will do.
I am certain the persons living with AIDS and their loved ones in this country and those who have died already as a result of this disease are looking to us for concrete evidence of our understanding that AIDS does indeed pose our challenge for life.


BLUE BOX PROGRAM
Mr. Bob Horner (Mississauga West):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to a company that continues to show leadership in waste control.
Friday, October 4, marked the 10th anniversary of Laidlaw Waste Systems blue box program. Laidlaw currently recycles 40,000 tonnes of household and commercial recyclables per year. The anniversary was celebrated with the opening of a 10,000 square foot expansion to Laidlaw's Mississauga facility, establishing it as the most innovative recycling plant in North America.
When the Laidlaw blue box program started 10 years ago in Kitchener, the company collected three products for recycling; newspaper, glass and cans. Building on the success of the original program, Laidlaw now recycles 12 products through its Mississauga facility including corrugated cardboard, glossy magazines, household plastics, textiles, and white goods such as fridges, stoves and their associated CFC gases.
I want to congratulate this private sector firm for working hand in hand with governments in accepting the responsibility of preserving our environment and at the same time preventing the wasteful use of our natural resources.


COMPANY OF YOUNG CANADIANS
Mr. Jack Iyerak Anawak (Nunatsiaq):: Mr. Speaker, this past weekend members of the Company of Young Canadians held their 25th reunion. CYC volunteers from across the country convened to discuss those very
October 8, 1991

special creative years and to share insight into current social problems which plague our country.
The CYC was brought into existence through legislation to encourage young people to share their energy with communities across the country which faced grave social and economic challenges. Training sessions in community development and human relations enabled these same young people to contribute greatly to the communities sense that they deserved a say in decisions that affected their lives and that the sound principle of participatory democracy was indeed a principle to be upheld and respected.
These same volunteers voiced sincere concern that today young people do not have in place a similar opportunity to serve their country. They also reaffirmed their ongoing concern and commitment to continuing to contribute to and assist in promoting the principles of community development and concern for their fellow citizen.
I bow to and honour these CYC volunteers who remain as energetic and caring today, 25 years later.

[Translation)


STATEMENTS MADE BY FORMER PRIME MINISTER PIERRE ELLIOTT TRUDEAU
Mr. Vincent Della Noce (Laval Est):: Mr. Speaker, as a member of a minority, I feel I must comment on the statement made by the former Liberal Prime Minister, Mr. Trudeau. A statement of this kind by a man who has an international reputation and enjoys a certain credibility is unworthy, irresponsible and libellous. I would even call it psychological terrorism, an attempt to intimidate those who are seeking a country that is tolerant.
Minorities are full-fledged Quebecers and are treated as such by all Francophone Quebecers. Distinct society or not, minorities have nothing to fear. As far as scare tactics are concerned, Quebecers were exposed to worse during the seventies under the Trudeau government.
It is high time someone told him: "Put your feet up, Grandpa".


TREASURY BOARD
Mrs. Beryl Gaffney (Nepean):: Mr. Speaker, when the treasury board president announced that top level government appointees would receive big fat bonuses at Christmas while all other public servants would get nothing, not even a lump of coal, my phone rang off the hook. And all of this on the coat-tails of the largest back to work order in Canadian history.
For the record, here is what some of my constituents had to say: "You should demand that the treasury board president resign". "I didn't picket before but if they went out again I would be on the line". "I am outraged at the blatant display of political shenanigans". "I am disgusted".
Mr. Speaker, I share these opinions. This is a government run amok. Let us call a spade a spade. The rules of fair play have not been applied here. When will the government realize that if you do not pay Peter you cannot reward Paul. The minister responsible for Treasury Board should resign.


PERSONS CASE
Hon. David MacDonald (Rosedale):: Mr. Speaker, this month marks the 62nd anniversary of the Persons case. In that connection I am privileged to rise today to extend my congratulations to a member of my constituency, Ms. Doris Anderson, who is a recipient of this year's Governor General's Award in Commemoration of the Persons case.
Ms. Anderson has been at the forefront of the women's movement in Canada for more than 30 years and has distinguished herself as a journalist, author and equal rights activist. Perhaps best known as the long-time editor of Chatelaine magazine, she has also served as President of the Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women and President of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women. She has also played a major role in the movement to entrench equality rights for women in the Constitution.

October 8, 1991
Through her work she has made innumerable contributions to the advancement of women in this country and I ask all members of this House to commend her on this important award.


AGRICULTURE
Mrs. Christine Stewart (Northumberland):: Mr. Speaker, across Canada, farmers are facing extreme economic hardship. For a variety of reasons beyond their control, many farm commodity prices are below the costs of production. Many are being forced to sell their farms or go bankrupt.
Canadians must understand the importance of farming to our national well-being. We in Canada, compared to all other nations, pay the second lowest portion of our income on food purchases, yet we complain. The fact is that if we in Canada lose our ability to feed ourselves, we will end up paying whatever the hand that feeds us demands: our cash, our natural resources, our political support.
Farming is also vital to our Canadian economy in terms of trade revenues and its spin-off support to supply, handling and processing industries. Farming supports the rural lifestyle preferred by so many Canadians.
In my riding of Northumberland and across Canada, farmers demand that this government commit to defending and improving the viability of the whole Canadian agricultural industry at the upcoming GATT negotiations. In particular Article XI of GATT must be clarified and strengthened to protect our supply managed producers.


Mr. Rod Murphy (Churchill):: Mr. Speaker, over the weekend the member for Willowdale, who is the Liberal industry critic, was at a conference in Toronto and was a cheerleader for a free trade agreement with Mexico.
The spokesman for the Liberal Party is quoted as saying that this is a marvellous opportunity to amend the free trade agreement. How naive, Mr. Speaker. The Liberal Party should recognize the fact that the present trade deal has cost over 200,000 jobs and that a further trade deal with Mexico is a more massive threat to Canadian workers.
Why are the Liberals waffling? Are they seeking to regain the financial support of the large corporations which are sponsors of the free trade deal? Now is the time to stand against the free trade deal. It is not the time to be tricked and trapped by the Prime Minister and his corporate friends who want a corporate agenda for all of North America.


THE ECONOMY
Mr. Greg Thompson (Carleton-Charlotte):: Mr. Speaker, according to the Minister for International Trade, Mr. Wilson, a proposal to update the Constitution and improve market efficiencies within the country does not go far enough to solve the problems facing the Canadian economy.
A close examination of the Canadian economy would support this position. For example, between 1985 and 1990 unit labour costs in the U.S. declined marginally whereas in Canada they climbed 48 per cent. As well, wages in Canada have increased 27.6 per cent compared to 18.6 per cent in the U.S.
In response to these realities, the Minister for International Trade will embark upon a prosperity and competitiveness campaign. We look forward to the minister's prosperity initiative as we face the realities of a global marketplace. As it is often said, Mr. Speaker, there is no place left to hide.


AGRICULTURE
Mr. Pat Nowlan (Annapolis Valley-Hants):: Mr. Speaker, I attended a meeting of over 500 farmers in my riding in Nova Scotia on Friday concerning the general picture of agriculture. They have an understandable concern about western wheat and/or the wheat war and that our international trade negotiators might forget Article XI of GATT.
I want to take the opportunity, Mr. Speaker, to impress upon the government, especially the Minister for International Trade and the Minister of Agriculture, that while there is the understandable concern about western wheat, that in the negotiations under GATT going on in Geneva now, there can be no back-peddling on the position we put forward December, 1990 on Article XI of GATT. Any change would be a disaster for
October 8, 1991

supply management and would affect so many farmers in other parts of the country than the west.


ENVIRONMENTAL CHOICE PROGRAM
Mr. Rene Soetens (Ontario):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have this opportunity to draw your attention to the Environmental Choice Program and its first national consumer awareness campaign.
Environmental Choice was created by the Prime Minister and the Government of Canada in June 1988 to provide consumers with environmentally responsible alternatives in the marketplace.
Since its creation the program has come a long way. Today its symbol of certification can be found on more than 500 products and services of some 80 companies. These range from re-refined lubricating oil to residential composting systems and diaper services, and the list grows every week.
The awareness campaign is designed to reach out to Canadians across the country through television and print messages. It will help consumers more easily identify products and services that are less harmful to the environment. It will also help industry recognize the market advantages enjoyed by products and services that bear the program's certification.
I ask that Canadians take note of this important program. Only with their widespread involvement can Environmental Choice make a significant impact.


QUEBEC'S SOVEREIGNTY
Mr. Nic Leblanc (Longueuil):: Mr. Speaker, there are people who say Quebec's sovereignty will cause a flight of investment capital. We must realize that capital moves for various reasons: interest rates, availability of labour, market conditions, technological change, and so forth.
The government's financial position also has an impact on the movement of capital. Political instability will also affect this movement.
Today, foreign capital is avoiding and even leaving Canada, mainly because of the deficit and also because of political instability.
In Quebec, we know what we want. We want to get rid of federal bad management. We want to get rid of political instability, in order to build a prosperous Quebec.


AGRICULTURE
Mr. Lee Clark (Brandon-Souris):: Mr. Speaker, the financial farm crisis which exists in western Canada today is the worst in recent memory.
With farm gate prices slashed to early 1970 levels, grain producers are unable to pay their operating loans let alone meet their long-term debt obligations. Consequently there is an immense amount of pessimism in the region, the most severe in fact that I have ever seen.
As our grain producers have a genuine and immediate need for financial assistance, I was pleased to be present in Winnipeg last Friday when the Prime Minister promised the third line of defence committee that additional federal dollars would soon be forthcoming.
However, western grain producers and the businesses that support them are also dependent on those who move the grain to market. That is why striking grain handlers at Thunder Bay must be legislated back to work. Moreover, grain handling must be declared an essential service so that farmers will never again be the innocent victims of highly destructive strikes as they have been this autumn.
The farmer's plight is extremely severe and we must respond immediately.


JOB TRAINING
Mr. Maurizio Bevilacqua (York North):: Mr. Speaker, the time has come to get serious about job training in Canada. At a time when companies are warning our government that new jobs will materialize only if we can generate enough skilled and educated people to use the latest technology, our response to this challenge has been unacceptable.
Federal expenditures on training as a share of the GDP have fallen from .19 per cent to .17 per cent during the period 1987 to 1990.

Oral Questions
On the job training is outrageously inadequate. In 1988 the average worker in Japan received 200 hours of training. In Sweden, 170 and in Canada, less than 7 hours.
At a time when we have a 30 per cent high school dropout rate, I urge business, government and labour to devise a strategy and to co-operate so that we can have an effective and dynamic training program for our youth, our workers.
The federal government must take the lead.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Hon. Jean Chretien (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister.
Some 50,000 farmers, or one out of every five farmers in Canada, are in danger of losing their farms.
Nowhere is the situation more desperate than in Saskatchewan, but the Prime Minister seems to be waiting for just the right moment in the Saskatchewan election before announcing an emergency aid package.
When is he going to stop playing politics with the lives of farmers? Why does he not announce an emergency aid package for western farmers right away?


Right Hon. Brian Mulroney (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend would seem to suggest that our interest in western agriculture has just begun. A point of fact, in the seven years that this government has been in office we have increased assistance to western agriculture by 650 per cent from the levels left by the Liberals.
We have tried, as best as any government can, to stand with the farmers. I met in Winnipeg with the representatives of the third line of defence. I pointed out to some people after that in 1962 when I was private secretary to the Minister of Agriculture, which is 29 years ago, the question then was $2 wheat and the question today is $2 wheat, some 29 years later. This means that everything else has gone up and the farmers' prices have remained stable at 30-year old levels. This is unacceptable.
The Government of Canada has stood with the farmers before and we will stand with them again.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, I would like to tell the Prime Minister that my interest with the farmers of western Canada goes back to my grandfather who was a farmer in Alberta and goes back to all my uncles who have been farming in Saskatchewan and Alberta, so it is not new for me to talk about farming in western Canada.
What we see happening today seems very familiar. Everyone knows that during the last Saskatchewan election the Prime Minister was able to find a billion dollars just at the right time.
I want to ask the Prime Minister: Is he waiting for another midnight call from Grant Devine, who will be defeated anyway?
The farmers of Canada cannot afford to wait. The farmers of Canada want action right away. Why does he not do what has to be done right away?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I do not know, unlike my hon. friend, who will be elected in Saskatchewan at the election. That will be the decision of the people of Saskatchewan. The problems of the farmers of western Canada are unrelated to any electoral results. They are related to justice and well-being. This government has stood with them in the past and will stand with them again.
We are moving as quickly as we can. As I indicated last Friday in Winnipeg, I instructed the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Agriculture to try and bring together, within a week, a specific proposal that we would then share with the members of the third line of defence committee, which is the way we have been working with them since last spring. That process seemed to meet with fine favour among all the representatives who were there from across Canada. I think it is a reasonable and appropriate way to proceed, in co-operation with the provinces and in co-operation with the pools and producers, and that is what we are trying to do.
With regard to my friend's grandfather from western Canada, he is one of our strong supporters.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, not only are this government's agricultural policies destroying the foundations of Western Canada's economy, but this very day, conservative economist
October 8, 1991

Thomas Courchene said that Canada was in danger of disappearing as a result of high interest rates and an overvalued dollar.
Why does the Prime Minister not act immediately to make Canadian goods more competitive abroad and bring the dollar down to a normal level so that our workers can find employment throughout the country?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, interest rates have fallen nearly 6 points in almost a year. For the past three months, inflation has been below 3 per cent and we are aiming for a rate of 3 per cent next year. Economic growth is expected to be
3.5	per cent next year.
So I think that the government's economic strategies are working fairly well, considering that the IMF just said that economic growth in Canada would rival Japan's next year for the lead of all major industrialized countries. The record is not so bad.
Now if my friend, a former Minister of Finance and President of the Treasury Board, is telling us that the Department of Finance should give the Bank of Canada a directive to lower the value of the Canadian dollar artificially to 80 cents, let him say so directly, because he knows the immediate disastrous consequences for Canadian investments; he knows that the inflationary impact in Canada would be catastrophic. What will help lower the value of the dollar are falling interest rates, rising growth rates and prudent management of public affairs, which we are doing.


THE ECONOMY
Hon. Herb Gray (Windsor West):: Mr. Speaker, I also have a question for the Prime Minister.
Yesterday, Thomas Courchene who is director of the School of Policy Studies at Queen's and an advisor to this government, told the Canadian Exporters Association that high interest rates and the overvalued dollar are creating "a reserve army of the unemployed".
I ask the Prime Minister: Why will the government not cease now those policies that are conscripting 1.5 million Canadian workers against their will into its reserve army
Oral Questions
of the unemployed? Why does this government insist on leading them in a death march to economic oblivion?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, we are following a course of economic development that my hon. friend can-


Mr. Peterson:: It is not working.


Martin Brian Mulroney: My hon. friend from Willowdale says it is not working.
Ten years ago this morning, when his government was in office, the interest rate was 20 per cent. Today it is 8.75. Inflation ten years ago this morning was 12.6 per cent and rising. This morning it is 5.8 per cent and declining. That is the program of this government.
We are not going to return to that kind of philosophy. It does not work. We have inflation that is dropping. We have investment that is increasing and we have the economy on track for what the OECD says will be impressive economic growth in 1992 and 1993. I think that is good news for Canada.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister said that the economy is on track, but Professor Courchene told the Canadian Exporters yesterday: "Our overvalued Canadian dollar is hollowing us out all along the production, tourism, cross-border shopping spectrum". "Moreover", he said, "our monetary stance is imperilling our future". That is a strange way to keep the economy on track, to take steps that will imperil our future.
I ask the Prime Minister: Will he cease those policies now that are imperilling our future and bring back hope to the Canadian people about their economy and their future?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, there is an alternative to the course that we are following, that is the course pursued by my hon. friend when he was President of the Treasury Board where spending in Canada increased by 14 per cent a year every year for 15 years. During that period of time the debt in Canada increased by 1,100 per cent. That is a lethal course for Canada and we are not going to follow it.


An hon. member:: Deindustrialize Canada.


Martin Brian Mulroney: My hon. friend from Willowdale yells his favourite word "deindustrialize". A point of fact, since the free trade agreement was brought in, the net inflow of foreign investment in Canada, positive invest-

Oral Questions
ment in Canada, was some $4 billion. For the first time in 15 years there is that kind of net investment flow into Canada creating the new jobs that Canadians need.


AGRICULTURE
Mr. Lome Nystrom (Yorkton-Melville):: Mr. Speaker, my question is also for the Prime Minister.
The Prime Minister is aware of the absolutely desperate situation among prairie farmers. In a way it is very difficult even to describe the tension, the stress, the problems with families, the suicide rate and such things in the rural prairies.
In view of the fact that farm income now on the prairies is less than one-quarter of the rate of the national poverty level in this country, I wonder if the Prime Minister can level with the House today and assure us that when he makes this announcement there will be an emergency package of more than $1 billion for farmers in this country. Can he tell us exactly when that payment is going to be made?
Families out there are really under stress. They need an answer and they need it now.


