1992-12-03

Hon. Bernard Valcourt (Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Madam Speaker, I have the honour to present the 1993 Expenditure Plan for the Unemployment Insurance Developmental Uses Program.


Ms. Black:: I rise on a point of order, Madam Speaker. I wonder if I could inquire of the parliamentary secretary to the House leader if he could tell us when we could expect the government response to the status of women subcommittee report on breast cancer.
It is over three weeks late now. There are women who are waiting anxiously to hear what the government action will be in terms of that report and its 49 recommendations.


Mr. Edwards:: Madam Speaker, I take my hon. friend's question seriously. I will make the appropriate inquiries and endeavour to get back to her as soon as is practically possible.


Mr. Edmonston:: Madam Speaker, I rise on the same point of order dealing with late reports. Two reports of another committee, the consumer and corporate affairs committee, are also late, approximately one month late. One deals with trademarks and the other deals with consumer protection and credit card interest rates.
If my hon. colleague would take cognizance of our demand as well we would appreciate it.


James (Jim) Stewart Edwards: Madam Speaker, with reference to the two reports mentioned I think I can indicate to my friend that they will be forthcoming before we rise.


NATIONAL DEFENCE AND VETERANS AFFAIRS
Mr. Marc Ferland (Portneuf):: Madam Speaker, this morning I wish to present the third report of the Standing Committee on National Defence and Veterans Affairs.
This is the committee's response to the report of the minister's Advisory Group on Defence Infrastructure. I am tabling this report on behalf of committee chairman Arnold Malone.


AGRICULTURE
Mr. Bob Porter (Medicine Hat):: Madam Speaker, on behalf of the chairman of the standing committee I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the third report of the Standing Committee on Agriculture.
This report examines the application of the list of tax-free farm items under the GST with a view to expanding its parameters.
Notwithstanding Standing Order 109 the committee recommends that the Minister of Finance respond to this report by February 1, 1993.
[Editor's Note: See today's Votes and Proceedings.]

December 3, 1992
Routine Proceedings


CRIMINAL CODE
Mr. John Reimer (Kitchener) moved: for leave to introduce Bill C-380, an act to amend the Criminal Code (firearms).


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Pursuant to Standing Order 68(2), the motion is deemed adopted.


John Henry Reimer: Madam Speaker, the purpose of this bill is to send a powerful message of deterrence to anyone thinking of taking a gun along on the commission of a crime.
This bill would significantly toughen section 85 of the Criminal Code, the section which makes it an offence to use a firearm while committing a crime. The minimum mandatory sentence would be increased from one year to five years for first offence and three years to eight years for any subsequent offence.
Under this bill there would be no eligibility for parole during that five or eight year period. The bill would also specifically prevent a mandatory sentence from having any impact on the sentence imposed for the other offence committed.
The bill specifically requires the written consent of the provincial attorney general before any section 85 charge could be withdrawn or plea bargained away.
The idea is not new. It was proposed by the former Prime Minister of Canada, the Right Hon. John G. Diefenbaker. It is also supported by police chiefs right across Canada and by the Canadian Police Association.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Mr. Reimer moves that the bill be now read the first time and printed.
Pursuant to Standing Order 69(1), the motion is deemed adopted.
Bill read the first time and printed.
-I* -k *k


PETITIONS
Mr. Nelson A. Riis (Kamloops):: Madam Speaker, it is an honour to present a number of petitions today from
Northwest Territories, Yukon, Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia.
The petitioners say that they are residents of Canada and they wish to designate a day for the recognition of Canada's original inhabitants, to honour our native cultures, and that June 21 is the most appropriate day to recognize these First Nations.
Therefore they are calling upon Parliament to enact Bill C-268, an act respecting a national solidarity day for the First Nations of Canada.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Madam Speaker, on another topic, again the petitioners are by and large from British Columbia.
They point out their opposition to any notion of selling water to the United States and Mexico as a result of the North American free trade agreement.
They are asking the Government of Canada to state categorically through legislation that our rivers are not for sale.


Mr. Guy Saint-Julien (Abitibi):: Madam Speaker, I would like to table a petition from residents of Val-d'Or, Amos, Vassan, Sullivan, Val-Senneville and Saint-Ed-mond-d'Abitibi, stating that films depicting violence on television are dangerous and unacceptable because they encourage further violence.
They also point out that all toys that are an incentive to violent games are unacceptable and that production of such toys should be banned. Freedom of the press should be restricted when reporting acts of violence. The repeated reporting of acts of violence on all television channels and on radio may encourage similar acts of violence.
Wherefore your petitioners humbly pray and call upon Parliament to pass legislation dealing with the above, to wipe out violence in our society, protect our children and guarantee everyone in this country a better quality of life.


Mr. Bill Kempling (Burlington):: Madam Speaker, under Standing Order 36 I have the honour to present
December 3, 1992

175 duly certified petitions containing 51,000 signatures of citizens from Burlington, Hamilton, Ancaster, Dun-das, Stoney Creek, Milton, Oakville, eastern Ontario, the Niagara Peninsula, and western Ontario.
The petitioners support Mrs. Debbie Mahaffy in her efforts to have the importation of killer cards into Canada stopped and note with concern that three more manufactures of killer cards are in production. They applaud the efforts of the Minister of National Revenue for his action and his statements of support.
The petitioners request Parliament to amend the law to prohibit the importation, distribution, sale and manufacture of killer cards.


Mr. Derek Blackburn (Brant):: Madam Speaker, I have the privilege under Standing Order 36 to present a petition signed mainly by residents of my constituency with respect to the drug RU-486.


Ms. Beth Phinney (Hamilton Mountain):: Madam Speaker, I have many thousands of signatures on petitions. These signatures are supporting the over 600,000 signatures that we already have. All these signatories are supporting the parents of Nina de Villiers.
They feel that there are serious deficiencies in the criminal justice system. There are many vulnerable persons who have little protection under the current system. Women, children and disabled persons are at particular risk.
They ask that Parliament recognize that crimes of violence against the person are serious and abhorrent to society. They also ask the government to amend the Criminal Code of Canada, the Bail Reform Act, 1972, and the Parole Act accordingly.


Mr. Murray Cardiff (Huron -Bruce):: Madam Speaker, I have two petitions to present. The first petition is from a group of people in Goderich and surrounding area.
Routine Proceedings
They ask that Parliament pass the necessary legislation to prevent any further involvement by the Government of Canada in the Three Gorges dam project in China.


Murray Cardiff: Madam Speaker, the second petition is from the Port Elgin-Southampton area.
These petitioners are asking us to think of being proud Canadians, to enter into a project that would give us an opportunity to nurture our positive life-long relationship with our heritage and our flag, to encourage stronger ties among all Canadians for the further advancement of Canada as a leader in world circles, and to promote our tremendous pride in being Canadians.


Robert Harold Porter: Madam Speaker, this petition represents the signatures of approximately
16,000	of my constituents.
It calls for the Government of Canada to revise the Young Offenders Act to allow for a clear definition of the powers and procedures of investigating authorities in respect to their duties in questioning young offenders, to supply a remedy to give more protection to the public against repeated and serious crimes committed by young offenders and to raise the offenders to adult court automatically.
These signatures were collected by one constituent, Mr. Bill Swanson. They are indicative of the grave concern in the public domain over the present act governing young offenders.


Mr. Steven W. Langdon (Essex-Windsor):: Madam Speaker, I have a petition which I would like to present from various people across the country. They call upon the House of Commons because Canadians wish to designate a day of recognition for Canada's original inhabitants so as to honour native cultures. They suggest that June 21 be named as an appropriate day to recognize our First Nations.
They therefore ask that the House of Commons enact Bill C-268, an act respecting a national solidarity day for the First Nations of Canada.

Government Orders


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
[Stage Direction]
December 3, 1992
James (Jim) Stewart Edwards: Madam Speaker, I would ask that all questions be allowed to stand.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Shall all questions stand?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Wednesday, December 2, consideration of the motion of Mr. Mazankowski that Bill C-98, an act to provide additional borrowing authority for the fiscal year beginning on April 1, 1992, be read the second time and referred to a legislative committee in the Economics envelope.
James (Jim) Stewart Edwards: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I would ask for the indulgence of the House to see whether there would be unanimous consent to permit the hon. Minister of Employment and Immigration to speak for 20 minutes, with the understanding of course that the speakers following him for the New Democratic Party and the Liberal Party would have the same privilege extended to them.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Madam Speaker, there are many issues in the economic statement we heard yesterday but one of the most critical issues concerns the changes to unemployment insurance.
The minister is here this morning and it is important that we hear him. Perhaps at the end of his 20-minute presentation we might even have a chance to ask a question or two if he would permit that. If there is a sleeper in this whole issue, it has to be the provisions surrounding the changes to the Unemployment Insurance Act.
On behalf of the New Democratic Party, we would like to give the minister that opportunity and again to have a
chance to ask a question or two at the end of his presentation.


Mr. Nowlan:: Madam Speaker, I saw the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader converse with some of the other House leaders. I thought this was going to be the request and I wish he had spoken to me.
Obviously we want to hear what the minister of immigration and unemployment insurance says because that is one of the many facets in that statement last night.
I will give my consent on the condition that I talk to the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader. I intend to stay here and put my time in, but I am not going to give my consent unless I can work out an arrangement with the government House leader and the other House leaders that I can get on in some reasonable time. I understand the status of independent members, but this is one of the little things that we have left in these reformed rules.
In view of the interest all over the country to the statement last night I will give my consent because I do want to hear the minister.
I am prepared to sit here until 12 o'clock tonight and I am going to itemize every speaker. If the Chair is using some type of magic that is only referring to members from recognized parties, then at some time later today I am going to rise and cause a little procedural problem.
That might be eliminated if I can get the consent of the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader that he and I can work out when I may have some idea to be recognized by the Chair in a rotation. If I have that from him now in the House I will give my consent.


James (Jim) Stewart Edwards: Madam Speaker, I am sure we would not want to set a precedent for negotiating or bargaining on the floor of the House. I do not want to do that.
I am always prepared to talk to my friend from Annapolis Valley-Hants. I will of course converse with him today, but I believe it is the Speaker's discretion that decides the order of participants in the debate.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I was about to ask of the loyal opposition if there was unanimous consent.


Mr. Milliken:: Ask the full House.
December 3, 1992


Madam Deputy Speaker:: The hon. member for Kingston and the Islands says I should ask the full House. The only reason I said I would be asking the hon. member representing the opposition was that there seemed to be consent from the government side and from the members of the New Democratic Party so I was coming to the loyal opposition and to the independents. I think this is only a fair way to look at it.
Maybe I should have put the question to the House but people rose on points of order before I had a chance to put the question to the House.
As far as the hon. member for Annapolis Valley- Hants is concerned, yes, it is the Speaker's privilege and normally independent members are recognized. I do not see why at 10 o'clock in the morning he would already be worried that he has not been recognized. Nobody has been recognized yet today.
I understand there is not unanimous consent to give the extra time to the Minister of Employment of Immigration. I will recognize him for the 10 minutes.


Bernard Valcourt: Madam Speaker, first of all, I am not surprised to see Liberal members trying to prevent us from explaining to Canadians.
This is just one more instance of their lack of courtesy toward the person who has the floor. It is typical of the Liberals, and I suppose they just want to show how little they care about the problems facing Canadians today.

It is typical of the Liberal Party. Put your head in the sand and continue. Canadians value very much that kind of attitude.
Madam Speaker, could we have order in the House? [Translation]
Could we have some order in the House? I realize the Liberal Party is anxious to hide the facts from Canadians.

Over many years this Chamber has been no stranger to hot and heavy debates on economic issues, especially on the numerous occasions over the last 30 years or more
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when the world was in a recession or, as it is today, emerging from the global downturn.
Those in this House who have lived through the many cycles of our economy since the downturn of the early 1960s and on, or those who have studied our economic history know better than most that there are two certainties.
First, recessions will come, but recessions will most assuredly pass. Each downturn in the economy will often be greeted as if it were the first in history, a sudden apparition demanding to be cleanly and surgically removed, never to return again.
Second, as we emerge from a downturn we each must resist the siren song which would delude us into believing that quick fixes will remove the pain, creating illusions of growth. The only responsible and enduring policy response which is effective is to manage our national economy as if it were our very own personal economy.
Those who have been around here for a while know full well that regardless of the heat of the debate or the degree of the righteous indignation expressed at any moment, and certainly the walls of this Chamber have heard it all before, there have been precious few governments before that focus on the fundamental principles so consistently to serve the long-term interests of all Canadians.
In the aftermath of yesterday's statement by my colleague, the Minister of Finance, the opposition parties would like to underline their perceptions and what they want Canadians to perceive for cheap political reasons.
I see that in the NDP member there. Those who have a corner on virtue, the socialist magpies there, will they stand up and ask the president of the New Democratic Party to withdraw and retract her untrue statements to Canadians yesterday that the changes mean that sexually harassed women in Canada no longer get protection under the UI act?
That was the statement of the president of their party. It is an untrue statement and it is one which I expect the righteous, truthful, honest, socialists to demand that their president withdraw and retract because it is a falsehood to Canadian women. I hope that they do it.

December 3, 1992
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The announcement made yesterday showed clearly that this government has made human resource development the top priority of the economic policy of this government.
In answer to the tens of thousands of Canadians from all regions of Canada who have participated in the community talks under the prosperity initiatives, yes, those members over on the other side, their absence was noted at those community talks with the the real people, the workers, the bosses, the employers, the educators. The message from coast to coast to coast was the same: Invest in human resources because this is the key to our development.
No one has heard any of those great members over on the other side underlining the fact that the cuts announced yesterday by the Minister of Finance were necessary. We know it is not nice to cut programs, but we had no choice. We as a country and we as a people must pay our way.

Why should newborn babies in this country not have the right to start with a clean slate like anybody else? Unfortunately, from day one they are stuck with a debt they will carry with them for the rest of their lives. Today, in a consistent and coherent manner, thanks to the Labour Force Development Board-

-we have made investment in people a top priority.
What about those displaced workers? Those members on the other side who pretend to care, why do they not look at the strong measures taken in the statement by the government yesterday to invest in people?
A special $300 million program will be targeted to long-term employed people who are permanently displaced because of restructuring. They will have special counselling and special enhancement training programs tailor-made to their needs. There are over 100,000 Canadians with long-time attachment to work who will benefit from this measure.

For instance, what about the decision to freeze employer premiums for small businesses? It is a fact that the contribution of small business to the Canadian economy is very substantial, and this positive measure will inject almost $500 million more into our economy to create jobs. Of course, they would rather not mention that measure because it is a positive one.
What really makes me sick, if you will pardon the expression, is the way they seem to use other people's misery to score political points.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Bernard Valcourt: For the sake of scoring minor political points with other people's misery, they object to the responsible measures the government is introducing in order to invest in human resources and get employers and unions to work together to meet the challenges facing every industrialized country on this planet.
These people seem to think that Canada is a self-contained unit, a small island isolated from the rest of the world, where we can ignore the realities of a global economy. So what happens to 70 per cent of our production? We are an exporting country, and the key to Canada's economic success is a highly trained work force.

Those measures in there are taken in a revolutionary way. This measure, this central partnership initiative, and history will record it, I predict to you, will change forever the way we do business in Canada. Oh yes, I see the strange faces on the other side.
This government has fostered partnership. It has brought special equity groups, the labour movement and the business sector together at one table called the Labour Force Development Board, to put forward measures to help Canadians face the challenge of human resource development.
No one will talk about the great program my colleague, the Minister of Finance, announced yesterday and which I call the program to prevent unemployment.
For the first time in a major way-I know I am being cut by time and of course Liberals do not want Canadians to get the good news. Canadians will still get the good news because, fortunately for Canada, it is not only this
December 3, 1992

place that we can use to bring the message to Canadians. We shall bring it because it is a message that Canadians must understand and must get in order to get Canada growing again, which I know will be a political disadvantage for these cheap politically-minded people.


James (Jim) Stewart Edwards: Madam Speaker, I rise to see if there would be unanimous consent for the hon. minister to continue for another 10 minutes, with the understanding that the Liberals and the New Democrats would have a parallel opportunity for each of their speakers who would follow.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Consent has not been given.


Mr. John Brewin (Victoria):: Madam Speaker, I had been inclined to give the hon. minister consent before the speech began but it was a sorry, disgraceful display which demonstrates why this government is in such trouble and why the people of Canada are in trouble.
That was an incredibly bad speech from a minister who owed a duty to the millions of Canadians who are going to suffer as a result of the statement made yesterday and the legislation that this government proposes to introduce. He owes the duty-are you going to interrupt me?


Madam Deputy Speaker:: If I may answer the question of the hon. member for Victoria. Yes, the hon. member for Essex-Windsor has been seeking the floor on a point of order I imagine.


Steven W. Langdon: Madam Speaker, I just wanted to ask the Speaker if there is not a 10-minute question and answer period after the minister's speech.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: We have gone past the first five hours of debate. Now it is strictly 10-minute speeches with no period of questions and comments. The hon. member might want to look on the Projected Order of Business. It is written in black and white.


Philip Edmonston: Madam Speaker, the House was just asked for unanimous consent so that an independent member could speak. I think that what the minister had to say is also important. Could we not agree unanimously
Government Orders
to let the minister finish his speech and we could then ask questions?


Madam Deputy Speaker:: The question was raised. It took unanimous consent to change the rule that at this point in the debate, after five hours of debate, there are only 10-minute periods that are not followed by 10 or 5 minutes for questions and comments, only 10-minute speeches.
Unanimous consent was sought to let the minister speak for 20 minutes instead of 10, and some wanted it to be followed with a question period. But the House did not give unanimous consent. Therefore we return automatically to the Standing Order which says that only 10-minute speeches are acceptable, unless at some point the House agrees unanimously to change it.


John F. Brewin: Madam Speaker, in the past few months Canadians have made it absolutely clear that they are looking to this government and to all members of Parliament for some real leadership on the issue of jobs and the economy. I made a survey in my riding of all of the households in Victoria. We got a tremendous response from the people of Victoria to that householder. It became very clear again that the people of Victoria, and I know this is typical of all communities in Canada, want top priority given to achieving full employment in Canada within a reasonable period of time. By a 73 per cent majority, the respondents said the federal government has to work toward a goal of full employment.
They want working people and their unions to have a more active role in administering and designing training needs. They feel very strongly that the North American free trade agreement will do little to increase employment in Canada. In fact, 70 per cent believe it will increase unemployment in this country.
What is true in Victoria is true across this country. The reaction of the people of Canada as they begin to absorb the statement made yesterday by the Minister of Finance will be deep disappointment and, indeed, anger everywhere, except in the boardrooms of the financial institutions of this country. There is anger at the arrogance, complacency, meanness and incompetence of this government in the area of the economy.

December 3, 1992
Government Orders
In Victoria the public service cutbacks and wage freeze will slow down the recovery that had begun to take place and will impose new burdens on people who can ill afford it. The tragedy is that the approach the Minister of Finance took yesterday and this government has taken over the last number of years is economically unnecessary. In fact, the Conservative policy is really not an economic policy, it is a choice which is driven by ideology and upper middle class complacency about the state of affairs in this country.
The member for Ontario across the way laughs at that. There are 1.6 million Canadians who are out of work. This is not simply the result of the policies of this government, and we on all sides should understand and concede that. It is in part because of the global recession. However, it is also in part because of the policies of this government and the underlying weaknesses in the Canadian economy.
The real people in Canada are the ones who will be hurt by the statement made yesterday by the Minister of Finance. This government had choices. By cutting the unemployment insurance benefits to try to save some money with this budget, the government is imposing a new hardship on those who will be going through the trauma of unemployment, often for the first time. People will have to look at trying to survive at the poverty line, which is what most people have to do on UI.
The government will be imposing this economic problem at a time when it has already previously imposed further delays in UI and unconscionable problems in the delivery of the UI system, problems which all members of Parliament become familiar with through the case work and constituency work they do.
Further, and this I think is the most venal provision in the statement made yesterday, the withdrawal of UI from those who quit or are terminated, apparently for cause, is completely fraught with difficulty and will produce these results. First, there will be terrible pressures imposed on those on the front line in Canada Employment Centres who have to make the initial decision as to whether the party is entitled to UI or not. It will produce a huge increase in appeals. It will encourage lying and cheating by either employers or employees who are seeking unemployment insurance
and have no ready alternatives. It will produce new pressures on social assistance and on welfare, yet another pass-through of this government's financial problems on to the provinces and municipalities across Canada. It will add stress to the lives of those who are already under stress as a result of the termination of their employment.
The minister of unemployment, as he was called at one point by my hon. friend from Annapolis Valley-Hants, took after my leader for suggesting that those who are sexually harassed would now lose employment. It should be absolutely understood, and I would have thought members opposite would understand, how the reality is going to take place.
When an employee suffers sexual harassment, as has been documented in case after case after case, it takes an enormous amount of courage to step forward and call the employer or the third party who is engaged in the sexual harassment. There will be case after case where people quit because they cannot stand the sexual harassment but are still afraid to raise the issue, or having raised it, cannot prove it within the time available before some official in UI.
While the minister is technically correct, that termination because of sexual harassment would entitle the individual to unemployment insurance, the minister fails to understand in I think a complacent and arrogant way, and so do the members opposite who will be supporting this legislation, that the reality will not permit that to be said and done and properly and fairly judged.
In fact, there is no reasonable system in place even to judge whether the sexual harassment has occurred or not. The reality is going to be that there will be hundreds of thousands of women who will lose their jobs because of sexual harassment and who will now not for practical purposes be entitled to unemployment insurance, again imposing this government's rigid ideology on the weaker members of our society.
The changes in the UI provisions in respect of quitting or termination also break a contractual commitment that this Parliament has essentially made to those who have contributed to UI over the years, an understanding of the basis of their commitment.
This originally started as an unemployment insurance program and thus had the elements of a commitment between this Parliament and the people who were
December 3, 1992

making payments. For the government to retroactively change that, albeit it will not apply to claims presently in progress, but those who have been contributing over the years and have a new claim, will now find it governed by changes of rules imposed retroactively by the government.
I said the tragedy is that this is not economically necessary. The Globe and Mail in an editorial yesterday gave the government three options: holding the line, modest cuts or deep cuts. This editorial points out very clearly that within a reasonable period of time, by simply holding the line on spending, but not deep cuts in public spending, the government could achieve the objective of reducing the deficit.
I would like to add that if the government would also take its responsibilities in the area of defence and policing defence expenditures seriously, including ending this ridiculous expenditure of $4.4 billion on helicopters, but in addition imposes a rigorous policing of expenditures, it could save the Canadian taxpayers billions of dollars and accelerate the reduction of the deficit which we all want.
This was a mean-spirited and difficult statement made by the Minister of Finance. I call upon the people of Canada to rise up and require and force the government to change the direction it has gone in the time that it has left in office, a brief time.


Mr. Pierre H. Vincent (Parliamentary Secretary to Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance):: Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure and an honour for me this morning to speak on a document and a speech made by the Minister of Finance yesterday. To begin, let me emphasize the presence of the Minister of Finance who in his speech yesterday said to the opposition, "I am making my speech. I await your comments and your suggestions. I have a budget coming in March and I am waiting for you to give me your comments and suggestions in a non-partisan way for the good of Canada". That is what the Minister of Finance said yesterday in this House.
The Minister of Finance made his speech at 3.15 p.m. He was here in this House from 3.15 to midnight when the House adjourned. He was here to listen to the
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opposition's suggestions and I commend him for that. We know the work and the importance of the department he leads. As well as being Deputy Prime Minister, he took the time and he is still taking the time today to be here to listen to suggestions.
At midnight I was talking with him and unfortunately we came to the conclusion that no one on the other side of the House up to midnight had made a suggestion for the good of Canada, not 25 suggestions, but one valid suggestion for the good of Canada.
I was interviewed by the media in Trois-Rivieres a few minutes ago and they told me that everyone was criticizing this morning and the opposition was critical of us. I said to them, "Yes, but what suggestions or ideas has the opposition put forward?" It is easy to criticize; just about anybody can do it. You do not even have to be an opposition member. But the Minister of Finance is the one who has proposed interesting, intelligent and practical solutions to ensure the well-being of our country.
Allow me to go over the speech made yesterday by the minister. You will hear people criticize from the point of view of small business, and you have heard various comments on that by different people. The Minister of Finance also heard these comments and yesterday he took action to help small-business people.
The Minister of Finance listened to Canadians because he knows that 80 per cent of all jobs in Canada are created by the small business sector. I hope that the opposition will also listen to Canadians. Madam Speaker, the support for small businesses is significant. This help is important to Canada's economic activity.
The minister did not mention any increase in unemployment insurance premiums for small businesses next year. He actually went further than that. Indeed, any small business which will be created in 1993, or that did not exist in 1992, and which will increase the number of its employees in 1993, will incur no additional UI premium costs, which translates into a subsidy of about $1,600 per employee for the year. Madam Speaker, I did not hear a lot of complaints about this measure. It is a good measure so people do not criticize it. But I did not hear many people from the other side congratulate the minister either, Madam Speaker. I did not hear them congratulate him even once.

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Madam Speaker, he introduced a 10 per cent investment tax credit. Once again, the buyer of any new machinery or equipment will be entitled to that credit.
That is important. It often provides whatever little help the small business needed to upgrade its equipment, its machinery, but was somewhat reluctant to buy. Now they have this additional 10 percent tax credit.
The Small Businesses Loans Act had been mentioned, and the minister made an effort in that area in his 1992 budget and again yesterday, raising the ceiling to $250,000. That is great news for the people in the riding of Trois-Rivieres. They are many who have taken advantage of this particular act and I am convinced there will be even more following this further increase.
In addition, from now on, employees will be allowed to use their RRSPs to buy shares. That too is important and is in keeping with the private enterprise concept this government has put forward and has been trying to pursue for eight years now, the principle that jobs are created by the private sector in this country. Let us stop entertaining the belief that spending astronomical amounts can help. The Liberals did just that during three or four months in 1981-1982 without any specific direction regarding employment nor any kind of rhyme or reason for such spending. They called that job creation programs where people would do construction, repairs or paint jobs, just about anything for four months, just to find themselves back on unemployment at the end of these four months. Billions were spent on that, billions that are now painfully lacking and form the monstrous debt we inherited back in 1984 and that we also have to pay interest on. In spite of this heritage from the Liberals, the Minister of Finance managed to announce positive measures to support the Canadian economy and that of Quebec.
He has extended the home buyers' plan. Why? Again, because he has been listening to the Canadian people. He introduced this project and it has produced very positive results. As Minister of Finance he had choices to make. Again he has chosen to listen to the Canadian people. He must be given credit for that.
The issue of the two-year wage freeze will certainly be raised. It is never very exciting to announce a wage freeze or a 3 per cent cut in government spending and throughout departments. And it is not very exciting either to tell all government agencies except a few that they will get a 10 per cent cut over two years. But a minister or a government who want to act responsibly have to look after our future. And they also have to live with the legacy left to them.
Opposition parties will spend the whole day repeating that the finance minister did not get his budget projections right. I should like to remind you, Madam Speaker, that the IMF and the OECD were also wrong in their projections for 1992. The banks did not fare any better. All economists failed in their projections, because the economic situation changed not only in Canada but also in the whole world so that all the figures were altered. That is why everybody failed to gauge the real state of the economy. If you compare with all those fine experts, Madam Speaker, you will realize that our finance minister is not any worse. He was not that far off the mark but, just like everybody else, he has to take the international situation into account.
I still have a lot to say, Madam Speaker, but unfortunately, I see you are indicating that my time is almost up. lb conclude, all I am asking of the opposition in this second day of debate is that they at least put forward suggestions and ideas for the well-being of Canada.