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, as I indicated in Winnipeg, even though the Government of Canada does not have the money, we are going to try to find the money as quickly as we can to put together a package that will help the farmers who are affected by this crushing drop in commodity prices.
As I speak, the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of State for Grains and Oilseeds are putting together a proposal for cabinet which I believe will come forward on Thursday. As quickly as I can thereafter I will be happy to advise my hon. friend.
We are trying to help the western farmers in every way we can. I know, in keeping with that, he would want to help the farmers by asking his friends in organized labour to cease that work stoppage in the Lakehead which is stopping the sale of western wheat.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Mr. Speaker, our party has been asking for mediation in that dispute now for a long time. We have been trying to get both sides back together. The Minister of Labour is fully aware of our endeavours.
What I want to ask the Prime Minister is: Why can he not announce that package today? He has known of the problems now for many months, in fact going back six or eight months. The situation has not changed. It is desperate on the prairies. Why the delay? Does the delay have to do with Grant Devine's election schedule? If so, why this cynicism? Why not announce it now? Why play games with people's lives, is what I am asking?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I think my hon. friend knows that we have put together the GRIP and NISA programs which will be putting, within the next eight months but as of September, some $2.5 billion into the pockets of Canadian farmers.
What we are talking about is a deficiency payment over and above that to meet the shortfall on income that affects individual farmers across the country but principally in western Canada.
This is something that was dealt with by the third line of defence which brought together people from across western Canada. I met with them on Friday. We had a lengthy and productive meeting. All of the people representing the family farms, the pools and so on across the prairies seem to think that the way we are proceeding is the right way and the productive way.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, the Liberals seem to find this funny, laughing at the opinions of the western farmers, but I can tell you that I think the farmers will welcome the prudent, thoughtful and I hope generous manner in which we are proceeding.


Ms. Margaret Mitchell (Vancouver East):: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the Prime Minister.
I do not think that farm women who bear intolerable burdens because of the poverty, the insecurity and the stress in their lives and the lives of their families will feel
October 8, 1991

that the approach this government is taking in delaying so long any kind of emergency help is the right way.
I want to ask the Prime Minister: How does he think that families can manage on $6,300 net income and feed their families? When will the government make a commitment and pay these emergency funds that families are waiting for and desperately need?


Hon. Bill McKnight (Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, I understand, I think, very well the concerns in rural Canada, not just in western Canada but in Ontario, Atlantic Canada and Quebec. What we have been doing is working with the farm leaders in that area to bring about whatever assistance we can as a government in Canada. That means that we will have to, as the Prime Minister said, use every resource to address the need.
What we have to do, though, is understand that there was an announcement last summer of some $543 million that flowed. There will be another $1.5 billion that will flow before Christmas and $1.1 billion will flow after.
That being said, it still does not bring a return to the producers of grains and oilseeds in Canada any higher than the return they got 29 years ago in 1962.
We are going to be able to address it. I hope the opposition will support every piece of legislation and every necessity that this government puts forward to support agriculture, including helping to settle the strike at Thunder Bay which is harming agriculture in western Canada.


Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance.
Canadian farmers are facing the worst financial crisis in a generation because the government cut support programs by $1.3 billion and has not provided any cash assistance this year so far.
The Minister of Finance has aggravated the situation because of his high dollar policy which is costing Canadian farmers over $400 million a year. When is the Minister of Finance going to help Canadian farmers? When is he going to lower the value of the Canadian dollar?


William Hunter (Bill) McKnight: Mr. Speaker, I do not quite understand the rationale for the question from my Liberal friend.
Oral Questions
How are we going to lower the dollar? Is he suggesting that we arbitrarily set the price of the dollar? Are we going to say the price of the dollar is now 75 cents or 80 cents? Is that what they are suggesting?
I do not have a background in economics, but anybody who does thinks that that is an absolute asinine way to run an economy in a country.
As far as the assistance to agriculture is concerned, the hon. member knows that we have been working with the established groups. We have been working very hard over the last two years, first of all, to put in safety net programs and, second, to address the stupidity of the international grain war with the Americans and the European community. They are really, really carrying out a ridiculous war and harming Canadian, Australian, New Zealand and other farmers. Third, we are looking at ways of supporting the market. We are looking at ways of supporting our agricultural producers by allowing others who need our products the opportunity to buy them.
This takes some time, but I would say to the hon. member that the crop year that we are talking about is still under way. Com is still being harvested in Ontario and grains and oilseeds have just been completed in western Canada.


Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, every one of the farm established groups told this minister and told the government last spring that it needed at least $1.3 billion of emergency cash assistance last spring. The government has not provided one cent of that money.
After the Rosetown rally of over 3,000 protesting farmers last week, the minister said that he had no intention of providing emergency assistance to Canadian farmers. Last Friday the Prime Minister said that there is going to be aid. I want to know: Who is telling the truth?


William Hunter (Bill) McKnight: Mr. Speaker, the western Canadian, the Ontario and the Atlantic farmers know who is telling the truth.
They know who has been beside them since 1984. They know who has increased agriculture spending. They also know the assistance they got from his government when interest rates were 24 per cent and when farms were being foreclosed.

October 8, 1991
Oral Questions
This government, since 1984, has assisted agriculture 650 times more than his government did. I say to the hon. member: When I was asked in Saskatchewan about aid being provided, whether there would be $1 billion for the province of Saskatchewan alone, I said: "No, that was ridiculous".


THE ECONOMY
Mr. David Kilgour (Edmonton Southeast):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Acting Minister of Finance.
A recent study of our oil and gas sector said: "The appreciation of the Canadian dollar since 1985 has cost the producing industry a total of about $3.5 billion in lost revenue".
Our farm, pulp and paper, mining and other resource sectors have been devastated by the dollar which has gone up since 1985 successively. Many jobs have been lost. Farms have been lost. Which one of the options available to the Minister of Finance does he intend to take to bring the dollar down?


Hon. John McDermid (Minister of State (Finance and Privatization)):: Mr. Speaker, it is interesting to hear from that side of the House the talk of high dollar.
Back in 1978 the dollar was at about 87.5 cents and today we are seeing interest rates at a much lower rate than back in those days. That is what we are trying to do: get inflation down, get interest rates down, and keep them down. That will allow our people to be more competitive.
I might remind the hon. member of a quote of Dennis Williams, chairman of General Electric Canada: "A lower dollar might make everybody's life a lot easier, but it is not the difference between winning and losing".


David Kilgour: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the same minister. The pulp and paper industry in Quebec, and of course in the other provinces, is in danger. Hundreds of jobs have been lost in recent weeks because the Canadian dollar is overvalued. Will the Minister of Finance finally listen to all
participants in the economy and bring down the value of the Canadian dollar?


John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, I think, in the example that the hon. member gave in the pulp and paper industry, he knows full well that there is an oversupply in that particular industry at the present time and it is a competitive position.
Most economists will tell us here in Canada that it is not the high dollar where we are having our major problem. Where we are having it is in our lack of competitiveness. It does not have to do with the high dollar, but in fact they talk about the labour costs in manufacturing which have increased in this country by 28 per cent while our productivity has only risen 1.2 per cent.
For our major competitor, the United States, in the same period of time salaries went up 18.2 per cent, but at the same time its productivity went up 18.6 per cent. We have to be more productive in this country and that is why the Minister of Industry, Science and Technology is working so hard on this area with his colleagues and with the people of Canada.


Mr. Steven W. Langdon (Essex-Windsor):: Mr. Speaker, in fact the person that we have been talking about throughout this Question Period, Thomas Courchene, professor of economic and financial policy at Queen's University, as well as a previous adviser to this government. He has said that the Canadian dollar and its increase has cost Canada two-thirds of our competitiveness against the United States.
Given this very strong criticism and given that Mr. Courchene has been a key adviser to the government in the past, will this government accept his recommendation to lower the dollar to 80 cents and cut interest rates to help our exporters right across Canada?


Hon. Michael Wilson (Minister of Industry, Science and Technology and Minister for International Trade):: Mr. Speaker, first of all let me correct the hon. member. Mr. Courchene is not an adviser to the Government of Canada. The second point that I make is that we have seen in the past where the Canadian dollar has gone down. It was 103 to 105 cents in the middle seventies and it hit bottom in the middle eighties at less than 70 cents.
October 8, 1991

During that time we did not get more competitive. We saw our standard of living slip.
If we look around the world today to the Japanese and the Germans, they have the strongest currencies. They have the strongest economies. I think the hon. member has to reflect on the fact that the level of the Canadian dollar is but one element of competitive position. If we only focus on that we are going to miss the boat because there are other elements of competitive composition such as the amount of research and development that is spent by industry, the amount of training that is done in the country, the amount of investment that goes into improving the productivity of companies, the competitiveness of our domestic market, and our ability to sell internationally into other markets in the world.
It is that combination which allows-


Mr. Speaker:: It is time to move on. The hon. member for Essex-Windsor will put his supplementary question.


Steven W. Langdon: Mr. Speaker, the minister talks about these other areas, but the failure of this government in those other areas has been just as great as the failure with respect to the high dollar policy.
Does the government not realize that it is time for it to act, or is it just going to let John Crow continue to run his high interest, high dollar policy until the economy of this country is completely ruined?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, the statements by the hon. member are simply not supported by the facts, and he knows that because he is an economist himself.
The point that I think must be made here is that John Crow does not sit in his office pulling big levers to set the level of the Canadian dollar. We have seen since the end of May 1990 interest rates come down by nearly 6 percentage points. We have seen the spread between the United States and Canada come down by nearly 3 percentage points. Yet the dollar at the end of May 1990 was 84.60. Today it is 88.60. So how is my hon. friend going to explain the level of the Canadian dollar? He has a lot of questions to ask of himself.
Oral Questions YUGOSLAVIA


Hon. Lloyd Axworthy (Winnipeg South Centre):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister concerning the very critical situation in Yugoslavia.
The British Foreign Secretary this morning said that the European community has done all that it could to bring about a cease-fire in that country and has now asked the United Nations to intervene directly.
I want to ask the Prime Minister: What specific measures Canada will take today to help put an end to the bloodshed in Yugoslavia and to protect the people in Croatia?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, the position adopted by the European community today in regard to the United Nations is a position that the Government of Canada put forward to the Secretary-General of the United Nations exactly 10 days ago.
We believed at that time that this truce was unlikely to hold and as a result we felt it imperative that the Security Council be seized of this matter and that a peacekeeping force be invited in. Canada was ready to be part of that and I signalled that to the Secretary-General.
We believe that this would be a beneficial presence, as it has been around the world. There is no reason whatsoever for young Serbs and Croats to be dying in the interests of 18th century nationalism in Europe. That is a situation where the United Nations can intervene and can be helpful.


Lloyd Axworthy: I thank the Prime Minister for the answer.


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary is also directed to the Prime Minister. Unfortunately, all mediation efforts by the OAS delegation to restore democracy in Haiti have failed.

October 8, 1991
Oral Questions
Last week, the Prime Minister said he was considering all options, including the use of military force, to ensure the return of democracy to Haiti.
In view of this commitment, will Canada recommend that certain measures used by the OAS? If so, what are those measures?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, the OAS has already intervened substantially in the situation in Haiti, and on behalf of all members of this House, I would like to offer our congratulations to the hon. Barbara McDougall, our Secretary of State for External Affairs, who was there, representing with great dignity and courage the interests of the Government of Canada.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Martin Brian Mulroney: Today, at the United Nations and through the Organization of American States, we are pursuing various peaceful solutions. I can inform the hon. member that we are also listening to what is being said by Haitians, and I would like to quote a comment made by President Aristide this morning, about his personal preferences: He said the following:

"We are looking for ways to liberate the Haitian people and military intervention is not one we even consider. The strategy of the Haitian people is more peaceful. We are looking toward economic boycotts, diplomatic boycotts".
This is the impression of the President of Haiti. It is a course he is prescribing for the Organization of American States and the United Nations and it is one that Canada will vigorously pursue.


TREASURY BOARD
Mr. George S. Baker (Gander-Grand Falls):: Mr. Speaker, contrary to what the minister told us in the House yesterday, an advisory group on executive compensation appointed by this Prime Minister-and I have the report-reported on December 15, 1986: "For the largest corporations we recommend that the top executives appointed by the Governor in Council be eligible for incentive pay of up to 25 per cent of their actual salaries".
Why have these executives been receiving bonuses of up to 25 per cent of their salaries since 1987 without public disclosure to the people who are footing the bill, the people of Canada?


Hon. Harvie Andre (Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons):: Mr. Speaker, that committee the hon. member referred to was a committee established by the previous government as a way of coming up with fair and reasonable remuneration to the heads of Crown corporations and agencies and so on. As I offered yesterday I offer again: if there is a better, fairer way to do this, fairer to the taxpayers, to the corporation involved, to the people, we wait for the suggestion.
But again I repeat that as of the budget of last spring, everybody for the pay period starting after that budget will receive a zero per cent increase and, as the President of the Treasury Board said, in addition performance pay will be zero for heads of Crown corporations for that pay period.
If the hon. member is suggesting that we retroactively go back three or four years and recover these performance pay bonuses, let him say that overtly. I do not think that would be fair or equitable or in keeping with the budget statement made in the spring.


George Baker: Mr. Speaker, there are also 10 and 15 per cent bonuses for government appointees. The former PC leader in Newfoundland, Mr. Tom Rideout, who has just been appointed to a board, will be able to receive up to about $10,000 in an annual bonus. No wonder there is a by-election in Newfoundland. Ed Broadbent, about $15,000; former cabinet minister Thomas McMillan, about $14,000-


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


George Baker: By what logic can the government justify paying bonuses to ambassadors and consul generals all over the world? Why, they don't even have to pay their rent. There is a bonus to the consul general of Los Angeles and to the consul general in Dallas. Why, even J. R. would be jealous of that.


Harvie Andre: Mr. Speaker, let me repeat for perhaps the seventh or eighth or tenth time in the last few days that for the pay period
October 8, 1991

commencing after the budget of last spring the bonuses will be zero per cent.
Let me repeat again the invitation I make to the hon. member, his party, or anybody else: If they can come up with a better, fairer way of establishing a remuneration for heads of agencies, Crown corporations and so on that will be fair to the taxpayers, that will ensure that the persons are remunerated based on what the rest of the economy gets, we wait for that suggestion.
In the meantime, because of the fiscal situation of the government, because of the example we want to set, their performance pay will be zero per cent. As we have said ad nauseam, it is zero per cent increase, zero performance pay for everybody.


YUGOSLAVIA
Mr. John Brewin (Victoria):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to come back to the Croatian issue and ask a question of the Prime Minister.
In view of the June referendum in Croatia in which 94 per cent approved independence, reaffirmed last night by a declaration of Croatian independence, and in view of the continuing violence by the Yugoslavian army in Croatia in addition to the measures already referred to in this House by the Prime Minister involving the Security Council of the United Nations in peacekeeping, will the government show leadership on this issue, first, by again strongly condemning the violence by the Yugoslavian army; second, by insisting that the Yugoslavian army withdraw from Croatia; and, third, will the government today commit itself to back up those measures with tough economic sanctions in concert with the European community?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I certainly agree with my hon. friend in one important area. The Yugoslav army is absolutely out of control and has caused extraordinary damage both to the Serbs and the Croats in Yugoslavia who have lived for some four or five decades in a state of peace and economic growth and prosperity in that country.
With regard to the question that he raised, on October 4 I wrote again-I think it was the third or fourth time-to the President of the Republic of Serbia and to the President of the Republic of Croatia making
Oral Questions
precisely and in the strongest possible language the points my hon. friend has raised.
In regard to the fundamental issue, the Secretary of State for External Affairs stated yesterday that Canada believes that the twin track approach agreed to on October 4 is the most realistic way to solve the crisis. This agreement provides for those republics that wish it to gain recognition in a framework of a general negotiated settlement that would protect minority rights, ensure against unilateral and forcible changes of borders, and provide for a loose association or alliance of sovereign republics.
This is consistent with everything that previous governments have stated in regard to a problem of this nature, and it is a case that we have vigorously made at the United Nations Security Council.
We are going to try again, both at the Security Council and with our colleagues in Europe, to make sure that there is an intervention because the violence and the killing in Yugoslavia must cease.


John F. Brewin: Mr. Speaker, I thank the Prime Minister for the answer and ask a supplementary question.
The Croatian community in Canada, as well as other members of Parliament including the member for Bur-naby

Kingsway, have been urging the government to move immediately on humanitarian assistance in Croatia, particularly in food and medicine.
Will the Prime Minister now advise the House that the government will move on humanitarian assistance routed through an independent Slovenia direct to the people of Croatia?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, we have been in touch with the leaders of both the Serbian and Croatian communities in Canada. We have already committed humanitarian assistance to these peoples, and Canada is prepared to do more.
The edicts of the European community and the expression of will of the United Nations Security Council must be heeded. There is no reason whatsoever for sane men and women to tolerate a situation where an army is absolutely out of control and bringing death and destruction to an otherwise quite prosperous nation that was struggling for unity.
We hope that the intervention of the United Nations and/or the economic community will bring the parties together so that both Serbs and Croats can realize that

October 8, 1991
Oral Questions
their destiny can be a peaceful and a productive one together.


NATIONAIR
Mr. Sergio Marchi (York West):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transport.
Last night on the CBC news, former employees of Nationair charged the airline with very serious safety violations.
We also learned, and I have a copy of the document, that for the very first time in aviation history a safety review of the airline was ordered by Transport Canada two weeks after a DC-8 Nationair crashed in Saudi Arabia on July 11, which killed 247 passengers including 14 Canadians.
I ask the minister: In light of the evidence presented last evening, will the minister immediately make public the findings of this special review so as to reassure Canadians and the travelling public that Nationair is safe to fly?