Mr. Brian Tobin (Humber-St. Barbe-Baie Verte):: Madam Speaker, I cannot say that I am pleased to be participating in this budget debate today. The debate is bom out of a profound sense of disappointment for many members of Parliament, a profound sense of frustration and of anger that today rather than debating an economic plan that would begin the process of restoring confidence in Canada's economy in putting the unemployed back to work; instead, we are forced to examine a document that is bereft of any imagination, bereft of any confidence, bereft of any compassion, bereft of any ideas about how to put this country, Canada, with all of its potential, back on the road to prosperity.
December 3, 1992

Perhaps it is not ironic that the Minister of Finance comes from the great province of Alberta. Albertans have expertise in a great many areas and one of the areas in which they have expertise is in the whole question of fossils; indeed, Alberta can be said to be the fossil centre of this country. This economic statement, this budget- because that is what it is-really is the work of a dinosaur, of a political party about to disappear from the face of Canada. Like a dinosaur that knows it is dying, this dinosaur with this document is attempting to leave its fossilized footprints behind long after it is gone.
We had a Conservative Party that had two choices, a party that confronted two paths, a party that has been in power for the last eight years. One path represented change, an acknowledgement that the course that has been followed for the last eight years has not produced prosperity in this country, an acknowledgement that Canada needed a change in its current fiscal and monetary course. That was one path.
The other path was the path of stubbornness, the path of pig-headedness, the path that said: "We shall never surrender before our blind ideological beliefs; we shall never admit we were wrong; and we would rather go down and disappear politically off the face of Canada rather than admit that we have led Canada to a course of ruin and destruction economically".
The minister chose the latter course. He is like the doctor who tired of fighting the disease that laid his patients low in the hospital ward, turned away from fighting the disease and began to kill off the patients. He is the Minister of Finance who refused to declare war on unemployment but instead declared war on the unemployed. He is the Minister of Finance who refused to declare war on poverty but instead attacks those who are poorest among us. Because, Madam Speaker, when you wipe away and swish away all the smoke, get rid of all the mirrors in this budget document, and it is a budget, right from its initial inception it is deceptive. It is not a mini-statement. It is not an economic statement. It is a full budget.
What do we have? We have over three fiscal years projected by this Minister of Finance $8 billion-count them-in the words of Joey Smallwood, not $1, not $2, not $5, not $7, but $8 billion dollars in cuts, and over the same corresponding period of time we have less than $2.2 billion in stimulation.
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You do not have to be a genius to know that if you cut $8 billion and you only spend $2 billion in the grip of a recession, you are taking away, you are hauling out, you are draining away, you are pumping from the body politic, the body economic structure of this country, $6 billion at a time when the nation is in the grip of a recession.
That is bad enough, but who are those billions being taken from? Which Canadians are going to pay? Are the large, multinational Canadian corporations, who the Auditor General just said last week are sheltering their profits in the Bahamas in offshore companies, going to pay? The Auditor General told this Minister of Finance that large, Canadian corporations are hiding their profits in the Bahamas. They are using loopholes to avoid taxes on billions. Does the Minister of Finance collect the few billions he raises or the cuts from those people? No, there is not a measure in this budget to take $1 in tax out of the pockets of those who are experts in avoiding paying their taxes.
Does this budget document take one dollar or one dime out of the richest 1 per cent or 2 per cent that avoid paying tax? Not a single dime.
Who does it take money from? We look to the minister's own budget statement, page 15, Economic and Fiscal Statement. The minister announced in a grand fashion that the wages of members of Parliament will be frozen, he says with a stiff upper lip. We have all had our wages frozen. Ministers of the Crown have had their wages frozen. Oh, what good soldiers are we in the face of a recession. We have frozen our wages. Are we not brave?
However, what have we done to the unemployed? We have taken $2.5 billion out of the pockets of the unemployed. We have not frozen the wages of the unemployed. We have not told them they would not get a raise. We have not treated the unemployed the way we have treated members of Parliament, frozen their wages. We have cut their wages. We have said that they will go from 60 per cent to 57 per cent of their former salaries.
What more cowardly measure ever in the history of this place has been introduced by a Minister of Finance? A minister would say it is simply good enough to freeze the salaries of members of Parliament but appropriate to cut the salaries of those who have least among us.

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This budget lacks not only imagination, lacks not only an acknowledgement of reality, but it lacks compassion. It is the work of a tired government, an old government, a government that knows not where to go and not where to turn.
The unemployed the minister has chosen to attack, those who live in poverty that the minister has chosen to attack, who are they? They are the urban poor whose life is a job ghetto, bounced around from one low-paying job to another. They are the rural poor whose lives have been the cycle of seasonal employment, whose livelihood depends upon the forestry if it is healthy, the mining sector if it is functioning, the fishery if there are fish, and the agricultural sector if our farmers can sell around the world. Those are the people who are targeted.


An hon. member:: Families with children.


Brian Vincent Tobin: Families with children. Those are the people who are targeted to be bounced off the unemployment insurance program.
Do not buy for one second this line by the minister that only bad people who get themselves fired are going to be hurt and only those lazy people who quit these good paying jobs that are out there are going to be hurt and if anybody who is decent, fair or honest finds they have been treated badly we will have an appeal process and we will look after them. Nobody is going to be hurt.
How can the minister say that when next year alone he has already budgeted nearly $1 billion in cuts. That money has to be found. The year after another $1.5 billion in cuts. Where are these people going to go? Are they going to disappear or vaporize off the face of the earth? Are they going to be beamed up off the planet by the starship Enterprise, never to be seen or heard from again? No, they are going to go down to the local welfare office.
The Government of Canada by sleight of hand has transferred $2.5 billion worth of the cost out of the federal coffers and on to the backs of hard-pressed provincial governments.
Which governments will bear the largest burden? Those governments whose economy is in the greatest crisis, the Government of Newfoundland, the Government of Saskatchewan, the Government of Manitoba, and, yes, the Government of Ontario. Those are the governments that will have the burden of bearing this transfer of poverty out of federal coffers to provincial coffers.
I want to say to my friend, the Minister of Finance, that I understand this government is tired. I understand he is tired. I understand that perhaps this is the best that can be squeezed out of the collective brain power of that tired troop across the way.
However, I know there remains just a shred of integrity and dignity and a modicum of courage on the benches opposite. I know my friend, the Minister of Finance, and this is the best he can do with the crowd he sits with. I know he will do the honourable thing and put this package to the people of Canada in a national referendum called an election. Let the people of Canada say yes or no to this economic prescription for a country that is in crisis.


Mr. Charles A. Langlois (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Industry, Science and Technology):: Madam Speaker, I could hardly wait to take part this morning in the debate on the economic statement made by the hon. Minister of Finance in this House yesterday.
I would say without hesitation that the statement by the hon. Minister of Finance is really a big step toward economic recovery in Canada.
Yesterday, the Minister of Finance suggested two options to the Canadian people. The first one favours an economic recovery based on the participation of the private sector and strongly supported by various interventions aimed at stimulating investment and job creation. The second one clearly indicates this government's commitment to the continued reduction of government spending.
That is a clear message which shows Canadians the objectives that our government has been pursuing from the start. I think it is important to refer to the comments made by the Minister of Finance in the introduction to the economic statement tabled in the House yesterday. I will quote directly from the statement made by the Minister yesterday.
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Our economic policy is to build confidence, enhance growth, create jobs, and help Canadians adjust to this period of transition and take advantage of new opportunities.
All of our efforts have been directed at investing in growth through sound monetary and fiscal policies, the opening up of markets, streamlining government, building the skills of Canadians, and encouraging private sector enterprise and initiative as the basis for economic progress.
That is why the series of measures announced in the economic and fiscal statement, particularly with regards to small businesses, represent one aspect, one of the major elements that will contribute to our reaching our objectives. That is why I will talk during the next few minutes, about these important measures proposed in the economic and fiscal statement for Canadian small businesses.
I would like to remind you that small businesses play a major role in the Canadian economy at two fundamental levels, employment and investment.
Businesses with 50 employees or fewer represent 95 per cent of all Canadian businesses and account for about 45 per cent of private sector employment. During the last few years, they have been responsible for most of the job creation, that is more than 2 million new jobs. Furthermore, small businesses account for nearly half of the private sector investments during the same period.
I would also like to stress the fact that the current fiscal regime for small businesses recognizes the importance of that sector's contribution to the Canadian economy.
Madam Speaker, here are a few examples illustrating this point. First of all Canadian small businesses enjoy a special deduction bringing down their federal income tax rate from 28.8 to 12.8 per cent. In the United States small businesses pay much higher taxes, with federal rales ranging from 15 to 39 per cent for the same income bracket.
Second, the lifetime capital gains exemption provides an incentive for individuals to invest in small businesses. Capital gains resulting from the disposition of qualified small business shares are eligible for a $500,000 exemption. In addition, only 75 per cent of capital gains over and above the exemption are subject to income tax. Also, small businesses qualify for the most generous incentives
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for research and development in all of the G-7 countries.
On the other hand, small businesses are presently subject to strong financial and competitive pressures, and these are largely due to the need for federal and provincial governments to better co-ordinate their efforts whether when dealing with the GST or other taxes, with public spending or with establishing regulations. In other words, despite the benefits of the present taxation system, several small businesses consider that, overall, the tax and regulatory context south of the border is more inviting.
To help change and improve that situation yesterday's economic statement has put in place, or rather suggests to put in place, the components of a program to help the small business sector develop and create yet more jobs. I would like to list a few of these components, Madam Speaker.
The statement provides that most small businesses increasing employment next year will be able to do so with no increase in unemployment insurance premiums. Any new business whose employer share of UI premiums was less than $60,000 in 1992 will be eligible for a benefit under this program.
This means that for most small businesses, UI premium costs will be capped at their 1992 level. Similarly, most new businesses starting up in 1993 will pay no UI premiums in that year. This assistance will reduce the cost of additional employees by up to $1,600 each.
We also want to encourage investment. As an incentive for small businesses to accelerate investment spending, a 10 per cent investment tax credit for small business will apply, for one year, to investments in machinery and equipment for small businesses engaged in manufacturing, construction, farming, fishing, mining, oil and gas and long-haul transportation. These are very active sectors of our economy, Madam Speaker, with a very substantial potential for expansion and job creation. The credit will apply to investments made before 1994.
The proposed measures will also help small businesses obtain the financing they need. The rules for investments in small business by RRSPs and Labour-Sponsored Venture Capital funds will be simplified and expanded.

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For instance, individuals will be permitted to hold unrestricted amounts of qualifying small business investments in their RRSPs, while preferred shares will be added to the list of eligible investments for LSVCCs. That is very important.
Furthermore, the loan limit allowed under the Small Businesses Loans Act will be raised from $50,000 to $250,000.
The Small Business Financing Program will be extended to the end of 1994. This will permit small businesses to refinance loans at interest rates below normal commercial market rates.
This series of measures should encourage Canada's small businesses to make the investments they have been planning for some time and thus create new jobs.
Finally, I would like to mention that part of the minister's economic statement which deals with major investments in the transportation sector.
I am very pleased to see the economic statement mentions the possibility of entering into agreements with the provinces, including my own province of Quebec, so that we can start a number of major highway projects in Quebec and bring them to completion especially in my own riding where road inprovements are badly needed. We know some sections of Flighway 138 east of Havre-Saint-Pierre are not yet finished, and I am pleased to see the economic statement addresses this problem. The Government of Quebec will now be able to sign an agreement with our government to finance the completion of these projects.


Mr. Guy H. Arseneault (Restigouche -Chaleur):: Madam Speaker, I think we seldom take the time, here in the House, to consider what was said in the past.
In March this year when I spoke in the debate on the budget I mentioned the lack of concrete measures to improve the economy and help Canadians who were suffering as a result of Tory policies.
From what we have heard about the new budget, I was right. Once again their financial policies are doing nothing to improve the economy of this country. The government keeps harping on global economic restructuring and the international recession. I agree that these
issues are important, but I certainly do not agree with their approach to all the problems facing our economy.
The government prefers to wait and see what will happen. The Minister of Finance himself said that he was waiting to see what the Americans would do after the U.S. election before doing anything at all.
They had another alternative. They could at least have tried to reduce the serious unemployment problem in this country. They could have tried to find jobs for those who have none. They could have done something for Canadians living below the poverty line.
But let us be fair. The government is making some progress. But why is it only because of the Liberal policies they adopted? During the budget debate last March we noticed that the government decided to adopt a Liberal proposal for using RRSPs for the first-time purchase of a home. Once again the government borrows concepts from the Liberals to boost the economy.

The government's attitude has had a devastating impact in my riding of Restigouche-Chaleur. The government's economic policies have wreaked havoc in the forestry sector in my riding, leading to 300 lay-offs at the Atholville Pulp Mill, 500 lay-offs at the Dalhousie mill and a number of other related lay-offs throughout the riding. Nevertheless the government stubbornly maintains many of its disastrous policies.
We cannot forget the companies that have laid off people. We cannot forget these individuals who are laid off and presently without work.
We have heard a lot yesterday and today about unemployment. In my riding the level is at 16 per cent. This figure is unacceptable.
It does not include those individuals who have given up looking for work.
Small businesses in the riding are suffering. The federal government expects them to carry the economic recovery yet it continues to tax them to death. All the while the large multinational corporations continue to operate paying little or no taxes.
This government's unwillingness to stand up to multinationals is clearly outlined in last week's Auditor General's report and Bill C-91 which is presently being studied by a committee. Small business, in my mind, is the engine of today's economy and it is going to need a
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boost. I must in all fairness say to the minister some of the announcements yesterday were a step in the right direction, a very small step.
The government keeps telling us of the importance of education and the need to have a well-educated workforce to compete in the world's economy. Meanwhile the government is mercilessly slashing education and training budgets. Since 1986 it has continually reduced its contributions to post-secondary education. The maximum level for the Canada Student Loans Program has not risen since 1984.
The government has put a tax, the GST, on books and other learning resources. It has finally implemented cuts to the summer employment experience program, therefore diminishing students' abilities to support themselves through their educational careers.
Spending on education, research and development are investments in the future of our country. We must get back on the right track.
With regard to student loans, collection agencies are presently hounding students who are unemployed. They are hounding their families who are unemployed. This has to stop. I heard earlier one of the members from the opposite side was looking for a suggestion. I suggest the minister review the Canada Student Loans Program completely with a view to searching out those who are unemployed who cannot make their payments. Maybe they could work for the state, or a municipality to repay their debts. When we look at this idea, we see that criminals are sometimes better treated than our students. It is about time government start looking at that aspect.

People in my riding met to organize conferences on the economy. The Nepisiguit economic conference submitted its report nearly a year ago. A second conference, the Restigouche economic conference, is now under way in another part, of my riding. These two conferences bring together community people who care about the situation in their region. The purpose of this regional strategic analysis is to take charge of the region's economy in order to make it better. These groups realize
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the region's problems but are also ready to find solutions.
Another committee was formed to consider the possibility of reopening the Atholville Pulp Mill and to look at the problems of the forestry industry in general. Other groups, like the Restigouche and Chaleur industrial commission, the business men and women of St. Quentin, the CDCs of Kedgwick, Dalhousie and Campbellton, the chamber of commerce in Beresford, are also working to solve some of the region's problems. They are trying to find innovative solutions to improve the economy and promote development.
The lack of leadership from the federal government makes more work for these committees, but their power is limited. The government must show leadership and initiative to help them. For this, the government should immediately start investing in the present infrastructure of Restigouche-Chaleur.
The ports of Belledune and Dalhousie are still looking for a strategic plan. Since the federal government still does not promote them a plan is necessary.

The ports of Belledune and Dalhousie in my riding have to be developed. There is a lot of potential.

Dredging is needed for the docks in the communities of Pointe-Verte and Petit-Rocher.

The wharf at New Mills has to be expanded for our fishermen. Emphasis has to be put on tourism, not only in my riding but right across Canada. The tourism potential of Restigouche-Chaleur must be assisted and expanded. We have a good base to start with but it takes a little bit of help from the federal government.
We have a network of outdoor centres in Restigouche-West. We have museums, we have the Park Sugarloaf. We have the Chaleur Phantom, Recreaplex, Chaleur Park, and the Eel River Bar development that is in the works. There are parks in the Jacquet River area and we have a major new park that has just been developed-

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-Atlas Park. It is very important to have more money to improve tourism facilities in our riding.

There are other projects under way such as la plage de Beresford, un terrain de golf. It is very important the message gets out that tourism and small business are probably the best answers to some of our problems. We have to start making sure they are part of the solution.
I must also say we have to look at the transportation system. I am happy to say the minister looked at the transportation system somewhat in his proposals yesterday. I also believe there has to be more emphasis put on roads, airports and ports. I hope some of the announcements that were made yesterday with regard to roads, airports and ports are going to apply to all ridings in Canada and not just a select few.
The time has come for governments at all levels to enter into a new partnership. The municipalities, the provinces and the federal government must begin to priorize their plans and make decisions on this basis.
In wrapping up, I would like to say Canadians need a government with initiative. They need a government willing to provide leadership and get Canada working again. In short, I believe we need a new government.


John Henry Reimer: Madam Speaker, I would like to focus on just a couple of issues in the economic statement of yesterday.
I listened to the various comments yesterday both in the House and in the media about the measures announced with regard to unemployment insurance benefit rates. A lot of simplistic phrases were thrown out that are totally incorrect. One was that we are fighting the deficit on the backs of the unemployed.
I would like to be specific on that and I hope the hon. member will listen rather than speaking from the seat of his pants over there.
Let me just go through the details. The unemployment insurance benefit rate is being reduced from 60 per cent of previous earnings up to the maximum insurable earnings to 57 per cent for new claims starting April 1, 1993. Current beneficiaries are all grandfathered. The
net result of the benefit rate reduction from 60 per cent to 57 per cent, which so many are playing upon, is a freeze in unemployment insurance benefits in keeping with the government's restraint across all policy sectors. It will counteract the growth in earnings that would otherwise cause average benefits to increase. How in the world can one say if you move from 60 per cent to 57 per cent that it is not a cut? Well, we have to remember that the 57 per cent is based on a higher number. When you base it on a higher industrial base rate number, the net effect of the change is no change and it continues at a flat or freeze position.
I wish hon. members opposite would do justice to what is exactly happening here. The net effect of this change is to freeze the benefits as opposed to reducing the benefits. That is the first point I would like to make. We heard a lot of comments from the media last night and even some from the opposition here in the House that it is totally unfair to disentitle voluntary quitters.
Let us look at the facts. The effective date of the proclamation of the necessary amendments to the Unemployment Insurance Act for persons who voluntarily leave their jobs without just cause or lose their jobs through their own misconduct will no longer be eligible for unemployment insurance benefits. The measure is to be permanent.
Let us put this in context. Those persons are already subject to administrative penalties which delay the start of benefits from seven to twelve weeks and are paid benefits at a lower rate of 50 per cent. That is already happening. What the economic statement adds is that those who leave their jobs without just cause will lose their benefits.
Let us look at just cause. What does just cause include? It includes sexual or other harassment. That is the first one. The second is obligation to accompany a spouse or dependent child to another residence; third-
Madam Speaker, these people continue to speak over there. They refuse to listen. Let us get the facts on the table. The first just cause was sexual or other harassment. No one will be penalized if that is the reason they must leave; second, obligation to accompany a spouse or dependent child to another residence; third, discrimination on a prohibited ground of discrimination as contained in the Canadian Human Rights Act; fourth,
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working conditions that constitute a danger to health; and fifth, an obligation to care for a child.
It is totally false to say that anyone is going to be cut off benefits because of those reasons. We must remember there is an adjudication process and an appeal process to deal with that should someone be unfairly let go or fired.
Madam Speaker, let us look at the facts first. Once we have the facts then let us start looking at whether the process will work and will the process work fairly. That is the intent of this.
Let us go on to another part of the statement. To encourage small business to expand and to hire new employees, the government will pay any increase in the unemployment insurance premiums in 1993 over 1992 up to a maximum of $30,000 per firm. In effect, for most small businesses, UI premium costs will be capped at their 1992 levels. In fact most start-up businesses will have a UI premium holiday for 1993.
Any incorporated or unincorporated business whose employer share of UI premiums in 1992 was less than $60,000 will be eligible for a benefit under the program. For those businesses which had between zero and $30,000 of UI employer premiums, the maximum will be $30,000. For those which pay between $30,000 and $60,000, the maximum benefit will be phased down on a dollar for dollar basis.
This is very good news for our small business sector which we know creates the vast majority of jobs in Canada. This will help them greatly because the net effect upon a small business will be to reduce their hiring costs for an additional worker up to about $1,600 per additional new worker.
Other actions for small business will include a 10 per cent small business investment tax credit for machinery and equipment purchases. Rules on investments in small businesses by RRSPs and other funds will be simplified and investment options expanded. Programs that provide financial assistance are being expanded or extended, all to help small businesses hire more people as we begin to move to a higher growth rate than what we have seen in the last five quarters. All of this is very encouraging and it is important that we get the facts on the table.
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There are some very tough measures that were announced in the economic statement. One of them is a freeze on public servants and their salaries. I want to pay tribute to the civil servants who work in my riding. We have several offices in my riding, immigration, employment, retraining, pension, Revenue Canada and customs offices. I can say without any equivocation for myself and for my staff that we have received excellent service from the vast majority of those public servants.
Their task is not simple; they carry out programs where they have no say about the content on most occasions. Sometimes they know the programs could even be improved, but they have to administer them as they are given to them. They do that for people who are often very angry, very frustrated, do not know what is going on and are very impatient.
I want to commend the vast majority of public servants right across Canada, and particularly in my riding, for their professionalism and the way in which they carry out their tasks.
I am also disappointed that in this budget-or this economic statement, I am sorry-that the deficit is not going to be lower than it is. Here we are, after eight budgets, two economic statements at least and every single one has cut spending. When we began in 1984-85 we started to cut spending. Every single budget from 1985 on has cut spending.
When we started in 1984 the annual deficit was in the $38.3 billion to $38.5 billion range; now we are coming down to $34.4. We have only reduced it by about $4 billion. To me, that is one of the tremendous disappointments that this statement brings to us as Canadians and members in this House. After eight years of cutting we still have only made $4 billion worth of progress.
Let us remember why we are not making much progress. We were making a lot of progress prior to the recession and it looked very encouraging, but we did not go up in that deficit because of renewed spending. We continued to cut spending. The reason it went up is because of reduced revenues. That is totally contrary and totally different than what happened in the early eighties when the annual deficit continued to rise, due both to reduced revenue but also in large measure to increased spending. We have to keep that in mind.

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I am also disappointed that we did not cut off all advocacy groups. We have reduced them in this statement 10 per cent now and 10 per cent next year. I think most of those should have been cut to zero. I know that in some cases people will say we discriminate. Well, we discriminate now. The National Action Committee is only being cut 10 per cent and 10 per cent, yet REAL Women get zero. So we are discriminating right now. I think all advocacy groups should get zero and that is our target except for organizations such as the CNIB or Red Cross which we should continue to fund.
In conclusion I am pleased that at least we are going to take some action on eliminating interprovincial trade barriers. Those have to go because it will create jobs that will eliminate much of the lack of competitiveness we now have in comparison to the rest of the world and that will help Canada both to create jobs and to be more competitive.


Dawn Black: Madam Speaker, yesterday was one of the saddest days that I have witnessed in this House of Commons. It was a sad day because I think there were still some Canadians who looked to this government and the mini budget to help ease the terrible toll that Tory government policies have brought to our country.
I believe there were some people out there who clung to the thought that the government, even a Tory government, would see the devastation and see the error of their ways, realize that things just are not right, realize the human suffering that their policies have caused, and act with compassion. Some look to the government for, at the very least, hope, plain and simple hope. Sadly, yesterday that hope was finally extinguished.
Yesterday this government admitted it could do nothing to correct the ills of its own policies and the policies of the Liberals before it. Yesterday in this Chamber the finance minister and the minister of trade all but admitted that they were impotent, impotent to do anything in the face of world market forces, unable to create any Canadian solutions to our problems, unable to help ordinary Canadians.
What does it mean to be a Canadian? For the government it seems to mean that it rolls over and plays dead in the heat of the market forces' cauldron.
Can you imagine, Madam Speaker, the Japanese, the Germans or the Americans, who also rely on trade, standing before the people and saying: "We cannot do anything to help; we have to wait for other countries to get better, then we will too." Can we imagine that happening? That is exactly what we heard in this Chamber last night. Unfortunately that is not where yesterday's story ends. The story gets even worse.
Yesterday we also received another lesson in the priorities of the government. It is bad enough that the government usually sticks to increasing the burden carried by average working people, the ordinary Canadians who work the hardest and pay the most. Yesterday the government went a step further. It managed to increase the burden of the unemployed. The government has revictimized those unable to work or who cannot find work. It managed to kick someone who was already down.
At this difficult time when the country has seen record unemployment thanks to the government's policies-a slavish pursuit of deficit reduction, a slavish pursuit of opening up Canada, selling it to the lowest bidder and shipping our jobs away-instead of choosing to help the unemployed the government has cut UI benefits and limited the numbers eligible.
Now when a man quits work because of appalling conditions, unreasonable demands, concerns about health and safety, he could potentially no longer receive UI benefits. When a woman quits work because she is sexually harassed she could potentially no longer receive UI benefits. At the very least there could be a brand new bureaucracy at UIC, a star chamber deciding who should receive UI and who should not.
I listened carefully to the previous speaker. What he does not understand is that before yesterday's announcement a woman who was sexually harassed on the job would at least know if she quit her job she would serve the penalization period for so-called voluntarily quitting and then be eligible for UI benefits. Now she will no longer be able to do this. This will result in women staying in situations where they are being sexually harassed. For some women this will mean if they leave they will not get benefits, not be able to feed their children and will have to turn to the welfare roll.
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The government seems to forget that all working people pay into the UIC. It is not a charity. Is it not ironic that at the very time the government is again attacking the Public Service it now seems to be creating a new bureaucracy at UIC to judge who it deems to be deserving and undeserving recipients?
The government insists it is making tough decisions to help all Canadians. Let us look at how successful its policies have been. On deficit reduction in only nine months it appears the projections of the finance minister were off by a mere $11.9 billion. On free trade deals
500,000	jobs have been lost, mostly in the manufacturing sector, but the trade minister boasts they have been replaced with service jobs at fast food restaurants.
The only other area where there has been a real job growth is for volunteers in the increasing food banks across the country. As for retraining for the new demand for the global economy, the government is taking $300 million from existing UI funds for training. No new funds, no new strategy.
This is not a government making the tough decisions for the betterment of Canada. This is not a government adapting to changes in a restructured global economy. This is a government which keeps tripping over its own ideology and unfortunately it keeps landing with a thud on average Canadians.
This is a government not even following its own advice. It is not reducing the deficit. It is not retraining and adapting. Only now is the government talking about the needs of a service economy, the needs of R and D. That advice was given to the government years ago by the Economic Council which it has also axed.
The government's obsession is with its fight against inflation, its tight monetary policy. The publication Canadian Business Economics concludes that easing the anti-inflation fight would have saved jobs and led to a dramatic improvement in the deficit and trade. The saddest part of the Conservative policies is that they do not even make economic sense.
Canadians realize that politics is often an adversarial process, but Canadians also realize there is a time to put aside dogmatism, a time to put aside political ideology. Canadians realize there is a time when the government
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must do what is right to help its people regardless of its political ideology.
Unfortunately government members who sit across from me are the only Canadians who do not seem to realize that very simple message. Instead the government insists on pursuing the same policies which over eight years have been successful only in increasing the deficit and increasing the number of unemployed Canadians.
It is not good enough to stand here and criticize. That is what the Liberals do. They criticize. They do not offer solutions. They hold their breath hoping to be the next government. It is the responsibility of opposition parties to present alternatives. The New Democrats have done so.
Last night my colleague from Essex-Windsor spoke eloquently and passionately on this very matter. He spoke of alternatives that would take into consideration the plight of 1.5 million unemployed Canadians. He spoke of the choices the government had.
To quote from the document which the finance minister released yesterday: "The essence of governing is choosing. There are choices to be made and we are prepared to make them in the best interest of Canadians".
New Democrats would not have chosen to spend, as did the government, $4.5 billion on military helicopters before they launched a serious campaign to rebuild Canada's infrastructure and provide necessary jobs. The best social policy is a full employment policy.
New Democrats would not have chosen, as did the government, to allow tax avoidance for wealthy individuals and profitable corporations before they helped retrain Canadians to adapt to the changes in this world.
New Democrats would not have allowed, as the government has, wealthy individuals to hide their fortunes in private trust loopholes while ordinary Canadians pay more than their full share of taxes and then some.
Unlike this government, New Democrats would have ended the capital gains tax exemption rather than forcing sexually harassed women to stay at a job for fear of not receiving UI benefits.
Unlike this government, we would have eliminated the business entertainment and meal subsidies and instead helped get hungry children away from dependency on

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food banks and given them some real hope for the future.
New Democrats would not be trying to extend multinational drug company patents, extensions which even the government itself admits are going to cost provincial health care and average Canadians hundreds of millions of dollars. Unlike this government, New Democrats would not be extending these patents instead of fulfilling promises to provide child care so we can maximize the potential of our human resources.
When all the world's armies are downsizing, New Democrats would not allow, as the government has, our basis in the defence budget to bloat instead of continuing and increasing green initiatives that would provide jobs and are so important to our future.
New Democrats would not have panicked and signed an ill conceived and sweeping document like the trade deal with the U.S. or NAFTA which will again make us drawers of water and hewers of wood.
There were choices. There were new ideas. Sadly only the Conservatives stick dogmatically to trickle down economic theories that have failed everywhere else in the world.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: Madam Speaker, I too rise with muted thoughts on the speech of the Minister of Finance yesterday.
I am going to say a couple of things in the brief time here that have caused me concern. Then in the last few minutes of this 10-minute contribution I do have two very specific proposals on policy that I think obviously cannot be implemented in this economic document but certainly may be considered hopefully before the minister brings in presumably another budget in the spring.
In a very general way, with all the facts and figures and all the tables and charts ,1 think the minister would agree with me that unless there is confidence in the community outside this hall from coast to coast, unless there are very specific tax policies with stimulation, we are not going to get the recovery that we all desire and want so much for the Canadians we serve. The minister wants that as much as any speaker in this House.
In the few minutes I have I want to express in a general way my disappointment. I appreciate the parameters were very limited for manoeuvring by the minister. It was either fish or cut bait or try to pump it up or else chop more. As other speakers have said, I do not really see where he could chop much more, although I will have a few proposals there. Certainly tax increases were absolutely verboten as far as the public was concerned.
However, without getting into analysis of the speech yesterday, the smoke and mirrors, the Alice in Wonderland aspect of this whole document is right in the speech which appears in Hansard. At page 12 of the statement, after talking about some of the measures that he announced to get some money to try to get the deficit down, which includes the salary freeze, he stated:
The actions I have announced today will bring the estimated deficit
down to $34.4 billion this year and $32.6 billion next year.
When I heard that last night I thought of Alice in Wonderland and doublespeak. We knew before last night that the deficit was supposed to be 27 point something billion. He said that with a smile last night.
I do not know if the opposition will ask the question today in Question Period, but I certainly hope the question is answered. If the minister had not included these measures that are enumerated on page 12 of his printed speech, what was to be the estimate for the deficit? If, in the minister's words, he was just bringing it down to $34.4 billion and next year it is going to be $32.6 billion, what was the amount of the deficit? That as I say, illustrates the smoke and mirrors and the doublespeak in so much of this document that I do not have the time to analyse fully.
The other part which is a little more sensitive is the question of confidence. I know the minister well. As I say, it is a little unfortunate in terms of the confidence of Canadians out there who have either lost their jobs or are concerned about their jobs. I will not get into the speech by the member for Humber-St. Barbe-Baie Verte. He mentioned in effect that we have frozen our salaries, but we have not frozen the payout to the unemployed who are actually going to have a 3 per cent cut from 60 per cent to 57 per cent. One could really make a whole speech on that point.
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There is just something wrong. One of the top public servants of the land led the bureaucracy in the federal Public Service and brought in PS 2000. He was very involved in constitutional discussions and is now the president of the CNR. I am referring to Mr. Paul Tellier. In his very first meeting with management he informs them that they have problems on the railway and 10,000 employees are going to have to go.
This is a man who has given good public service to Canada. Undoubtedly he has certain pension qualifications, yet he is hand-picked without any railway experience to go into an area that we all know has serious problems. We worry about the rationalization of the air, but I think anyone involved in transportation knows that the rationalization of the rail is going to confront us very seriously within the next five years. A man with a very solid pay has been put into position. He has made contributions and has done his work for Canada. He has been put into that area, hand-picked by the Prime Minister to run the CN with no experience. He told them that 10,000 of them were going to lose their jobs.
That is something that everyone in the barber shops and the garages can understand. Just what is going on when a top public servant comes around and in his first meeting says: "Hey, I have been looked after. I have a new job and one of my jobs is to tell you that you are going to be out of a job?"
My friend across the way is the second most powerful political person on the federal scene and he disappointed me. He could have stopped the transfer of the immigration data processing office to Vegreville.
He knows that that type of move was complained about when he was in opposition when it was done for such rank political purposes. Again it is the type of thing that in terms of John and Jane Q. Public out there it just causes real concern about what can be believed about these people.
Those members complained about certain things when they were in opposition. Then they get in power and, with those two things, not to mention Bill C-91, they do it just as badly as the Liberal government did it.
We will have a chance to talk about Bill C-91 next week after another allocation of time order so that we can get on with the report stage and the third reading. It
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does not help Canadians. It may help the multinationals, but I thought this government had learned after the referendum that it is not good enough to have business on your side. The people have to be on your side. The real concern out there has been that this government has lost touch with the people.
In terms of the negatives of this budget there is the business of the immigration centre in Vegreville and Paul Tellier running the railway as sort of a hobby after he has been a professional public servant. He was hand-picked by the Prime Minister to run CN when we know all railways run into serious trouble. This is something that shakes the very confidence of Canadians.
Frankly, another budget in the spring is not even going to do enough to help restore the basic confidence of Canadians who see these things. They do not have to be economic wizards to know that there is something wrong when they are unemployed.
Talk to the fishermen, both the unemployed and those who are going to be unemployed. Talk to the airline workers who wonder about their jobs. Talk to people in areas in my part of the country where there is going be more base closures and more job losses. They are concerned for their families.
However, they pick up the papers and see someone who has been well looked after getting another premium job in the railways. Then they see the minister putting the immigration office in Vegreville. If the survey shows that this is an economic way to have immigration processing far distant from where the real immigration cases are, why then put it there instead of in some other area where there is loss of employment and futures. People understand that.
That is why the confidence of the people is shaken. I really thought that the vote we had on October 26 would have told some of the leaders of the land how upset people were, but I do not think it did.
That is the negative side that I have mentioned. There is so much more on the negative side I could say but I really do not want to go too far in order to conform to the time limit which is very short.
The minister has asked for positive and concrete proposals to improve the economy. As an Independent Conservative member of the House, I do not have the resources and staff to produce detailed studies. Howev-

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er, after several years in politics and with eyes and ears open to the community and input from voters I have a couple of suggestions which in the future will go a long way in helping the economy.
The first is to encourage small and new business. I know the minister intends to do that through tax credits. The trouble with tax credits is that they are no good unless the business is making money. New businesses are not making money and most small businesses are not making money today.
I agree small businesses are the major creators of jobs. In the critical growth stages most of them benefit very little, if at all, from tax credits on tax deductible expense allowances. They need stable, long-term funding at low interest rates rather than the roller-coaster pattern in rates and availability offered by the government, the Bank of Canada and paranoid bankers.
I propose that small businesses be permitted to borrow funds for terms of 10 years or more at fixed rates on the basis that interest is not a tax deductible expense for the borrower and not a taxable income for the lender.
Some of the proposals could be massaged but in effect this means small businesses when they first open will most likely not have any taxable income for a few years and more than likely will show losses. There should not be that much impact.
Such loans should be included as eligible with limits from the Small Businesses Loans Act. Perhaps the maximum of such non tax deductible loans to any business should be limited to perhaps $5 million. It may also be necessary to permit the pooling of such loans where they can be sold through security dealers. This will create an ample supply of funds at significantly lower rates than presently available with positive long-term tax consequences.
In conclusion my second proposal is somewhat the same thing but even shorter. It is similar but is directed to the home market and housing industry. It is designed to make quality housing more affordable. It will increase the value of existing homes and thus people's net worth. It helps to get equity back into the system. This is what we need. It will increase the value of existing homes-


Madam Deputy Speaker:: In fairness to all colleagues, the hon. member has gone past his time and I must be fair.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: I was trying to give a positive proposal.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I realize that but there might be other ways to do it.


Mr. Yvon Cote (Richmond-Wolfe):: Madam Speaker, thank you for giving me a few moments to speak as have my other colleagues. Of course, I recognize the good faith and good will of all hon. members who in turn share their varying perceptions of a reality on which everyone agrees. But I see that these very diverse solutions lack common vision and realism. Of course that is the reason for political options, partisanship and divisions among parliamentarians and managers.
Madam Speaker, I would therefore tell you that in my mind this economic statement that the hon. Minister of Finance submitted in the Elouse is not a budget in itself. It is very important not to consider it or perceive it as a budget. It follows on a budget that was presented more than six months ago in February. Given the mishaps along the way, the continuing recession, the high interest rates, inflation which was high then too, all these factors affected the budget which needs to be reviewed.
With this in mind the hon. minister and our government decided by common agreement to make a course correction. So you must not think that this is a new budget that would cut or eliminate departments. We will deal with that in a future budget. The idea was to seize the opportunity of the present circumstances, some terrible and some exceptional, in order not only to correct some of the occasional errors but also to modify our course according to some new positive elements that were emerging such as the inflation rate which has been brought under control and is now the lowest in all of the G-7 countries, and interest rates which were increasing constantly during the last two or three years and are now at one of the lowest levels ever.
Therefore it was timely and appropriate for the minister and for our government to take these measures in order to rectify the situation in a context of confidence because Canada enjoys an enviable reputation worldwide. We had to take advantage of the exceptional confidence we enjoy, of the low interest rate we now

have, of the lowered rate of inflation. We had to seize this opportunity seven months after presentation of the 1992 budget, to redress the situation.
What did we do? The statement by the Minister of Finance, has several objectives besides raising confidence and increasing participation. The first was to have the government set an example. We had to make cutbacks, as we did over the last eight years, hoping to control and eventually eliminate the deficit. I agree it did not happen so far but it is the recession and the benefits we must provide to our citizens, the protection we must give them, which have prevented us from pursuing the lowering of the deficit and eventually the debt.
Besides further spending cuts the economic statement provides for the continuation of the privatization policy, a policy which will end government spending on those operations which could obviously be run by the private sector. We have frozen salaries, from the prime minister, cabinet ministers and members of Parliament on down through the public service, Parliament and Crown corporations.
Then there is a second objective which I regard as most important. We will relieve the financial burden of the Canadian people. How? By restoring confidence. In that new and encouraging climate I referred to earlier families and consumers will have money to spend again. They will start consuming again, and if they spend more the industry will produce more and jobs will be created.
How will consumers and families benefit from that extra cash? May I remind you that the 1992 budget introduced and promised a tax rate cut. This measure will be pursued in 1993. In addition families, the head of the family, mother or father, will receive increased allowances in the form of benefits which means they will have more cash available to spend. In turn production and job creation will increase.
That is the second factor that ought to be taken into consideration and this change in course is a positive one. There is also the growth assistance initiative to promote the establishment of new businesses, thereby creating
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new jobs. So research and development will be increased and support will be provided to small business.
This brings me to this last objective, which deals with jobs and investments in small and medium-sized businesses. Nearly 80 percent of businesses in Canada fall in that category. They are the bigger employer in our country. And these are the ones that have been-how can I say?-made vulnerable, weakened, shaken by the economic and financial situation to say nothing of the monetary situation. Interest rates made them vulnerable and, of course, inflation prevented consumers from spending because prices were on the rise. These businesses therefore produced less and less.
So small and medium-sized businesses' participation will be enhanced and these will be given a better start in the seventh month on this new course. Of course, assistance will be provided to them in various way. Allow me to look at this area in particular.
As I was saying, small businesses play a vital and major role in the Canadian economy. Did you know that between 1979 and 1990 they created more than two million new full time jobs? Those are fantastic investments in the private sector.
Canada's federal tax system for small businesses is one of the most favourable in the world. This is all the more reason to take advantage of the favourable situation that prevails right now with low interest rates, an inflation rate that is under control and the new confidence shown by the rest of the world toward Canada. It is important to take advantage of these circumstances so that small businesses which are the major employers in the country can again produce and hire people.
Let me give you an example of the tax incentives which we and they benefit from. Did you know that our tax rates are lower than those in the U.S.? Few people know that. For instance, Canadian small businesses which are incorporated can take advantage of a special deduction which lowers the federal income tax rate to 12.8 per cent, including the 3 per cent surtax; that is 12.8 per cent on the first $200,000 in revenue from an active business. What is that rate in the U.S.? Is it 10 per cent, 12 per cent, 14 per cent? No, Madam Speaker. In the United States the federal tax rates for small businesses range from 15 per cent to 39 per cent. You can see that there is

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a favourable climate in Canada for renewed growth in the small business sector and the creation of new jobs.
Let me give you another example. Canadian small businesses which are incorporated are also entitled to the most generous R and D incentives not only compared to the U.S. but to all other G-7 countries. I should mention the refundable federal tax credit of 35 per cent which enables small businesses to receive funds directly without delay. Here is another example to illustrate those favourable conditions. There is a cumulative exemption, strictly for capital gains, which enables small businesses to invest again and again. This exemption can reach $500,000. This is another interesting incentive which should not be overlooked. This is precisely what awaits us tomorrow. Those privileges, those favourable conditions that we introduced for small businesses will continue to exist.
Do you want another example? Small businesses increasing employment will have no increase in unemployment insurance payments; some will even be exempted from paying the employer's premiums. These are important measures for small businesses that will enjoy a new boom.
I just wanted to tell you that small businesses will greatly develop as a result of the various measures taken to boost confidence, improve our monetary and interest rate policies and stimulate investments.


Mr. Sergio Marchi (York West):: Madam Speaker, the banner headline in the minister's own backyard really put it aptly when it read: "Mulroney's Tories run out of gas". If you look at the opening paragraph in The Globe and Mail Jeffery Simpson once again put it very aptly when he said: "Finance Minister, Don Mazankowski's economic statement yesterday displayed all the hallmarks of a government running on an intellectual fuel tank marked empty".
Yesterday's economic statement or mini budget or whatever you want to call it by any measure was a depressing and pathetic response to the economic woes that challenge our country and Canadians. I say it is pathetic and depressing because I used two principal measures to look at how good this economic statement will be for Canada's economy.
There were two overriding options. The first was to change course and seek a new direction on a road that was clearly not working versus staying the course, business as usual, head in the sand and let us hope the economy will improve naturally. That was the first challenge.
The second challenge was whether to apply an approach that cut, restricted and withdrew from the economy or an approach prepared to stimulate a serious, comprehensive job creation program. For me and many of the constituents I have the honour of representing those were the two major challenges in terms of delineating an approach and providing a clear indicator of whether this government was serious about attacking those economic woes. Having opted to stay the course and restrict rather than expand the economy this Conservative government, in my opinion, has selected the wrong remedy. It has failed to inject confidence as a necessary variable to achieve any kind of recovery. It has shown it has been mismanaging because its projections have been wildly off the mark.
For instance this minister had projected a deficit figure $7 billion lower than it is. He then had to find another $8 billion in cuts which means he was $15 billion off. Not only has it done all those things but by selecting a "stay the course, don't worry, trust us" approach, it has demonstrated how disconnected this government has become from the reality that stares every average Canadian in the face every single day of the week. The government is clearly out of touch, out of tune and needs to be put out of its misery.
If we take the experiment to the south of us, through their election, it is startling how similar the two governments are. The Americans' incumbent president selected the same approach we witnessed yesterday in the economic statement. He said: "We are going to be getting out of this recession sooner or later. I do not want to interfere. I do not want to interject. I do not want to intervene". But the incumbent president was also a captive and a prisoner of a White House and he had no idea of what was going on in small town or big town America.
The Americans clearly selected a new course of economic management a few weeks ago despite the pros and cons on either side. The economy is clearly issue number one for Americans as it is for Canadians. One would have thought if the government did not learn the lesson in the referendum campaign about the disen-
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chantment and disenfranchised perhaps it would have learned the lesson about some of the economic management decisions that have been made to the south of us, but that is not the case.
We can look at my own region of Toronto in the province of Ontario. Unemployment in Toronto is at 12.3 per cent which is higher than the national average. Last month alone 1,000 new families were added to the welfare rolls pushing the case-load up to over 108,000 families in Toronto who have to survive on welfare. That is a 14 per cent increase over last year. If we add the record numbers of people at food banks or under the poverty line the message is quite clear. In Ontario .5 million people are unemployed in what is and was one of the key economic engines or pistons of the national economy.
The government withdrew $300 million through UI cuts which removed $300 million of disposable income or $300 million from that economy. Eighty per cent of all lost manufacturing jobs are in Ontario. The construction and trades industries are as dead as door nails.
What did this government do for Toronto? What did it do for Ontario? What did it do to address the manufacturing drought, the economic malaise that has inflicted one of the major centres of economic activity? In some other regions of the country the Minister of Finance at least sugar-coated the bitter pill. In Toronto and Ontario there is precious little.
I know the minister from Brampton will probably say: "Look what we are doing with Pearson airport". They do not tell you when the construction jobs will come on stream. It will certainly not be this winter. Probably by the time they come on stream this government will be long gone. A lot of Canadians also say selling the most profitable airport in the country to private interests is not good business to start with.
I ask myself as a member of Parliament from the region of metropolitan Toronto, where the metro chairman identified close to $9 billion worth of projects that are on the shelf, if all three levels of government participated in a good many of the projects would that not stimulate and serve to inflict confidence in the economy? It would put some oxygen into the economy
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instead of putting a lid on it as this government has opted to do.
Councillor Norm Gardner from metro asked and I quote: "Many ministers in Toronto have paid lip-service to metro's economic woes. I would really like to know where they think their bacon lies".
I would like to know as well. There was a time when metro was represented by a half dozen ministers who were active and progressive in defending the interests of Toronto. Right now Toronto is not even on the map of the government's agenda. Perhaps it has written it off.
What should constituents in my riding or in the ridings of my neighbouring members of Parliament and colleagues be told in terms of how yesterday's statement relates to the everyday challenges facing them? We have very little to tell them.
I simply wish to say the Minister of Finance said yesterday governing means choosing. Well it is the same for democracy. Democracy means choosing as well. Yesterday's statement made it a lot easier and certainly a lot more certain why this government cannot, will not, and should not ever earn the trust of Canadians again and certainly not in the next election.


Hon. John McDermid (Minister of State (Finance and Privatization)):: Madam Speaker, first of all I want to congratulate the Minister of Finance on his presentation yesterday to the House of Commons and to the country. I believe it was a well thought out, well presented, and a very good statement for the times we are in.
The hon. member who just sat down said in politics we have to make tough decisions and that is very true. You have to take a look at a country's position and financial situation. You have to look at the world economy, at the pressures on your dollar and on interest rates and so on when you put together a very important economic statement like my hon. friend did.
I have been sitting here listening to some of the speeches. I have read some of the speeches and I have watched some of them on television. To date, just like the last speaker, all we heard was moaning and groaning and complaining, and not one new idea that fits the economic times we are in. There has not been one new idea that would not add to the deficit or add to higher taxes. Not one.

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Yet the opposition members are telling the Canadian public "put us in there and we will take care of everything". I do not think the Canadian public can be hoodwinked like that. I think the Canadian public wants to hear what they to have to offer. The airy-fairy suggestions that were presented and the hyperbole of the finance critic of the Liberal Party yesterday made it very obvious there was not a good idea given in the whole place. That includes my friend from Windsor who stood up and pontificated and said how terrible things are. We know how tough things are in Canada and that is exactly why the Minister of Finance brought in an economic statement that is going to do this country good.
I believe the biggest single expenditure now in the Government of Canada is the unemployment insurance. It is huge. Time after time people have said to us we have to get a handle on the unemployment insurance system. We have to make sure people who are collecting unemployment insurance are the right people collecting it the people who deserve it. We have been told that time after time. In these tough times when you are making huge expenditures like that you have to make sure the unemployment system is doing the proper thing.
I listened to the NDP members standing in this House saying there are going to be cuts in unemployment insurance when that is not factual. The Unemployment Insurance Program would be frozen at its current level.
One of the things they must understand is that next year the base rises. In order to freeze the level when the base rises we must decrease the benefits from 60 to 57 per cent to make it even. Therefore it is not a cut it is a freeze. It is a freeze and that should be understood by everyone. It is not a cut.
I listened to the New Democratic Party today. It talks about job creation. It says: "We need jobs in this country". Yet in the same breath it says to cancel the helicopter order.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. I would be delighted to recognize all hon. members one after the other but it is rather difficult when everyone speaks at the same time.


John Horton McDermid: Madam Speaker, I do not mind, they can heckle all they want. I am going to keep going anyway. Do not worry about them. I am not. I am not worried about them at all.
As I was saying, the New Democratic Party talks about jobs and job creation. Then it turns around and says to cancel the helicopter project. I was at a plant in Nova Scotia, I.M.P. to be exact. I toured the plant recently and visited with the workers and management. Do you know what? It is doing the outfitting for all these helicopters. This plant will do all the intricate wiring and put in all the instrumentation and so on. These are important jobs for Nova Scotia, very important jobs for Nova Scotia. As a matter of fact in my riding of Brampton I received two letters from companies that said to make sure the contract goes through because they provide this instrument or that instrument for the helicopter. The same is true in Mississauga. There are plants there that will provide supplies for those helicopters. Those are jobs in Canada. Those are important jobs.
If we cancel those kinds of contracts, like the NDP want us to do, those jobs will be lost. Let it then explain to its friends why that was cancelled and why their jobs were lost because of an action like that.
This is a very important contract as all our contracts are very important for the creation and preservation of jobs in our country.
I heard my hon. friend talk about the United States, about the President of the United States and the economy in the United States. It is too bad that the good numbers came out just a couple of weeks after the election but the economy is improving in the United States. That is a hopeful sign for us in Canada because we trade with it.
I want to remind this House that its deficit this year will probably be $400 billion per capita far higher than Canada's and it is growing. If the president-elect does what he says he is going to do we MU see a deficit that will be beyond belief in the United States. It has major problems with that.
Our Minister of Finance, our government, has come to grips with this. We are fighting the deficit. We have to fight the deficit. We cannot let it get out of control like the NDP and its friends in the Canadian Labour Congress suggest-the Canadian Labour Congress came out
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the other day with two ideas, actually it was seven ideas but I just costed two of them. One was to extend unemployment insurance for an extra 26 weeks and the other was to cut the GST to 5 per cent. Those two things alone in one year would cost $10 billion. Did Bob White come up with an idea of where we could find $10 billion? No. It would either be added to the deficit or there would be increased taxes.
We cannot have it that way. We are not in a position to do those types of things. We cannot afford those types of things. The Canadian people understand that and I believe most sincerely that the Canadian people will support the Minister of Finance and this statement. They understand the tough row he has to hoe. They understand the situation that not only Canada is in but that countries around the world are in. They are all experiencing phenomenal problems.
I have not heard anybody from the NDP in the last little while stand up, like they used to, and talk about Sweden. What a wonderful model Sweden is with 500 per cent interest rates this year because it had to get things under control. Things were totally out of control in that country. Unemployment in Sweden is rising at a rate unseen anywhere right now.
The socialist ways do not work. God bless the people in Sweden. They saw the light and finally elected a conservative government which has to come in, as all conservative governments do, and clean up the mess that was left behind. That is exactly what is happening in Sweden today, and that is not the model. We understand the tough decisions that have to be made.
The Minister of Finance is a tough guy. He does not like making the decisions he has to make. There is nothing easier for a politician to do than throw money at a problem, to say: "Here, here is some money. Go away".
This minister is not doing that. This minister is putting scarce resources where they are needed. This minister is cutting back on expenditures because, quite simply, we cannot afford to go on spending the way we have. We cannot afford it. The buck stops somewhere. Once that credit card gets to its limit we have to start paying it back before we get any more credit. That is what we have to do and that is what this Minister of Finance has done. He
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is to be congratulated. I know he will have the support of the Canadian people.
[Translation\


Mr. Mac Harb (Ottawa Centre):: Madam Speaker, government members seem obsessed by the national debt. It reminds me of the movie Fatal Attraction. That is the only thing they talk about. Unfortunately, this time, Canadians were expecting much more than what they got.
Look at how things are going in Canada right now: the recession is the worst our country has seen since the 1930s; 1.5 million Canadians are unemployed; 2.3 million are on welfare and 3.8 million are living below the poverty level. Moreover, there are more than one million children living below the poverty line and more than two million Canadians lining up at food banks.
I ask the Minister of Finance and the government what they have done for those people in their last budget? What have they done? That last budget did not do much for anyone, neither for the debt and the deficit, nor for the Canadian people and the Canadian businesses. Finally the government did not deliver an economic statement as it called it, but a purely political statement. It simply took away $8 billion from the Canadian economy and put $2 billion back into it. That implies a net deficit of $6 billion for the Canadian economy.
The hon. minister was speaking of deficit control but what have we seen so far? Year after year the deficit keeps rising steadily. In the end the fact is that this government is selling the furniture to be able to pay the rent, to be able to go on. That is what they are doing; they sell the furniture to pay the rent and that is not fair.
This budget is an assault against the Canadian infrastructure, be it from the point of view of the Canadian people or in the literal sense. Here are a few examples from the budget. It speaks of supporting the growth of small businesses. Even the government recognizes that here in Canada it is the small businesses that have created the majority of jobs in the 1980s and 1990s.
Finally, more than 80 per cent of Canadian jobs have been created by small businesses. We can read in the minister's budget that the ceiling for loans to small businesses under the Small Businesses Loans Act will be increased to $250,000. But that hardly helps new businesses since all new firms do not become profitable

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overnight and, hence, do not go knocking on the bank's door. Even if they did we must recognize that the banks do not come to their rescue.
The minister also proposes to help small businesses by exempting them temporarily from the payment of UI premiums. But again, if there are no profits small businesses will not hire people.
Instead of attacking the problem of unemployment this budget attacks the unemployed. We have seen in the statement made yesterday by the minister that unemployed Canadians are the ones who will be paying the price. This government will continue its attack on them and on the Canadian people.
We can also see in this budget an attack on the public sector. Government employees who provide services to Canadians will be affected. They have done their fair share these past few years. Their salaries have decreased following a wage control; their salaries have been frozen. Of course, taking into account the rate of inflation it is obvious there has been a decline.
With regard to investing in public infrastructure the proposal is'far from adequate. Let me tell you why. The government expects to create some 5,000 jobs over the next few years. In the last analysis this means very little when you consider that approximately 10,000 jobs have disappeared at Canadian National at one swoop. The government's $5 million commitment in this bill will not help much. It is a start but it will not solve Canada's economic problems.
Another important point is that this government asks us for suggestions. Our leader already submitted to the federal government a pretty concrete and efficient proposal concerning investments in infrastructures. The federal government could enter into a partnership with provinces and municipalities. These three levels of government could contribute one-third each. Then we could really create jobs in order to help Canadians.
I do not understand why the federal government would make such a statement and say it is an economic statement since it does not contain much to help the Canadian economy.
In closing the federal government in this statement really did nothing to help the Canadian economy. It is much more of an attack against the unemployed, against Canadians.


Hon. Audrey McLaughlin (Yukon):: Madam Speaker, yesterday's economic statement by the finance minister was made during the most serious job crisis in this country's history. One in four Canadians is either unemployed or under-employed, plants are closing throughout the country, and farms continue to go bankrupt. We have unfair taxes, worsening inequality and a sky-rocketing federal deficit.
In the face of all this, the finance minister yesterday delivered to this House a mini budget, a document, that will create an over-all net job loss in this country when unemployment is well over 11 per cent. This government saw Canadians drowning and instead of throwing them a line, it threw them an anchor. That is the bad news.
The good news is this government will not be around long enough to implement most of the harmful measures it has brought in.
Canadians everywhere were looking for two things from this statement.