Hon. Jean Corbeil (Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, I have no hesitation in saying that Nationair is safe to fly. It has been complying with all recommendations that have been made occasionally by Transport Canada.
I think the member knows that the airline industry around the world is in very big difficulty. I do not think that allegations of this kind are profitable to Nationair or to any other industry, because Canada is still the country with the best safety record in the air.


Sergio Marchi: Mr. Speaker, the minister obviously did not hear my question because I made no such allegation.
Now that the allegations of former employees of Nationair are in the public domain, given that his own department for the very first time in aviation history has issued a safety review, given the fact that he has said that Nationair is safe, and I am happy to hear that, and given the fact that a review has been put in place by this government, can the minister release those findings so as to reassure Canadians that what he has said today in the House is backed up by facts and information issued by his own department?


Jean Corbeil: Mr. Speaker, I repeat that all recommendations which have ever been made by Transport Canada regarding Nationair or other airlines are always very scrupulously followed. We make sure that they have been corrected. Every time we receive a direct complaint from an employee, we keep the records confidential. It helps anyone who wants to make a complaint to do it in all confidence that the information will not be revealed and therefore he or she can be very open in their comments.


GOODS AND SERVICES TAX
Mr. John Manley (Ottawa South):: Mr. Speaker, recently the Minister responsible for Constitutional Affairs was quoted as saying that: "The GST was a matter of tax policy. It was a change in policy. It was not a measure designed to raise revenue".
My question for the government is this. If the GST was not intended to raise revenue, why is the government proposing a debt reduction account into which all of the GST revenue is supposed to be paid?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: The total amount of the GST funds will be put into the Debt Servicing and Reduction Fund so that Canadians can be satisfied that the full amount of the GST will be paid to service and reduce the debt. That I think is a principle which is fully supported by Canadians.


John Paul Manley: Mr. Speaker, if Canadians are going to be satisfied about reduction of the deficit and the debt, would the minister explain how Canadians are going to find this reassurance when the debt reduction account itself will be in a deficit of almost $27 billion this year and that after five years it will be in a deficit of about $122 billion?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: think Canadians will be well satisfied by the fact that the Debt Servicing and Reduction Fund, plus the legislation to control spending increases to a rate of 3 per cent per annum, will get this deficit-debt problem under control. They will be reflecting on the fact that for 14 or 15 years prior to our taking office in 1984, it was a 14 per cent per
October 8, 1991

annum increase, compared to the 3 per cent per annum increase that we are legislating.
I can tell that members opposite do not like to be reminded of this, because that 14 per cent increase in spending means an increase in taxes and that is what-


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Halton-Peel.


PAROLE BOARD
Mr. Garth Turner (Halton-Peel):: Mr. Speaker, constituents in my riding are increasingly concerned about the justice system's ability to protect them. It seems criminals have more rights than victims and technical loopholes allow criminals to get off lightly.
I see we have new legislation today changing the corrections and parole system. My question is for the Minister of Justice. I would like to know what assurances she could give my constituents that these changes are going to address some of those fundamental concerns.


Hon. Kim Campbell (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada):: Mr. Speaker, I will not go into the content of the legislation in the House. I would simply like to say to the hon. member that I share his concern.
The Solicitor General this morning did table legislation that will address concerns about parole by establishing protection of the public as the number one decision-making criteria for release of any offender from prison.


BANFF NATIONAL PARK
Mrs. Louise Feltham (Wild Rose):: Mr. Speaker, the people of Banff National Park are waiting to hear when phase 3 of the highway twining project at Banff National Park will take place. Accidents and fatalities are still occurring at an alarming rate on this very dangerous section of the highway.
My question is for the minister responsible for Parks Canada. Will the minister agree to allocate funds from the 1992-93 budget for the continuation of the twining of this highway?
Point of Order


Hon. Jean J. Charest (Minister of the Environment):: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the hon. member's concern. The hon. member for Wild Rose has brought up this issue with us on many occasions.
Parks Canada is responsible for the maintenance of the road. It is Public Works Canada that is responsible for the construction. My understanding is that Public Works Canada is currently completing a major redevelopment of the Castle junction interchange in Banff National Park.
Furthermore, Public Works has just completed the design work for the twining of the section from Sunshine Village ski area road interchange to the Castle junction interchange.


PRESENCE IN GALLERY
Mr. Speaker:: I wish to draw to the attention of hon. members to the presence in the gallery of the Hon. Stephen Kakfwi, Deputy Government Leader, Minister of Education, Minister of Personnel and Minister of Aboriginal Rights and Constitutional Development of the Northwest Territories.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


POINT OF ORDER
Steven W. Langdon: Mr. Speaker, I want to raise as a point of order the question of Mr. Courchene.
In an exchange which took place between myself and the Minister for International Trade, the question came up as to whether Mr. Courchene had worked as an adviser to this government. We have just checked with his office. He worked on contract in 1986 as an adviser to this government.


Mr. Speaker:: He may or may not have, but that is a question of debate and it is not properly a point of order.


Harvie Andre: Mr. Speaker, just to keep the record straight, the Minister for International Trade said that Mr. Courchene was not now an adviser to the government so he did not misinform the House.

Government Orders



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Pursuant to Standing Order 100,1 do now leave the chair for the House to go into Committee of the Whole.
The House resumed consideration in committee of Bill C-23, an Act to amend the Canadian Wheat Board Act-Mr. Mayer-Mr. DeBlois in the chair.


Steve Eugene Paproski: Order, please. The House again in Committee of the Whole to consider Bill C-23, an Act to amend the Canadian Wheat Board Act.

When the committee was interrupted at one o'clock p.m., clause 1 of the bill was under consideration. When the committee rose, the Chair took the proposed amendment of the hon. member for Lambton-Middlesex under advisement.
According to citation 698 of the sixth edition of Beauchesne, an amendment is out of order if it is irrelevant or beyond the scope of the bill. Bill C-23 seeks to amend only two sections of the Canadian Wheat Board Act, sections 19 and subsection 33.(1).
The proposed amendment reaches back into the parent act and seeks to amend section 18. Accordingly the Chair must find that the proposed amendment goes beyond the scope of the bill and is out of order.
Resuming debate on clause 1.
On clause 1-


Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, I am glad to have a chance to put a couple of more questions to the minister. I must say in passing that it is unfortunate that the amendment proposed by the hon. member for Lambton-Middlesex was ruled out of order. It is unfortunate because it really represents the wishes of the vast majority of prairie grain producers.
The producers were appalled. There were votes by the Wheat Board Advisory Committee pummelling the
minister. He has hardly recovered from it since, because he took oats away from the Wheat Board. It is a pity that the amendment is beyond the scope of the bill because I think even the minister, in retrospect, would say to himself and this House that he regrets having taken oats away from the Wheat Board.
Mr. Speaker, all you have to do is look at the annual report of the Wheat Board for 1989-1990 and you will see that when the minister took it away, he also took away the assistance that was available to those wheat and oat producers. You can see in 1989 the assistance available was some $26 million for oats and $2,688 million for designated oats.
Even the minister, if he could be totally candid here today and of course he carries the responsibility of office with him so he has difficulty doing that, would say it is a pity that oats and barley are not under the Wheat Board Act as the motion from the hon. member proposed.
The minister said he could not reveal what the debts of individual countries are. I recall when Lech Walesa was here and met with the standing committee on external affairs, a question was put to him by, I believe, the hon. member from Edmonton on our side of the House. He asked him what could be done that would assist Poland. This was at a time when it was going through a return to democracy. He replied that one of the greatest things would be if the government could forgo those debts for, I believe, $1 billion or $2 billion for wheat and food aid.
In view of that, I wonder if the minister can indicate a couple of things to me. First, have the Canadian Wheat Board and the Government of Canada actually forgiven any of the money owing under the Canadian Wheat Board Act. It would be interesting to know just which countries have been given that forgiveness. I would be interested especially to know in view of the representations made by the Prime Minister of Poland if the government did move on that recommendation or that suggestion. That was my first question.
My second question is this. I wonder if the minister today could indicate to the House the exact magnitude of the wheat pool account deficit for the crop year 1990-91 completed on July 31. I wonder if the minister could indicate the amount of that deficit. I note that in the
October 8, 1991

annual report one of the countries that obviously owes some of the $4.6 billion owed to the Canadian Wheat Board is Haiti. Has aid been cut off to Haiti because of the military coup which occurred there a couple of weeks ago and because of the decision by the Organization of American States to impose certain economic sanctions against that country? Could the minister respond to these three questions, including my question as to whether or not he still agrees that it is wise to have oats included under the Canadian Wheat Board?


Charles James Mayer: Mr. Speaker, I get quite a large charge out of the hon. member and the oats issue. This is really a red herring. I stand by the decision and there are all kinds of people in the industry who support that decision. In fact the hon. member should have been with me a week ago last Friday when I had the pleasure to cut the ribbon at a new oats processing facility in Portage la Prairie. It has the potential to process, once they are up to full capacity, something like 80,000 tonnes of oats annually. Now 80,000 tonnes may not mean a lot, but put it in this kind of context. There were years in the past when total exports out of Canada for all oats did not exceed 100,000 tonnes. Eighty thousand tonnes is somewhere in the neighbourhood of 20 per cent of the total production in Manitoba.
The significant thing about the announcement was that the president of the operation called Can-Oat Milling Products Incorporated said at the opening ceremony that there were primarily two reasons why this plant was being built, in addition to the transportation facilities and the quality of oats they could purchase in the area. First was the free trade agreement because they had better and more secure access to the American market and upward of 80 per cent of the product is going to move out of the country.
The second thing he said that made it more feasible was the fact that they could go out and contract directly and have more control over the raw product that they buy to make their various forms of oat products from.
For him to suggest that we are rethinking the oats decision is nonsense. He said I was going to have difficulty being candid. I am being very candid. I do not have difficulty in speaking about what I believe in. If he wants to be straightforward he should look at the drop in price of oats since, let us say, the crop year beginning August 1, 1989, which is a little over two years ago and compare it to wheat. He is going to find that in
Government Orders
percentage terms wheat has dropped more. To suggest that because oats was taken away from the Wheat Board there has been a big drop in prices and that is the sole reason is absolute nonsense. If he wants to be more than candid, if he wants to be straightforward and do the arithmetic he will find out that is the case.
The other point I want to make is that oats on a volume basis was half of 1 per cent of the board's operations. That is how much it was. I think it was their 11th or 14th most important product as far as exports from the country, and by value it was probably closer to one-quarter per cent of what the board did. To suggest that oats has been a major crop and that it is causing all kinds of problems as far as producers are concerned is absolute nonsense and he knows that. He is just raising red herrings. We have more important things to talk about here than that. We have some serious problems in the prairies and in the part of the country that the hon. member for Lambton-Middlesex represents. We would be better off spending our time talking about how to solve some of those problems than to drag up things like oats.
He mentions Poland. Again, there has been no forgiveness of debt as I understand it. There has been some rescheduling as far as Poland is concerned. It is my understanding, and I could get him further details, that we have also offered them some consideration down the road as far as interest payments are concerned.
Other than that I do not think it is appropriate to comment very much on commercial arrangements. I mentioned that.
He also asked about the Canadian Wheat Board deficit. When the board has all its numbers done and is in a position to announce final payments -and I don't think it is any secret that there is not going to be a final payment in wheat this year-the board will announce all of the numbers. For me to speculate or to announce ahead of time is not appropriate. Starting in 1984 the government, myself namely, stopped announcing final payments. I said: "Look, we are going to announce initial payments because the Government of Canada guarantees initial payment. That is a government decision". When the board goes out and sells, that is as a result of its sales efforts so it announces the final payments. Good or bad, it has announced final payments every year since 1985 and I have no intention of changing that practice- which I would be if I were to announce a deficit prior to

October 8, 1991
Government Orders
all the calculations being done and the board announcing final payments.
If the Canadian Wheat Board uses the same timetable it has in the past, final payments will probably be available right at the end of this calendar year, or at the beginning of 1992.
With regard to Haiti, I don't know that I can say anything more than what has been in the news. I am not totally up to date because I think some of these events are happening almost as we speak. But we have done some business with Haiti. It is my understanding that there has been consideration by the UN of sanctions. I don't know where that is at. But to date, as a result of the unfortunate circumstances in Haiti, I am not aware of anything that we have been doing differently as a result of that situation compared to what we were doing a week or two weeks ago.


Maurice Brydon Foster: A couple of weeks ago the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister paper put forward in a newspaper article done by Carole Gour of The Toronto Star the idea of an international kind of reserve of wheat for food stocks especially designed to assist those republics in Russia that are facing starvation or serious shortfalls this winter. Some observers in the international food aid programs suggest that if there was an international arrangement for wheat reserves for food for starving nations that was well put together, the actual reserves available for cash sales would be very little more than what is adequate for the market around the world. Those reserves have been drawn down, I think to something like 22 or 23 days of supply.
I am wondering whether the Canadian Wheat Board or the minister's department are involved in any of those discussions. Was the parliamentary secretary, who comes from a wheat growing area, only talking in a general way about something that would be highly desirable in the world or was he was flying a trial balloon from the Prime Minister's Office? Just what is happening there? Have there been any discussions by the minister or the Wheat Board with international food agencies as to what kind of arrangements could be initiated? Clearly the situation in the world is pathetic when you look at the amount of reserves there are and the need for food aid assistance
around the world, and then you look at world prices. It is just a disaster that the price of wheat is not at least where it was 10 years ago and not where it is today, which is about less than 40 per cent of where it was some 10 years ago.
I am just wondering if the minister could advise us or is this done entirely by the Department of External Affairs and not by his department. Obviously any serious calculations or international discussions at the end of the day would end up back with the Minister of Grains and Oilseeds and the Canadian Wheat Board. It is after all the agency which would have to provide those supplies and reserves required for some kind of international assistance and food reserve program.


Charles James Mayer: Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. member is referring to an article by Carole Goar in The Toronto Star I believe last week. I agree with the member when he says that the situation is absolutely deplorable around the world when you look at food reserves and the fact that we have the capacity to produce. We have all kinds of money being spent on subsidies, and yet more people are having problems feeding themselves. We end up with problems of farmers trying to stay in business. It literally boggles the mind.
We do I believe on a regular basis purchase something like one million tonnes of wheat a year. I do not know how we would compare to other countries but I suspect quite favourably. CIDA through its operations purchases something like a million tonnes of wheat a year, most of it from the Canadian Wheat Board, and some of it from the Ontario Wheat Growers, and other products as well.
There was some concern over Ontario soya beans. They have recently become eligible to supply. We do that. There is also on a voluntary basis the Canadian Food Grains Bank that is headquartered in Winnipeg. There are arrangements made where if a farmer wants to donate a certain number of bushels of wheat it will be matched by the government through CIDA. That is all the grain that is made available as far as development assistance.
Beyond that, again I have to agree with the member that this does not make any sense. I do not know where the member gets the 22 days. I think what he is talking about is 22 per cent of stock to reserve ratio.
October 8, 1991

Having said that, it is still a relatively small number compared to what it has been. It has been up as high as 30 percent, 32 per cent and 33 per cent, and now we are down in the low 20s, but even 20 per cent of 365 days is not much more than two month's grain supply. That is not, by any measure that I am aware of, an excessive amount and one would wonder why prices could not increase with that stock to reserve ratio being as low as it has ever been, maybe even historically.
Beyond that, I do not think the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister was floating a trial balloon. He has had a long-standing interest in this area and has been active himself with the Canadian Food Grains Bank. There have been many suggestions that this should be something that could work.
If one has surplus that one cannot sell, every country has a share that it would put into some kind of a food reserve or a grain reserve. One would have to establish prices going in and establish rules coming out, and establish some kind of criteria for countries to be eligible, and to segregate countries that can afford to pay. Obviously, a country like Japan that is not food self-sufficient is in a much better position to pay than some of the countries in Africa.
Canada was, I like to think, the last country to comply, not only with the spirit but the intent of the last international wheat agreement that really collapsed in the middle 1970s. As a country, we have a pretty good record of trying to work with international organizations to bring about the kinds of things that we are all concerned about here.
We have been looking at almost anything and everything that we can do, bearing in mind the fragility of the GATT negotiations. The member would also be interested in knowing that there is some renewed interest in the International Wheat Council headquartered in London. There are things that I think many of us would like to see happen to the International Wheat Council, that it needs to be more than just a monitoring and a statistical collecting agency and that it should be able to take a more active role in proposing things like the hon. member is suggesting and that the parliamentary secretary has suggested.
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In terms of a definite proposal, if there is a total walk away from the table at GATT, and none of us wants to think about it, then with all of these things that we have done some preliminary work on, we are going to have to pursue as many of them as we possibly can to bring some stability back to the international grain market.


Mr. Peter Milliken (Kingston and the Islands):: Mr. Chairman, I do not mean to delay the proceedings, but I think the minister must share, at least to some extent, our disappointment in the fact that the amendment moved by the hon. member for Lambton-Middlesex was out of order.
I know that he would like to facilitate perhaps an opportunity for members of this House to express their views because I understand that a lot of the members on his side of the House realize the government made an error in removing oats from the Canadian Wheat Board.
The hon. member shakes her head. I think she realizes I am right. If she does not agree, I know some of her colleagues do. She should not look like that. She should agree with me.


Maurice Brydon Foster: She is being coy.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: She is being coy, as the hon. member for Algoma suggests. What I would suggest is that perhaps the minister could give his consent and with the unanimous consent of the House, the motion can be put. Then we could vote on it to see if members do favour putting oats back under the jurisdiction of the Canadian Wheat Board.


Maurice Brydon Foster: It would test the whole House.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: It would test the whole House, as the hon. member for Algoma says. I think the majority of members, even on the other side, realize that the government made a big blunder. Certainly Canadian farmers do. Apparently the price has gone down continuously since the jurisdiction was removed. Really it could not have been worse. I think the minister might want to see the error of his ways and change his vote and put this back in the bill.
I wonder if he would give his consent for that to happen?

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Charles James Mayer: The hon. member makes a pretty convincing case. Unfortunately I am not so sure he even convinces himself of what he is saying. I appreciate his interest in agricultural matters, but I would suggest that if he wants to talk to the farm community, especially in the Province of Alberta, where the hon. member comes from, that produces, I think, 60 per cent of the oats in the country and about 80 per cent of the oats exported that that is where the decision should be made.
If the hon. member wants to talk about oats, I think he should talk to the producers involved. I would be very happy to take him to the producers who think this is the best thing that could have happened as far as oats is concerned.
There is no question that oats went down in price. I want to suggest to him that barley went down more in price than oats did over the same period of time after it was taken away from the board. Durum wheat went down considerably more in price. Milling wheat went down. They all went down because of international prices.
There have been cases where oats have been selling almost as high a feed barley, which is unheard of. Therefore, it is a pretty sticky wicket for us to get into philosophy on the floor of the House of Commons, when really we should be talking to farmers, which is what we did before we made the decision.
In conclusion, I would also point out that the one co-operative in western Canada that deals right across the prairies, in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and the Peace River part of British Columbia, voted at their last annual meeting to remove oats from the Canadian Wheat Board. To get up in the House and suggest that there was unanimous opposition to what the government did as far as oats is concerned, is certainly not the case at all. It has been a good decision. It has been well received by producers. The results are there and we stand by the decision.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Mr. Chairman, I am wondering if the minister with his officials would explain to the House what procedure the government goes through in its budget making to annualize the contingent liabilities for each year's budget? How does it arrive at what will be shown as a contingent liability that may cost the government some money for that year? Does it do it
on the basis of what was lost the previous year? How does it present a more or less accurate figure to the House?
The reason I asked this is that in Part III of the agricultural estimates, the Department of Agriculture points out that deficits arising from sales on credit are relatively rare. We had a somewhat different opinion from the Auditor General who shows that on the contrary, over the past few years, according to him, significant payments have had to be made out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund. He cites 1986-87, where $208 million had to be paid and in 1987-88 more than $113 million. Then there was the interest on a delayed payment which, I presume, was made to the Wheat Board account where the pool account deficit amounting to $33 million for the year 1989-90 was not paid to the board until the following year. While we understand that the payments do go on occasion to cover that account or interest on accounts that the government was a little slow at paying, we know that the farmers are not supposed to be taking a slightly smaller payment because of delays and that the funds themselves are in fact are forthcoming. We know that happens.
How do we have it presented to us for budget purposes when the House approves a budget? Is it done on the basis of contingent liabilities that have proven to be a cost to the Consolidated Revenue Fund in the year before or is there simply an estimate made? If there are estimates, what process goes into the production of that estimate?


Charles James Mayer: Mr. Chairman, I will try to answer in two or three ways. First of all, I think there is some misunderstanding concerning contingent liabilities that the board has that are ongoing on behalf of the Government of Canada in deficits in the pool account.
The deficit in the pool account, and there was one I think four years ago of $208 million, $176 million of which was barley, a small one in oats and $23 million in wheat if my memory serves me correctly.
Once the pool period is closed, which is usually some time about now, the end of September or the first part of October-we would have to talk to the board to know exactly- and if there is a deficit, the Government of Canada picks up interest on that deficit until the final payments are made.
October 8, 1991

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The producers themselves do not have to take any less money in their final payment as a result of there being a deficit in the pool account, if the hon. member follows me.
If the member is talking about deficits or contingent liabilities, that is money owed to the Canadian Wheat Board by sovereign states, or at least by entities backed by sovereign states. If they are unable to pay, the board just borrows more money against that account for which the Government of Canada backs them. I hope that clarifies the difference between a contingent liability and a deficit.
If the member is asking how do we arrive at a number as far as a contingent liability, I think it is simply a matter of arithmetic. As to how we arrive at the levels of credit that are available to each country, we have a committee of ministers which look at various countries in conjunction with the board, looking at projected sales for a given period of time. Then we establish regular lines of credit that the board is able to use.
It is the same for other non-board commodities. The board works with the Export Development Corporation, EDC. Again, this is not concessional credit. This is commercial credit on reasonable terms. I think the most we have gone, as far as length, is three years.
This review process goes on on an annual basis. It is reviewed regularly each year. If there is a need to adjust for whatever reason, either up or down, throughout that year we have a provision made to have a turnaround quite quickly so that the system itself does not encumber the board, or anyone who is dealing with EDC for that matter, if they have an impending sale for which they need to have some adjustments in their over-all credit.


Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, I was very impressed with the minister's comments with regard to international co-operation. I do not want to even use the words international grains agreement because it has a bad history.
If the GATT agreement falls apart this fall and we do not succeed, it will be a disaster for everyone in every way, both in the supply managed industries and in the grains and oilseeds industry. It seems to me that there has to be room somehow for international co-operation.
In 1983 the price of a barrel of oil was about $2 and the price of a bushel of wheat was around $2. The oil producers around the world organized themselves and they are getting $20 or $23 a barrel for their oil. Canadian farmers and farmers around the world are getting only $2 a bushel, the same as it was almost 20 years ago.
It seems to me that if the GATT negotiations are not successful this fall, we need to look at ways in which we can co-operate in supplying food aid to the nations and peoples around the world, and some way of co-operating among the producers. As the minister has already indicated, we have something like a 22 per cent situation with 30 or 40 days of wheat in the world. I was very encouraged by his comments in that regard.
I hope there will be ongoing discussions in the Wheat Board, External Affairs and CIDA as to what kind of co-operation there could be on aid, perhaps at the international level with the trade ministers, as to what there could be in co-operation.
During the farm financial crisis this summer, one of the issues that has been raised time and time again by the Ontario Federation of Agriculture and the wheat, grain and oilseeds producers, the soybean and com producers, has been that they do not have the same level of export credit arrangements that producers in western Canada have under the Canadian Wheat Board Act.
This is a veiy important issue for them. They have to go through the Export Development Corporation or some other agency of government which apparently does not have much flexibility and as much value to them as the Wheat Board has.
Granted, the Wheat Board takes possession. It sells the wheat. It is a much simpler type of situation, but it seems to me that in tight markets and in tight situations such as the one which we are facing now with the cost of production, with the cost of many grains and oilseeds at half or two-thirds the cost of production, that we should be giving every possible tool to these producers in eastern Canada.
I wonder if the minister is looking, since he is the Minister of State for Grains and Oilseeds for the entire country and not just for the Wheat Board, at improving those techniques and those instruments that are

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available for eastern producers in marketing their grain in overseas markets both in terms of credit, forgiveness, flexibility and all the rest.
Has he been able to take any action on the recommendations and the representations made by those five groups in Ontario, the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, the commodity council, the com producers, the soybean producers and the Ontario Wheat Growers Association?


Charles James Mayer: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member makes a good point with the last point he makes.
We certainly do not want to see one producer in one part of the country treated differently or have an advantage over one in another part of the country simply because of the way things are organized on his behalf.
We have, as far as CIDA criteria, made CIDA aware. It has agreed to use specifications when it tenders for oilseeds so that it can include soybeans and not just canola oil. I think that is a step in the right direction.
I have had a chance to meet with the Ontario Wheat Growers. There have been occasions when it has expressed concern about the matter which the member raises concerning aid. If it has some direct concerns, we will take them up and do the very best we can to address them.
People outside of the Wheat Board area-it would be the same for canola in western Canada and flax, for instance, that were to be exported which were not under the board-make sure where they can that the EDC is as accommodating with non-board sales as the Wheat Board is able to be with board sales as a result of government involvement. Having said that, it is maybe not that easy to accomplish but we have to work at it and make sure that where we can, we see that there is no difference.
I should point out that I remember when we signed a long-term grain sales agreement with Egypt four or five years ago. The Canadian Wheat Board signed it but Egypt had an interest in Ontario wheat. At the ceremony, we had Bob Holmes who was president of the Ontario Wheat Growers at the time, make sure that Egypt knew that while the Wheat Board was signing a long-term grain sales agreement, there was interest in
other parts of the country in selling to Egypt. We had an opportunity to see that the Ontario Wheat Growers were represented at that signing ceremony.
I would also point out that the $150 million line of credit that has been offered to the Soviet Union has been there for some time now. There has been interest in Ontario com as far as that line of credit is concerned and I think that will be the major grain that will be involved in terms of that line of credit. There is an example where Ontario com growers will be able to take advantage of a specific line of credit that again should help producers.
The member makes a good point. Other than offering him and other people in Ontario who are exporting our full co-operation and being as accommodating as possible, I do not know what I could do.
I should point out to the member and I am sure he is aware, that when we assumed office in 1984 one of the first things we did as government was to host a meeting of the five major wheat exporters, namely the United States, the Community, Argentina, Australia and ourselves. We hosted that at Whistler on the west coast. There was a second meeting, a follow-up, that the Americans called. We very much wanted to see if there were ways to co-operate, not to necessarily form a cartel but a way of seeing that if we are going to compete that we do so in a rational basis so that everybody benefits.
I do not think consumers of grain around the world are going to benefit if in fact prices that they pay farmers to produce that product are so low that the farmers go out of business. We very much wanted to continue that dialogue. Unfortunately after the first two meetings, the one that we hosted to get the meetings going in Canada and the one we had in the United States, nobody has seen fit to call another meeting.
One of the things we have been thinking about is to try to get another meeting like that going. I think we are going to have to wait until the GATT process concludes either successfully or unsuccessfully, but I certainly think there are ways in which we can co-operate. One of the things we are going to be encouraging the International Wheat Council to do is to take a more active role and do something other than simply collecting and disseminating statistics. I think it has a role to trying to work with various countries and do the things that the member
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referred to as far as bringing stability to the international grain market.


The Chairman:: Shall Clause 1 carry?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.
Clause 1 agreed to.


Andrée  Champagne: Shall Clause 2 carry?
On Clause 2-Deductions from Receipts


Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Chairman, as I read clause 2, section 33, this will provide authority for the Canadian Wheat Board to close its pool accounts each year and distribute the final payments to producers prior to repayment of the principle and interest owing by the purchasing country.
Does this in any way change the existing arrangement where it was strictly a letter of comfort from the minister, where there was actually no legal authority for the loan guarantee or the parliamentary authority? It seems to me that this is a very crucial part of the whole arrangement for this Bill C-23.
Could the minister comment on that.


Charles James Mayer: Mr. Chairman, the amendments to section 33 are in one sense connected and in another sense not connected to the letter of comfort. The Auditor General simply said in paragraph 3(12) of his 1990 annual report that the board's practice is to make final payments on sales made during the pooling period or the crop year regardless of whether the grain is sold on credit. His concern was that if the grain had been sold on credit and the credit had not been repaid, there was some question as to the legality for the board to make that sale. All we are doing is amending section 33 to say that once the credit has been provided and the board has made the sale and all the conditions of the sale have been met, including acceptance of the credit provisions and the terms have been agreed to, that the board is then in a position to go ahead and make final payments out of the pool.
This in no way changes the pooling system or the pooling practice. It just satisfies the Auditor General that we are in a position of being able to administer this
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section with a better legal foundation and better authority from the House of Commons.


Maurice Brydon Foster: In this arrangement, the credit that the Canadian Wheat Board operates under is charged to the producer up until the moment of the sale. Once the sale takes place, if the whole thing is a credit arrangement, then the credit of the sale from that point forward is charged to the purchasing company or the purchasing government.
Regardless of where the credit is being charged, whether it is being charged back to the producer or being charged to the purchaser, the pool is closed and the funds distributed among the producers in proportion to what they have produced. Is that right?


Charles James Mayer: Mr. Chairman, let us just take a hypothetical case. The board has arrived at a price with a customer and they have agreed on the amount of grain and where it is going to be delivered and the customer needs some credit.
The board then goes to the banks, credit unions, trust companies and issues its own paper in order to raise those funds. It does not ask the country or the customer to raise the funds. The board itself borrows the money so that the board can repay the producer for his grain. I hope the hon. member understands me.
There is no question of money not being available to the producer. This amendment provides for a little firmer legal basis for the board to continue the present practice. So it is not a question of any money either going or not going to the producer. It is just a question of having a better legal basis under which to continue present practices.
The Auditor General was concerned that when the board went to banks or to the market to raise money, which it can do now, there was some question as to whether the final payment could be made when payment in full by the customer had not been made.
What we are saying is that as long as the credit is there and the banks have advanced the money to the board to pay the producers and those credit arrangements are in place, the board has a better legal basis on which to operate and continue the present practice.


Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Chairman, I have one short question. Because the cost of the debt is spiralling up by $300 million a year so that it is now at $4.6 billion, there must

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come a point where the debt is hopeless and is written off.
Clearly, the banks got a sweetheart deal from the government when they were writing off their debts in Latin America. Surely, many of these impoverished countries are hopelessly unable to pay for food. It is like trying to pay for a grocery bill when the food has already been eaten. I am wondering whether the government has any plans to write off these debts. I suppose the Minister of Finance is rather gun shy about doing that because it would show an increase in his deficit, which they are very sensitive about since the government's outstanding debt of the country has doubled in the last five or six years. I am just wondering if it really presents a realistic situation for the Canadian Wheat Board to be carrying deficits of $4.6 billion on annual credit arrangement of 20 or 25 per cent of its sales.


Charles James Mayer: Mr. Speaker, I just say again that while the debt shows in the Wheat Board annual report, it is guaranteed by the Crown and therefore it is really not a debt that would be attributable to the Canadian Wheat Board because the government backs it. It means that the Canadian Wheat Board, at the end of the day, is not going to be called on to make that payment. It could not do that because the Wheat Board, outside some asset in its office building and some hopper cars, really does not have any assets.
It is our view that these debts are sovereign. They are owed by sovereign states. They are fully collectable. If in fact there is going to be any rescheduling or, as the member refers to, sweetheart deals, writedowns, standstills, then that would have to be done as part of an over-all rescheduling package I would think involving many countries.
To date the only one that I am aware of-and I think the details are public; we could certainly make them available if the member is interested-is what happened with Poland. There was I believe a standstill on some of the interest down the road but nothing has been, it is my understanding, written off or viewed as uncollectable. It is all looked at as being collectable pending further arrangements.
Just to emphasize again, while it shows up on the board's books as a big number, it is not at the end of the day the kind of money that the Wheat Board itself or the
producers would be involved in. It is the Government of Canada, the taxpayers of the country.
Clause 2 agreed to.


[Stage Direction]
Title agreed to.
Bill reported, concurred in, read the third time and passed.