They wanted a change. They wanted the government to acknowledge the failure of the old and outdated policies. They wanted new ideas to turn things around. Last, they wanted a message that would give them hope. They wanted to know that the government in Ottawa is willing to take whatever emergency measures are necessary to create jobs and put Canadians back to work.
On both counts, the economic statement can only be described as a monumental failure. There is not the faintest glimmer of hope in that statement. The unemployment rate is going to stay at 11 per cent all through next year. The deficit will be almost twice as much as anticipated.
Not one single Canadian family can now hope for 1993 to be a better year. There is nothing in that statement to justify such hope.
December 3, 1992



Rather than take bold action to help Canadians who have lost their jobs this government has chosen a 3-D approach: deny the problem, delegate the cost and dump on those who are hurting the most.
The cuts announced to unemployment insurance rank among the most mean-spirited economic actions ever taken by a Canadian government. These do nothing to solve unemployment. They will not generate a single job. They simply transfer costs to provincial, municipal and territorial governments as more and more Canadians are forced to turn to social assistance. The costs of unemployment insurance have gone up because of unemployment, not because of the unemployed. All the minister can do in response to this is punish the victims. This is not acceptable.
Leaving a job is not something that is taken lightly at any time in one's life. There are many reasons why people voluntarily leave their jobs such as harassment, discrimination and unsafe conditions. With a single move the federal government has put enormous power into the hands of employers. Unless employees can prove they were harassed, discriminated against or placed in danger they will not see a cent from an insurance program they have paid into. This is unacceptable.
Madam Speaker, put yourself in the position of a construction worker who is working in a situation under unsafe conditions and feels he or she must quit for health and safety reasons. I would put myself in the shoes of a woman who is being sexually harassed or discriminated against in the work place. Where does she turn now with UI denied if she leaves her job? How does she pay the bills if she cannot prove the harassment and discrimination happened? We do not move into the 21st century by returning to the employment policies of the 19th century.
There is one thing the Minister of Finance said yesterday with which I whole-heartedly agree and I quote: "Governing is about making choices". Absolutely. The government could have chosen to eliminate the business entertainment tax deduction. That is a $1 million saving to the taxpayer right there. It could have chosen to cancel the $4.4 billion helicopter program designed to fight a country that no longer exists. It could have taken that $4.4 billion and invested in a country that
Government Orders
does exist, Canada. The government had a choice. The government could have chosen to cancel the $1 billion tax break to the wealthy owners of private trusts. But, no, this government would rather close hospitals than close tax loopholes.

The government has decided to single out those who are least to blame for the present recession and to make scapegoats of them; I mean the unemployed, native Indians, the poor in the third world and the generations to come that will pay for the cuts affecting the environment.
We in our party would have made a different choice. We would have chosen a full employment economy, an economy where the government's first priority would be to create decent, lasting, well-paid jobs for everyone.

We must be prepared to commit to a full employment economy. We must be prepared for an all-out attack on unemployment and not an attack on the unemployed. We do not do that with bad trade deals like NAFTA and the FTA that destroy jobs. We do not do that by unfair taxes like the GST that hit hardest at those who can afford them the least. We do not do that with high interest rates that inflate the dollar and choke the economy.
A full employment economy means investing in Canadians. It means generating jobs and doing the work we so badly need such as rebuilding our social, municipal and environmental infrastructures. It means directed research, enriched education and a skilled and talented work force ready to take on the world.
For the past year we on this side have said to the government: "Take a fresh approach or move over for someone who will". Today we know that fresh approach is simply not possible from this government. What we heard yesterday was not a mini budget, an economic statement or a fiscal plan. It was a signed declaration of bankruptcy, morally, intellectually and politically.
We heard much in the minister's statement about the deficit. There is a federal government deficit all right. It is a deficit of ideas, a deficit of imagination and a deficit

December 3, 1992
Government Orders
of compassion for the people who have been so badly harmed by the policies of this government.
We in the New Democratic Party have an alternative. We have a vision. It is time for a change. Since this government has no vision and offers no hope, I say get out of the way for someone who does.


Mr. Jean-Pierre Blackburn (Jonquiere):: Madam Speaker, thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak on the economic statement made yesterday by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance.
It is not pleasant for us as members of Parliament to look at our country's economic situation and see the different measures that the government must take; we must analyze these measures and see whether they are what Canadians want and whether they are the right choice in the present economic situation.
This morning, I talked with the staff in my riding office in Jonquiere, Lise Dumont, M. France Paradis and Marie-Therese Ferland, and asked them whether the office had received any calls. "What are the people saying?"
The first thing people in our ridings bring up is unemployment insurance. They ask us why the government cut their future benefits from 60 to 57 per cent. Why is the government going after the unemployed in particular? Also, public servants call and ask us why the government froze their salaries. They point out that they had no increase last year and 3 per cent this year, if I recall correctly, and now for the next two years they will have to live with no pay increase.
Those issues affect people and also us as members. It is no fun to see that our salaries will not go up, even though we are better paid than many people in our society. But besides that, there are some positive elements and others which are less good. We talked about some of the tougher measures, such as those I just mentioned. What are the positive ones in yesterday's economic statement? First, there is no tax increase next year. Since income tax is supposed to go down by 1 per cent in 1993 that means some $2 billion more in the Canadian economy. That is an important point. Generally speaking when people have more money we can expect some economic recovery.
Second, we have the amounts that will be allocated to manpower training. We are talking about a total of $2.2 billion, an increase of $300 million over last year. This is another step in the right direction.
In the small business sector, and I will talk about this in more detail later on, we now have 700,000 small businesses with fewer than five employees. We have
900.000	with fewer than 50 employees. This means they are eligible for small business loans of up to $250,000. Incidentally, when the banks grant these loans 85 per cent of the loan is guaranteed so that if a business is in financial difficulty the bank has some protection. By the same token, small businesses that need money for investment purposes have some assurance that the money will be available through the bank.
There are other ways in which we can help small businesses. For instance we can now tell them: if you hire new employees, next year you won't have to pay their unemployment insurance premiums which may save you as much as $1,600 per employee.
When we look at these measures and consider what we will have to do as a government to reactivate the economy I wish we were able to do more. This morning I would like to say that since there will be a new budget in March, perhaps the government should give the following some serious thought. We have $20 billion in the unemployment insurance fund. It is "pro-passive": $20 billion which is being used to pay people who stay home because they are out of work when they would much rather have a job. They do not want to stay home doing nothing. They want jobs.
As a government, we managed to take part of this money which is still in the unemployment insurance fund and invest it in manpower training. People say training is important. The challenge is that we have to create hundreds of thousands of jobs. We want to create
300.000	this year. It is a first step but we need a lot more. We have 1.6 million people who are unemployed. So we need hundreds of thousands of jobs. Why not take the UI fund and give it to small businesses?
Let me give you an example, let us say a weekly salary of $400. Small businesses would hire someone and we would pay three-quarters of that person's salary for so many weeks. Small businesses and employers would wake up and decide to expand or activate production and start hiring people. The UI fund just sits there. It is passive. Why not make it pro-active? The only difference is that I would take the money and offer it to small
December 3, 1992

businesses so that they could hire people. I have to assume, of course, that after a number of weeks these companies will decide to keep the people they hired and that the wheels will keep on turning. The money is there.
It is a suggestion. If we have to change the legislation, well let us do it! That is our job. We are already using the money for manpower training so I suggest the next budget should consider using the fund to activate the economy even more since people want to work. The Minister of Finance has taken a few steps in the right direction but he will have to take more later on.
Madam Speaker, I realize my time has almost run out and perhaps I may tell listeners that we, their elected representatives, understand them and are aware of their problems. However, there are certain budgetary measures we have to take because the government has less revenue. It is not spending more but less money is coming in. We are trying to do our best and we will keep trying to examine the various alternatives for accelerating economic activity and creating jobs.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: It being one o'clock I do now leave the chair until two o'clock this afternoon.
At 1 p.m. the House took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 2 p.m.

Mr. Jesse Flis (Parkdale-High Park):: Mr. Speaker, in Canada a sexual assault is committed every 17 minutes and 90 per cent of the victims are women. Ever since 14 women died at the hands of Marc Lepine on December 6, 1989, we can no longer ignore the violent epidemic which is poisoning us all.
It is a fact that the majority of women in Canada are now afraid to walk their own neighbourhoods at night. In fact one woman from my riding says she will no longer use her own bank machine after she was recently harassed in broad daylight. My constituent was able to elude her attacker but for many women there is no escape from violence, especially in the home.
We were all shocked by the tragic murder last summer of 18-year old Carrie Lynn Pinard. Carrie never saw the face of the man who took her life. It was also not so long ago that three year-old Kayla Klaudusz disappeared and was later found dead in Lake Ontario.
We must stop this epidemic. It is time for all men to speak out against violence against women.


DRUG PATENT LAWS
Mrs. Edna Anderson (Simcoe Centre):: Mr. Speaker, the media and the opposition seem determined to mislead the Canadian people regarding the effects of the past and the pending legislation affecting drug patent laws.
We keep hearing that drug prices have gone up because of legislation providing increased patent protection. However what we do not hear is that patented drugs account for approximately 3 per cent of the entire pharmaceutical industry and of the over-all increase in drug prices, patented drugs have risen only 2.9 per cent since 1984, while the remaining amount of the over-all increase has been in the non-patented line of drugs.
I think it is important to note that there are approximately 19,000 drugs that can be legally sold of which approximately 652 are patented drugs. That leaves over
18,000	non-patented drugs that are not even affected by patent legislation.
The opposition and the media are also dramatically silent about the increase in research and development in Canada sponsored by the pharmaceutical companies since 1984, Ontario being a key beneficiary.
I would love to list just some of the advantages Canadians realize from our patent protection legislation but unfortunately time does not permit me to do so.

December 3, 1992


S. O. 31 HEALTH
Mr. Jim Karpoff (Surrey North):: Mr. Speaker, twice this week Canadians saw the Tory government put the interests of large, powerful corporations over those of Canadians and their health.
First the government's pathetic response to the foetal alcohol syndrome report showed the government buckling to the dictates of the liquor industry. The government refused to take leadership in initiating health warning labels on alcoholic beverages setting out the dangers of drinking during pregnancy.
Next we saw the government at the direction of the multinational drug companies move forward with its drug policy which will result in higher drug costs for families, seniors and provincial drug plans.
Canadians now know that this government is serving the interests of powerful corporations, not the interests of Canadians and their health.
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PUBLIC SERVICE SALARIES
Mr. Larry Schneider (Regina -VVascana):: Mr. Speaker, I do not envy the challenge that the world recession has created for our Minister of Finance. Life would be ever so much easier if only we had the financial resources to spend.
Yesterday's economic statement caused great concern among many, not the least of whom are our public servants. I understand that yesterday's statement does not affect their earned salary increments. It is my understanding that the government assured the Public Service of two consecutive annual increases of 3 per cent. The Public Service received the first 3 per cent increase last July. They will not receive the next.
I know that everyone has some awareness of our tough fiscal situation and is understanding. However I wonder what happened to that commitment.


ECONOMIC STATEMENT
Mr. Bob Wood (Nipissing):: Mr. Speaker, December 2, 1992, will long stand as one of the darkest days in Canadian history. For one fleeting moment yesterday
Canadians held their collective breath in hopes that the contents of the finance minister's economic statement would help answer their prayers. Instead, the minister's proposals created new nightmares for all Canadians.
The finance minister has completely forgotten about northern Ontario. He has done nothing to stimulate the stagnant economy and create jobs in northern Ontario. Indeed, he has decided to cut spending by 10 per cent on programs such as FEDNOR which are designed specifically to attract new business and industry to northern Ontario.
The government has also shown cowardice in cutting UI benefits. Rather than making the tough decisions it should have, it chose to stay the course and make those who could least afford it bear the brunt of the government's fiscal mismanagement. Over the past year there has been an increase of almost 30 per cent in the number of business and consumer bankruptcies in my riding of Nipissing. All of this may be attributed to the devastating economic policies of the present government which has laid claim to being the fiscal saviour of Canada. It has shown all the signs of a tired and feeble government. The only statement which should be forthcoming from this government now is the call for an election.


AETERNA LABORATORIES
Mr. Marcel R. Tremblay (Quebec-Est):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to point out the initiative taken by Aeterna Laboratories, a company in my riding, which has made a name for itself in the health field. Aeterna has been dynamic and shown initiative. For example, this young company has developed the Natcel food supplement, which took four years of research.
Besides encouraging research in Canada, this product is available from 1,000 therapists in Quebec and will soon be sold throughout North America.
Canadian private companies must be increasingly innovative and competitive. As markets become global we must continue to give our constituents the tools they need to bring about the economic growth from which everyone benefits.
December 3, 1992


ECONOMIC STATEMENT
Mrs. Christine Stewart (Northumberland):: Mr. Speaker, the Tory government's budget statement once again highlights a government out of touch with the people of this country and totally inept at managing our economy. If an accountant of a business in Northumberland misjudged the company's budgeting as badly as this government did its deficit, the business would be bankrupt or the accountant would be fired.
This tired government is out of touch and disconnected from economic realities faced by business and consumers, Canadians. Unemployment is chronically high. Welfare rolls are soaring. In Northumberland alone it is estimated that 2,000 more citizens will be on welfare in the next month, many of them youth. Food banks and soup kitchens across the country are the growth phenomenon.
People need jobs. Northumberland needs harbours, water, sewage treatment, infrastructure which would create jobs, assist welfare-swamped municipalities and taxpayers. Instead, the government cuts jobs.
Where is the justice? Where is the vision? Where is the competence? Not in this tired old Tory government. Let us elect the Tories out of business now.


SALARY FREEZE
Guy St-Julien: Mr. Speaker, further to the economic and fiscal statement presented yesterday, December 2, 1992,1 want to say that I do not agree with freezing public servants' salaries. Our public servants in Abitibi do an excellent job in representing the Canadian government properly and serving the people and I think that we must respect our previous commitments to them.


WESTRAY MINE DISASTER
Mrs. Coline Campbell (South West Nova):: Mr. Speaker, the Westray mine explosion took 26 lives almost seven months ago. Yet the people in the area and in the rest of Nova Scotia have been denied the right to answers that would help the families who lost loved ones in the disaster to understand what went wrong.
There have been four formal requests of the Prime Minister and this government to hold hearings as to what happened. The federal government put a lot of money into this mine. It seems only proper that it would like to know the answers as to why this tragedy took place at the Westray mine.
As a Nova Scotian and as a representative in this House I am ashamed of the lack of leadership that this government has shown in this tragedy. I call upon this government and the Prime Minister, who came to this House because of the people of Pictou County, to hold a hearing into the reasons why 26 lives were lost last May in the Westray mine.


INTERNATIONAL DAY OF THE DISABLED
Mr. Jean-Pierre Hogue (Outremont):: Mr. Speaker, today we celebrate the United Nations International Day of the Disabled. This is a unique opportunity to step up our efforts so that equality for the disabled throughout the world is not an abstract concept but a reality.
Canada defends human rights at home and abroad and is proud that the world has such a day for the disabled. Nevertheless, we must extend our activity beyond our own borders. Following the international conference of ministers responsible for the disabled, a working group will consider how to establish a permanent mechanism for exchanging information and technology among all countries.
The goal is the full integration of the disabled in all communities of the world. Canadians and citizens of all other countries can work together for equality, a basic right that we must never cease to defend.

December 3, 1992


NATIONAL HIGHWAY PROGRAM
Mr. Iain Angus (Thunder Bay-Atikokan):: Mr. Speaker, the Tory government has a responsibility to develop a national highway program and it has failed utterly to meet that obligation.


Mr. Howard McCurdy (Windsor-St. Clair):: Mr. Speaker, this is a compilation of press comments on the mini budget. It is uninspiring, unimaginative, as bad as the Liberal statements in the early 1980s. Canadians have been scrooged by a mini budget which is too little, too late, too Tory, a terrible exercise. The Tories did not know what the right thing was for the last eight years and still do not. This is a mini budget, heartless and brainless, a brazen attack on the nation's most vulnerable citizens. As Tories run out of gas, this has been a government running on an intellectual fuel tank marked empty. I quote from La Presse: Le remede de Mazankowski est me boite de Q-Tips.
But there is also hope from the same source. It is la fin du regne.
The program that the minister announced yesterday is not a national one. It does nothing to meet the transportation needs of much of Canada, in particular northern Ontario.
The Ontario Auditor General has found that it will take $20 billion to bring that province's highway system to a satisfactory level. Provinces and municipalities throughout Canada have been hard hit by the Tory recession so the federal government must participate in a shared program of infrastructure reconstruction.
The federal government should identify all federal transportation responsibilities that require upgrading, including VIA Rail, CN, CP, marine facilities and funding for provincial transportation services.
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FIREARMS CONTROL
[Stage Direction]
Federal investment in Canada's infrastructure is long overdue and would assist Canada's economic recovery while creating desperately needed jobs. The projects that would result would also make many of our highways safer.
Mr. Bill Attewell (Markham-Whitchurch -Stouff-ville):: Mr. Speaker, last July legislation was passed to tighten the control of firearms. However, one important measure to reduce the illegal use of firearms was not addressed. I am referring to the need to amend the Criminal Code to introduce a law that would have a minimum mandatory prison sentence whenever an individual, including a young offender, commits a crime using a firearm.
The finance minister's economic statement yesterday was bad news for transportation in Canada and bad news for the economy. It is a shameful product of a Tory government that has lost the right to govern.


INTERNATIONAL DAY OF DISABLED PERSONS
[Stage Direction]
Many law enforcement officers are supportive of this idea. Chief Bryan Cousineau of the York Regional Police agrees. He is adamant that even first-time offenders committing a crime while carrying a firearm should be given a mandatory jail sentence.
It is time for us to get tougher with those who threaten the lives of our citizens. We should not tolerate people who use guns to commit crimes. There should be no plea bargaining, only mandatory jail sentences for such actions.
Mr. Bruce Halliday (Oxford):: Mr. Speaker, the United Nations has declared today, December 3, as the International Day of Disabled Persons.
Canada must invest in all her citizens, including persons with disabilities, if we are to ensure that the Canada of tomorrow will be strong and competitive. Such a commitment has been clearly demonstrated in recent years by our annual National Access Awareness Week and the current five-year National Strategy for the Integration of Persons Disabilities.


Canada is recognized as a world leader in integrating disabled persons into the community.
Earlier this year we hosted Independence '92 in Vancouver. In October the Secretary of State, the minister responsible for the status of disabled persons hosted the first ever International Conference of Ministers Responsible for Persons with Disabilities in Montreal. A few days later he addressed the UN General Assembly in special session to mark the end of the Decade of Disabled Persons.
Today, as we recognize the International Day of Disabled Persons, I congratulate the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for their vision, energy and leadership in working for equality of opportunity for persons with disabilities, both in Canada and around the world.


GENERAL AGREEMENT ON TARIFFS AND TRADE
Mr. Don Boudria (Glengarry-Prescott -Russell):: Mr. Speaker, farm producers in supply managed sectors are concerned about the GATT trade talks. For five years Canada and about 100 other countries have been negotiating a new trade agreement. Today the talks are deadlocked and some countries are threatening to impose tariffs.
Canadian farmers have been well served by GATT article XI. They want it to be maintained. The government must help them now and give them the assurance that article XI will be kept.


ECONOMIC RECOVERY MEASURES
Mr. Gaby Larrivee (Joliette):: Mr. Speaker, I must say I welcome the economic recovery measures announced by the Minister of Finance. First of all, the government is maintaining a sound and responsible economic policy. Second, the government is introducing measures to help small businesses.
We all know that small business is the primary engine of our economy and the prime creator of jobs. The government's measures include an exemption from unemployment insurance premiums for new businesses starting up in 1993.
Oral Questions
Furthermore, a 10 per cent investment tax credit will be offered to small businesses. Finally, the ceiling for loans to individual businesses under the Small Businesses Loans Act will be raised from $200,000 to $250,000.
Mr. Speaker, I am confident that these support measures for small business will stimulate economic recovery and help Canadians who are seeking jobs.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Hon. Jean Chretien (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, now that Canadians have had a chance to look at the statement of the Minister of Finance it is evident that the Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance and the cabinet just do not get it.
There is absolutely nothing in it for the unemployed. They are not attacking unemployment; they are attacking the people who are not working. There is nothing in this budget that will create jobs and create growth. That is very evident and we have made some suggestions to the government.
Why has the Minister of Finance not taken the suggestion of the opposition to plug the loopholes referred to by the Auditor General last week when he said that hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars are placed abroad by big corporations which are avoiding taxes in Canada?
That money could be used to create a program for infrastructure as demanded by the municipalities. The government could create jobs immediately. For every dollar invested by the federal government it could have had $3 of success.


Hon. Don Mazankowski (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, first and foremost, there was a very sensible and affordable infrastructure program advanced in the economic plan I introduced yesterday.
With respect to the closing of loopholes, for example, financial institutions were paying $150 million a year in tax in 1984. We introduced the large corporations tax and the capital tax on large financial institutions. Last year financial institutions paid $1 billion in income tax.

December 3, 1992
Oral Questions
In 1985, we introduced a minimum tax regime for high-income individuals. We eliminated income splitting among family members through the use of interest-free loans. We removed tax shelters based on investments in yachts, recreational vehicles and other similar properties. We terminated the scientific research tax and credit measure. We stopped the so-called carve-out transactions in oil and gas. We prevented the use of trusts and market securities issued in such a way that the capital returns to investors were distributed tax free.
I could go on to 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989 and 1990 to cite more.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: What a great speech. While the government did that, it produced a deficit of $30 billion every year.
Now the Auditor General tells the government there are some loopholes and it is not moving on them.

Yesterday the Government of Quebec, using the limited resources at its disposal, tabled a program that may create jobs. We suggested a program to the federal government. This summer I travelled across Canada. I spoke to the mayors of Montreal, Laval and a number of other municipalities, and they are all ready to create jobs immediately.
Why does the government not do something? Is it because when they give money to municipalities they cannot play the patronage game themselves?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, the economic plan I outlined yesterday takes steps to encourage investment in growth, investment in people, investment in infrastructure, investment in trade, encouraging partnerships and takes action with respect to costs.
The infrastructure program announced yesterday is something that can go forward very quickly. Discussions with a number of provinces are at an advanced stage. We want to transform the commitment for these infrastructure undertakings into action as soon as we possibly can
so there can be jobs created and a spin-off benefit can occur. That will not only stimulate economic activity. It will also improve the competitiveness and productive capacity of our country.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, there is something in the minister's budget that is worrying a lot of Canadians. That is the new rule forcing those who quit their jobs voluntarily out of the unemployment benefit scheme.
We have received many telephone calls today from women's organizations telling us there are a lot of people who are obliged to quit their jobs because of sexual harassment. In order to keep their privacy they are willing to take a penalty of 12 weeks but still benefit from the plan to which they have made contributions for many weeks or months.
Is it fair to oblige them now to make a case for their situation if they want to draw what they have invested in an insurance program?


Bernard Valcourt: Mr. Speaker, I think this is a very serious question. The hon. member mentions receiving calls from women's organizations. Looking at the irresponsible and false statements made yesterday by Judy Rebick and Nancy Riche, the president of the NDP, no wonder those people are concerned out there.
Some people have interpreted this measure as meaning that sexually harassed people in Canada can no longer receive UI benefits. This is a falsehood. This is a false statement.
Sexually harassed persons are still protected. They were yesterday. They are today. They will be tomorrow. For those who are yelling on that side of the House, look at section 28 of the Unemployment Insurance Act.


Ms. Mary Clancy (Halifax):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the minister of employment. The problem is that this government has given the women of Canada a terrific choice. They can work with sexual harassers or they can quit voluntarily and go through a long and costly battle to prove their case.
Why has the minister created this mess? When will he give a clear definition of sexual harassment as just cause for voluntary quitters for a change?
December 3. 1992


Bernard Valcourt: Mr. Speaker, Canadians have to understand the stratagem of those petty leaders out there. This is a complete falsehood.
Sexual harassment is a just cause for any Canadian to quit his or her job. Yes, we have people who say that we should keep it under a lid, that we should not expose the harasser and we should let the woman suffer sexual harassment. This government is saying no to that. In Canada, a sexually harassed woman or man can quit his or her job and receive UI benefits. This has not changed.


Mary Catherine Clancy: Mr. Speaker, I spent four years as the chair of the Unemployment Insurance Appeal Board. I know what it takes to prove just cause.
This government is forcing Canadian women to sacrifice privacy if, in their poverty, they can afford it. Why is the minister targeting women and worsening the nightmare of sexual harassment? It is a nightmare.


Bernard Valcourt: Mr. Speaker, if the hon. member is sincere about her preoccupation, stop spreading the lie that women will not be protected under the act. They will have protection. They have protection and that provision of the Unemployment Insurance Act has not changed.


Mr. Speaker:: I listened very carefully to what the hon. minister said. He said that she should stop spreading that lie. I want the hon. minister to make it quite clear that he was not suggesting that the hon. member was lying.


Bernard Valcourt: Mr. Speaker, you are exactly correct. I did not say that she was lying but that she was spreading what Rebick and Riche said yesterday.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: Mr. Speaker, an analysis of the Minister of Finance's economic statement yesterday indicates that there will be a net loss of 62,000 jobs because of the measures the government has introduced. The minister's statement is a failure by every measurement.
The first reaction today is that a manufacturing plant in Quebec has filed for bankruptcy putting 400 workers out of work. The General Motors plant in St. Catharines is looking at selling off or closing down and another 800 workers will be affected.
Oral Questions
This country cannot afford more job losses. The Minister of Finance's economic statement creates a net job loss. Will the minister do the right thing and withdraw this economic statement before further harm is done to this country?
Hon. Don Ma/.ankowski (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance): Mr. Speaker, no. It is a responsible and affordable approach. If the hon. member wants to get the economy of Ontario going perhaps she could speak to her friend, Premier Rae.
A headline in the November 14 Toronto Star read: "NDP is blamed for job losses. Ontario's economy, particularly the manufacturing sector, continues to be racked by massive job losses and Queen's Park is being blamed". Another quote: "The Ontario NDP government with a vicious high tax punch to the solar plexus: It knocked Ontario businessmen to their knees, then it smashed its labour legislation over business' head. Now as business lies dazed and bleeding on the floor Premier Bob Rae's government is prepared to deliver-"


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Yukon.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: Mr. Speaker, the sign of a truly bankrupt government is when it cannot defend its own policies and has to put the blame on someone else.
The Minister of Finance in his statement yesterday said that he had some choices. I would suggest the minister had many choices but this government chose that it would prefer to close hospitals rather than tax loopholes.
The minister had another choice. For instance, a 3 per cent drop in Canada's interest rates would have saved almost the same amount of money that was slashed from programs through the minister's economic statement. A 3 per cent drop in interest rates would also have created
120,000	jobs.
The minister knows very well that the government's policies influence interest rates in this country. Why did he choose to penalize the victims of this recession rather than take positive steps toward lowering interest rates?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, again we see the bankruptcy of ideas coming from over there. I presented

Oral Questions
a plan on behalf of the federal Government of Canada. Where is the NDP's plan?
We know what the Ontario government has done to exacerbate the unemployment problem in Ontario.
The hon. member talks about a 3 per cent drop in the interest rate. What kind of fiscal and monetary policy would she propose to bring a reduction of 3 percentage points in the interest rate? You cannot just dial a phone and get a reduction of 3 per cent in interest rates.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: Mr. Speaker, the government has chosen a policy along with the Bank of Canada to focus solely on the reduction of inflation and not the creation of employment. It has resulted in gross unemployment and an increased deficit.
[Translation\
I have another question for the Minister of Employment and Immigration. The most inhumane thing that was announced in yesterday's budget is perhaps the change in the unemployment insurance program. It is an assault on workers who will be forced to hang on to any kind of job, no matter how unbearable. It will put an end to labour mobility and cost taxpayers, provinces and territories alike, hundreds of billions of dollars. The minister claims that such a change is justified.
I would like to ask the minister the following question. The government must do away with this new policy. Is it going to do it now?


Bernard Valcourt: Mr. Speaker, will the leader of the NDP ask the president of the NDP, Nancy Riche, to retract the false statement she made yesterday, misleading Canadians?


Hon. Roger C. Simmons (Burin -St. George's):: Mr. Speaker, I also have a question for the Minister of Employment and Immigration.
First, I want to say to him that the vicious plan of his to make culprits of all those who quit or who are fired is a throwback to the sweat shops of pre-industrial England. It stacks the odds so ruthlessly in favour of the employer
and puts women in particular at risk in terms of sexual harassment.
The minister says they will have their day in court. Yes, and who pays the bills and who buys the groceries in the meantime? I ask the minister why is he, by this measure, aiding and abetting sexual harassment in the workplace?


Bernard Valcourt: Mr. Speaker, Canadians have to wonder. Yesterday in the statement of the finance minister there was not one iota of reference to the nature of what is a just cause for quitting a job in Canada, not one word.
I want Canadians to know that the only issue is that voluntary quitters, people who quit a job for no good reason, can no longer expect hardworking Canadian workers and employers to pay them benefits for having quit a job for no just cause.


Roger Simmons: Mr. Speaker, can the minister not get it through his head that establishing just cause takes time and you have to buy the groceries while that time goes on.
The minister will be aware that Newfoundland has the highest unemployment rate in Canada. He will be aware that two-thirds of the country's lowest income earners are women. The minister's decision to target those who quit or who are fired is a sinister, cowardly assault on the poor regions and on women. I say to him that it is those regions and those women who will be compromised.
Can the minister give us one good reason why he persists in this madness? Or does he get his jollies out of kicking people while they are down?


Mr. Speaker:: Just a moment. I think on both sides for the rest of this Question Period I want some concentration on making sure that there are no personal affronts thrown across the floor of the House.


Bernard Valcourt: Mr. Speaker, if the hon. member wants to reflect on his question he is talking about a process under the Unemployment Insurance Act that was not raised at all in the statement of the finance minister yesterday.
Canadians have a right to know this. This department has dealt with the issue of just cause for 42 years. There is a process in place. The instructions to the officers are to give the benefit of the doubt to the applicant. That is
December 3, 1992

why this unemployment insurance fund costs workers and employers in Canada $21 billion this year.
Surely Canadians will support the screening out of a person who quits his or her job for the purpose of sitting at home and drawing UI while there are people who work hard to pay those premiums. This is about justice and fairness to the workers of Canada.


Mr. Paul Martin (LaSalle -Emard):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance.
Hundred of thousands of unemployed and poor Quebecers were expecting the government to finally break its silence and choose the real priorities in its budget. Fixing two bridges, Mr. Speaker, is hardly enough.
My question is this: how long does the government think it can keep on fooling Quebecers and the Canadian people with its amateurish policies and its total lack of vision to stimulate growth?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I am quite surprised at the hon. member's question. Quite frankly, we laid out an economic plan yesterday that deals, in a very comprehensive way, with investment and growth, improvements in the small business sector, R and D and transforming into a new economy, investment in people through enhanced and improved training programs, and an infrastructure program that can be started and expedited very quickly, with emphasis on the Atlantic region, the province of Quebec, and Ontario and in all regions of the country to deal with some of the bottle-necks in transportation that are under the jurisdiction of the federal government. That applies to bridges, roads and parks.
We also outlined our steps to invest and enhance our trading opportunities and to promote partnerships not only with other governments but with the private sector, and then, of course, very comprehensive action with respect to the containment of costs. It is a blueprint that deals with the problems that we face today and the problems of the future.


Paul Edgar Philippe Martin: It is a blueprint for poverty and for unemployment.
Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, the government's training programs do not meet one-third of the current demand. The government talks about pharmaceutical research but it has cut research grants to universities and it has decimated Canada's ability to develop environmental technologies.
Montreal has the highest unemployment rate and the highest poverty rate of any major city in Canada. Does the government really think that cutting unemployment benefits or repairing two bridges is going to turn that around?


Bernard Valcourt: Mr. Speaker, not to a casual observer, but to any serious observer of the economic statement of yesterday, anyone who cares to look at it must conclude that the top priority which comes out of this statement is investing in human resources.
We have increased the money for training unemployed Canadians by 450 per cent, from $400 million three years ago to $2,221 billion yesterday. Furthermore, we have increased the spending under the Consolidated Revenue Fund to further train Canadians.
As I have heard the member say, if the key to Canada's competitiveness is investment in human resources, he should applaud the Minister of Finance for what he did yesterday.


Dawn Black: Mr. Speaker, it is clear from his comments that the Minister of Employment and Immigration does not understand the reality of the workplace for women or for visible minorities.
Racial and sexual discrimination cases take two years even through the Human Rights Commission. How does he think that his department and his tribunals will be either better or faster? Employees cannot go without income for months and years and women will be forced to stay in abusive situations.
Will the minister please, please come to his senses and reverse this decision that penalizes the victims of discrimination?


Bernard Valcourt: Mr. Speaker, I have a lot of respect for the hon. member but I would hope that she would talk

December 3, 1992
Oral Questions
with the president of her party. Yesterday, Nancy Riche, made that statement-


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Bernard Valcourt: This is serious for the women of Canada. If there is one woman in this country who is sexually harassed and because of the statement made yesterday by the president of the NDP, stays in place and continues to be sexually harassed, you have not rendered a service to that Canadian woman. The fact is that person should quit her job, expose the harasser and she will be protected.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Steven W. Langdon: The fact is, Mr. Speaker, that this minister does not understand what is happening right across this country to people who are being pressed by economic circumstance and are facing discrimination and harassment. He should understand it.
I want to ask the Minister of Finance this. This morning we discovered that the four U.S. states of Michigan, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania have this same policy, of cutting off unemployment benefits from those who are fired or who quit.
Will the Minister of Finance admit that this mean new policy that he has brought in is to harmonize this Canadian social policy with supporting policies of United States' states and to forget about the values that Canadians hold dear?


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Bernard Valcourt: Mr. Speaker, the proposed UI changes have nothing to do with the social programs of our trading partners.
We are making these changes because they are the right thing to do at this time of our fiscal situation. Canadians know that our social programs will continue to provide, by world standards, very generous benefits to unemployed Canadians.
Maybe the hon. member will not admit it but the treatment of an unemployed person in Canada is still
better than in France, in Japan and even in the United States of America.


Mr. Maurizio Bevilacqua (York North):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Employment and Immigration.
Yesterday's shocking and heartless statement by the Minister of Finance was a vicious assault on the unemployed. The minister boasts about a $300 million training program. However, the minister fails to tell Canadians about the $2.4 billion he robbed from the unemployed.
Why are the unemployed paying for this government's economic incompetence?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I am sure the hon. member understands that when we are under extreme fiscal pressure a number of measures have to be taken-


Mr. Peterson:: Because of your incompetence.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: He says because of my incompetence, Mr. Speaker. The current Leader of the Opposition, when he was finance minister back in 1978, brought in a budget that reduced the weekly benefits from 66-2/3 per cent to 60 per cent of weekly insurable earnings. Furthermore, at that point in time the costs of the unemployment insurance program were $4 billion. What did the then Minister of Finance take out of the unemployment insurance program; $935 million to take effect in 1980 and 1981.
There comes a time when finance ministers and governments have to make tough decisions. We have made some very difficult decisions but we have not been as heartless as the current Leader of the Opposition, the former Minister of Finance.


Maurizio Bevilacqua: Mr. Speaker, this country does not want researchers. What we want is leadership by this government.
It is clear that this government is out of touch with reality. There are 1.5 million Canadians who are unemployed; 2.2 million live on welfare; 400,000 young people are unemployed and this government has decided to stay the course, the course that has brought on this economic recession. It is time for change.
Will the minister introduce a serious economic plan that will put Canadians back to work?
December 3. 1992


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, when the Leader of the Opposition was the finance minister he cut one million Canadians and inflation was running at 9 percent at that particular time.
What we have in this economic plan is clearly a plan for the future: investing in people, investing in plant and equipment, investing in infrastructure, investing in partnerships, enhancing trade, adjusting to the new realities, adjusting to the realities of a newly emerging economy. That is leadership.
You cannot adopt policies for a world as you think you would like it to be; you have to adopt policies for the world as it is.


TORONTO ECONOMY
Sergio Marchi: Mr. Speaker, my question is also for the Minister of Finance.
Last month in Toronto alone 1,000 additional families were added to the welfare rolls, bringing the total number of recipients to a record 108,000 families and costing over $1.5 billion. These figures are surely to rise after the minister's mini budget yesterday.
Rather than attacking the unemployed and their benefits as he squarely did yesterday, which will only push more families on to the welfare rolls, why did the government refuse to stimulate the Toronto centred economy seriously in order to create and emphasize job fare rather than more welfare?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, the purpose of the statement yesterday was to create jobs and take people off unemployment and take people off welfare. That is the over-all objective, building upon the initiatives taken in the February budget which really zeroed in on the economy of Ontario.
In the manufacturing and processing sectors we took a number of positive steps to improve the capital cost allowance. We took steps to reduce the burden of taxes. Yesterday we announced no new taxes. As a matter of fact we froze UI premiums. We provided incentives for people to go out and hire new people. We provided further incentives to the small business sector because that generates 80 per cent of the jobs.
Oral Questions
Insofar as what the hon. member is suggesting about overlooking Ontario, some $230 million are allocated for Ontario in terms of infrastructure, to improve the rail initiatives and the runways.
We will be sitting down very soon with each of the provincial governments to work out the kinds of sharing arrangements that are reasonable so that we can get these projects going very quickly and that the provinces will have some input and some say into the priorities they wish us to proceed with.


Sergio Marchi: The minister says that in due course they will be sitting down. Mr. Speaker, this province has been waiting for eight years for some concrete proposals to put Canadians back to work and it is still waiting.
Since the minister talked about Ontario, given that the province of Ontario has suffered 80 per cent of all lost manufacturing jobs in the country, that its housing industry remains terribly weak at best, and that its construction and trade sectors are absolutely flat, how can the government be so disconnected and out of touch with reality to be able to ignore the urgent need to stimulate seriously-not the pap we have had-the Ontario economy which happens to be one of the major engines of economic growth in this country?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I agree with the hon. member. The economy of Ontario is a very major engine of economic activity accounting for about 40 per cent of the economic activity in Canada.
With respect to the infrastructure proposals I can assure the hon. member that starting today-and this would be a continuation of some earlier discussions we have had with the provinces-we will go to work to get these infrastructure projects on the road.
The hon. member talks about housing. There has been a very impressive pick-up in housing due to the policies that we announced. Yesterday I announced the extension of the RRSP program.
The hon. member has further comments about what we should be doing to assist the economy of Ontario. I read this headline: "NDP blamed for job losses in Ontario". I am sure the hon. member would agree with that. You cannot have a government that is anti-business and expect them to create jobs. That is something that we-

December 3, 1992
Oral Questions


Mr. Speaker:: I think we will have to move on.


ECONOMIC STATEMENT
Mr. Svend J. Robinson (Burnaby-Kingsway):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Secretary of State for External Affairs. It concerns the announced massive cuts in Canada's development assistance which will not only affect aid-related jobs in Canada but which will have a devastating impact on our commitment to the global fight against poverty, AIDS and environmental destruction.
At a time when 40,000 children are dying each day of preventable disease and hunger, how can this government defend these inhumane cuts while spending over $4 billion on attack helicopters? Will the minister at the very least assure the House that these savage cuts will exempt not only famine relief but also support for NGOs and aid for meeting basic human needs, particularly those of women and children?


Hon. Monique Landry (Minister for External Relations and Minister of State (Indian Affairs and Northern Development)):: Mr. Speaker, since 1984 this government has certainly made it clear that it was committed to pursue programs in aid of third world countries.
Of course, our international concerns and domestic concerns are interrelated. If Canada is ever to provide more assistance it has to start by putting its fiscal house in order. Only then will it be in a position to increase its foreign aid budget. That is what we are doing by continuing to discharge our commitments towards the poorest of the poor, the women and children in the third world.


Mr. Brian L. Gardiner (Prince George-Bulkley Valley):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance who seems to be running the environment department these days.
Yesterday's Tory blueprint clearly made it a black day for the green plan. This government's failed commitment to the environment took another step back with the third cut to the green plan. This will mean cuts to the Fraser River Management Plan, Tree Plan Canada, and the clean-up of the St. Lawrence River and the Great Lakes. No opportunity was taken to develop new and innovative jobs in the environment.
When will the government finally defend the environment instead of trashing it all the time?


Hon. Pauline Browes (Minister of State (Environment)):: Mr. Speaker, it is incumbent upon us personally and collectively to curtail further deficit increases. Under the green plan there will be a reduction of $60 million this year, with a reduction in the following two years of 10 per cent. Given that, there will be an increase of some 30 per cent in spending on the green plan even after those cuts are done.
In terms of priorizing the aspects of the plan the hon. member has mentioned, those decisions have not been taken yet and they will be taken collectively by the cabinet of this government.


Guy St-Julien: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Finance. Yesterday's economic statement includes a measure concerning flow-through shares to promote investment in junior oil and gas companies. It provides for yearly write-offs totalling nearly $10 million to finance exploration.
I would like to know why the mining industry is excluded from this measure affecting small companies starting up in Quebec?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, what we did yesterday for small explorers and oil companies was to bring the policy in line with the mining sector because they currently have those provisions.
What I did indicate was that the Income Tax Act would be amended to provide more flexibility to the mining sector to utilize its non-capital losses in the same way as it utilizes its capital losses.
December 3, 1992


SEXUAL OFFENDERS
Bill Attewell: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Solicitor General.
Last week Wray Budreo, a sexual deviant with a 30-year history of molesting children, was scheduled to be released from prison after serving only four of a six-year sentence.
It seems to have taken public outrage to force a last minute delay in his release, preventing this paedophile from going back on the streets where undoubtedly he would have continued his record of attacking children.
What is the Canadian government going to do to prevent the release of dangerous offenders such as Wray Budreo? Surely such a person should be put away for life.


Hon. Doug Lewis (Solicitor General of Canada):: Mr. Speaker, the House will know that Bill C-36 came into effect recently. That considerably tightened up the regulations and the law with respect to sexual offenders.
There is a concern remaining with respect to high risk repeat sexual offenders. We are presently reviewing three possibilities: first, broadening the use of dangerous offender applications; second, reviewing the definition of the words serious harm to make sure that it is appropriate; and, third, working within present mental health laws rather than criminal laws to detain high risk repeat sexual offenders beyond the conviction for which they are serving time.


ECONOMIC STATEMENT
Ms. Albina Guarnieri (Mississauga East):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance.
In the highlights from yesterday's economic statement we will find many charts but none that mention unemployment. Perhaps the minister is ashamed that Canada has the highest unemployment rate in the G-7.
I ask the minister to rise to the challenge of the highest unemployment in the G-7 and put an end to this episode of "Maz" misery.
Oral Questions


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I acknowledge that the unemployment levels are too high. There has been some improvement in employment generation over the last five or six months. I think I was quite honest with the House and with the Canadian people that one of our biggest problems is the fact that the growth that is generated is insufficient to generate the kind of job potential we need.
Hopefully, with the pick-up in the U.S. economy and with the initiatives we took yesterday, the specific initiatives with respect to infrastructure and the other incentives, we will have a pick-up. We are expecting 300,000 new jobs to be created in 1993. I wish it were better but this is one of the problems we are facing as we go through this period of transition.


Albina Guarnieri: Mr. Speaker, the minister keeps telling us that Santa Claus is coming but all his elves are out of work.
My supplementary question is for the same minister. The minister has pledged to give new businesses a break by forgiving their UI premiums for 1993. The minister's plan may be nothing more than a disguised first step in dumping the entire UI burden on to the backs of workers.
I ask the minister if his plan to dismantle the UI system is also the beginning of a new tax on the working class.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member's observation is absolute nonsense. When she talks about the difficulties Canada has I would remind her that in terms of the G-7 community the unemployment figures have risen from 18 million in 1990 to 23 million in 1992. It is not only Canada that is having this employment problem. Other countries are having similar problems.


Mr. David Kilgour (Edmonton Southeast):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance.
Yesterday the minister continued to ignore tax shelters for the very rich identified by the Auditor General. He continues to attack low and middle-income Canadians.

December 3, 1992
Privilege
Will he tell us precisely how his 10 per cent cuts will apply to regional development, transportation, western diversification, ACOA, agriculture and native programs?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member's question allows me an opportunity to complete an answer I started in the earlier part of Question Period. I outlined all the tightening of loopholes we undertook in
1985.
In 1986 we introduced the at risk rules to restrict the tax credit and business loss claims of investors in limited partnerships. We removed the tax advantage of salary deferral arrangements. We restricted the ability of corporations to engage in after tax financing through preferred shares. We prevented the use of commercial trusts to avoid tax in a manner unintended by the law.
In 1987 we the government introduced a phased reduction in the extent of the acceleration in capital cost allowances. We reduced the reserves claimed by financial institutions.


An hon. member:: Right.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: We imposed a creditable capital tax on large deposit taking institutions and we introduced the general anti-avoidance rule. In 1989 we constrained the ability of corporations to transfer the benefits of accelerated capital cost allowance through leasing.


David Kilgour: Mr. Speaker, he does not tell us about the 34 or 37 tax increases for middle and low-income Canadians. Will the minister tell us why he is reducing the Crow benefit by $73 million next year and $104 million the year after? Does he not know that some of our prairie producers have big problems? Does he know what this is going to do to increase the cost of moving grain across the prairies?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is an expert on the Crow. I have seen some articles he has written. He would also be interested in knowing that under the GWTA in excess of $800 million is being paid out by the federal government.


BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Mr. David Dingwall (Cape Breton-East Richmond):: Mr. Speaker, I am wondering if the government House leader could indicate to the House the business for tomorrow, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of next week.


Hon. Harvie Andre (Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons):: Mr. Speaker, at this point it would be my intention to call Bill C-93, the government organizations bill, at second reading for tomorrow.
I would like to formally designate Monday as an allotted day, the final allotted day of this period. On Thesday we anticipate starting report stage of Bill C-91, the Patent Act. I will be talking to the opposition House leaders in respect of further business until adjournment or until we come back after we adjourn.


Mary Catherine Clancy: Question of privilege.


Some hon. members:: Point of order.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Halifax. A minister and a member have risen on a point of order. I have indicated that I should hear the question of privilege first.


PRIVILEGE
Mary Catherine Clancy: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of privilege arising from the response of the minister of employment to my question earlier. The minister accused me of spreading lies. He then said he did not call me a liar. He did however say I was spreading lies. As far as I am concerned, that allegation not only impugns my integrity but it also impugns by intelligence.


SPEAKER'S RULING
Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member has raised a matter which came up during Question Period. Hon. members will remember I did rise and I did ask the hon. minister to make it very clear that he was not calling the hon. member a liar or imputing lies to her.
The minister responded and at the time I thought that was adequate. I have listened to the hon. member but I think the matter is closed. However, the hon. member's further intervention on this matter, making it necessary for me to rise again, indicates to all hon. members how careful we must be when we are describing motives of
December 3, 1992

less than honour to any member on either side of the Chair. I thank the hon. member for the intervention.


Harvie Andre: Mr. Speaker. I do not want to belabour the point in terms of your ruling. I would merely point out that we have been accused today in Question Period of attacking the poor, being heartless, being out of touch and all of those things and frequently we get shouted down when we address the House. If those things were a point of privilege, I am afraid we would spend all day discussing points of privilege.


WAYS AND MEANS
John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 83(1) I wish to table a notice of Ways and Means motion to amend the Customs Tariff, the Excise Act, the Excise Tax Act, the Customs Act, the Criminal Code and a related act, and I ask that an Order of the Day be designated for consideration of the motion.


POINTS OF ORDER
Iain Francis Angus: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order of which I have given notice to the Minister of Employment and Immigration and yourself. It is related to the matter on which the member for Halifax rose.
During Question Period today the Minister of Employment and Immigration very clearly accused two individuals, who are not members of this House, of being liars. The traditions of Parliament provide for free speech in this House and that members who say things in here are immune from any prosecution or any action because of their comments.
Points of Order
However, in Beauchesne's sixth edition on page 22 under the section "Freedom of Speech", it states:
77. Freedom of speech does not mean that Members have an unlimited or unrestrained right to speak on every issue. The rules of the House impose limits on the participation of Members and it is the duty of the Speaker, to restrain those who abuse the rules.
I would argue that had the Minister of Employment and Immigration said the same words outside of this House the two individuals, Judy Rebick and Nancy Riche, who were named by the minister repeatedly, would have the right to seek legal remedies.
I would suggest that the minister has crossed the fine line in this House, has used his position to abuse two individuals who spoke what they believe to be true and we believe to be true. I think, Mr. Speaker, you should ask the Minister of Employment and Immigration to withdraw those accusations against Ms. Rebick and Ms. Nancy Riche and apologize to them as well.


Bernard Valcourt: We will spare the hon. member the protection of the House. I made that statement last night outside as soon as I heard it. It is on the record. If they want to sue me, be my guest.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Thunder Bay- Atikokan has raised a matter with reference to the text on the rules. I would ask him to let me examine carefully Hansard and I will come back to the House.


RULING ON QUESTION OF PRIVILEGE
David Charles Dingwall: Very briefly, Mr. Speaker, I am wondering if the Chair could provide guidance to the House with respect to your ruling with regard to the point of privilege which has been raised by my colleague, the member for Halifax. Perhaps while the Chair is reflecting, he could indicate to the House as to what really is the difference between calling someone a liar and saying someone is spreading lies.


Mr. Speaker:: I will try to be as helpful as I can. The Chair is in the position of having to make rulings sometimes very quickly. I made a ruling. I have asked the House to accept it. I do not now intend to discuss it further.
I have thanked the hon. member for raising the matter. I have asked the House to keep in mind that

December 3, 1992
Points of Order
when statements are made that get either close to the line or over the line, it causes further statements along the same way.
I cannot be put in the position of re-examining a ruling that I made in the heat of debate and then discussing it further. That is asking more of the Chair than I think is appropriate.


David Charles Dingwall: Yes, Mr. Speaker. I was not questioning or reflecting upon your ruling. In point of fact, we accept the ruling of the Chair.
I seek the guidance of the Chair to try to provide some direction to members of this House in terms of the particular dispute that was in question. I would hope that the Chair would reflect upon my request because I believe it to be a very serious thing that has happened here today.


Mr. Speaker:: The Chair will reflect upon it but I am just asking hon. members please do not put the Chair in the position where many minutes later, after a decision has to be made as I said in the heat of conflict, to get into a philosophic discussion about the very matter upon which the Speaker has ruled.
If the hon. member or any other hon. member wishes to come to my office and discuss this matter, I of course will hear them. I am trying as much as is possible, and I am sure that all hon. members are very supportive of this, to try to maintain proper decorum in the Chamber. That is why of course I rose some time ago and said that I hoped that everyone would constrain themselves for the rest of Question Period and not make statements which are personal affronts on other members whether it comes from either side of the House. I recognize the point of my colleague, the hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond, and I will reflect on the matter.


BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE-WEEKLY STATEMENT
James Capsey (Jim) Karpoff: Mr. Speaker, I tried to get the attention of the Speaker going back to the questions raised by the House leader of the opposition to the House leader of the government about the work of the House over the next several days.
As you will know, he mentioned that Bill C-91 was coming forward. I was going to ask him whether he
would make an undertaking that in view of the use of time allocation on the second reading of the bill and in view of the fact that the committee hearings have been very much shortened that this House at report stage would have an opportunity for a full and thorough debate of the bill without an attempt to close off the bill by either time allocation or closure motion.


Mr. Speaker:: First of all in response let me say that I apologize to the hon. member for Surrey North. There were a number of members rising and I did not realize that the hon. member was on the usual Thursday afternoon question raised by the hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond. Therefore, I ask the hon. member to accept my apologies.


James (Jim) Stewart Edwards: Mr. Speaker, I was seeking the floor on another matter and I accept your response on the question of the C-91 intervention.
If I may, while I am on my feet, I would like to respond to a question of privilege raised last Monday by the hon. member for Essex-Kent.


Mr. Speaker:: Let us not get ahead of ourselves. The hon. member for Surrey North has raised a matter. The government may want to respond or it may want to discuss it with the hon. member. If there is no response then I am going to go ahead.


James Capsey (Jim) Karpoff: Mr. Speaker, I certainly recognize that the oversight by the Speaker was not intentional and I do not take any affront from that. However, I do think that it is very important that that question be answered by the government, if not by the House leader then the House leader's parliamentary secretary.
We have a major piece of legislation that we have to plan for and to have some understanding on. The significance to the Canadian public and to provincial governments is great. We need some commitment from this government that it is not going to use time allocation again or closure to ram that bill through this House.


James (Jim) Stewart Edwards: Mr. Speaker, I just want to draw to the hon. member's attention that there was an all-party agreement in committee on this particular bill-


An hon. member:: No, there was not.


James (Jim) Stewart Edwards: -in which 22 hours of witnesses were scheduled. There was also by consent an order whereby the clause by clause study was to be finished by five
December 3, 1992

o'clock today and it was to be reported back to the House tomorrow.
I just point out that was done by consent not by time allocation, just to make sure that the record is very clear.
I cannot anticipate precisely how Bill C-91 will be dealt with when it is reported back to the House. We all try to be prophets and seers in this business but I think it would be foolhardy for anyone to try and put any kind of such speculation on the record.
When the bill is reported back I expect that it will be called for debate as the hon. House leader indicated. Beyond that I cannot speculate.


Mr. Speaker:: I will just point out that the hon. member for Surrey North has made his point and this is not a place for debate.


James Capsey (Jim) Karpoff: Mr. Speaker, just to correct the record, we were informed that the government would proceed and report that bill back to the House without any witnesses or debate and based on that we agreed on division to allow the government to put forward a motion that was passed on division.


Mr. Speaker:: I think we had better move on.


REMARKS DURING DEBATE ON BILL C-98
Mr. David D. Stupich (Nanaimo -Cowichan):: Mr. Speaker, yesterday evening during an orderly debate on Bill C-98, I raised a question of the ILO of the UN criticizing the Canadian government's handling of its own employees.
I said it was the ILO that reached this decision. The minister in his response suggested that it was a subcommittee of the ILO as reported on page 14473 of Hansard. I sent him some material today but unfortunately he had to leave before we could get to this point.
I wanted to give him an opportunity to either change the record and agree with me that it was the ILO, the full governing committee, or else argue with me.


Mr. Speaker:: I appreciate the hon. member's diligence, but I do have to point out that is getting into debate.
The hon. member for Annapolis Valley-Hants on a point of order.
Points of Order BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: Mr. Speaker, perhaps I might help clarify the situation raised by the hon. member for Surrey North.
I was going to ask a question anyway but the matter was raised by the hon. member and the point of privilege got mixed up with the points or order.
My question in terms of government-


Mr. Speaker:: No, the point of privilege was put ahead of the points of order.
I perhaps failed to see the hon. member rising. The reason we proceeded was because I had to take the question of privilege.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: Mr. Speaker, because I now have the floor I ask a question to help clarify the matter.
Is it the intention of the government to conclude in this Chamber debate on Bill C-91 before the House rises, as it is expected to, for the Christmas recess on December 11?


James (Jim) Stewart Edwards: Mr. Speaker, there always are fondly held objectives by the government as we approach a break of season.
It is a fondly held objective of the government to complete debate on Bill C-91, if that is at all possible. What I will not speculate on and I cannot speculate on is whether any extraordinary parliamentary practice might be used to expedite that. That would be anticipating. We do not at this stage know fully what the prospects for passage of the bill may be and we have to, in good faith, expect that there will be the usual co-operation from all sides of the House.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member has a further point?


David Stupich: Mr. Speaker, we are not getting into debate. That is not what I was trying to do. I said that it was the governing body of the ILO. The minister said it was a subcommittee. I want to give him an opportunity to correct himself.


Mr. Speaker:: I understand perfectly well the point the hon. member is making. Often members do rise on a quick point of order to add some clarification to debate. That is really what it amounts to. The minister may or may not respond.
In any event, the hon. member has made his point.
Privilege


PRIVILEGE
[Stage Direction]
December 3, 1992

James (Jim) Stewart Edwards: Mr. Speaker, on Monday, November 30, the hon. member for Essex-Kent rose on a point of privilege to make certain claims about the practices of Canada Post Corporation.
I have had an opportunity to make some inquiries and I am happy to report to the House and to my hon. friend some of the facts in the matter.
This is by way of support of the government position. What the hon. member has raised is not properly a question of privilege.
As I understand the hon. member for Essex-Kent, he was suggesting that a certain written communication by Canada Post Corporation from its government relations section seemed to indicate that there was some sort of discrimination or restriction on the flow of information about Canada Post retail outlets to certain members of Parliament. That constituted a breach of privilege.
The facts of the matter, as I understand them, are that there has been a rather elaborate restructuring of the retail network of Canada Post Corporation. I believe there has been a net increase of some 4,000 retail outlets and considerable turnover as there are many retailers seeking these outlets to build traffic for their conventional businesses.
It is true that Canada Post Corporation does brief selected members of Parliament on upcoming postal changes in their ridings. But this is regardless of political affiliation. The House will recall that when the Crown corporation was created in 1981-82 it was mandated by all parties and was to operate free of political interference and that of course is still the case today.
I am informed that in certain cases, when members of Parliament have shown a keen interest in postal changes in their ridings, understandably the corporation's government relations function extends best efforts to keep those members of Parliament fully informed.
With the turnover in these postal outlets not all ridings are affected at any given time and it is quite possible that certain ridings would not be affected at all. But the fact remains, and I am assured that this is the case, that whenever a given member of Parliament, regardless of party has exhibited an interest in postal matters, that member is flagged as having such an interest and a full effort is made to brief the member on upcoming changes.
If the hon. member had some specific information about a specific member of Parliament and a specific situation I am sure that the corporation and my colleague, the minister, would be very pleased to respond to it. However, I believe that these facts bear out that there has not been a widespread or even a specific breach of privilege due to the particular corporate communications policy of this Crown corporation.