[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Monday, October 7, consideration of the motion of Mr. Mazankowski that Bill C-18, an act to amend the Income Tkx Act, the Canada Pension Plan, the Cultural Property Export and Import Act, the Income Thx Conventions Interpretation Act, the Tax Court of Canada Act, the Unemployment Insurance Act, the Canada-Newfoundland Atlantic Accord Implementation Act, the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Resources Accord Implementation Act and certain related acts, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Finance.
Mr. Neil Young (Beaches-Woodbine):: Mr. Speaker, I want to say a few words on Bill C-18.
To begin with, this bill is very difficult to read. It is like a telephone book. One would have to be a Philadelphia lawyer to understand most of the language, the way it is written.
However, there are two areas that I want to bring to the attention of the House which I think are of concern to every member of the House. I am referring to those sections which deal with tax credits for individuals who may have a disability.
When the Minister of Finance first revealed his budget earlier this year to the House and to the Canadian public, there were certain provisions made that on the surface would be of great benefit to a number of people who have disabilities. Many of these proposals are welcomed by myself and by those individuals I speak of.
There are a number of changes to the Income Thx Act which certainly need some clarification. At the present time for an individual to qualify for a tax credit or a tax benefit under existing legislation, the definitions are fairly clearly defined by regulation. The new language that the House is considering at the present time is not clear to me. It certainly must not be clear to people who
October 8, 1991

are heavily and directly involved with the disabled community in Canada, some of whom I have spoken to in the last couple of days.
This is very technical and I do not want to bore people, but under section 89, subsection (3), there is a section here that deals with attendant care for individuals who are severely disabled and require an attendant to be with them to offer assistance that may be required.
As I read the initial proposal by the Minister of Finance dealing with this subject, it was my impression that the government had finally listened to presentations that had been made by the House of Commons Standing Committee on the Status of Disabled Persons and then subsequently by a new committee, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Human Rights and the Status of Disabled Persons. For the last 11 years they have been making the argument that the provision of attendant care to a person who requires it is extremely important if we are to assist that individual to participate in the mainstream of Canadian life.
When I read the actual legislation it does not say any such thing. What the legislation appears to talk about is the tax relief that will be given to the attendant and the individual if they travel to a place that is not less than 80 kilometres from the locality where the patient dwells to obtain medical services. That is not what either the disabled community or the standing committee has been arguing for all those years.
The legislation is still addressing the need for attendant care on a medical model. Many of the individuals who have addressed this committee over the years do not suffer from a medical condition. They happen to be disabled. This provision is not going to satisfy the needs from that very large group of Canadians who have that form of disability. That is one area I wanted to bring to your attention.
Another area that gives me great concern is under section 91 of this act. Clause 91 replaces the existing definitions of what constitutes a disability. I will read the section that is being replaced into the record for individuals who may not be able to or cannot get access
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to this particular act within the next few days. This is what it says it is replacing, and this is the present definition:
(a)	a person shall be considered to have a severe and prolonged impairment only if by reason thereof he is markedly restricted in his activities of daily living and the impairment has lasted or can reasonably be expected to last for a continuous period of at least 12 months; and
(b)	the Minister may obtain the advice of the Department of National Health and Welfare as to whether a person has a severe and prolonged impairment.
That has worked fairly well over the years, but now it is proposed that we have a new provision to define disability and impairment. I want to read that out for the record. The new section under clause 91 on page 218 of this proposed act reads:
(a)	an impairment is prolonged where it has lasted, or may reasonably be expected to last, for a continuous period of at least 12 months;
(b)	an individual's ability to perform a basic activity of daily living is markedly restricted only where all or substantially all of the time, even with therapy and the use of appropriate devices and medication, the individual is blind or is unable (or requires an inordinate amount of time) to perform a basic activity of daily living;
(c)	a basic activity of daily living in relation to an individual means
(i)	perceiving, thinking and remembering,
(ii)	feeding and dressing oneself,
(iii)	speaking so as to be understood, in a quiet setting, by another
person familiar with the individual,
(iv)	hearing so as to understand, in a quiet setting, another person
familiar with the individual,
(v)	eliminating (bowel or bladder functions), or
(vi)	walking; and
(d)	for greater certainty, no other activity, including working, housekeeping or a social or recreational activity, shall be considered as a basic activity of daily living.
As I read that new definition, that is going to exclude literally thousands of Canadians who have a mental impairment. By "a mental impairment", I am talking about an individual who is developmentally handicapped, who is quite capable of dressing oneself and of communicating with some difficulty in some cases, but primarily able to communicate, having all the employment opportunities in the present models that we have of sheltered workshops. This individual, probably without skilled

October 8, 1991
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training of some degree, would not be able to enter what we would normally call the normal work force.
Those individuals who are presently on disability pensions, either under provincial legislation or with assistance from the federal government, would be excluded from being eligible for any relief under the tax regime if this goes into place.
I want to be fair, and as I said in the beginning I am not a lawyer. The wording as it is presently says to me that those individuals who are currently under existing legislation eligible for tax relief will be excluded under this new provision.
I would urge the legislative committee which will be examining this legislation in detail, and I hope will be calling witnesses and allowing them to appear before that committee, to put these sections I have referred to under strict scrutiny.
If we do not, it seems to me that we will be doing a severe injustice to a large number of Canadians who are least able to defend themselves. It seems to me as parliamentarians we have a clear responsibility in that regard. That is to at least lend some assistance to individuals who are least able to help themselves.
Several weeks ago the government introduced with great fanfare something I welcome as an individual who has been involved in issues of concern to the disabled community in Canada for some time. It was a five-year strategy. The strategy in and of itself has been a long time coming and has been welcomed. We are not sure how that strategy will be implemented over the next five-year period, but that is something we can argue about both in committee and in the House.
The point was that the government took an initiative that has been a long time coming.
If that strategy is to be designed to allow and assist disabled individuals to enter the mainstream of Canadian society, these provisions I just referred to in the Income Tax Act are going to negate any improvements that were promised at the beginning of September.
I could take the opportunity and make the argument that a whole number of government initiatives over the last several years have been harmful to the disabled community: cutbacks in the Canada Assistance Plan,
cutbacks in funding for housing programs and cutbacks for post-secondary education.
I could make these arguments, but I will leave that for another time. I do not want to enter into partisan debate because I think it would detract from the arguments I am making about those sections under the Income Tax Act as we see them.
I do not want to take too long and I do not think I have to in order to belabour the argument but I seriously ask the House that when those members on that legislative committee review this legislation, they pay a great deal of attention to those two or three sections which I think are detrimental to the people who we are trying to assist.


Mr. Lyle Kristiansen (Kootenay West-Revelstoke):: Mr. Chairman, while it is certainly not my intention or that of my colleagues to drag this debate out unnecessarily, there are, while we still have a bit of time this afternoon, a few points that I would like to raise.
The bill before us, Bill C-18, does a number of things, some good and some not so good. One of the items that I noticed has to do with some changes for taxation for persons who benefit from the Older Worker Adjustment Program.
Programs for the older worker's adjustment income will become taxable the same way as unemployment insurance income now is. We are aware that we will not change the government's mind on this particular proposal within the bill but a moral argument could be made that some of these people, especially those former employees of Route Canada, some of my own former fellow workers at Kootenay Forest Products in Nelson, British Columbia and others have suffered more than their share already as they have seen their operations close down.
Some of the closures are due to actions of the federal government and others are due to actions of a provincial government. They are not simply decisions within the private sector.
They have suffered more than their share already and, being wage earners, many of them have paid more than their fair share of taxes already. We do have to ask: Why should their income be fully taxed when, for instance, capital gains are only taxed at 75 per cent? In that regard we wonder, if someone who earns $500,000 from capital gains only has to pay the capital gains tax on three-quarters of that amount, then why is it that a long-time worker who has seen his operation shut down and has lost his livelihood through no fault of his own and gets a
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meagre $100 or $200 extra a month in pension benefits as a result of the Older Worker Adjustment Income Plan is taxed on the basis of 100 per cent of those earnings? There does not seem to be much equity there.
There are two ways we can look at the matter of taxation. One is the tax system and tax changes themselves, and the other is some of the things that the government spends its money on. I found it rather interesting, at a time when the government and the finance minister are talking about the need for restraint and additional tax measures in order to pay for the operations of government, that we have some of the kind of spending going on that still continues.
I refer now to an item that was in today's Quorum from The Montreal Gazette of October 8. The headline is:
Taxing Subject Matter
In time of government restraint, how much do we need to know about eunuchs in imperial China?
It is datelined Ottawa. It reads:
At a time when the government is paring services, it is spending $15,435 to finance a study on eunuchs in imperial China, with special focus on the 10th to 14th centuries.
That makes it even more vitally important if you look at the timeframe.
It says:
As it is freezing public service salaries, the government is spending $305,070 toward its continuing financial backing of a private project to assemble a dictionary of old English, or rather, auld English.
Among other projects Canadians are helping finance through taxes like the GST are a study of the modern American diet ($27,700), an analysis of criminality and religious charity in 16th century Bologna-
That is really vital to the welfare of the Canadian taxpayers.
-and a look at the late prehistoric archaeology of the Ha'apai
Islands in the Kingdom of Tonga ($80,318).
These are just a few of 680 scholarly projects supported in the fiscal year 1990-91 by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada funded by this government. That agency, created under the Secretary of State Department in 1977, handed out some $82
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million in 1990-91 which is up from $75 million the year before.
The president of the agency says:
-the federal spending squeeze meant 473 projects worthy of support had to be turned down.
That is really a shame. I wonder about those kinds of projects. At this time of fiscal restraint and when the government is imposing new taxes on Canadians, what are the gems that we missed out on in the last little while?
These are some of the spending priorities that this government obviously has and at the same time it is making some other tax changes.
I want to refer back to one that makes these other ones seem rather minuscule because this one has to do with forgiving perhaps billions of dollars of revenue from some of the richest families in Canada.
The finance minister would have us believe that he scrounged around to find every possible source of funds that could possibly be put toward deficit reduction. I am quoting at some length here from an article in The Globe and Mail from last March 13:
But few Canadians are aware that just before his deficit-slashing
budget last month, Mr. Wilson's own department quietly gave up a
source of potentially billions of dollars that were scheduled to come
into the national treasury beginning in the next 21 months.
This change does not appear in the bill currently before us, but we are expecting it momentarily. The government has suggested that it is coming. In many ways this is a major measure of tax forgiveness to the wealthiest families in Canada, which it has been attempting to sneak through over the Canadian people at the same time that we have a cap on social spending arrangements with the provinces and people on welfare and social assistance and small children are not getting enough to eat. This assistance which cities across Canada are dependent upon and many other vital programs all members have agreed are vitally necessary for the welfare of the people of Canada but are being cut back and slashed.
The Public Service on which we depend for the delivery of many of our programs is being told that it will get zero and zero, unless its members are willing to give up either their jobs or the jobs of their fellow employees.

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Coming back to this matter of changes dealing with private trusts:
The money would have come from the richest families in the country as part of an overhaul of the tax system worked out two decades ago. It would have come from the private trusts of these families-storage places for great wealth that are almost entirely shielded from the public eye.
While considerable information is publicly available about the income and assets of individuals and public corporations, almost nothing is known about these private trusts. So, although the owners of the private trusts have long known that they would owe major taxes starting in 1993, the general public was unaware.
Not surprisingly then, nobody paid much attention on February 11, 1991, when the finance department issued a dull press release No. 91-018 about some seemingly technical matters dealing with family trusts.
I want to go on a bit, because it is about time that some people realized just how this government is taking them for a ride.
Behind the technical language, release No. 91-018, in fact, announced the government's intention to introduce a generous new loophole that would allow the deferral of a fortune in taxes.
Only two weeks later the then Finance Minister was on his feet in the House of Commons declaring an all out assault on the deficit. While many Canadians listened apprehensively to the minister's speech, the owners of the private trusts undoubtedly breathed a little easier knowing that although times may be tough, the government had at least spared them.
The story behind this press release and the action it refers to begins back in 1972 when the Liberal government of Pierre Trudeau introduced some fairly sweeping reforms to the tax system.
One of the items was the removal of the federal inheritance tax. That action resulted in a lump sum gift of about $12.5 billion to rich families, according to calculations by University of Toronto economist, John Bossons.
The extent of this windfall for the wealthy was actually far greater over time, since it removed the inheritance tax on future accumulations of wealth, including the enormous increase in private fortunes in Canada during the 1980s.
To partially offset this loss of revenue, the government introduced, as part of the 1972 reform, a partial tax on capital gains, a key source of income for the very richest among Canadians.
Up until 1972, capital gains, that is the profits made on the sale of assets, such as stocks, bonds, jewellery or real estate, had been tax free.
Although the Royal Commission on Taxation had recommended in the late 1960s that capital gains be taxed at the rate as other income, the government apparently viewed this as too punitive for the well to do and opted instead to tax capital gains at only half the rate applied to other income.
Now who says our governments have not had a heart?
This was a Liberal government and it is known to have a heart. This is the kind of heart it had. Now this Conservative government wants to make the matter even worse and extend these same privileges for another 21 years.
The other special treatment capital gains were to receive was that they would only be taxed when the asset was sold. Its owner could hold onto it for 50 years or more as its value increased, but no tax would be paid until it was actually sold. Stocks could be passed from one generation to the next, thereby permanently avoiding tax
To prevent huge family fortunes from permanently avoiding tax in this way, the 1972 reform package specified that any increase in the value of an individual's capital property would be taxed as capital gains at his or her death, whether or not the property was actually sold.
But private trusts seemed to provide a nice escape clause. By putting assets into a private trust which never died, they would not be taxed when their owner expired.
The Trudeau government set a time limit of 21 years on this. At the 21-year mark, any increase in the value of assets held in the trust would be subject to tax as capital gains. So, Mr. Speaker, justice would finally prevail. That 21-year mark, though, was coming due on January 1, 1993, just in time to provide some badly needed revenue for the federal government's deficit-ridden coffers.
The government, however, created a new loophole that would allow family trusts to put off the payment date well beyond 1993. Proposed in the aforesaid press release No. 91-018, the loophole allows wealthy families in almost every case to choose to put off payment until their youngest child dies, delaying taxes for another generation or more.
Tax experts generally agree that a dollar of tax deferred is a dollar of tax saved. It amounts to tax exemption, because the money saved, if properly invested in the intervening years, multiplies in value.
Release No. 91-018, for all its dry, technical jargon, is the government's signal to wealthy families that it intends to give them an enormous gift. It has done this in a very furtive manner.
October 8, 1991

It chose, for instance, not to announce the change in the budget. A change of this magnitude would usually be announced and some estimate of the lost revenue would be provided.
The finance department has resorted to some specious arguments. For instance, it says in its press release that the 21-year rule might interfere with trusts established by parents for the benefit of their disabled children. How many wealthy families happen to have disabled children? Undoubtedly a small fraction.
And those families who do would undoubtedly have structured a trust differently to provide the child with an ongoing income rather than a lump sum capital gain at a point far into the future.
The government says its new rule will prevent assets from being transferred from one trust to another tax-free. This is a red herring, however, since other tax laws already prevent such tax-free transfers.
Considering the seriousness with which the Conservative government views the deficit, it could have toughened the rules on family trusts instead of easing them.
Canada could have followed the example of its free trade partner, the United States, which is not known for being tough on the rich. But it has tougher laws about this sort of thing than Canada does.
Some time in the very near future, Mr. Speaker, we expect the government will try to pass its proposed new change quietly into law. It will present the change to the House of Commons in the form of a legislated amendment and hope that the few MPs and members of the public which will be watching will have little awareness of the money at stake.
And then, of course, it will return to the pressing matter of reducing the deficit.
I said that the bill now before us does not contain the provisions outlined in the government's press release 91-018 but we do know it is on the government's agenda. I would, ask those members opposite: how can they possibly justify some of the increases in taxation on ordinary Canadians, who already pay more than their fair share, which are proposed in this legislation and in the budget and all of the other measures this government has brought before us, at the same time as they are quietly prepared to hand out billions and billions of dollars to the very richest Canadian families. We are not
Government Orders
talking about those who are well off, we are talking about the super-rich in this society. Why do they need charity when permanently laid-off workers who receive meagre benefits from the Unemployed Workers Adjustment Program need to have an increase in their taxation as a result of this bill before us.
It is socialism for the rich and free enterprise for the poor, as some people have called it. That is exactly what it is. I do not expect this government to have a change of heart, but I do wish it would stop smiling about the deceit which it has been peddling to Canadians about the sacrifices that ordinary Canadians have to make, while the richest among our citizenry continue to get billion-dollar handouts from this government.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Ottawa Centre-Farm Credit Corporation; the hon. member for Don Valley East-National Unity; the hon. member for Scarborough-Rouge River-Correctional Service Canada; the hon. member for Mackenzie-Agriculture; the hon. member for Saint-Boniface-Student Loan Program.
Question and comment period, the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Mr. Speaker, I was pleased to hear the hon. member for Kootenay West-Revelstoke speak and rewrite taxation history in Canada in his very colourful way. He certainly explained his views of Canada's tax structure and the way it has evolved in the last 25 years in a very thorough and all encompassing manner.
I want to solicit his views on a particular issue. He talked about the evils of the capital gains tax and the way that former governments had applied that tax. As he indicated, and he is quite correct in this, the government at the time imposed a tax on only half of capital gains. In other words, half the capital gains earned by an individual were exempt from any form of tax. They previously had been completely exempt. One of the other exemptions that the government of the day made was to exempt one's principal residence from the application of the tax.

Private Members' Business
None of these was particularly recommended as I recall by the Carter commission whose slogan was: "A buck is a buck is a buck", and proposed taxation on all dollars however earned. He seemed to imply in his remarks that he supported the Carter commission in its report.
Does the hon. member advocate taxation of capital gains on principal residences as part of the policy? Is that part of the New Democratic Party's program for revamping the taxation structure in Canada? And does he take the view that only the wealthy own homes in Canada, only the very rich, the most select few who pay capital gains tax, which again he implied in his remarks? If so, I suggest that his view is misleading and deceptive to Canadians.
I would like him to become clear and tell the House whether or not he supports the imposition of a tax on the gains realized on the sale of one's principal residence.


Lyle Stuart Kristiansen: The answer briefly stated, Mr. Speaker, would be no, not unless there are very serious restrictions on the amounts involved.
What we are talking about here, and going back to the Carter commission, is the need for a fair taxation system in Canada and a taxation system which is seen to be fair. It can be argued in many circumstances, because it is not a perfect world, that there is a need for exemptions from certain types of taxation in specific circumstances to meet a whole variety of very important personal and collective societal needs.
What we say is wrong is when we have a taxation system that again and again and again accords understanding and sympathy to the richest among us when we are not prepared as a government-at least that government and often the government that preceded it-to show that same kind of understanding, sympathy, common sense, equity and sense of fairness to the poorest among us or those average Canadians who work hard and already pay more than their fair share which the Carter commission well catalogued and which many members on all sides of this House catalogued again and again and again.
Let us have some equity, let us have some fairness and treat those who are in the middle and those who are the poorest at least as well as we treat proportionately those who are at the top of the income ladder in this society.


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


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: On division.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
Mr. McCreath:: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I think you would find unanimous consent to suspend the sitting until five o'clock p.m.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Do members give their unanimous consent?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Mr. Speaker, of course, we are very happy to give our consent to the arrangement.
I want to point out that we have made great progress today. Three government bills have been passed, two through all stages and one at second reading.
I just want to make it very clear that when we next hear from the government about obstruction or delay tactics on the part of the opposition, we hope it will refer to today's events as an indication of the excellent co-operation that was forthcoming from the opposition.


SITTING SUSPENDED
The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: The business of the House is therefore suspended until five o'clock this afternoon.
At 4.36 p.m. the sitting of the House was suspended.



SITTING RESUMED The House resumed at 5 p.m.


Mr. Guy H. Arseneault (Restigouche-Chaleur) moved: that Bill C-211, an Act to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act (temporary community service) be now read a second time and referred to Legislative Committee A.
October 8, 1991

He said: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour and the privilege of leading off the debate in this House on a Private Members' Bill which I sponsored and whose purpose is to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act.
As you may know, Mr. Speaker, section 14 of the Act prevents people who are obliged to perform their civic duty, for instance as members of a jury of members of emergency teams, from receiving unemployment insurance benefits if they happen to be unemployed.
I am sure you will agree this is absolutely unfair and that many people are caught in a bind in such cases. Mr. Speaker, I think this section contradicts the intent of the Unemployment Insurance Act. Thiis legislation was passed more than 50 years ago to provide income security for all Canadians, not to punish them when they have to perform their civic duty.

The object of Bill C-211 is to amend section 14 of the Unemployment Insurance Act to ensure that persons in temporary service to the community, as jurors or emergency workers, are not regarded as disqualified from a benefit merely because of their participation in such an activity.
At present, anyone performing their civic duty while collecting unemployment insurance benefits is penalized by the federal government for no valid or obvious reason. Anyone performing jury duty for more than two days will not be eligible for benefits since the law considers that they are not available for work. Although jurors are usually granted a stipend for expenses incurred while performing their duties, anyone submitting unemployment insurance claim cards to receive the difference in UI benefits will receive nothing. I guess to explain it a little better I will refer back to an individual case in my riding that I am quite well aware of that made the media quite extensively in Atlantic Canada. It came to my attention because it involved a constituent of mine.
At that time that I was referred to this case I thought it was a misunderstanding and so did the person in question. We came to find out that the regulation is in fact there. The best way of explaining it, Mr. Speaker, is to read this letter which I received from my constituent that
Private Members' Business
she also forwarded to members of the media in the form of a letter to the editor. It says:
Dear Sir,
In September I experienced the luck of having been laid off after paying maximum unemployment insurance premiums for the past 25 years.
In November I experienced the luck of having been selected as a juror for the murder trial recently held in Campbellton. The mental stress of trying to absorb nine days of testimony and summations was emotionally draining.
The added stress I would also assume is that she was on unemployment insurance benefits, or so she thought and obviously at a reduced salary with no work and not able to look for work.
I am sure that if she knew she was not eligible for UI, her stress level would probably have been that much higher. I quote again from her letter:
At the conclusion of the trial I requested and was given a letter which stated the days I had been present in court and the amount of money that I would receive from the court. I mailed this letter along with the UI card on November 27.
In December I received a letter from the Unemployment Insurance Commission informing me that I was disqualified from unemployment insurance benefits for the two weeks in question as I had not been available for work.
I immediately telephoned the letter-writer to register my disbelief only to be told that I had not been available for work and that there were no exceptions for jurors.
She goes on to state:
My tax money helped pay the salaries of the participants in this case, including the RCMP, the prosecution staff, the public defender, the sheriff's department, the court staff, and not to mention the room and board of the prisoner in question.
In retrospect I could have ignored the summons to appear for jury selection and I would have been fined $50 like the dozen or so other good citizens who failed to show up. I could have requested a letter to be sent to the court by a sympathetic doctor exempting me. I could have lied and said I knew someone connected to the case. I could have lied on my UI claim. Someone suggested that anyone showing up for jury selection with a rope thrown over her shoulder would probably be rejected by the defence team.
However, I did none of these things. I tried to be a good citizen, but I have come to the conclusion that when dealing with big brother honesty is really not the best policy.
That puts it in a nutshell, Mr. Speaker. Basically the person was on UI, was receiving benefits after being laid off employment, and did her civic duty by appearing on the jury.

Private Members' Business
To further matters I have a news article on a situation that happened in Nova Scotia, a little different situation, mind you. I would like to quote from this article and then comment on it. The headline on this article which appeared in The Moncton Times in transcript February 1991 says: "Judge Excuses Potential Jurors, Calls UI Rule 'Stupid'". The by line on the article is Sydney, Nova Scotia, and goes on to say:
A Nova Scotia Supreme Court justice excused nine people from
jury duty TUesday because they would not be available to collect
unemployment benefits if the trial took more than two days.
He goes on to say and this is a direct quote from Justice Hilroy Nathanson:
I think it's a stupid ruling, but who am I?
When we look at who this judge is without looking at the person, but looking at the office that he holds, we see a person who is veiy familiar with justice.
He is very familiar with the legal system and with making sure that people have justice throughout the land. We have this hon. justice saying that this rule is stupid. Obviously, if we go one step further, we would have to say then that it should be changed.
That is why in a way this came to my attention again. After listening to my constituent and seeing this article in the paper, after consulting with my colleagues on all sides of the House, I decided to put forth this bill. I hope that I will have the support today of all my colleagues in the House.
Quite often when private members' bills are presented in the House, government members will come here and try to refute the bills. Quite often they get orders from above. Looking at it in general, I can pretty well predict what they may want to say.
I just want to speak on that for a few moments. First of all, there is a basis principle in UIC. We will probably hear time and time again that to receive unemployment benefits a person must be available for work and must be actively pursuing work.
In the case that we are looking at presently, which is under review and which we hope that this bill will rectify, we find that the lady in question was on UI. She was receiving benefits and decided to do her civic duty. She had no choice. It was not that she had a choice of not being available for work.
Quite often when people are disqualified from UI benefits, it is through an intent of their own to break the regulations. In this case, the lady in question had no choice but to appear for jury duty so she was not available for work through no choice of her own. She was forced to appear for jury duty.
Second, it is kind of hard to pursue employment actively when one is sitting in a jury box. It is very difficult. Obviously she did not meet those two principles. You may hear that from the other side, Mr. Speaker, but when we look at it in a realistic and practical way it was impossible for that woman, that constituent of mine, to meet those two conditions.
Another thing that you may hear is that we are scared to set a precedent. I believe that if you look at the regulations, you will find that precedents have already been set. There are people, Canadians receiving unemployment insurance who are not available for work and who are not actively pursuing work. There are actually some Canadians doing this. It is legal and it is right. There is nothing wrong with that. People do receive sick benefits from UI. They are not available for work, nor are they actively pursuing work. In this case there are precedents involved.
In jury duty we are not talking about a great number of people. Most jurors who appear are already working. We are talking about people who are already on unemployment insurance. We are not talking about people who are unemployed going to jury duty and then getting on unemployment insurance. We are talking about people who are already on unemployment. I would like to mention that.
Another thing I would like to refer to is that you may hear some members today, Mr. Speaker, say-and I hope not-that the justice system, the jury system is a provincial responsibility.
I say to you, Mr. Speaker, and to all members of the House that justice is everyone's responsibility. It is everyone's responsibility. I also say that injustices that appear in the system and can be rectified from any level of government should be rectified. In this case there seems to be an injustice done and a further injustice being created by the federal government.
I will try not to be too partisan because I think that in all honesty this bill is a good bill. When you get partisan sometimes, people tend not to want to support you as much. I have no choice but to say that if the government



is saying that it is a provincial responsibility then I think it is shirking its duty. I think it is just passing the buck. In fact, when I mentioned that to a number of my constituents and said I would be speaking today, they actually said: "I find it hard to believe that they are passing the buck because they seem to be collecting as much money as they can get through taxes and just passing on the problems to someone else". That is an opinion shared by a number of Canadians; not necessarily every Canadian, but it is certainly shared by some.
I want to come back to the intent here today, and that is to correct an injustice in the system. It is just a matter of housekeeping. I have talked with a lot of individual MPs and they have told me that it is a good idea. When we talk about private members' hour, the problem is that quite often the government does not want to pass private members' bills. If we look at the record of private members in seeking to pass a bill, we see that is a major problem.
I want to go back and talk a little bit about the Constitution and the new constitutional package which this government wants to promote across the land. A new pamphlet has been put out entitled An Invitation to Help Build a New Canada. That is going to go to every household in Canada, so I am told. On page 6 it says: "We need to make our federal institutions more democratic and more responsive to Canadians. At the heart of the problem is a need for parliamentary reform". I believe all members would agree with that.
It goes on to say: "Many Canadians tune in to televised sittings of the House of Commons, but they are turned off by what they see". They want to see more free votes; that is what they want to see. The government has agreed to that and most members agree that we should have more free votes. That is why I hope we will see later when the vote is taken that it is not just a party vote where maybe the government of the day decides it does not like the bill or it will not get the credit for passing the bill and it has told its members to say this about it, just talk about it, and then at the end vote against it.
I would hope that we would start now with this constitutional package, if it really means something. I would hope that we would set the example. I would hope that members opposite and adjacent would look at the bill for what it is worth and say: "I think it is a good bill. I will vote for it", or "I do not think it is a good bill and I will vote against it". If that is their wish that is no
Private Members' Business
problem, but I would hope that it is an individual desire to vote one way or the other.
I would feel very satisfied with that. I also hope that we would not hear all the government members opposing it just for the sake of opposing it. I believe that is at the root of some of the problem in the land. People have lost a little bit of trust in the system, not in politicians. People tend to equate that with a loss of trust in politicians. If you go to your constituents and talk on a one-to-one basis, there is no problem with politicians as such. It is the system they are complaining about. It is a system like this one where this woman had a problem with UI.
It only makes common sense. If you talk to people they agree with what should happen. They are hoping that members of Parliament who are here today will listen and will improve the system. That is what it is all about. We should start here in private members' hour. In fact that is where the ultimate free vote should always be. It should not matter. We should not even get a declaration from the minister about whether he is for or against. We should just come in here and say: "Let us go to it", and if you agree with it, you agree with it.

In concluding, Mr. Speaker, I think all members of this House should support my amendment. I think that in this case, partisanship should be relegated to second place and the interests of all Canadians allowed to come first. I therefore urge members of all political parties to support this amendment. The interests of their constituents are at stake.
Since it was created in 1940, our unemployment insurance system has always had equity as its main characteristic. Since section 14 ignores this principle and is basically unfair, it should be amended. Any vote against this bill may very well be perceived as a vote against the interests of Canadians.

I hope that my pleas to reform the unemployment system have not fallen on deaf ears.


Mr. Jack Shields (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, the bill before us today, Bill C-211, an act to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act tabled by my hon. friend, may appear at first glance to have very laudable goals, to permit people serving on jury duty or performing other

October 8, 1991
Private Members' Business
community services to continue to receive unemployment insurance benefits while carrying out those functions.
The hon. member has already informed us that no Canadian should be penalized for undertaking such civic duties as serving on juries or firefighting or things of that nature. I fully agree; no one should be penalized for carrying out his civic duty.
It is not the unemployment insurance system that is penalizing people for fulfilling their civic duty but the provincial justice system. It is true that people serving on juries are not eligible to receive UI.


An hon. member:: Oh, oh.


Jack Wendele Shields: I wonder if the hon. member could, instead of speaking, open his ears and listen and maybe he will learn something. I was very quiet and listened to the words of my hon. friend across the way. I will be prepared to sit and listen to the words of this hon. gentleman. Perhaps he will just listen to what I have to say.
It is true that people serving on juries are not eligible to receive UI benefits for the time they sit on the jury. This is because they cannot be considered available for work at that time. I will have more to say about that in a brief moment or two.
I would like to point out that it is also true that the fees paid to people for serving on juries in this country are extremely low. For this reason someone receiving UI benefits who serves on a jury is very likely to face financial hardship when he or she is disentitled from UI benefits. But it should also be noted that I do not believe that any judge in the land would ignore a plea to be excused from jury duty when one is seeking employment and on unemployment insurance. That should be underlined.
I have had occasion to be in court rooms when judges will excuse people from jury duty for a number of reasons. If I were unemployed and was called for jury duty and I went before the judge and explained that I was looking for a job and that my UI would be cut off if I had to serve, he would excuse me from jury duty.
Let us briefly explore how the act applies to this question. The Unemployment Insurance Act of 1971 was enacted June 23, 1971. Although numerous changes have been made to it, this act forms the basis of the current legislation. Under the act claimants attest to their entitlement to benefits on a bi-weekly reporting card. Here they indicate that they are unemployed, that they are capable of and available for work and unable to find suitable employment. Those are the basic criteria for receiving unemployment insurance.
This process of determining the claimant's eligibility is not limited to when they file their initial or renewal application for benefits but continues throughout the benefit period. Once a benefit period has been established, claimants serve a two-week waiting period before benefits start. Claimants must also show that no conditions or circumstances exist that would disqualify or disentitle that individual from benefits.
UI legislation requires claimants who are receiving regular UI benefits to prove that they are capable of and available for work and that nothing prevents them from immediately accepting any suitable offer of employment. This is really the crux of the matter, and I would repeat that again. The legislation requires claimants who are receiving regular unemployment insurance benefits to prove that they are capable of and available for work and that nothing prevents them from immediately accepting any suitable offer of employment.
This is the test laid out in section 14(a) of the Unemployment Insurance Act. This requirement is mandatory under the legislation and there is no discretion to waive or vary. It imposes on each individual claimant the burden of proving availability for each and every day of employment. The claimants primary preoccupation on a daily basis is to become re-employed. To that end a claimant must be continually seeking work and be immediately available to accept an offer of suitable employment.
If a claimant is unable to accept employment immediately because he or she is serving on a jury there is a strong presumption, I would submit, of non-availability. However, as in all cases availability is evaluated on the individual's circumstances. The decisions will vary according to the particulars of the specific case.

In recent years the Canada Employment and Immigration Commission has developed a policy that permits some flexibility and allows claimants to prove their availability for limited periods of up to two working days in cases such as jury duty, family illness or attendance at a funeral, when claimants would otherwise be able to prove their availability.
This is the most flexible interpretation possible under the legislation which in section 14 requires the individual to be available for work, capable of working and willing to work.
Nevertheless as a general rule a claimant is not considered to be available for work while serving on a jury. The length or uncertainty of the time of duty interferes with the claimant's search for and acceptance of employment.
I would submit that anyone unemployed and looking for a job being called to do jury duty, having a job offered to him and not being able to accept it would be very upset indeed. It goes beyond civic duty.
If jury duty lasts more than two working days in a row, it is difficult for a claimant to claim to be available for work. If arrangements have been made for the claimant to be informed immediately of any opportunity for suitable employment and if it is possible for the claimant to be released and report for work within the following 24 or 48 hours, the claim may be credible.
If in fact the solution to this problem lies not with UI legislation but with provincial judicial systems, generally provincial payments for jury duty are much less than UI benefits. Consequently UI recipients could be penalized for fulfilling their civil obligation.
I agree that people should be compensated for an important function such as jury duty, but the real question is: Who is responsible for compensating them? Is it the employer and the workers themselves or is it the judicial system, as I would submit, of each individual province? I would argue that since they are serving the provincial systems it is their responsibility to provide adequate compensation.
I am going to review very briefly for the House what the provinces are paying for jury duty. Prince Edward Island pays its jurists $40 a day from the first day of jury
Private Members' Business
duty. The average duration of jury duty is seven days in that province. Nova Scotia pays $15 a day from the first day. The average duration of jury duty is three days. New Brunswick pays no fees for the first nine days and it pays jurors $10 a day in mileage and $25 for a full day after 10 days. Quebec jurors are paid $25 a day for the first 10 days, $40 for the eleventh day on. The average duration of a jury in the Montreal region is seven days. Ontario jurists are paid nothing for the first 10 days of trial. I think those kinds of payments for jury duty are not acceptable and the provinces should address them. Manitoba pays $20 a day for the selection of panel, $30 a day for jury duty. The average duration is five days. Saskatchewan pays $25 a day from fourth day of jury duty in criminal cases and $25 for the first day in civil cases. Jurors in Alberta get $10 a day for days one through five of jury duty, $40 after that. Four days is the average number of days served on a jury. The Northwest Territories pays $25 a day and $40 a day. British Columbia pays $10 a day and $30 a day with a two to three day average.
In conclusion, the primary requirement for entitlement after being unemployed is being available for work. I would submit, and I submit very strongly, that it is not the UI system that we should be attacking or seeking compensation from for the individuals to allow them to serve on jury duty. We should go where the problem lies and that is in the judicial system of each province.
Provinces should take the responsibility that belongs rightfully to them and pay the jurors a decent remuneration for sitting and doing a civic duty.


Cyril (Cid) Samson: Mr. Speaker, I rise with pleasure to support Bill C-211 which has been put forward by the member for Restigouche.
This bill is cleaning up something that was overlooked when the original act was put in place. We are not suggesting for a moment that it is going to cost the UI fund any more money. We are not asking the federal government to put more money into the fund. It does not put any into it now.
What we are saying is that when people are performing a civic duty they should not be penalized by having their benefits cut off, thereby not only putting them under undue stress but also their families.