Mr. Jerry Pickard (Essex -Kent):: Mr. Speaker, I very much appreciate the point that has been brought forward here. However, it is important to review why the breach of privilege has been brought up.
There is a memo which I submitted. I confirmed with representatives in Canada Post that it was the Canada Post memo in question. It talked about changes in retail postal outlets and it also talked about retail postal closures. It stated very clearly emphasizing in brackets in advance that the corporation would choose to notify people when closures occur; whether it notified people or not notified people was really up to the Canada Post Corporation.
The problem enters the picture when a member of Parliament attempts to do his job. As Canada Post critic I must know what is happening in order to work on behalf of constituents or members of this country where their postal services are being altered, changed or taken away.
In this case the management of Canada Post clearly emphasized the point in advance and therefore is holding back information which would help me operate in my role as critic.
The same argument comes forward from every member in this House because if members have several retail postal counters closing in their ridings and are not notified in advance they do not have the opportunity to ask the proper questions of the government, to question why these closures are occurring, and be able to transmit
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that information to their constituents and answer questions about it.
Whether it is on the government side or whether it is on the opposition side is not the question in this case. The question is that proper communication of information is being stopped by an open memo in Canada Post which I believe affects the operations of members in this place and their right to take information to their constituents and citizens across this country.


SPEAKER'S RULING
Mr. Speaker:: I understand very well, having been a member of Parliament for some years, as the hon. member has and other hon. members here. I understand very well the point that the hon. member is making. The question is: Is it a question of privilege?
First of all, clearly, as the parliamentary secretary stated, whatever the policy of Canada Post is in this particular case, it is conceded that it is not something which the government of the day has created.
The hon. member has raised a matter which is of importance. I think we would all hope that Canada Post is made aware of this exchange, the hon. member's intervention a few days ago, the response by the parliamentary secretary, and my own comments.
I have to find under the circumstances that it falls short of privilege although it is a matter of concern. I hope that the hon. member by raising it will have corrected the problem as he and others may see it.


Mr. Rod Murphy (Churchill):: Mr. Speaker, I was trying to catch your eye before you rose but I did not have the opportunity. I know it was not by any oversight on your part.
On the same issue I have also read that document and am very concerned about the implementation and implications of that document. I understand that the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader has looked at the document and has given his understanding of what the document meant.
However, yesterday during Question Period the member for Okanagan-Similkameen-Merritt and myself both asked questions on that document to the minister
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responsible for Canada Post who also happens to be the government House leader.
He denied in his answers any knowledge of this document.
I think it is incumbent on the minister responsible for Canada Post-and I am sure his parliamentary secretary can tell him about the document, show him that document, look at that document, talk to Canada Post, and make sure that all members of Parliament are treated equally by that Crown corporation.


Mr. Speaker:: The member has made a point. I have made the ruling with respect to the application and I am sure the hon. members will have noted the exchange and the interventions and I thank hon. members.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Mazankowski that Bill C-98, an act to provide additional borrowing authority for the fiscal year beginning April 1, 1992, be read the second time and referred to a legislative committee in the Economics envelope.
Hon. Kim Campbell (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada):: Madam Speaker, when I taught at the University of British Columbia I was known by my students as "old motor mouth". I could give a 15-minute lecture in 10 minutes if pressed, but I will try to spare the translators the agony of keeping up with that pace.
I am delighted to have an opportunity to participate in this discussion of the Minister of Finance's statement and the motions coming from it. I would like very briefly to say a few things from my perspective as a minister who participated in the cabinet committee that advised the minister and as a senior minister from British Columbia.
I want to say first of all that in dealing with the problems we are trying to address, the deficit and the debt, the whole exercise of dealing with budget cuts is a very difficult one. I think that all of us who come here to be members of Parliament, and those of us who serve in

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the government, are anxious to do constructive things, to build things. Budget cuts are not the task that we welcome, that we think of as part of our job.
To say that it is a soul-destroying exercise is in many ways an understatement.
It is important to understand the responsibility that we have to future generations. In my participation in cabinet committees dealing with the issues of fiscal responsibility and budgets I have often pressed our officials from the Department of Finance as to whether there are any demographic changes or shifts that might suggest that a couple of years down the line some of the pressures we are addressing would be eased and it seems that the light at the end of the tunnel is always an oncoming train. We have an unavoidable responsibility to try to ensure that we get our deficit and debt situation under some kind of control.
At the same time we are experiencing an international economic slowdown, one that has affected some of our major markets. As a trading country that affects us enormously. Until just last year Ontario was the United States largest trading partner, not just Canada but Ontario alone.
We can see in Ontario the impact on its industries when the purchasing power of its major market has been seriously lowered as a result of an economic recession and very slow growth. We recognize the need to try to find some balance between fiscal responsibility and the need to stimulate and provide opportunity for businesses to get back on their feet and create the jobs people need, not just to create consumer confidence and a mood of optimism but to create a genuinely robust economy down the line.
This has been the exercise we have been involved in. The question of productivity is a serious one. I read in the Minister of Finance's background paper that between 1963 and 1978 we had a level of productivity in Canada that enabled a worker to expect the actual doubling of real wages within 26 years. In other words, real wages, real purchasing power, correcting for inflation, would double for the average member of the Canadian work force in 26 years. Therefore, we could actually expect to become wealthier as we got older.
At the rate of productivity we have that is an expectation that would take 70 years to fulfil. That is a very frightening statistic. Most of us do not spend 70 years in the work force. To have that doubling of our real wages would require more than our own working lifetime. That means that we have a very serious problem to address in Canadian society, our productivity, our ability to produce more effectively and efficiently. That is the other issue we have been trying to address as a government.
Doing that means not only getting our fiscal house in order but trying to rationalize our taxation system to try to ensure that Canadians have the skills they need to produce, not just to work harder but to work smarter, to make sure we have the kind of infrastructure in this country, and the capability, to maximize the creativity and abilities of a very talented and committed work force.
One thing that is going to be very valuable for my own province of British Columbia is the commitment to support the electronic highway, the system called CA-NAJUE. I forget all the things the acronym means. The Minister of Finance also had some problems with it yesterday.
This morning on the CBC I heard a Canadian scientific adviser to the National Science Foundation in Washington commenting on this particular initiative of the government. He said that this is something that is necessary to keep Canada in the first world, that it is of enormous significance.
In British Columbia this is going to have a very positive impact. This particular expert said that not only was this a way of giving our industries and businesses of all kinds access to the most enormous reserves of information and data, which would enable them to do their jobs effectively, but it is also an enormous opportunity for the computer software industry because once there is this network then providing the devices to use it and providing ways to access it becomes in and of itself a very important part of industrial development.
Members of this House may not know that British Columbia has become one of the centres of software development in North America. In fact we talk about the evergreen triangle between Washington State, southern Vancouver Island and the lower mainland proper as one of the major centres of creative software development in North America. Therefore, for British Columbians this opportunity to continue to diversify our economy, to get
December 3, 1992

us away from dependence on resource industries is going to be enormously helpful.
We also know that small business is the creator of 97 per cent of the new jobs in Canada. It is an area that is extremely important in my own province as we diversify our economy and get more into value-added even in our resource industries.
A number of provisions in the finance minister's statement addressed this creative area of the economy. It is important to recognize that government will never have the creativity or entrepreneurship that is found in the private sector. We cannot have bureaucrats sitting in Ottawa trying to think up great ideas for business. That is not the role of government. The role of government is to empower those who have the ideas, the people who are building the better mousetrap so to speak, to be able to do their job and exploit the potential their own creativity has begun to unlock.
In that respect I think that the 10 per cent investment tax credit for new machinery and equipment is going to be extremely important. Getting back to this question of productivity one of the things that enables people to be more productive is the level of technical equipment they have in carrying out their business, whether it is computers, small manufacturing devices in a small urban business or new equipment for farmers or new equipment in the mining industry, new equipment for the small forestry operators in British Columbia.
All of these are extremely important businesses. They are businesses in which investment in new technical equipment can increase productivity. For those businesses there will now be an incentive to purchase that equipment because there will be a 10 per cent tax credit. As we all know a tax credit is a deduction right against the tax payable. It is the maximum kind of benefit that we can give to businesses.
In addition, the attempt to stimulate hiring in the small business sector through the proposal that would have the government pay the employers' portion of the unemployment insurance premium for new employees is another way of trying to encourage businesses to expand their work force at this time. This could mean as much as S 1,600 per new employee for a small business. It could very much make the difference between the decision to hire and not to hire. Remember that this hiring is
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important not simply for providing employment but also for providing training for people.
There are so many people who are trying to break into the employment world. Until they can get that first job they do not have the resume. They do not have the experience that puts them fully fledged into the employment stream. They are always knocking on that door or pressing their nose against the glass.
In addition, the ceiling for loans for small firms under the Small Businesses Loans Act will be increased to $250,000. Members on the other side of the House have quite rightly pointed out that does not guarantee that the funds will be made available by the banks. We do have an obligation to pursue that as well.
In my own part of the country availability of capital has been a very important part of our economic concern, particularly since over the years it seemed that the chartered banks were headquartered in central Canada and very often seemed to pull the plug on businesses far from that centre with devastating effects. That was certainly the experience in the last recession. As a lawyer who was practising commercial litigation in the wake of that recession I can say that was a story that I heard over and over again.
This is an optimistic statement. It is a statement that accepts the responsibility of trying to get our fiscal house in order while recognizing that it is difficult, that there are no happy cuts to make in the budget, that because we have managed to get inflation down so low, we can have a freeze on government expenditures and on wages without seriously cutting back on people's spending power. That is the value, that is the dividend, of a low inflation level. It is something that we are getting used to in this country.
I think of the days when inflation was double digit. When I was chairman of the Vancouver school board we had wage increases of 16 per cent in one year. What kind of incredible out of control economic dynamic that was. What a dreadful tax inflation at those ridiculous levels was on people with fixed incomes.
We are optimistic about getting our fiscal house in order, stimulating those areas of the economy that will produce jobs, and stimulating the development of productivity, which is the long-term guarantee of continued economic prosperity for all Canadians. We owe it to our

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children and our grandchildren to keep to that line of attack. For that reason I am very pleased to support the motion moved by the hon. Minister of Finance and his approach that he took in his statement to this House yesterday.


David Charles Dingwall: Madam Speaker, I am happy to be able to participate in this debate. In view of the limited time that I have I want to make some general comments and then some direct comments concerning how it affects my constituency, in particular, how inadequate, how disastrous this economic statement really is for the people whom I represent.
I would have thought that the Minister of Finance would have showed some courage. I thought he had something in his fibre whereby he could have come to the House of Commons and demonstrated to Canadians that this was a Minister of Finance who was going to change the ways of the previous administrations and get on with tackling the real problems facing Canadians.
We did not get that from the Minister of Finance. This Minister of Finance is not tough. He is not courageous. In my constituency they would say: "He's got no guts". The reason he has no guts is that he has allowed billions of dollars in tax loopholes to continue. There is not one sentence or reference with regard to tax loopholes or filling those tax loopholes. This was reported to us by the Auditor General.
The minister knows the interest rates are quite different between Canada and the United States which affects the competitiveness between Canadian business and American business. He is very much aware of the $4 billion program announced for helicopters. He did not do anything with that.
This minister would like the Canadian people to believe he is tough and courageous. He was really tough was he not, when he picked on those individuals who are least able to look after themselves: the unemployed, those on welfare and those in the poorer regions of this country. I wish ministers of the Crown would accept their responsibilities and be tough. They should be tough on those individuals who are more able to afford it as opposed to those who cannot.
This is an economic statement and in fact it is a budget statement. This Minister of Finance has attacked and knifed the unemployed in this country. He and the government opposite will pay dearly for this particular mistake.
In my own constituency the policies of this administration have caused a proliferation of taxes over the last number of years and massive cutbacks have occurred. Passenger rail service is gone. Our radar base for the Armed Forces is gone and our airport service in terms of jet service is gone. The Cape Breton Development Corporation has reduced its employees to approximately
2,000	when there were 3,500. Our Sydney Steel Corporation has gone from well over 1,200 employees down to approximately 500. The cuts go on and on and on and on.
In 1990 the unemployment rate in my constituency was reported as 16.3. The Tories did better in 1991 when it was 18.8. In 1992 of October of this year they did even better than that. They had it up to 19.5.
My constituents and I ask of this government: What is it doing to try to facilitate economic development on the island of Cape Breton and put people back to work?
This economic statement, this budget by the Minister of Finance has once again knifed those Canadians who live in this poorer region of the country. How has the government done that? It has taken the unemployment insurance and it is going to cut off those individuals who quit their jobs. The point was raised in Question Period today. What happens in a particular situation if a woman has to leave her job because of sexual harassment? We all know the leaps and bounds that particular individual must take. She will have to go before a tribunal and the onus of proof will be on her. It is not fair at all.
Benefits to UIC recipients will be reduced and the Government of Canada will save $2.4 billion. The Minister of Employment and Immigration had the unmitigated gall to come before this particular Chamber and say to the people of Canada: "But I am going to provide $300 million in training". How much of that training is will go to Ontario? How much will go to Newfoundland? How much will go to Nova Scotia? How much is going to go to my constituency and the adjoining constituencies?


Mr. Mifflin:: What are they training for?
December 3, 1992


David Charles Dingwall: That is right. What are they training for? Everybody is out of work. There are no economic opportunities. The Minister of Finance stands in his place, eyes the camera, and says: "I want to be tough. I want to stay the course. I am going to help the people of Canada". In the very same breath he has done absolutely nothing about tax loopholes.
The monetary policies are absolutely dismal because he is only fighting one cause of our problems and that is inflation. He is not taking a balanced approach to correcting these difficulties.
There is no stimulus in this budget. It is all smoke and mirrors. He has given in to the Premier of Nova Scotia, Donald Cameron. I will say on the floor of the House of Commons, I will say outside this House of Commons and I have said in my constituency, Donald Cameron has been anti-Cape Breton since he assumed the office of premier of the province of Nova Scotia.


An hon. member:: Shame.


David Charles Dingwall: What is the government going to do? It is going to build a four-lane highway in Nova Scotia going to New Brunswick. I said this morning on News-world and I say in this Chamber, that is wrong. It is not a bad project but there are more effective ways to create jobs throughout the entire province of Nova Scotia.
What about the Annapolis Valley? What about Pictou county? What about Cape Breton county, Cumberland county and Halifax county? Thousands of projects are ready to go under the municipal infrastructure which would join the municipalities with the provincial and federal governments. What has this government done? It is playing to the political agenda of one premier in the province of Nova Scotia, namely Donald Cameron. That is not fair. That is not just.
If this Minister of Finance wants to be known as someone who is tough, someone who has guts as they say in my district, why does he not stand up to those individuals who are taking millions and millions of dollars out of this country for tax benefits? Why does he not do that?
Why does he not do something about the interest rates spread between Canada and the United States? Why does he not do something on monetary policy? Why does he not chop these prosperity agenda programs? Why
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does he not chop the advertising budgets of all of the various departments of the Government of Canada? Why does he not stop feeding the political hacks of the Tory party?
We in Nova Scotia are fed up with the administration of this government. We are fed up with the provincial administration as led by one Donald Cameron. I can assure you the people of my province will respond in great numbers to the challenge should the Tories opposite ever get the intestinal fortitude to call a federal election. They will respond to that challenge and they will vote overwhelmingly against the administration opposite us and the provincial administration of Donald Cameron.
In conclusion, if I had more time I would itemize the way this government has knifed the people of my province, my district and my island. I assure you, Madam Speaker, as you sit there and I stand here we shall never forget one Donald Cameron, the premier of our province. We shall never forget the Tory administration, whether it is Brian Mulroney Kim Campbell, Perrin Beatty or whomever. We shall never forget.


Mr. Greg Thompson (Carleton -Charlotte):: Madam Speaker, speaking on the same topic but coming from a different perspective I want to share some of my thoughts on the statement given yesterday by the finance minister.
There is a certain reality you have to face when you form a government. I think the minister was very forthcoming yesterday and addressed those glaring realities. One of the comforts I take from the minister's speech yesterday is the fact we have done that.
We have acknowledged there is going to be an $8 billion shortfall in terms of government revenue and we have cut expenses to meet that lack of revenue. We have not gone on a spending spree to kick-start the economy which is the term the opposition often uses.
We have accepted the reality that borrowing in the past has not eliminated the problem. In fact, some of the problems we experience in this country today are simply because in the past we have fallen into that habit of borrowing. That habit of borrowing is costing us dearly in this country to the extent that 30 cents out of every tax

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dollar of revenue coming in to Ottawa goes to pay interest on that debt.
The old ways of doing it do not work. We have proven that. The only way we are going to move beyond where we presently are to a healthier Canadian economy is by doing the things Canadian people are demanding of us. They are telling the government: do not borrow any more, accept reality and move on from where you are.
Some of what the minister announced yesterday will do that. We have to remember there are 950,000 small businesses in Canada. We have taken the route of increasing the ceiling on loans through the Small Business Loans Act. We have gone from $50,000 announced earlier this year to $200,000 and now we have increased that to $250,000.
The encouraging thing I find in that announcement, among others, is the fact for the first time small businesses can use that $250,000 for operating capital, obviously with some restrictions.
In the past we could only use that $200,000 which used to be only $50,000 and is now $250,000, for the purchase of machinery or capital investments.
That is encouraging. Another of the things the minister mentioned yesterday is he is going to put some pressure on the banks to achieve this. Many of my constituents, and I am sure this is the same on both sides of the House, have gone to the banks to trigger that small business loan only to find out the banks were not there to do business with them. They either knew little about it or could not care less about it.
The minister has told us publicly and privately he is going to do all he can to make sure the banks respond to this. That will be encouraging to every one of those
950,000	small businesses out there.
The RRSP home buyers' plan is going to be extended. That has been a phenomenal success throughout the country, particularly in my home province of New Brunswick.
We also had the announcement yesterday by the finance minister of the government's commitment to highway building in the provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia to the tune of $200 million. That is something we have been working on for a long time in the province of New Brunswick because our highways are inadequate, particularly the trans-Canada highway. That is good news for the province of New Brunswick.
Question Period today seemed to focus on the changes to the Unemployment Insurance Act. I want to explain that because it is very important the Canadian people understand what is happening. The minister did a good job today in Question Period responding to some of those questions. We have to continue to clarify what is happening there.
One change to the Unemployment Insurance Act is simply that individuals who voluntarily leave their jobs will no longer be eligible for unemployment insurance premiums. It is important to point out that we are not talking about people who leave their jobs for a particular legitimate reason. We still recognize those legitimate reasons but only legitimate reasons.
I could go through the act and I think I will so that people can understand clearly that we are not changing it. I brought a copy of the act with me so that we could step through section 4 of the UI act in particular. It clearly states the reasons individuals can leave their jobs or places of employment and still be eligible for unemployment insurance benefits. It is very clear in that regard. I wanted to point this out simply because the reasons that were brought out in Question Period today have no legitimacy at all.
Some of the comments that were made in reference to sexual harassment were inaccurate. That has not changed. If anyone is being sexual harassed on the job it is a legitimate reason to leave the job. Any changes brought in yesterday do not change that. In other words, sexual or other harassment as identified and stated in the act are legitimate reasons. The obligation to accompany a spouse or dependent child to another residence is also a legitimate reason to leave, or discrimination on a prohibited ground of discrimination within the meaning of the Canadian Human Rights Act.
It is important to put that on record. I do not want people misunderstanding what happened yesterday in the House. It is very clear that some people are attempting to make political hay of the issue but let us not be fooled by it.
There are other areas we have to talk about as well in terms of government expenses. All government operating budgets will be reduced by 3 per cent in 1993-94. Average unemployment insurance benefits will be frozen. Grants and subsidies to most organizations and interest groups will be cut by 10 per cent in each of the next two years.
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In terms of training programs which are very important for a changing country and work force like Canada, funding of an additional $250 million will be committed over the next five years in support of those programs and an additional $300 million will be provided in 1993 for job training for displaced workers.
In balance the statement yesterday was as good as we could expect given the times. As I mentioned earlier, when government revenues are down there are really only two things we can do. We can increase taxes or we can cut back on spending.
One of the things I think most of us in this House realize is that there is zero tolerance out there in terms of the ability of the government to tax more. People simply do not want more taxes. What they want is more efficiency from government. I think the minister has produced that in his economic statement.
If our economy continues to grow as we predict it will, and I am confident it will, we will have the revenues we need to carry on with our programs and reduce the debt. We are giving businesses, particularly small businesses, the encouragement they need to make the investments necessary to create the jobs we want to see.
I am confident that will happen. I am confident the government is on the right road. We have done it all without borrowing more money.


Jerry Pickard: Madam Speaker, I come from a small riding in southwestern Ontario, Essex-Kent. They are two counties in Canada that are highly productive agriculturally. As well they have a tremendous amount of manufacturing jobs, or may I say they had a tremendous amount of manufacturing jobs.
However in the last couple of years, just to give a quick example of what has happened to the manufacturing jobs and the agricultural jobs, in my riding Delta 70, a fairly large manufacturing plant closed; Olinda Foods closed; Freedlands closed; Sheller-Globe closed; Nabisco closed; Standard Tube closed; Campbell Foods is leaving;
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Hunt-Wesson closed; Duomatic Olsen closed; and Meridian Mould closed. They were fairly large companies.
In my riding right now we are talking about 8,500 people being on unemployment. Jobs in my riding are very hard to come by. The Minister of Finance stands and says he can see improvements, lights on the horizon. He can see a positive move forward in the last year or so.
I have to point out that in Kent county the cases of people on welfare have cost approximately $7,000 in the year 1990. In 1991 they cost $13.5 million and in 1992, almost $17 million. Welfare has tripled in the Kent county area of my riding in the last three years. In the Essex part of my riding the welfare costs in 1990 were approximately $9 million; in 1991, $16 million; and today, 1992, $21.5 million.
We are talking about changes therefore in welfare costs in both counties from $15 million to right now about $36 million. They have risen in the area of 140 per cent.
People are looking for jobs. They are looking for some answers. They are looking for some help. I failed to see one job, one effort on behalf of this government to help southwestern Ontario. I see programs put in place for the maritime provinces and Quebec. I see programs suggested in the west but not one penny moves toward southwestern Ontario.
I must also admit that the farm community in my area was looking for a bit of help. Well over one-third of the farming community is in financial trouble at this point. It has had very tough years with extremely low commodity prices. I really thought the Minister of Finance was veiy aware of that due to his former position. However, I have seen no movement in helping those who are really in need in my riding or helping Canadians in general.
I know dollars will be lost in my community through cuts in the UI program. I also know small business was looking for a glimmer of hope because of the huge loss of funds in my area. Nothing seemed to come about. The economic statement in my riding of Essex-Kent is very disastrous. I am afraid the bill put forward by the minister has done nothing to resolve the problems.
Business people, the farm community and labour forces have suggested the major cause of our tough economic times right now. Everyone believes the free trade agreement has had a tremendous impact on my region. Added to that, the recent imposition of taxes has certainly caused a tremendous difficulty. I believe the GST alone drove a very large portion of the people who

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normally worked and supported the businesses in my riding across the border. They refused to pay the GST whenever they could. I believe the underground economy has been much developed. As a result our business community is suffering added burdens, not only the loss of revenues that have accompanied bad government policies but the more difficult situation it is in now with no help in sight.
As I walk down the streets people in my riding are asking: "When is there going to be an election? We need to get rid of the policies that have been put in place". Certainly cynicism toward government is very much felt by the people in my riding.
When I stop to think about the move the Minister of Finance and the minister of immigration made to put an immigration centre in the riding of the Minister of Finance to shelter those people from the economic impacts in this country and leave other people like the ones I represent out in the cold, it is a real shame. Certainly there is no logical reason for that centre to be located in the riding of the Minister of Finance, outside the fact that he may need some extra support when the election finally comes along.
I also found a tremendous problem yesterday when the new economic plan was introduced. I found a problem with the arrogant way it was put forward: here is a plan that is moving toward prosperity. I do not believe there is any movement toward prosperity when the suggestion in this plan was that $8 billion would be cut. Those cuts are not this year; they are next year, the year after and the year after that. They are several years in the future.
If the government were serious about cuts and getting cuts done, it would have made them under this year's budget and not looked to future governments to make those cuts. However, the $8 billion is there as cuts for future governments, not for today. I think the Canadian public should be aware of that.
Another point is very clear and I have a real problem dealing with it. Here we are with a $34 billion deficit for the Canadian public this year. It is an increase of $7 billion from nine months ago. The problem is that the government is suggesting it is holding things down, being tight-fisted with the budget and controlling expenditures. In fact that is not true at all. It is overspending by
an additional $7 billion to what was projected just nine months ago. Next year's budget follows the same line. It will be spending $10 billion more next year than proposed just nine months ago.
When I stop to look at it, in the history of Canada it is probably the worst financial manager of a budget that any government has been. It prided itself on being a good fiscal manager. That is untrue. I see program after program altered, changed and cut. At the same time I see taxes increased, increased, increased. Yesterday was not a good example. There have been increases of $55 billion annually in revenue since this government came into office, but it is going further into debt by $35 billion this year.
The government is not only putting expenses on Canadian people and raising tax levels to the ultimate. It has also mismanaged the economy and has given us a tremendous deficit annually and a huge debt of $420 billion. I am appalled at anyone who can think this government has been financially responsible, has done a favour to Canadians. It has put us behind the eight ball for the next 20 years.
Only a change of government can resolve that problem. Get rid of those terrible, boring, difficult policies for Canadians. Those policies hack down the little guy, put people out of work and destroy our nation. We need a change. We need progressive, liberal policies.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: 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 Prince George- Bulkley Valley, Kemano Project; the hon. member for Don Valley East, Small Business; the hon. member for Cape Breton-The Sydneys, Westray Coal Mine; the hon. member for Vancouver East, Employment Equity; the hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond, Report of the Auditor General.


Mr. Ken James (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Labour):: Madam Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak about the initiatives announced by our finance minister yesterday.
December 3, 1992

Where was the Liberal member for Essex-Kent when we were in a recession the last time? I was in a small business struggling with interest rates. Every day I would get a slip indicating that interest rates were rising a point every other day. I kept the last one for historical reasons because interest rates had reached 22 per cent. I never want to see it again. I wonder where he was and what he was telling his government, the Liberal government of the day, when we had that situation.
Coupled with that was a staggering 9 per cent inflation rate. If you wanted to kill business you certainly were doing it. Only through a lot of scraping and scrimping did we make it through that dastardly time. I want him to reflect on that when he starts deriding this government.
Certainly it is not the easiest of times for small and medium-sized businesses although we have low inflationary rates. Inflation is an absolute creepy, silent killer of business. Prices go up and people will not buy. Costs escalate at 8 and 9 per cent. Talk about putting businesses under. That is something that will do it. With its measures this government is working to keep inflation at the rate we have.
There is a different mentality out there now as well. The astronomical 15 and 17 per cent wage increases we went through at that same period in time are long gone. We have established a sensible attitude in this country. The leadership this government took in establishing reasonable wage increases for the public sector set a standard in Canada and the provinces followed. We have taken a lead and the private sector is now following along. There has been tremendous leadership shown by this government in that area.
Interest rates are moderating to the point where people can borrow money. We need to work more with the financial institutions so that those low interest rates turn into dollars available for small business.
We can do that by changing the Small Businesses Loans Act which is in the works. Also, an important announcement which seems to have been overlooked by those opposite who are looking for negative reactions is that under the Small Businesses Loans Act small business will be able to get loan money for operating capital. That was something which was asked for.
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I was going to ask my friend opposite from southwestern Ontario what letters and suggestions he sent to the finance minister. I spent a good long time studying how small businesses could have more money available to them in loans. I did a study. I canvassed my constituents and sent him a number of suggestions of how he and the small business minister could change the Small Businesses Loans Act so that it would make capital more available to our small business people.
I know a number of those initiatives are going to end up being in the amendments to the Small Businesses Loans Act. The real important one, however, was noted by the finance minister. That is that capital now would be able to be used for operating under the Small Businesses Loans Act.
There is a process here. There is a plan and we are working to the plan.
I noted The Financial Post said: "Finance Minister Don Mazankowski may have given an economy already showing signs of modest growth the kind of push needed to keep it moving in the right direction". That is right, a gentle push moving it in the right direction.
Certainly a lot of that emphasis is on small business. It is in the area of making available to small business the opportunity and availability of having expanded use and availability of RRSPs to be invested by employees, which is important.
It certainly also is going to allow for a 10 per cent tax credit investment on purchasing of equipment. That is important to our small business people and is something they have been asking for.
It is is based upon something we forget has been done in Canada. That is that our small business people enjoy a very special tax rate as it is. It is an income tax rate of about 12.8 per cent which is substantially lower than the small business rate in the United States. That is important when we look at the competitive situation we have there. The U.S. rates are a lot higher.
Of course small businesses also qualify for the research and development credits which are as good or better than most of the G-7 nations and that is important. It is a 35 per cent refundable federal tax credit. That is important to small businesses.