Private Members' Business
A lot has been said about people serving on jury duty and a lot should be said about that. When we consider people sitting on jury duty, it is a right and a privilege. Those people who are denied that right and privilege are not being dealt with fairly. When we say that you are going to sit on jury duty but you are not going to be able to collect unemployment insurance benefits, we are taking away their right.
I would like to put emphasis on other volunteers in a community. In my riding of Timmins-Chapleau we rely a lot on volunteers. We have numerous volunteer fire departments. We have a first response team in a town called Foleyet. A lot of people on that team are unemployed. A lot of our volunteer firefighters are unemployed.
The bill also asks for an exemption to the rule or a change in the rule for those people who provide food, flood control and shelter. We have an organization called the Lord's Kitchen which offers some 350 to 400 meals per week to underprivileged people, people who need help.
Are we telling all these volunteers who may in some cases be on unemployment insurance: "You can't do this on a continuous basis because you are not actively looking for work. You can't go out and help your community any more. You have to go out and look for a job"? Albeit they are looking for a job, does that mean that every waking moment they have to be out there banging on doors looking for work? Does that mean we have to deprive them of the opportunity of serving their community on a volunteer basis?
If that were the case, what would happen to the Cancer Society, the Heart Fund and the United Way, all those volunteer agencies that without volunteers will not exist? Is this the message that we are sending to our communities?
When we hear the government say "some of these areas fall within provincial jurisdiction", the government is passing the buck. The government is shedding itself of its responsibilities.
The government is not contributing to the UI fund. It is paid for by employers and employees. Why is there a problem with saying that people engaged in performing a civic duty or volunteer work cannot collect UI? Does that mean that those volunteers and those people who are performing jury duty are not actively seeking work?
They send out resumes. They fill out applications. They make appointments.
An employer will call you and say: "Come on in and let's have an interview." Does that mean that it has to be specifically at the time they are sitting on a jury, or could they make a time that is more convenient. Accommodations can be made. Potential employers, no. They are reasonable people and they know that when people are performing their civic duty, allowances have to be made.
I think this bill, as I said in the beginning, is a good bill. It is a clean-up bill. It is not one that is going to cost the government one red cent. If we look at the percentage of people who would be affected, the cost to the fund is very, very minimal but the benefit to the community is extremely large by having these people in place to perform these voluntary duties.
I do not really understand why the government members would want to rise in this House and speak opposing this bill. I would hope, as my friend from Restigouche- Chaleur has already pointed out, that this debate will take place in a non-partisan way, that when you look at the bill you look at the value of the wording, exactly what it will do. Never mind going outside the parameters and playing one political party against the other. I have no problem supporting this bill. It is a Liberal bill but it makes no difference. I would hope that the Conservative members will rise and speak their own minds as to exactly how they really feel about this bill. I am sure that in the end they will see that there is benefit, there is no cost, and that they, like us, will support the bill.


Guy St-Julien: Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to speak to the hon. member's bill to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act.
On the face of it, the hon. member's desire to amend this bill seems quite reasonable. I am sure hon. members will agree that it is incumbent on every citizen to perform his civic duty, such as serving on a jury or helping in the community when necessary. Helping the community through volunteer work is a noble endeavour that benefits our society as a whole. However, Mr. Speaker, even if it may be the right thing to do, and I refer to making up for the financial losses of citizens when they take part in activities to help their community, we should ask ourselves how this should be done and

whether an amendment to the Unemployment Insurance Act is the right answer.


Mr. Boudria:: Who wrote that?


Guy St-Julien: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell asked me who wrote that. I did. I have a right to prepare my notes. If he wants to take a look, he can come to my office.


Don Boudria: If the notes were yours, they would make more sense.


Guy St-Julien: The hon. member talks about sense. I often notice he reads his own notes during Question Period, but I never made an issue of it. In any case, I am not going to argue. Mr. Speaker, I feel that although the amendment proposed by the hon. member is well inten-tioned, it is clear it is not up to the federal government to offer these people compensation through the Unemployment Insurance Act. Now, did you get that?
Consider the situation. From the outset, in the forties, the main objective of the Unemployment Insurance Act has always been to help workers "temporarily out of work". Canadians can be proud of this legislation because it is an integral part of programs that reflect our social responsibility. However, to make it effective, we have included measures to counter abuse and set criteria to ensure that the money paid during a period of unemployment goes to people who are out of work and are actively seeking a job. I emphasize, these people must be actively seeking employment. I am sure the hon. member will agree that without this provision, human nature being what it is, there would be considerable abuse of unemployment insurance funds. Section 14 of the Act, the section the hon. member wishes to amend, puts a heavy responsability on unemployment insurance recipients. I wish to quote subsection 14(a):
(a) capable of and available for work and unable to obtain suitable
employment on that day-
Mr. Speaker, under the Unemployment Insurance Act, the main concern of a person who is unemployed must be to seek employment, not for three or four days a week but every day. That person must look for a job and be immediately capable of accepting a suitable job offer.
Private Members' Business
I think the hon. member will agree it is reasonable to assume that if a person serves on a jury or works as a volunteer fireman, laudable though those activities may be, that person is not immediately available for work.
However, Mr. Speaker, the federal government realizes that sometimes there are special circumstances. That is why every application is assessed on its own merits, and as a result, decisions will vary. However, when a UI benefit recipient is selected as a jury member or as a member of a rescue team, if he makes arrangements to be called immediately as soon as suitable employment is available, and if that he then reports for work within 48 hours, then he is eligible for unemployment insurance benefits.
Mr. Speaker, I think the real problem is not the provisions of the Unemployment Insurance Act but the low rates of compensation paid by the provinces for jury duty. For instance, in Ontario, jury members receive nothing during the first ten days of a trial; from the eleventh to the forty-ninth day, they get only $40 a day, and starting on the fiftieth day, they receive $100 for their expenses. That is the rule in Ontario. Mr. Speaker, I have yet to see a single federal member urge the Government of Ontario to increase those amounts. They should, but I think they are asleep on the job.
Mr. Speaker, in Quebec they get $25 a day for the first ten days and $40 a day for subsequent days. In Newfoundland, Mr. Speaker, employers are responsible for compensating employees who are called for jury duty. Unemployed workers in Newfoundland who are called for jury duty receive $4.75 an hour, but in Nova Scotia they only get $15 a day.
Mr. Speaker, I don't want to waste the precious time of hon. members by quoting figures for all the provinces. The ones I gave are fairly representative for the provinces as a whole. I hope opposition members understood those figures, and they should, if they can add and subtract. Suffice it to say that in general, the compensation paid by the provinces to persons serving on a jury is far less than UI benefits. However, I am sure hon. members will agree that UI benefits should not be used to subsidize provincial judicial systems.

October 8, 1991
Private Members' Business
UI benefit recipients who ask to be exempted from jury duty do so because the compensation is inadequate. Mr. Speaker, I think that judges who believe compensation paid by the provinces to persons who do jury duty is inadequate should do something about this problem. Mr. Speaker, despite the good intentions of the hon. member who proposed the amendment, the answer is not to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act but to ask the provinces to increase amounts paid to individuals who perform their civic duty by serving on a jury or working as volunteers in their communities.
I have reached the end of my speech, and I thank you, Mr. Speaker. I hope the Liberal member who tried to intervene during my speech listened to what I had to say.


Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the speech by the hon. member for Abitibi. I must tell you that I accused him of reading a speech that was not his but, Mr. Speaker, I did so as a compliment, a tribute to him because I know that his own speech, one that he would have written himself, would be thirty times better than the one he was given, Mr. Speaker.
I trust the hon. member opposite, but I have no confidence in those who wrote that speech because obviously they are not at all as intelligent as the hon. member for Abitibi.
Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Abitibi and the hon. member for Athabasca were telling us earlier that unemployment insurance is a system that exists to provide benefits so long as the beneficiaries want to look for work-no exceptions. But that is not true, Mr. Speaker. I will quote section 14 of the present law to you.
14. A claimant is not entitled to be paid initial benefit for any working day in a benefit period for which he fails to prove that he was either
(a)	capable of and available for work and unable to obtain-employment-or
(b)	incapable of work by reason of prescribed illness, injury or quarantine on that day, and that he would be otherwise available for work.
So recipients of unemployment insurance who are sick, quarantined or have other valid reasons given in section 14 can still receive benefits.
Mr. Speaker, we are not here today to see whether or not there are exceptions to the rule. There are exceptions. What my colleague from Restigouche-Chaleur is telling us today is that there should be another exemption, not that there should be exemptions-that is already established, it is in the law and the government has not challenged it or tried to eliminate it. So it is there. My colleague is saying that there should be other exemptions.

Let us listen to rules on how it is today. If a person serves on a jury, that person is technically unavailable for work that day and cannot draw unemployment insurance. Some members across say that is the fault of the province because it does not pay enough for jury duty.
Another hon. member said that was fine but those people who are not rich enough to serve on juries should ask the judge to exempt them. I thought it was a principle of common law that we had a right to be judged by our peers, not that we had a right to be judged by the rich. What kind of mind-set is that?
I have an article here from the Mountain Times Transcript of February 6, 1991.1 ask my colleagues across the way to take note of this. Never mind the speech that the officials of the department gave to them to read. It says: "Calls UI rule stupid. Judge excuses potential jurors". This explains how the judge in this case allowed a juror to go home because the person would lose her unemployment insurance benefit. The judge called this ruling stupid. The members across want to favour a ruling that is described by a judge as being "stupid". Is that what they want to stand for by reading the documents given to them by functionaries of the department? I say to my colleagues across, never mind that nonsense. Speak your mind. Never mind what the officials told you to read. They are not the boss. We are. We were elected to this place by our constituents to make laws that are fair and reasonable for all Canadians, not to read junk prepared by some minion in the employment department or by a sidekick to the minister.
The members across have referred only to jury duty. They have some sort of a bent that only people who are rich have a right to serve on jury duty. What about the firefighter, the volunteer firefighter, the flood control
October 8, 1991

worker, the rescue worker? Say that some members have a problem with the last clause "provider of food or shelter for the community".
Let us assume there is a problem with that with someone across the way. I do not think there should be, but let us say there is one. Why do they not all go to committee and remove that portion of it if they have a problem with it?
Here is the situation now. If there is a flood on the Ottawa River going through my constituency, someone who is on unemployment cannot volunteer to go help in that flood because he will have his unemployment benefits cancelled. That is a case of an emergency, and that according to the government across the way is what the rule should be.
Last year there was a fire in Baie Comeau, in the Prime Minister's own riding. Is it logical that a volunteer should not be able to help with the fire because he is receiving UI?
No, that is not logical. I know the members across do not believe it is logical. I say to them, never mind what you were told to read by some functionary, some sidekick to the minister. Speak your mind. Say what you think on behalf of your constituents. Let us change this role. Let us make it right for the people of Canada.


Guy St-Julien: Bring it up with the provinces!


Don Boudria: The hon. member opposite says: Bring it up with the provinces, at the same time. Volunteer firefighters are not paid.


An hon. member:: Yes, they are.


Don Boudria: Volunteers who go fight a fire are not paid!


An hon. member:: Yes, they are.


Don Boudria: The hon. member opposite thinks he knows everything. He thinks there are no volunteer firefighters in Canada. If some of them are listening to us, they will write to the hon. member for Abitibi and let him know they provide their services to all Canadians, they greatly contribute to this country. The unemployed are entitled to fight a fire without asking permission to the hon. member for Abitibi or to anyone else! They should have the right to continue to do so. The same
Private Members' Business
thing applies if there is a flood in my riding or in yours, Mr. Speaker.

I say to the members they should have an examination of their own conscience before they read the prepared text that was dictated to them and should speak their own mind. Perhaps the people of Canada will then have some faith in this institution, instead of thinking that we are all a bunch of wimps reading documents prepared by someone else.


Mr.   Brian@: Mr. Speaker, an amendment to an act of Parliament should improve that act in some way for all concerned, rather than merely complicating it.
My hon. friend wishes to make the unemployment insurance program fairer for jurors and emergency workers whose unquestioned value to society makes our response to this amendment all the more heartfelt.
The hon. member is to be commended for bringing this issue to our attention. What scares me about the amendment before us is that it emphasizes the creation of more and more exceptions in an act already almost overburdened with special cases.
Meanwhile, the end result sought after in the case of jury duty and maybe emergency workers as well is so much easier to achieve through simple administrative changes at the provincial or territorial level and through augmented fees where shortages exist.
We either rewrite the UI act to include more exceptions in special cases or we ask the provinces and territories to pay their jurors more in line with present day wages.
Do we really want to create yet another group of special claimants whose major complaint is that they are often grossly underpaid by their provincial masters?
If the provinces which need their community services so badly are not willing to pay for it, then let them exclude the UI claimant from service.
The Unemployment Insurance Act is geared increasingly to helping Canada build a strong, globally competitive, highly skilled work force. Its cornerstone is that each and every claimant be available for work and actively searching for it and each and every day benefits are paid.

Private Members' Business
Obviously, someone empanelled on a jury or performing emergency service, whether paid or not, is not available for any other work. With respect to jury duty, I believe a simpler solution is already at hand which avoids amending the UI act altogether.
The preferred solution in my view can be found in a small booklet first published by a Tory government in Ontario and issued every since by the Ontario Attorney General, entitled Your part in Justice-A Guide to Jury Duty.
This booklet is mailed to every Ontario resident who is summoned for jury duty, whether or not he or she is actually selected.
In it, on page 11 of the current issue, article 16, UI claimants are told to identify themselves to the court and they will be excused from jury duty if they so request it.
Ontario's solution recognizes how important it is for UI claimants to identify themselves as soon as they are summoned. I am certain the mover of this amendment will agree that while Ontario's solution does not satisfy all cases-the civic minded UI claimant who yearns for an opportunity to serve as a juror, for example-it certainly is the answer for all those UI claimants for whom jury duty under the present circumstances is an outrageous and personally aggravating interruption in family earnings which they can ill afford.
Perhaps the hon. member would join with me in a motion that asks every province and territory which has not already done so to allow UI claimants to exercise the exclusion privilege conferred by Ontario. It seems a very sensible privilege to offer claimants and a practical one too.
I am informed by the local sheriff's office in Ottawa- Carleton that UI claimants do, in fact, exercise it when their names are chosen. I acknowledge the possibility that this solution may, in areas of extremely high unemployment, leave the court short of jurors, with the result that, as sometimes happened with blood donor clinics, service to the community is shouldered by a small core of willing repeaters. In these rare instances, might I suggest that the province or territory could perhaps selectively augment the jury fee to bring it into line with UI benefits in the affected community. But I do not wish
to download this issue on to the provinces, Mr. Speaker, nor will I tell them how to manage their affairs.
Let us keep our priorities straight and let us encourage our provincial and territorial partners to do the same.


Mr. Mac Harb (Ottawa Centre):: Mr. Speaker, first I would like to congratulate my colleague from Resti-gouche-Chaleur, New Brunswick, on a job very well done. Obviously he has done his homework before he came forward with this legislation.
I too was somewhat surprised and astonished when I received a newspaper clipping dated February 6, 1991. The headline read as follows: "Judge excused potential jurors; calls UI rule stupid". The story goes on to say that a Nova Scotia Supreme Court justice excused nine people from jury duty Tbesday because they would not be able to collect unemployment benefits if the trial took more than two days. Canada Employment states that people must be available for work to qualify for payment. There is a quote by Justice Hilroy Nathanson where he says "I think it is a stupid ruling, but who am I?"
Mr. Speaker, not only are the rules somewhat stupid but in my view they are extremely unfair. I think it is our duty as parliamentarians and it is the duty of the government that whenever it introduces legislation to make sure that legislation is fair.
I heard some of my colleagues talking about the fact that this whole question falls within the jurisdiction of the provincial government. That might be true, but as my colleague indicated a little earlier, with the latest development in the UI proposal by the federal government, the federal government is washing its hands of the whole question of transfer payments to the provinces.
Just for the benefit of the viewers, I would like to point out that in Ontario alone, according to the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General, between the months of July 1,1990 to June 30,1991 there were 10,843 people who served on juries. I wonder how many of those people would have qualified for UI if they were unemployed.
The system is unfair because it does not treat all of the people equally. When you look at the provinces you see that as of March, 1989 jurors who might be called to duty do not receive any money in Ontario from day one to day eleven. In New Brunswick, they do not receive any money between day one and day eleven, while in Manitoba, for instance, they receive $30 for each day
October 8, 1991

Adjournment Debate FARM CREDIT CORPORATION
they serve. Well, here we have two provinces, Mr. Speaker, where somebody who is called to duty does not receive any money at all, while in another province they receive $30 a day.
It is not only the system that is not fair at the federal level in terms of the policy-making end of it, but also at the provincial level where the provinces are not treating the jurors on an equal basis.
British Columbia, for instance, pays $10 for the first day and after the first day it is $20 per day and after 10 days it is $30 per day. In Nova Scotia, jurors are paid $15 per day.
I guess, Mr. Speaker, the government in its wisdom thought that it was a provincial responsibility but one could ask, what would happen if a juror is called to the Federal Court? There is no provincial say in what happens at the Federal Court because the Federal Court falls within the jurisdiction of the federal government. Is the federal government going to say that those people who appear in the Federal Court will qualify to collect UI but if they appear in provincial court they will not qualify?
Mr. Speaker, that is somewhat unfair. I can see it is six o'clock.


An hon. member:: Maybe we will have a chance to debate this question again.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: The time provided for the consideration of private members' business has now expired.