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As I mentioned earlier, small businesses have the opportunity of having capital gains exemption available and that is important.
We needed to add to that and we have by some of the areas I mentioned. But we are also going to give them the opportunity and incentive to hire. That is something which was passed on to me by the small business people. They said: "You want us to hire and train people. Then give us an incentive to do that". That would be helpful and important.
We have done that in this announcement. They will have a forgiveness on UI premiums. That is an incentive. That is on top of the training programs and the training incentives we have where we will be directing more money under this budget. That is important to small business.
There are programs where they not only would not be paying UI premiums as an incentive but also they will be able to bring people on and have their on the job training portion done under a training allowance and training moneys. That is important so that they can have them trained. They will be subsidized and then they will be able to take them on in a graduated way to work for them. That is certainly important.
I did mention the 10 per cent investment tax credit which was announced. That would be for buying and enhancing their businesses.
I just talked to a business person the other day. The business is a printing company doing specialized photography that is then used in printing brochures and that sort of thing. The cash flow was a little bit tight.
To make itself competitive and to gain business in the United States it needed the combination of a Small Businesses Loans Act, banking institutions that were more interested, and a finance minister who was certainly going to be having constant conversations with the Canadian Bankers Association.
On top of that, this company needed $10,000 to purchase a computerized system which would make the business 50 per cent more efficient. It needed the combination of a tax credit, which we are going to do now, and an opportunity of having money instantly made available to it that had not been forthcoming as readily as it will be when we change the Small Businesses Loans Act. The combination is there.
In the statement by our finance minister, the government is sending strong signals to members of the Canadian Bankers Association wanting them to be much more liberal with their moneys and their investments with small business.
I laud the finance minister for taking heed of the suggestions which have been made and for his interest in small businesses knowing that their growth will energize our country and make jobs. That is what people are looking for.


Howard Douglas McCurdy: Madam Speaker, I really must contain myself. My constituency office has been confronted with an onslaught of telephone calls from irate, angry constituents who are aware of the contents of this mini budget which I heard the hon. member for Carleton-Charlotte moments ago describe as balanced.
If there is one thing that seems clear beyond all others, it is that this government seems to assume an economic rebound in the United States will likely have far more effect in Canada than any initiative taken here. It is curious to see the basis for that rebound in the United States.
I have in my hand Bill Clinton's campaign program. It is entitled "Putting People First". Now that is curious is it not? The United States which has been the symbol of neo-conservative politics and the model for this government has turned its back on the very ideology this government continues to pursue. What are the elements of that "Putting People First" initiative in the United States?
First of all, it is a kick-start investment in infrastructure not just to create empty jobs but to reconstruct the infrastructure for transportation, education, social programs, research and development and all of those things that will set the pattern for permanent growth later.
The second element of it is a vast investment in people, training, and education. It is an electronic highway that will not just go to educators and scientists in business and government but one which by the year 2015 will provide access to the kind of information that is necessary for education and technical information in every single household in the United States. Clearly it is an initiative that is intended to empower people in a new
December 3, 1992

economy in ways which are most important in terms of education.
Third is a new partnership between government and private enterprise over the long term to invest in those innovative high technological initiatives necessary for the United States economy to thrive.
What do we have here? In this country the people come last. We adhere to the trickle down theory incurably. Let us put this in context. Bob Rae some years ago was a good deal more delicate. He asked the question: Have you been trickled on lately? It is clear. If we look in the dictionary, there is another word that would substitute for it. It is clear that the Canadian people are being pissed on now by this government.


An hon. member:: Is that in the dictionary?


Howard Douglas McCurdy: Yes, it is in the dictionary.
They are talking about balance. They are talking about sacrifice. What kind of sacrifices will those who are well-to-do going to make in all this? We have thousands of Canadians, millions of Canadians, lining up at food banks while business people are using taxpayers' money to have luxury lunches at noon hour.
We have cuts in the surcharges for the best paid people in this country. What are the poor going to get out of that? We have family trusts worth at least $70 billion that could yield anywhere from $2.5 billion to $5 billion in new tax revenue for this government. Is that going to happen? Is that going to be taxed? No, this government has introduced legislation to ensure that it will not be taxed.
The ordinary fellow, the ordinary man or woman, the ordinary family, is still paying the GST. We have the wealthy going to billion dollar tax havens in the Bahamas, but the little guy cannot escape paying his tax or her tax.
Talk about fairness and talk about balance. We have here an economic statement that in its viciousness toward the people is not even being matched now in the United States: $2.5 billion was taken out the pockets of the people who are unemployed and have been made unemployed by this government.
I have heard a lot of talk today about the cuts in unemployment insurance expenditures. Part of it is going to result from a decrease in the percentage of wages that go into unemployment insurance payments, from 60 per
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cent of wages to 57 per cent of wages. We have the sophistry on the other side of the Chamber that says that is not really a cut. That is a freeze. The people calling up my office every minute of the day see it as a cut. Then we have the other bit of sophistry.
We heard the hon. member over there saying that there was nothing new in the fact that people who leave their jobs voluntarily or are fired for just cause will lose their benefits altogether, that nothing has changed. I am saying what has changed. They are saying that they are going to have tribunals to make sure this is administered in accordance with due process. What kind of due process?
Suppose a woman quits because of sexual harassment. Suppose a minority member quits because of racism. Suppose somebody is fired because she is a woman and will not concede to sexual advance. What about a minority member who was fired because of colour or religious practices? Are these tribunals the minister is to have in place going to take care of it? Are they going to work faster than the Human Rights Commission? It takes two years to have any one of those kinds of complaints heard. It is outrageous it has even been suggested that it is possible for the Department of Employment and Immigration to be able to handle any such thing in that way.
What we have is a deliberate attack on those most affected by the actions of this government in destroying the Canadian economy and in destroying the social network in this country. They are going to get it again.
Where is the infrastructure investment that we expected? People come last. What about infrastructure to put them to work immediately? We have $500 million in expenditures over five years, $2 billion altogether including private investment. This is called an infrastructure investment program.
A close examination of where that money is going shows quite clearly that it is a pork-barrel program, as is the establishment of the immigration centre in Vegre-ville. Look at how much money is going into Alberta. When we see that the first thing that occurs to me is the Reform Party. If anything shines through this mini budget it is the Reform Party. In the future they are going to call themselves the progressive reform conservatives because that is what they are trying to do.

December 3, 1992
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If there is one thing that is clear in putting people first it is that they must have income support when they are unemployed, and whether unemployed or in jobs that are going to change they must have training, and education must be available to every Canadian. We must have the research and development and the technology development that will permit our economy to compete in the internationalized, global, high valued-added economy that we confront.
The government talks about increases in R and D. It is going to add $250 million to research and development over five years. Oh, that is big news. Oh, that is going to make a big impression. What we have to understand is that in the meantime, in addition to all the other hits that the university system has taken, the government is now also going to cut the 4 per cent increase that it promised to the granting councils. What is the net result? The result is no further increase in investment in R and D.
My God, Madam Speaker, I know that if you could have had an opportunity to call my office and complain about this mini budget, surely you would have done so because you are a sensible person. The Canadian people are going to rise up in anger and throw these devils out. That is what they deserve. It is unconscionable what they have done to this country. It is unconscionable what they are doing now. They will come to account for their failure of conscience.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: As a very sensible person, I would hope that while rereading the "blues" of this expose in the House the hon. member, who does have a very extensive vocabulary at his disposal, might realize that there are many words which may be found in a dictionary that are not necessarily to be used as a parliamentarian. Resuming debate, the hon. member for Simcoe Centre.


Edna Anderson: Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak in today's debate on the future course of Canada's economic policy.
Hon. members heard the Minister of Finance give this House an update on Canada's economic and fiscal situation. He announced a number of measures to assist economic recovery and to invest in economic growth.
Since coming to office in 1984 the goal of the government's economic policies has always been greater economic security and opportunity for all Canadians. Complementary to this the government's economic plan has also been aimed at trying to improve our competitive position in the world. At the same time, the government has had to respond first to the effects of the rising debt of the 1970s and the spending excesses of the 1980s, and then to the emerging global economy and intense pressures to compete of the 1990s.
If Canada is to continue to grow and prosper Canada has to compete. It is that simple. The government has solid economic measures in place. For example, sound monetary and fiscal policies are in place. Markets have been opened up. Government has been streamlined. The tax system has been reformed and private sector initiative has been encouraged as the only solid basis for economic progress. However, more is required.
As a result of the fact that the world economy has not unfolded as the world expected there have been setbacks. Most of these set-backs have been beyond our control, such as the ongoing weakness of our trading partners.
The Minister of Finance stated, however, that the government is not prepared to sacrifice steady, responsible progress for quick fixes today that we will pay for tomorrow.
What the government is prepared to do is to continue to work to put in place the initiatives needed to ensure a sound fiscal structure and to address the issues of productivity and competitiveness.
On Wednesday the minister stressed the importance of productivity and investment in Canada's future. The key to greater competitiveness is greater productivity. The key to greater productivity is increasing investment in people, plant and technology.
Let me take a few moments to talk about the importance of investing in people. We must all remember that our people are our future. To be competitive Canada and its people must be capable of using capital efficiently and of developing and using new technologies.
Competitive firms in the global economy are demanding a more skilled and flexible work force. For Canada to attract investors we need skilled workers capable of adapting to a changing world environment.
December 3, 1992

As the minister said in his statement: "In a world where capital, information, goods and even services flow easily across national borders, a nation's competitive advantage is increasingly being found in the skills of its people".
Despite spending one of the highest shares of GDP in the industrialized economies on education Canada is still criticized for the results its educational system produces. Our high school drop-out rate is over 30 per cent. We still have Canadians who cannot read or handle figures well enough to meet everyday requirements. Our dropout rate is such that 137,000 students leave the educational system each year ill-prepared to meet the challenges of our labour market, which increasingly needs well-educated and trainable workers.
Private sector spending in Canada on training and education is well below that of our major competitors.
In a recent study by the Conference Board of Canada almost three-quarters of the companies surveyed believed they had a significant problem with functional illiteracy somewhere in their organization. However, only 24 per cent of these companies had developed a policy to deal with this problem, even though it slowed the adoption of new technologies.
In the decades ahead older Canadians will make up a larger proportion of the labour force. Most of these people are in the labour force now and many are sure to need retraining or on-the-job training to meet the changing needs of Canadian firms.
In 1990, as part of the Labour Force Development Strategy, the government took action in skill development and training. Until that time, for example, Canada was funding passive income support programs while many of our major competitors were directing resources to active programs, such as apprenticeship and training programs.
The Canadian Labour Force Development Board was established to review and make recommendations on all labour market matters, including strategies for using unemployment insurance funds for training Canada's unemployed.
The direction of part of the unemployment insurance system was changed from passive income support to active skill-building support for the unemployed. We made it harder to qualify for UI benefits-especially for
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people who quit their jobs-and decreased the duration of some benefits. Most of the savings from these changes have been redirected into developmental programs which help retrain workers and upgrade skills.
The government is now proposing to build further on the Labour Force Development Strategy. We are increasing funds for active developmental purposes under the Unemployment Insurance Developmental Uses Fund from $1.95 billion to $2.2 billion in 1993. This fund invests in people by helping them to upgrade their skills.
This program is a real success story. This year 450,000 people will benefit from the program. This number will increase to more than 500,000 next year. The additional funds will be used to provide special services to workers who lose their jobs after a long-term attachment to the labour force.
To lay the foundation for a stronger training culture in this country we need the joint commitment of employers and workers to develop training strategies. To facilitate this, the government will make funding available to help create permanent skills councils in particular sectors of the economy. Priority will be placed on the important task of developing occupational standards so that training will be relevant to industry needs.
Government funding of $250 million over five years will be used strategically to lever a private sector-driven training effort. At the same time the government will develop tax incentives to help defray the costs of training workers, particularly to meet these occupational standards.
The provinces can also help by emphasizing retraining for those on social assistance who need new skills to get good jobs. The welfare reform experiments currently supported by the federal government and the Governments of New Brunswick and B.C., which provide earnings supplements to low income, one-earner families, are a first step in this direction.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I regret the hon. member's time has expired.


Mrs. Shirley Maheu (Saint-Laurent-Cartierville):: Mr. Speaker, if I rise today it is certainly not to praise the economic statement made yesterday by the Minister of Finance. Unfortunately, the Conservative government,

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which claims to have been trying for eight years to lead this country to prosperity, seems to keep leading it to bankruptcy and for many straight to hell.
Unemployment is still on the rise and nothing seems to indicate that this trend will change soon. Of course, the government has an explanation. It always has an explanation: It is always the others' fault, or it is worse elsewhere. This is small consolation for the thousands of Canadians who are unemployed and see no change on the horizon. And what about the poverty level?

The people that the Conservatives are punishing with this economic statement are the ones who have lost their jobs because of the recession initiated, perpetuated and made worse by this government. It has lowered unemployment insurance benefits for those who really need it by 3 per cent. The unemployed have already paid for this government's economic mismanagement with their jobs. Now they are being bled a second time.

This government which takes unemployment insurance benefits away from those who lose their job because of misconduct is simply giving employers a very dangerous weapon. An employee could be fired for a silly thing, have no recourse and, more importantly, have no income, to the joy of some employers. The door is open to all kinds of abuse as well as to blackmail. An employee will no longer be able to complain about questionable behaviour for fear of being fired. Even if there is only one such case of abuse it will be one too many.
Canadians deserve more respect.

Instead of helping the unemployed with a social safety net the government is shoving them through the cracks.
The Conservatives are making it difficult for people who have been discriminated against in the work place. Victims of racism or sexual harassment might be reluctant to issue complaints for fear of being denied access to UI benefits. They have made it difficult to fight these serious problems.
Canada is still in the worst economic recession in 60 years. More than 1.5 million Canadians are unemployed and another 2.5 million live on welfare. Close to four million Canadians are existing below the poverty line. All this Minister of Finance can do is talk about increases in the trade balance with the United States, which incidentally cost us many thousands of jobs.

It is time to face reality. How in concrete terms will the proposals announced yesterday help the 600,000 people on social assistance in my province of Quebec get off welfare?
How will these proposals help 130,000 young Quebecers find the work they need for their future and the future of their province and their country? Simply repairing a few bridges in Montreal is certainly not the way to a brighter tomorrow.

My party has proposed a comprehensive infrastructure program that will create real jobs. The government expects to create under 5,000 jobs with the program it is proposing. In my riding, Saint-Laurent-Cartierville, we have already lost more than that number of jobs. This government hopes to create 5,000 jobs. I hope it is right, but that is half the number of jobs that is being cut at CN rail. The $500 million the government has promised to spend on infrastructure amounts to less than one quarter of the $2.4 billion it is taking from the unemployed and none of these funds will be spent on desperately needed local community projects.
As Liberals, we want to stimulate growth through policies that will create jobs and encourage the private sector to spend. By getting the economy moving again, people will be working and will be spending money in Canada. They will be paying taxes and that is what we need to get the deficit under control. The infrastructure program we recommended would stimulate even more spin-off jobs that will get Canada working again.
Liberals would use initiatives like those we proposed last January in the form of our five point emergency economic program to invest in people and in Canada. For us, the top priorities are growth and job creation. Canadians cannot afford inaction. Each unemployed Canadian costs the taxpayer nearly $15,000 in unemployment benefits and welfare and $7,000 in lost tax reve-
December 3, 1992

nues. This year, because of the depth of the recession and the government's refusal to act, the deficit will be nearly $5 billion more than it projected. That is nearly 20 per cent more. All this government is doing is passing the buck to the provinces and municipalities.
This government also missed the opportunity to improve the status of race relations in this country. It could have taken the opportunity to announce the establishment of the Race Relations Foundation, something that all members of this House endorsed almost three years ago. It could have taken the opportunity to restore the Court Challenges Program. Thousands upon thousands of Canadians have urged this government over the past few months to reinstate real access to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This government could have shown its good faith by bringing back this integral program.
The rights of Canadians are not worth 10 cents per person to this government.

Mr. Speaker, what did this government decide to do? Well, as ridiculous as it may seem, it concluded that cutting funds was the best approach. You understood correctly: To appease the reformed Conservatives, the government cut its assistance to community groups by 10 per cent although these groups are essential in times of crisis.
Would it be a way to punish the groups that dared to question the government's bad policies? Who knows? And they tell us about justice and equity!

If this government was really serious about cutting back on government excess it should have scaled back military spending even more. It should ease up on all the polling contracts it gives to former Tory back-room boys. It should cancel the plan to move the immigration processing unit to Vegreville in the Minister of Finance's own riding.
Unfortunately this government's definition of cutting waste does not include refraining from the type of pork-barrelling and patronage it has grown accustomed to.
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I do not want to seem overly negative. I do approve of the extension of the home buyers plan that we Liberals proposed in January. It will help thousands of people get into the housing market. I also support the proposal to increase funding under the industrial research program.
On the whole this government still does not get the message that people are hurting. People are without work throughout the country and they are looking to us to help them. We need to generate a fiscal environment that is favourable to the development of Canadian business and to the creation of jobs. This economic statement by the Minister of Finance continues the disastrous economic policies of the government that have led to millions unemployed and millions more on welfare. This economic statement does not address the real problem of the deficit. We cannot trust the economic projections of this government. Every single one of its projections over the past four years has been wrong.
It is high time for the government to be accountable. Canadians from all across the country can no longer put up with economic statements like the one presented yesterday and they never could.
The time has come and the government must call an election now, not tomorrow, so that it can face the consequences of what it has done.
The Canadian people need a leader and a party that have a vision for this country. Canadians need to be heard. They need a party that thinks of the country, its growth and the welfare of its people.
They do not want a party with a limited vision like the Bloc that sees only Quebec or the Reform Party that sees only the English-speaking community. Canadians do not want fragmentation but harmony in prosperity for everyone. That is what the Liberal Party wants and that is what the country needs.


Mr. John A. MacDougall (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to stand today to make a few comments and to thank the hon. Minister of Finance for being courageous and honest with Canadians.

December 3, 1992
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I think the time has come, not only in this House but across the country, to realize that we can no longer continue on the road of disaster and spend, spend, spend with no direction and no thought for the future.
I believe that Canadians are tired of hearing all kinds of promises of going back into the 1970s, the 1950s, and the 1940s, rather than dealing with the decade of the 1990s and into the 2000s.
As I stand here today I want to say that the move made by the finance minister in investing in people is the correct way. It is what we are looking at.
There is nobody who can say more than I can right now about the riding of Timiskaming in northern Ontario, a riding that has been hit in many directions in regard to resources, whether it is mining, forestry, agriculture or the fur industry. Over the last five years because of the changing direction, we have faced depleting resources, environmental pressures, you name it.
As I stand here today I am not by any means proud to see so many of my constituents who have lost jobs, but I want to say thank you to the Minister of Finance, the minister in charge of employment and immigration, and the minister in charge of FEDNOR. A little over a year and a half ago they saw a vision, an opportunity, a new direction that could start in Timiskaming. I am talking about a training centre. A lot of my constituents and many across this country always felt they would have a full-time job, that education and having a diploma was not really necessary, that their grandfathers, their fathers and themselves would be able to have full employment until they retired.
The riding of Timiskaming has faced it and faced it very severely.
With the support of the federal government we have training programs set up in adult educational centres. I am very proud to say today that over 200 individuals have had the opportunity to go back and start again, maybe as low as grade two. Somebody missing only three or four credits for a grade 12 education now has the opportunity, because of the foresight of this government, to obtain a diploma, to move forward into training on the apprenticeship side or return to college. Section 26 and the dollars that have been put forward by this government have given 50 individuals that opportunity. That is why I am so pleased to see the increase in those dollars. We are dealing with the individual problems of people.
We are not making this a charade whereby we are going to give dollars for painting fences, cutting grass or cutting trees. Those days are gone. It does not work. What we have to deal with is the problem, labour adjustment. That is what we are doing, whether we are looking at the contribution of $2.2 billion or a total package of $3.5 billion, whether we are looking at the set-up of a new opportunity for labour adjustment with both unions and companies working together for $500 million over the next five years, or whether we are going to start to train and to ensure that new technologies and opportunities to be competitive in a new marketplace are there for Canadians.
I do not see why individuals on the other side of the House do not realize that those are the moves we have to make. It is the vision of the finance minister and this government to ensure that these workers are going to have that opportunity.
I spent many years in small business. I say that there is one way we are going to stimulate the economy. It is through the small business side of it and the move that was made in yesterday's announcement of $250,000 being set aside now for loan guarantees. There is a sector out there that has got to wake up and start dealing with it in a manner to help individuals and to help small business. That is the banking system.
Government can do only so much. When banks are going to cut back with regard to the cash flow, there is nothing that a government can do. I know that with the move that was made in this statement yesterday, with the combination of the $250,000 in loan guarantees and capital cost that is going to be looked at, it is going to be very beneficial to small business.
In talking about small business, I should talk for a moment about FEDNOR. Earlier today there were comments made about the cutbacks in FEDNOR. We just renewed FEDNOR. The previous five-year program was $40 million and it created 3,000 jobs in northern Ontario. The renewal of FEDNOR came in at $60 million over the next five years. Yes, there has been a partial cut. Those cuts are across the board in all agencies and government departments. This leaves after the cut $52 million. That is an increase of $12 million from the previous program which will be there for programs for northern Ontario.
December 3, 1992

Private Members' Business
I believe that FEDNOR will continue to serve northern Ontario. I congratulate the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister because, prior to 1984, northern Ontario was lumped into one fund for Ontario. When applications were sent from Kirkland Lake, Sudbury or Thunder Bay, they had to go through the whole process of going through Toronto before coming to Ottawa to be looked after.
Under this government in 1984, we made certain that northern Ontario was recognized in the sense that we have a board made up of northern Ontario representatives from each riding in northern Ontario, a board which deals with the problems of northern Ontario in northern Ontario, not in southern Ontario or here in Ottawa.
That is what I believe is the correct way of doing it. That is why my good friend, the finance minister, in his statement yesterday was dealing with individual problems, ensuring that training for example is dealt with on an individual basis. That is how we are going to get this country working again.
I do not care how big government is. I do not care how big the bag of money is. Until we start dealing with the reality that Canadians have to be trained or retrained into a new society that is challenging the world, we cannot hide here in Ottawa, northern Ontario, or Vancouver and think that no matter what price it is, somebody is going to buy it. It does not work that way.
It does not work that way in regard to the quality. No one will buy a piece of goods if the quality is not there and if the price is not right. That is what this government is dealing with, the reality that there is a major adjustment taking place around the world.
We are not the only ones facing this. Every country is facing it. Every individual around the world is facing it, but we have a safety net here. That is what we do not hear from the other side of the Elouse.
I was in Russia earlier this year. I saw a plant of 3,500 individuals that literally had no opportunity for any type of adjustment. I could go on for hours talking about the areas we are dealing with. It hurts me when I see somebody in my own riding not working, but if we deal with the fundamentals and ensure they have the opportunities for training and more education it is going to work well.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Order. It being five o'clock, pursuant to Standing Order 30(6), the House will now proceed to the consideration of Private Members' Business as listed on today's Order Paper.



PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Caccia:
That, in the opinion of this House, the government should, for the benefit of Canadian fisheries, urgently take the necessary steps to ratify the International Law of the Sea, and urge other nations to do so in order to reach the 60 signatures required for the Law of the Sea to come into force.
Mr. Stan Wilbee (Delta):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today on this private members' motion which calls for the government to urgently take steps to ratify the 1982 United Nations Law of the Sea Convention, and urge other countries to do likewise so the 60 ratifications required for the convention's entry into force can be achieved. The reason given by the hon. member is this would benefit Canadian fisheries.
The fisheries provisions of the Law of the Sea Convention are among its most important provisions. Canada played a key role along with a number of other coastal states in developing the principles that underlie the 200-mile economic zone.
Through state practice all the coastal states now enjoy the benefits of their sovereign rights over all the fish stocks located 200 miles from their coasts. We have these benefits now even though Canada has not yet ratified the convention and it is not yet in force.
I would like to explain why Canadian ratification at this time would not provide an immediate benefit for our Canadian fisheries' interests, while continued active international action can. The 1982 United Nations Law of the Sea Convention was negotiated to be the definitive international legal instrument governing all uses of ocean space. It deals in a comprehensive way with all aspects of maritime jurisdiction, navigation rights, boundary delineation, exploration, exploitation of re-

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sources, environmental protection and conflict resolution.
With the longest coastline in the world and important ocean interests, Canada regards the convention as a major contribution to world security and the sustainable exploitation of ocean space. Canada was one of the most active participants in the negotiations of the convention, and benefits directly from many of its provisions in addition to those related to fishery.
Those benefits include the 12-mile territorial sea; the 200-mile exclusive economic zone including pollution prevention and control over scientific research; protection of Canadian salmon; sovereign rights over resources over the greater part of the continental shelf including sedentary living resources; enhanced jurisdiction for the protection of marine pollution, and especially special measures for Arctic waters. As many of these are widely considered to be demonstrative of customary international law, Canada already enjoys their provisions.
With all these benefits you can well ask why Canada and indeed the rest of the international community has not brought the Law of the Sea Convention into force.
Of the 159 signatories including Canada, why have only 52 of the required 60 countries ratified the convention? Of these 52 countries, why is Iceland the only industrialized country to have done so?
The answer lies in the problems industrialized states have with the convention's deep sea mining regime. It provides that the resources of the deep sea bed outside national jurisdiction under the high seas are the common heritage of mankind. Part of the proceeds from the mining of these resources are to be shared among all countries, especially developing states. This is one of the key elements of the package deal that comprised the Law of the Sea Convention and continues to be supported by Canada and most industrialized countries.
The basic objection, however, is since the 1970s we have come to realize seabed mining will not provide the economic benefits we once thought it would. Changed economic circumstances mean parts of the regime run up against market-oriented, commercial principles and the costs to be borne by the parties to the convention are unclear and potentially onerous. Like other industrialized countries and especially as a potential seabed mining state, Canada recognizes only an economically viable seabed mining regime can benefit the international community.
Furthermore, there are a number of costs related to the implementation of the convention seabed mining provisions, which would be quite onerous and at this stage unnecessary for state parties.
Should Canada ratify without the other industrialized countries we would end up shouldering the majority of these yet to be determined costs. It is a further possible financial consideration that in exchange for coastal state jurisdiction over the continental shelf outside 200 miles, the convention specifies a royalty be paid on mineral or hydrocarbon exploitation in that area. It has not yet been determined whether there are such resources on Canada's continental shelf outside the 200 miles.
You also ask what have we done to overcome these obstacles to the coming into force of a convention with so many obvious benefits to Canada. Canada has been playing a key role in consultations held under the auspices of the UN Secretary General, who is trying at the present time to solve the problems of the seabed mining regime that are preventing the universal acceptability of the convention.
We consider that both the future of the convention and Canadian interests are best served through a universally acceptable convention, rather than by pressuring a convention into force with outdated, unacceptable provisions.
The only thing that will give Canada more than it now has is a universally accepted convention. That is what we are after.
I not think we will have to wait very long for the results of our hard work. The Secretary-General's consultations have now entered their second phase and are showing great promise. There is a possible solution in sight in the next 12 months through proposed modifications to the seabed mining provisions.
The prudent course for Canada is to see the UN Secretary General's initiative through, before making a final decision on ratification.
December 3, 1992

In addition to the above reasons, as this House is aware, Canada has pursued an initiative at the United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development to help resolve the problems caused by overfishing of straddling stocks off our east coast. The Rio summit has issued a call for a UN conference to put in place agreed rules for the management and conservation of these stocks. While these rules will build on the existing provisions of the convention, this exercise is independent of its entry into force.
Canada already enjoys a good part of the benefits that could be accorded through ratification. Many of the elements of the convention are generally considered to be demonstrative of customary international law by much of the international community. This is particularly true of the parts of the convention dealing with fisheries.
In short, given all these reasons it is better for the present to continue to pursue the resolution of high-seas fisheries problems through the multilateral conference we have succeeded in placing on the international agenda. Through our continued active bilateral and international efforts that are beginning to pay off, consideration of ratification of the Law of the Sea Convention should await the results of the Secretary-General's consultation.
Therefore, this private member's motion is not in the best interest of either Canadian fisheries or Canada's over-all objectives in the Law of the Sea Convention.