Pursuant to Standing Order 93, the order is dropped to the bottom of the order of precedence on the Order Paper.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

[Stage Direction]
A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 39 is deemed to have been moved.
['I am sorry to interrupt the hon. parliamentary secretary.\nThe motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, the House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 2 p.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).']
Mac Harb: Mr. Speaker, I rise on this question because I asked the Minister of Agriculture a question in the House the other day about the relocation of the Farm Credit Corporation headquarters to Regina.
At the time, I saw the move as being unnecessary and I indicated that it is going to cost farmers a price they cannot afford. At the same time I indicated that the burden of these increased costs will fall squarely on the shoulders of the farmers themselves. I also indicated that the relocation will make the credit office headquarters significantly less accessible to a variety of Canadian support groups.
In my statement I clearly indicated that the office, if it is to be relocated as the government has indicated to make it easier for farmers to borrow money, one would understand. However, the reality is that the move of these offices to Regina will not benefit the farmers any more than they would benefit if the offices were located where they are right now.
Simply put, the regional offices that already exist in the provinces are in charge of giving loans to the farmers. The offices right now in Ottawa, Mr. Speaker, mostly concentrate on developing strategic plans with ministers and with federal departments.
In my question to the minister I asked him to clarify for us why the government decided on a move at this point in time, on the verge of an election being called in Saskatchewan.
Also I asked him to give us the rationale for this move. What sort of a study has the government done? What sort of justification has it? I asked him the question twice hoping to get an answer from him, but unfortunately rather than answering my question, he moved on and started fighting with the NDP.
I can understand that there is a bone to be picked between the minister and the NDP but I think it is also a serious matter. The people of Saskatchewan are wondering now what will happen if the Conservatives do not win in Saskatchewan. Would the government cany on with its move, or will it be cancelled altogether?
I would like to ask the minister to give us a complete analysis of what has taken place to lead the government to the conclusion that this office had to be moved out of here.

Adjournment Debate


Mr. Lee Richardson (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Transport):: The Farm Credit Corporation is a key institution for Canada's agricultural sector.
Since its establishment in 1959, the corporation has been an important source of loans and financial services to farmers all across Canada. It plays an important role in assisting Canadians to establish and maintain viable and productive farms. At the end of the 1990-91 fiscal year, the Farm Credit Corporation had a loan portfolio outstanding of 61,475 loans totalling $3.6 billion.
The relocation of FCC's head office from Ottawa to Regina will strengthen the presence of the Government of Canada in Saskatchewan and demonstrate the government's commitment to decentralizing its agencies and services throughout Canada. Relocating FCC's headquarters will greatly benefit the city of Regina and the province, adding up to 200 new positions in Regina.
FCC currently has about 185 field and regional staff in Saskatchewan of which about 75 are located in Regina. With the relocation of FCC's head office to Regina, over one-third of FCC's employees will be located in Regina and almost one-half in the province of Saskatchewan. This move also fits perfectly with the provincial government's plan to shift provincial government jobs to smaller communities.
The hon. member for Regina-Wascana tells me that the people of Saskatchewan and farmers in western Canada welcome FCC headquarters staff to the prairies. They hope that by FCC being located in a more rural oriented city that staff will be able to develop a closer relationship with its western clients. In 1990-91 and to date this year, some 45 per cent of FCC loans have been to prairie farmers.
The decision to move FCC's head office is strictly a federal decision and is not related to provincial elections. It is a decision which is consistent with this government's policy on decentralization and is similar to the government's decision last winter to move the National Energy Board to Calgary.
I can assure hon. members that the National Energy Board has successfully completed its move to Calgary. I know that, like the National Energy Board, FCC will greatly benefit from this move by being closer to western Canadians.
The corporation has recovered from its financial difficulties of the 1980s and in 1990-91 recorded its first operating surplus in nine years.



Hon. Alan Redway (Don Valley East):: Mr. Speaker, the government has now unveiled its constitutional proposals.
According to the media at least, there were some differences of opinion among ministers in arriving at those proposals. Finally the differences were resolved. They were resolved not openly and publicly but privately behind closed doors.
The proposals that have been put forward deal with most but not all of the concerns that Canadians expressed to the Spicer commission during its hearings. Now the proposals have been referred to this special all-party parliamentary joint committee for public hearing and also, as I understand it, a summary of the proposals are going to be sent out to each and every household in Canada.
Now it is an opportunity for all Canadians to finally discuss and debate these proposals in an open and public fashion. It seems to me that it is extremely important that the joint committee, our government and all of the provincial governments involved in this whole process must not only be willing to listen to the public. They must also be prepared to accept constructive amendments to the government's proposals that have been put forward and new constructive proposals that come directly from the public. They may have nothing to do with the proposals that the government has put forward itself, although perhaps some of these proposals might be ones that the government debated privately without the benefit of public input behind closed cabinet doors before unveiling the actual proposals themselves.
It seems to me that unless there is this openness and willingness to accept constructive proposals from the public on the part of governments, we are going to be right back in the position that we were at the beginning of this whole process as identified by the experience of the Spicer commission. It found that Canadians were very distrustful of our government process and of politicians themselves.
Of course, they expressed those concerns based on the belief that they had not been represented by the members of Parliament, that members of Parliament had not represented their views on such things as the debate
October 8, 1991

on taxes on their old age pensions or the debate on the GST. In fact, the public feels that the members of Parliament were saying: "We know better than you do what is good for you". Therefore, the public feels that their views were not being represented.
That concern reinforced the feeling that grew out of Meech Lake that things were being done privately behind closed doors and not in an open fashion whatsoever. From here on in it is important that everything be done publicly. If there are compromises and tradeoffs to be made, the public understands what the basis of those trade-offs are all about.
A recent poll, as you know Mr. Speaker, found that 60 per cent of Canadians think that the government is just playing politics by introducing these constitutional proposals and 51 per cent, slightly higher in Quebec, believe that these proposals should finally be approved by a national referendum.
Tonight I want to ask the parliamentary secretary if he is going to assure us that the final constitutional proposals are going to be put to a national referendum by the government for final approval or rejection by all Canadians.


Mr. Pierre H. Vincent (Parliamentary Secretary to Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, on May 28, 1991, the hon. member from Don Valley East asked that the Government of Canada give its undertaking to accept, without modification, parliamentary recommendations on the constitution. He also asked that the Government promise to deal with the entire issue in an open way.
Mr. Speaker, this government has made a commitment that I will repeat for the record: in cooperation with the people and Parliament of Canada, together with the provinces, the Government of Canada will seek an open constitutional covenant in an open fashion.
The Special Joint Committee will listen to the views of interested groups and individual Canadians on how to improve our constitution in the course of its broad hearings from coast to coast. However, both Houses will wish to know the views of the provincial legislatures which, Mr. Speaker, also represent the people of Canada, and which play a formal role, as we know, in
Adjournment Debate
authorizing constitutional amendments. Under these circumstances, it would be inappropriate for us to close doors prematurely on the process of improving our constitution.
If we hope to embark on a truly open process, Mr. Speaker, we must expand, rather than curtail, the participation of other groups and individuals in this process. To exclude everyone but the members of this assembly would run directly counter to the goal of democratizing the system of altering our constitution. That is why the work of the Special Joint Committee is essential in developing a national consensus.
Mr. Speaker, it is the people of Canada, expressing themselves through the House of Commons, their provincial legislatures, and as individuals, who will ultimately decide the content of their own constitution.
I encourage the honourable member from Don Valley East to play an active role in this process in the months to come. This House will still have the final word on any new constitutional covenant, according to the rules of our current Constitution.


CORRECTIONAL SERVICE CANADA
Mr. Derek Lee (Scarborough-Rouge River):: Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to have an opportunity to follow up on a matter raised in a question on June 17, 1991 in connection with Corrections Canada put to the Solicitor General.
At that time there was some fear that a strike might take place within Corrections Canada in a way that would cause security problems in our corrections institutions. Fortunately that type of a strike or withdrawal of services did not occur. Consequently the fear that we would have significant problems, while not unfounded, we can file in the past. However, a number of issues lying behind the question remained.
Coincidentally just yesterday I visited the Edmonton Institution in Edmonton, Alberta, a maximum security institution, where issues relating to that question were taken up with management and employees. Also coincidentally this morning the government has put a new bill before Parliament respecting a new Corrections Act and also dealing with a number of issues related to that area.

Adjournment Debate
While in Edmonton and discussing these types of issues, mostly related to previous escapes from custody but not confined to that, I had an opportunity to deal with case management officers, security officers, and one employee incognito who did not wish his name to be known. The themes that came up at that time, the issues which also bear relevance to the question put that day in June to the Solicitor General, are threefold, I believe.
First, in dealing with the question as put to the Solicitor General on the issue of staff relations, I believe that Corrections Canada can do better in its employee relations. As I look at the field I see shades of the post office, the way we used to discuss management-employee relations in the post office. The ministry and Corrections Canada have to improve the way they deal with their employees. As Corrections Canada itself changes, they have to make sure that the pace of change does not outstrip the ability of employees to train themselves to adapt to new situations.
I remember one individual at the institution yesterday making that point very clearly. He said: "Mr. Lee, I have been here 19 years and I have never seen so much change as we have gone through lately. Please take my message from other people here that you cannot change things so fast that we fail to do our job properly", and a very important job it is too because if they make a mistake dealing with some very dangerous commodities we all as a society have to bear those risks.
The second area was public relations. Corrections Canada has done a woeful job of its own public relations. In the communities where it has institutions there is a very high, ultra sensitive threshold of sensitivity here. The communities are worried and in some cases have reason to worry that the institutions are not properly dealing with the communities that surround them and that they are not taking into account the risk factors existing inside the institution when dealing with the public.
Lastly, the issue I have already touched, Corrections Canada has to make sure that the training it makes available to all of its personnel is properly delivered and that the service properly carries out the functions, mandate and mission statement of CSC.


Vincent Della Noce: Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I respond to my hon. colleague. As you know, I am also interested in that issue since there are five prisons in my constituency, plus the largest correctional facility. But there is also the best training centre for Frenchspeaking guards in Canada.
Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Solicitor General, I am pleased to address the question raised by the hon. member during Question Period on June 17 regarding labour unrest, low wages, reduced staff levels and insufficient training of correctional officers.
First, I would like to assure the hon. member that the Solicitor General takes his responsibilities with regard to public safety very seriously. As a matter of fact, today, the Solicitor General introduced a bill that shows how important public safety is and how the government is determined to restore public confidence in the correctional system.
With respect to labour unrest I would like to remind the hon. member that federal correctional officers are designated as essential employees for obvious security reasons. As the hon. member is aware, there were some disruptions during the recent strike but public safety and operations were not jeopardized.
The hon. member expressed concern over low wages paid to correctional officers. The member should know that their salaries compare very favourably to their counterparts in other jurisdictions. They are paid 6 per cent more than the average maximum rate earned by their provincial counterparts.
With regard to reduced staff level the members should know that the ratio of correctional officers to inmates with the Correctional Service of Canada is 2.5.
It may interest the hon. member to know that the ratio in the U.S. federal system is one staff member for eight inmates.

I would have liked to go on, Mr. Speaker, but I see that my time has already expired.
October 8, 1991


AGRICULTURE
Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Mr. Speaker, I would like to use the time allocated to me tonight to discuss the situation in the farm industry in Canada. The government is not dealing with the problem of last year's shortfall of more than $1 billion in farmers income. Farm organizations are urging the government to put in place a third line of defence to provide financial assistance to farmers.

Today the Women's Institute of Canada was in town and had representatives here to point out the harm that is being done to rural communities and to families due to the lack of funds in rural Canada.
The shortfall in realized net income has been calculated to be about $1.3 billion. That calculation is arrived at by taking the average of the last five years' net income and looking at the actual income from the crop year just completed, and the shortfall between the five-year average and the actual income for the year that was just completed in August is $1.3 billion.
We should remember that net farm income has been declining in each of those five years so we are in a sliding scale downward and even so the income for the crop year just completed will be $1.3 billion short of that declining balance.
What this means is that a lot of fanners are carrying excessive debt. They are carrying debt that is being pushed on to the small business people who supply farmers as the banks withdraw from the lending market. The fertilizer dealer, the equipment dealer, the seller of pesticides and hardware carry a greater and greater amount of credit accounts because farmers cannot go to the bank anymore to borrow the money. They simply build up an account with the local business people.
GRIP and NISA are coming in the current crop year. They will be available for the crop that is now going into the bins, but there is still a huge shortfall of $1.3 billion which will simply be carried forward as additional debt. I remind the House that the agricultural committee found that farm debt had not declined over the last four years. When we completed our studies we saw that farm debt was stuck at $22 billion. We have some data to indicate that debt is now rising.
Adjournment Debate
The call for $1.3 billion has been made by all of the major farm organizations in Canada, which was raised by me on the first day that the House came back in a question, prompts this intervention, and has been raised at numerous farm rallies across the land. The government must act soon to provide this assistance to grain and oilseed producers in Canada.


Lee Richardson: Mr. Speaker, Canadian grains and oilseeds farmers have watched over the last six years while an international grain export subsidy war has devastated prices. This is a battle over which our producers have no control and it is one which has hurt them deeply.
Who would have believed that in 1991 Canadian farmers are getting the same price for their wheat that they received in 1972? The escalating subsidy war has done just that. Until the European community and the United States put an end to their fight, our farmers will continue to suffer at their hands.
Canadian farmers are fighting to survive in spite of these record low prices. This government is helping in that fight by providing unprecedented support. We have been working along with farmers through the development of new safety net programs and now on the third line of defence committee to address the income problems of the sector.
The committee met October 2 through October 4 in its efforts to review and recommend action. The Prime Minister attended the meeting last week and spent about an hour with farm leaders to hear their views. He also told them that this government is prepared to provide special assistance for immediate short term. The Prime Minister has asked for recommendations from ministers by the end of the week.
This demonstrates the commitment of this government to support the grains and oilseeds sector. Already this year the federal government has provided strong support to grains and oilseeds farmers. About $2 billion will be going out to farmers from now until the end of June through the new safety net programs. Of that amount, cheques through the NISA program are in the mail now and an interim payment is expected through the GRIP program before Christmas. More of the GRIP
October 8, 1991

Adjournment Debate
money can be made available in two more interim payments before spring seeding in 1992.
These payments are part of a long list of support measures this government has taken over the last six years to help the grains and oilseeds sector. There was a special Canadian grains program in 1986-87 which paid out $2.1 billion over the two years. In 1988 we provided $850 million to farmers to deal with the drought. In 1990 we provided a further $500 million through the special income assistance program.
We recognize that despite these programs-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Order please.


STUDENT LOAN PROGRAM
Ron J. Duhamel: Mr. Speaker, I want Canadians to know why this particular kind of session is being provided. A member asks a question and when the information provided by the minister in response to the question is unclear, insufficient or the minister has not answered the question, we get an opportunity to make the point again. Hopefully this time we get the answers we want.
What was my question? My question was a very simple one. Will the minister remove a 3 per cent administrative fee imposed on student loans? I did point out to the minister that this was an unfair tax and there is not anyone involved in education who would disagree that it was possibly illegal because it asks those who will no doubt pay their loans back to pay a tax for those who do not. Clearly it is immoral.
This is that very tax system in which you, as a poor student in a sense because you would not be borrowing money unless you needed it, need to pay the cash up front before you can get the loan.
I was trying to help the government. I was trying to point out that this is a silly insensitive tax. I recognize that we have had 30 some tax increases and none of them has been particularly popular, but this has got to be the silliest of all.
Will the minister remove this tax? It is as simple as that. The minister said that we had a program available for 27 years and that there had not been a great deal of changes and that he would soon be making recommendations to cabinet and then they would be presented to the House of Commons.
I understand that, but will he or will he not remove that tax? He was given a wonderful opportunity-

It is unfortunate that it did not chose to do it. The govemement talks about globalization, competitivity, productivity, and then what do they do? They cut in education budgets. There is less money available now for training and retraining, research and development, than there was before. It seems to me that this is the way to go to ensure that we can meet economic, social and other needs of Canadians.
I ask the question again in the hope that this time I will get an answer.

Will this government act now? Will it remove this insensitive tax, this immoral tax, this possibly illegal tax, this tax that is damaging the students who want to return to their studies?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, but I would like an answer, immediately.


Vincent Della Noce: Mr. Speaker, to answer my colleague, all taxes are silly especially when you have to pay them.

In response to the question of the member for Saint-Boniface about the 3 per cent warranty cost, it is important that I remind my colleague of the parameters of the Canadian Student Loan Program called CSLP.
Firstly, the federal government does not offer loans to students. He gives a warranty to lending institutions that the loans granted by them to full time postsecundary students will be refunded.
Secondly, the program pays the interests on the loan for the duration of the studies and up until six months after their completion.
Lastly, more than 200 000 borrowing students enjoy fixed interest rates and attractive terms of redemption, among other benefits. Since its creation, in 1964, the program has been an important source of support for postsecundary students, with a total amount of guaranteed loans of more than 6 billions granted to more than 1.7 million students.
October 8, 1991

The reason why a 3 per cent warranty cost is imposed is, Mr. Speaker, that statutory expenses for CSLP have increased from 300 millions dollars, in 1985-1986 to 442 millions in 1990-1991.
When a student does not refund his loan to the financial institution according to the pre-conditions, it is the government that refunds the institution and takes charge of the grievance procedure with the students at fault. I do not know if my colleague knows how many they are and how they do that, but it is terrible.
Mr. Speaker, the commitment of the government to helping the postsecundaiy students remains as firm as it
Adjournment Debate
has been since the creation of this program, 27 years ago. Our government is also committed to reduce the national deficit.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. parliamentary secretary.
The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, the House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 2 p.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 6.30 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Wednesday, October 9,1991