Mrs. Marlene Catterall (Ottawa West):: Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise in support of the motion of my colleague from Davenport that Canada should ratify the Law of the Sea. This convention, approved in late 1982, may be more important to Canada than to any other nation. We are a nation that defines itself by its relationship to the oceans. How often have we said over and over in this House "a nation from sea to sea to sea"? Yet, 10 years after the adoption of the convention on the Law of the Sea, Canada, as one of the countries that signed the convention, has still not ratified it. We have benefited from its provisions because other countries in the world are living by it, yet we have failed to take the step to commit ourselves to abide by it.
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How we treat this convention becomes an even more important matter of principle now that we have signed two additional environmental conventions arising from the earth summit in Rio in June. We have signed two conventions on biodiversity and on climate change. Regrettably, to some extent, the public attention on those two issues, urgent and important as they are, has taken attention away from the state of our oceans and how important they are to the survival of life on this planet.
We agreed with Agenda 21 adopted at the UN earth summit in June. We have agreed with everything in there about protecting water bodies and the life in those bodies. We have agreed with their importance to humanity.
These issues and others are being increasingly recognized as areas where developed countries and developing countries have substantially different interests.
I have just returned from another follow-up conference of parliamentarians last week. We were looking very concretely at implementing the results of the earth summit in Rio. One strong issue is that the developing countries with so little and so much poverty feel we, the developed countries, the richest countries in the world are trying to put the burden of solving the environmental problems for the world on them when we have created the damage with our industrialization and consumerism.
It is ironic to look at the Law of the Sea Convention which Canada signed but has not yet ratified and note that, except for Iceland, the 53 countries that have ratified the Law of the Sea Convention and committed themselves to live by it are not the wealthy nations who are contaminating the soils, the air and the waters of the planet.
The seas of the world are vitally important to the survival of human life. This is not a matter we can put off for another decade. We know the dangers of contamination of coastal areas of the world and what that is doing to the oceans. We know its impact on food supplies for the developing countries particularly. Canadians have benefited from this. It has allowed us to extend our territorial zone. It has allowed us to claim 1.3 million additional square miles. It has allowed us to have more

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control over our straddling stocks and control foreign fishing on a greater area of Canada's coastline.
We are missing other benefits of the Law of the Sea that we should be enjoying. We are particularly missing the opportunity for Canada to be an important partner in protecting our ocean resources and everything they mean to our health and survival.
The prevention of marine pollution is a crucial issue. It is one that has not been dealt with yet. The disposal of radioactive waste at sea is one that has not been dealt with nor has the transportation of hazardous goods on our oceans.
All those are important reasons that Canada should sign this convention and should urge the additional six nations that are needed to do so to make sure that this convention comes into force and effect.
It would allow us to go further in the sustainable development of fishing stocks. I do not need to tell anybody in this Elouse about the perilous condition of our northern cod and the terrible impact this first environmental crisis that this nation has had to deal with is having on hundreds of thousands of people's lives and what it is doing to poverty and unemployment among our fellow Canadians.
We need to be concerned about protecting other marine resources. We need to be concerned about ecologically sound fishing practices if we truly want to preserve the resources of the world, not only for this fishing season or the next fishing season, but also for the next generation and the generations to come.
At the preparatory conferences for the earth summit back in April, Canada with 40 other countries put forward wonderful words on the importance of preserving the oceans of the world. I have to ask myself why are we not ratifying a convention that was approved nearly a decade ago. Is it that we are better at rhetoric than we are at action? Certainly that is part of it.
We know that sustainable development means integrating our decisions about the economy, the environment and humanity. We often forget the third one but it is also part of the concept of sustainable development.
However, the main reason for not ratifying this seems to be economic sea mining interests that may or may not materialize 20 years from now. Meanwhile, we continue withholding our consent to a convention that is vital not only to us, but also to all nations of the world.
I look at the NAFTA and we have had more than one minister in the House talk about the protection that the NAFTA provides. The NAFTA provides environmental protection in areas where conventions have been ratified internationally and are in effect and therefore are binding on Mexico, Canada and the United States.
Here is one convention that could be covered under the NAFTA to protect the seas of the world and we are still refusing to sign it. The fact that conventions are covered in the NAFTA does not mean anything until we have ratified conventions.
Looking at the economic statement from yesterday, I note that we have cut grants and subsidies to environmental technology firms which receive grants for the development and demonstration of commercially viable environmental technologies. That does not make any sense when we have just had a report from the steering committee on prosperity that tells us our environmental technology is one of the major growth opportunities for Canada in the world.
We seem to have contradictory things here. We have statements in the House. We have statements on international platforms. We have statements in Brazil. However, we do not have the ratification of a convention.
The Minister of the Environment has indicated his intention to ratify by Order in Council before the end of this year the Rio conventions on biodiversity and climate change.
I ask him to give the world a good New Year's present and add the Law of the Sea convention to that parcel of conventions which are to be ratified.


Mr. Fernand Jourdenais (La Prairie):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to outline for members of this House some of the other steps this government has taken to promote sustainable development of the ocean resources, including our activities within the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization, or to use its acronym, NAFO.
December 3, 1992

Since declaring its 200-mile limit in 1977, Canada has controlled the management of fish stocks within that limit. Fisheries outside the Canadian 200-mile limit are managed by NAFO.
NAFO was successful in maintaining and rebuilding stocks until 1986 when Spain and Portugal joined the European Community and the European Community began overfishing.
Using a provision in the NAFO convention the EC began adopting its own quota for NAFO stocks. Between 1986 and 1991, the EC reported catches of straddling stocks were 420,000 tonnes above NAFO quotas. Moreover, vessels from several countries that are members of NAFO began to fish routinely in the NAFO areas despite having no quotas.
In 1990, however, the EC accepted eight of its ten NAFO quotas for 1991 but did not respect the NAFO moratorium on northern cod in division 3L. In 1991 the EC caught an estimated 49,000 tonnes of northern cod. In 1992 the EC again accepted eight of eleven NAFO decisions but maintained its objections to the EC moratorium on 3L cod.
The EC has taken important steps to control its fishery in 1992. However, an EC patrol vessel spent 10 months in the NAFO area. The EC passed regulations to close most of its fisheries in the NAFO regulatory area as the quotas were taken including, in the case of division 3L, cod.
At this year's meeting of NAFO in September all NAFO members, including the EC, unanimously adopted a ban on fishing of northern cod outside the 200-mile zone. The EC also took a major positive step by agreeing to all its NAFO quotas.
The EC ministers responsible for fisheries will decide this fall on revisions of the EC common fisheries policy which, if they are adopted as proposed by Commissioner Marin and effectively implemented, will constitute a major step toward effective control of EC fishing vessels in the northwest Atlantic.
Since 1989, we have pursued diplomatic, legal, environmental and public information activities working in every possible international forum to put an end to foreign overfishing. Our efforts are bearing fruit.
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At the beginning of this year, for example, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans announced a stepped up Canadian campaign to save the northwest Atlantic fish stocks.
On January 10, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans spoke at a conference in London sponsored by the Royal Institute on International Affairs. He warned that time was running out for fishing communities that depend on fisheries resources on the high seas. He stated that tangible progress must be made in 1992. One week later, he delivered a similar message to industry and government representatives in Tokyo.
In April, the minister visited Panama and secured the agreement of the Panamanian government to take enforcement action against vessels under its registry, reflagged Spanish, Portuguese and Korean vessels, that fish contrary to NAFO conservation decisions.
The Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for External Affairs have asked their counterparts in the Government of Korea for their co-operation to end fishing by their vessels in the northwest Atlantic.
The issue of overfishing was the leading item on the agenda when the Prime Minister met on April 23 with the President of the European Commission, Jacques Delors, and Prime Minister Silva of Portugal. President Delors made a number of commitments that helped set the tone for the positive developments that followed.
At Cancun in May an international fisheries conference adopted a resolution supporting many of the conservation principles Canada has been promoting.
Later that month the Organization of American States also adopted a resolution at Canada's instigation calling on the earth summit to convene an international conference on high seas fishing. As the members of this House know the 188 countries at the earth summit agreed to convene such a conference.
At Canada's request a special meeting of the NAFO Fisheries Commission was held in May on the need for more effective international control in the NAFO area through such measures as an observer program and minimum mesh size.
At its annual meeting in September NAFO did approve several new surveillance and control measures. A pilot project will begin in January 1993 to place observers

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on vessels from each contracting party for 10 per cent of fishing days.
NAFO also adopted measures to control harvesting of small fish including new minimum sizes for cod and flounder as well as a new minimum mesh size.
Other measures will improve the effectiveness of inspections at sea by patrol vessels from Canada and other NAFO contracting parties.
The public information campaign has also been in high gear. Teams of journalists from EC member states, notably Spain and Portugal, and from other NAFO member countries were invited to Newfoundland for briefing on the state of the stocks and on surveillance and control measures in place in the Canadian zone. They were able to see for themselves the impact of stock declines on Newfoundland communities.
In May, teams of union representatives and colleagues in this House travelled to Europe to register Canadian concerns and to seek co-operation. Support from Portuguese fishermen was particularly striking. Efforts of other non-governmental organizations and churches were also supportive.
These are some of the ways we are working to end foreign overfishing on the high seas. We are using every available avenue open to us within international law and diplomacy to bring about an effective solution.
The best news is that we are making progress and I hope we will keep on.


David Stupich: Mr. Speaker, as a student of agriculture at the University of British Columbia between 1946 and 1949, I was told by one professor after another of the importance of saving agricultural land in the province of British Columbia.
I was told that 3.5 per cent of the province was arable and we were rapidly losing the best of that land to other uses. It was being paved for parking lots, for roads. It was being built on for shopping centres, houses, all kinds of buildings. Anybody who wanted a piece of land looked first to the agricultural land because it was the easiest to develop.
I became Minister of Agriculture in September 1972 and within six months I introduced legislation to save agricultural land.
That legislation attracted so much attention that the Tories in the legislature at that time-and there were some-went so far as to move a want of confidence against the Minister of Agriculture for daring to bring in that kind of legislation. The Liberals opposed it just as loudly and just as forcefully. The Socreds opposed it. None of them proposed anything but they all said we were moving too quickly.
I did not think we were moving quickly enough. I had waited 24 years, from 1949 until 1973, to introduce that legislation and in the meantime some half a million acres of the best land for food production in the province, some of it the best land in the world, had been lost to agriculture. We had not moved quickly enough.
I was reminded of that this evening when the hon. member for Delta on behalf of the government said: "We are making progress so let us not ratify right now. Let us continue the progress we have been making all this time and some day we will get to ratification".
The Law of the Sea Convention was approved 10 years ago and all we can talk about is making progress. Ten years. Fifty-two nations have signed as ratifying it. We need eight more. We do not have any of the major sea-faring nations. We do not have Canada. We do not have the U.S. We do not have Great Britain. We do not have Germany. But we do have 52 and we need eight more.
If one nation, one among the ones I have named, had the intestinal fortitude to ratify that treaty, then perhaps others would come on board and we would be getting somewhere other than simply making progress.
At the rate we are making progress what is going to happen? We have already, dare I say, lost the North Atlantic cod fishery. Some will say: "No, we have a two-year moratorium". It takes six years for a cod to become mature enough to start reproducing. It is a two-year moratorium, but it is two years because it is saleable right now. If that moratorium is to achieve any useful purpose, and we do not know that it will, we do not know that there is still time for the species to survive, it is not going to last two years. It is going to be more like 10 years before we can start fishing cod again.
December 3, 1992

The Minister of Fisheries and Oceans has said that the salmon are in good shape on the west coast, that there is no problem there. We know that the salmon on the west coast are being pirated. We know that the steelhead are being pirated and we do not have control. We do not have the control that was offered to us in the Law of the Sea Convention. One of the reasons we do not have it is that the convention has yet to be ratified. It is in our hands. We are responsible as is every other nation.
The previous speaker said that we like to talk about our three seas, about being bounded by oceans on the east, on the west and on the north. We have more oceanic coastline than any other nation in the world. It is more important to us than to any other nation. Certainly, there are problems. There are discussions that have yet to take place, agreements that have to be reached. We know that mining the seabed is one of them.
There is no reason on earth that we could not go on talking about things like that after we have ratified the treaty. That need not be the end of it. There can be changes. There can be new looks at it to improve it in many ways. That can still go on. There is some pressure on people to come to agreements earlier once we have ratified the treaty.
The Secretary-General, as another government spokesman has said, has been making progress. We know that and we appreciate the progress that has been made. For example, the United States which had been opposing the ratification, voting against it, finally abstained at the UN meeting last year. That is progress. It is sort of half way. All they have to do is make one more step and the U.S. will be ratifying the treaty. For it to ratify the treaty ahead of us would put us to shame. We have more at stake, more to lose, and more need of it, yet we are not prepared to lead the nations that need to be led to sign this treaty.
It is not just the cod on the east coast. It is not just the straddling stocks. One speaker said we had made progress with respect to the straddling stocks. The only progress we have made is that we have persuaded other nations that they too must refrain from fishing cod for a period until we can tell what will happen, until we know whether the stocks will recover in a reasonable length of time. We do not know that yet. We are still hoping. At least we are going to give the remaining survivors, to the
Private Members' Business
extent that there are survivors, an opportunity to try to recover the species. That is happening.
On the west coast the problem is not as obvious or serious yet. However, only two years ago we did not know how serious the situation was with respect to the Atlantic cod. I can recall the then Minister for International Trade, now the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, saying that he was not going to agree to a drastic reduction in quota, a reduction recommended by the experts, by Professor Harris. He was not prepared to agree to a quota of 120,000 tonnes a year because it would be hard on the people working in the industry- the fishing people, the processing people, the companies. It would be hard on all of them.
I argued at the time that we should accept short-term pain for long-term gain but his position was firm. He was not going to agree to the quota being set where the experts said it should be set. He would rather gamble on the future.
As a result of his gambling there is now a two-year moratorium on fishing cod in extensive areas and a further moratorium being considered. Now the same person, which gives me very little confidence, tells us that the west coast salmon are not in trouble.
We are going to hear more about that on Monday. The Minister of Fisheries and Oceans said that he would have a press conference on the west coast on Monday.
He will be talking about an inquiry that was made about the alleged disappearance of 1.2 million sockeye that came into the river but did not arrive at the spawning grounds. Nobody was supposed to be fishing them in between except by permit and a fixed number but the fish did not get to the spawning ground. We have been trying to rebuild the Stuart Lake run for 16 years and have made real progress. Those fish came into the mouth of the Fraser River but they did not get up to Stuart Lake. This is the minister who reassures us and says that everything is okay.
It is the same with the Law of the Sea Convention. We need not hurry. We can take our time. Let us keep trying to get agreement on mining the seabed.
We all know there are substantial resources there. Whether they are economic or not we do not know. We do not know how to share the proceeds or the costs. These are all issues with which we can deal after we have ratified the treaty. There is nothing so binding in it that it cannot be changed. There is nothing that cannot be

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negotiated further and nothing that cannot be improved if we are confident that we are going to make improvements.
Let us get on with Canadian ratification of the Law of the Sea Convention because that will lead others to do it. I believe that with a Canadian lead we will get the 60 we need and then we will start saving some of the species we are in danger of losing on both the west and east coasts and the Arctic coast as well. Let us move forward.


Bruce Halliday: Mr. Speaker, I too would like to join this debate on the Law of the Sea and address it from the problem of overfishing on the high seas and the Canadian legal initiative that responds to this crisis.
This is a global problem that has a severe impact on fisheries subject to the jurisdiction of coastal states through the harvesting of both straddling and highly migratory stocks on the high seas.
Although the overfishing of straddling stocks on the high seas has caused particular concern to Canada, this cannot be dismissed as merely a local problem. It is world-wide. It affects groundfish stocks like hake in the southwest Atlantic on Argentina's Patagonian Shelf, the orange roughy stocks on the Challenger Plateau off New Zealand, the blue whiting and jack mackerel in the east central and southeast Pacific off Chile and Peru, and the pollock in the so-called donut hole in the central Bering Sea between Russia and the United States and the pollock in the so-called peanut hole in the centre of the Sea of Okhotsk off Russia's Pacific coast.
The problem of overfishing on the high seas is increasingly being recognized by the international community as an important environmental issue that threatens ecological disaster, both on the high seas and in waters subject to national jurisdiction.
For example, the 1987 report of the World Commission on Environment and Development warned of the threat to living marine resources posed by over-exploitation, pollution and land-based development.
More recently, in 1991, the heads of government of the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Italy and Canada met in London as the G-7, and at
Canada's insistence issued a declaration urging compliance with the regimes established by regional fisheries organizations through effective monitoring and enforcement measures.
In a report that was released in 1991 the Secretary-General of the United Nations underlined in eloquent terms the dimension of the problem of overfishing by distant water fishing fleets. I quote from that report:
The elaboration of the Law of the Sea regime for the rational management and conservation of high seas living resources is now firmly inscribed in the international agenda. While this may be in large part attributable to the large-scale drift-net fishing issue, it is to be emphasized that this issue is but one symptom of the larger problems confronting world fisheries, within national jurisdiction and beyond. Another symptom is the report of problems of overfishing by distant water fishing fleets in the proximity of EEZs.
Again, in a report issued last May, entitled World Fisheries Situation, the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization said:
Legal aspects of high seas fishing are not addressed comprehensively in the Law of the Sea Convention and where high seas fishing issues are concerned there is a general lack of clarity with respect to important matters such as enforcement of conservation and management measures. There is a pressing need for these issues to be considered further and conceptually developed so that a framework for international management of high seas fisheries might be agreed.
The United Nations General Assembly took up this issue for the first time in 1989 when, in response to the problem of overfishing in the northwest Atlantic outside Canada's 200-mile limit, it expressed concern regarding the use of fishing methods and practices on the high seas that could have an adverse impact on the conservation and management of the living resources of the marine environment.
The concern was elaborated on by the General Assembly in a resolution adopted in 1990.
Canada and like-minded countries built on these resolutions at the 1991 session of the General Assembly. As a result of these efforts the General Assembly adopted a resolution that:
(1)	criticized fishing methods and practices, such as vessel reflagging and inadequate surveillance, control and enforcement, aimed at evading the regulation and control of high seas fishing;
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(2)	recognized that the measures now in place to conserve and manage the living resources of the high seas are not effective and that they do not adequately implement the provisions of the Law of the Sea Convention;
(3)	called on states to prohibit fishing methods and practices which can have an adverse impact on the conservation and management of the living resources of the high seas, and to take the measures required to give full effect to the applicable provisions of the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention; and
(4)	called on states to comply with the regimes established by regional fisheries organizations through effective monitoring and enforcement measures.
It is against this background of developing international concern with respect to problems caused by overfishing by distant water fleets that Canada launched its legal initiative to resolve the problem of overfishing on the high seas.
The Canadian initiative sought to develop specific principles and measures consistent with the Law of the Sea Convention with a view to giving full implementation to the provisions of that convention, strengthening regional organizations and ensuring the recognition of the special interest of coastal states with respect to straddling stocks.
This would provide an effective legal regime governing activities on the high seas.
The first steps in the elaboration of the principles and measures were taken at a conference held in St. John's, Newfoundland in September 1990. The conference recognized the need for such measures and agreed on a set of conclusions reflecting an increasingly shared view on how the rules of international law should be interpreted and applied.
This document was further developed at a meeting of Latin American states, New Zealand and Canada in May in Santiago, Chile. The document, dubbed "the Santiago paper", set the guidelines for participation by Canada and like-minded states at three major international conferences in the first half of 1992. The first was the International Conference on Responsible Fishing, held in Cancun, Mexico in May. The Minister of Fisheries and Oceans led that Canadian delegation.
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At the urging of Canada and like-minded countries, the 66 participants at Cancun declared that:
(1)	states should co-operate on bilateral, regional and multilateral levels to establish, reinforce and implement effective means and mechanisms to ensure responsible fishing on the high seas, in accordance with relevant provisions of the Law of the Sea Convention;
(2)	the freedom of states to fish on the high seas must be balanced with the obligation to co-operate with other states to ensure conservation and rational management of living resources, in accordance with relevant provisions of the Law of the Sea Convention; and
(3)	states should take effective action, consistent with international law, to deter reflagging of vessels as a means of avoiding compliance with applicable conservation and management rules for fishing activities on the high seas.
Also in May, the Organization of American States met and unanimously adopted a strong resolution on the protection of fisheries. The Secretary of State for External Affairs led that Canadian delegation. The resolution expressed alarm at the environmental degradation caused by overfishing on the high seas, particularly in the waters adjacent to the areas subject to the national jurisdiction of American states.
It also for the first time supported the convening, on an urgent basis, of an inter-governmental conference, under the auspices of the United Nations, following the Rio summit to deal with high seas fishing problems through the effective conservation and management of high seas fish stocks. The most important conference that took place in this period was the UN Conference on the Environment and Development convened in Rio de Janeiro at the head of government level at the beginning of June. The Prime Minister led the Canadian delegation and made the management of straddling stocks on the high seas a priority.
The conference adopted a number of measures of great importance to Canada. One could go on and list several of these but my time is running out. I should conclude by saying that Canada intends to work closely with like-minded states to ensure that the conference adopts rules to protect straddling and highly migratory stocks from being harmed by overfishing on the high seas.

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Private Members' Business
The Minister of Fisheries and Oceans has already announced that representatives of like-minded states will be invited to meet in St. John's in January to review developments and co-ordinate strategy. We are determined to bring overfishing of straddling stocks off Canada's 200-mile zone to an end and to do so quickly.


Mrs. Beryl Gaffney (Nepean):: Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak to the most important motion put forward by my colleague from Davenport. He has for a long time demonstrated his total commitment to the environment. I am sure he would join with me in expressing our disappointment upon hearing the news yesterday that the government in its economic statement had cut $172 million from its much touted green plan. That is the third cut for a total of 10 per cent in cuts since the plan was unveiled two years ago, further noting that less than one-third of the money the government promised for the green plan will probably not even get spent before the next election anyway.
I am here to speak to my colleague's motion which simply states:
That, in the opinion of this House, the government should, for the benefit of Canadian fisheries, urgently take the necessary steps to ratify the International Law of the Sea, and urge other nations to do so in order to reach the 60 signatories required for the Law of the Sea to come into force.
In 1982, after 15 years of global negotiations, Canada signed the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. This is quite a unique document of immense scope. It has been described as the constitution of the oceans which encompass over 70 per cent of our planet.
One expert has written that the convention goes further than most national constitutions or even the UN charter in the elaboration of rules, the development of regimes and the creation of institutions, guidelines and procedures. In short, the convention represents the indispensable legal framework for almost all future activities at sea.
The convention principles are the foundation of essentially every international coastal boundary dispute. Canada has greatly benefited both directly and indirectly in many ways from this convention. For example there is now a 12-mile territorial zone around our coast. The 200-mile limit gives Canada the right to declare sovereignty over 1.3 million square nautical miles off our coast.
Canada now has the right to regulate fisheries in the exclusive economic zone by deciding the total catch permitted. Article 66 of the convention protects Canada's salmon stocks. Articles 63 and 64 of the Law of the Sea convention address the issues of management and conservation of straddling stocks and migratory species.
The convention strengthens Canadian jurisdiction for the prevention of marine pollution and also special provisions for Arctic waters. The convention sets a precedent for international conventions by seeking to protect our environment and by promoting sustainable development of fisheries, fishery stocks and other marine resources. The convention also gives Canada control over fishing, oil and mineral exploration as a result of the convention.
Ratifying the convention would further enhance Canada's right to protect and conserve fish species. The Halifax Chronicle Herald has written that the convention has served the Atlantic provinces well. It would serve it even better if this government finally ratified the convention.
I think the most frustrating thing about this whole issue is that Canada signed the convention but has refused to take the second step and ratify it. Instead the government has chosen not to do so and in avoiding its responsibility is compromising Canada's international credibility.
The question that obviously arises is: why is the Conservative government afraid to ratify the Law of the Sea? The answer is hard for me to find. Ratification of this convention would certainly help Canada. It would ensure the high seas fisheries would follow ecologically sound practices, including the use of drift-net catching practices. We know what this has done off the coast of Newfoundland.
It would certainly strengthen the maintenance of ecological marine systems in the oceans. It would complete the protection of fish stocks within the 200-mile exclusive economic zone. It would furnish the signatories with a relevant mechanism to implement these laws at the earliest possible opportunity.
December 3, 1992

It would also provide impetus for the implementation of the recommendations of the Harris report which include: "The management of all fish stocks indigenous to the Canadian Continental Shelf and that extend beyond the 200-mile limit and the right of Canada to deny authorization for foreign fishing fleets to fish within its exclusive economic zone".
The benefits are numerous, yet this government continues to avoid ratifying the accord for reasons that are very difficult for me to understand. I understand that a number of international and Canadian mining corporate interests have lobbied this government not to ratify the convention until revisions are made to the seabed mining provisions. As my colleague from Davenport has said in this House: "There is a public interest at stake that is much broader and much deeper and much more consequential in the long term than that of the mining industry and that of the private sector. There is a public interest at stake here".
It is unfortunate that this government has been more concerned with addressing these remote concerns than with the concerns of the fishermen, the environment and the long-term viability of the communities affected.
The Convention on the Law of the Sea must be ratified; 53 countries have thus far ratified it. A total of 60 are needed in order for the convention to be put into effect. Canada should become one of those seven countries. This is a vital convention and we cannot afford to wait around for it any longer. We have been waiting long enough. This government should do the right thing and ratify the Law of the Sea.


Christine Susan Stewart: Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to have an opportunity to speak to my colleague's private member's motion which is asking the Canadian government to ratify the international Law of the Sea immediately. There has been an urgent need for ratification of this important international instrument for 10 years now. It is very worrisome to hear this government constantly speak the words, have the rhetoric, but not follow through with the action that is required.
I would like to take a few quotes from our Prime Minister's speech at the earth summit in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil in June of this year. He reterred to Canada and said:
Private Members' Business
We are the custodians of 20 per cent of the world's fresh water. And we are the guardians of the longest coastline in the world.
The international Law of the Sea would protect not only this longest coastline in the world. It would be in the interest of not only Canada to ratify this convention. There are many many other maritime nations in the world, third world nations I am thinking of in particular, that would derive great benefit from the ratification of the Law of the Sea.
As my colleague said just before me, we are pausing, wondering why it is that this government will not carry forward with immediate ratification. In my estimation there is no excuse for waiting to see if something better might come along that we might sign. It really does appear that our government has been far too influenced once again by national and international corporate interests that at the expense of the common good of all of us-and I think particularly of our thousands of unemployed fishermen in this country at the moment-would have their own interests in the mining of the seabed put first.
Our Prime Minister in Rio went on to say:
For Canada, sustainable development is not a slogan; it is a prerequisite of our prosperity and a safeguard of our identity. It is also the standard of our responsibility to humanity.
The fishermen on the east coast of this great country of Canada, the best country in the world, would wonder by this government not ratifying this convention now what its responsibility is to them as humanity. I once again remind the House that it is very important for a lot of other humanity in this world for which we should take some responsibility.
The Prime Minister went on to say:
Canada also supports the strengthening of international environmental law to prevent overfishing on the high seas. In Atlantic Canada overfishing beyond our 200-mile zone has created an ecological crisis. This is why for Canada a global agreement to prevent overfishing is quite simply crucial.
Those are the words of our Prime Minister. The Prime Minister has the power and the responsibility to ratify this international Law of the Sea and yet does not do so.
Just yesterday this government's Economic and Fiscal Statement opened with comments from our Minister of Finance to the effect that he wanted members of the opposition to have a full discussion of his statement. He wanted any suggestions possible to come from the

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Adjournment Debate
opposition as to what we might do. We have just very recently suggested that the government take measures to close the loopholes whereby enormous amounts of revenue are slipping out of the Canadian government coffers, according to the Auditor General's report.
We on this side have been pressing for months for municipal infrastructure development projects to create jobs. It would not cost the government anything to ratify the convention on the Law of the Sea. It would be good for our fish stocks and our maritime communities that derive their living from the oceans. Because we have not had the international legal instrument to protect our fish stocks and our fishing industry in this country, thousands of direct jobs have been lost in the Atlantic provinces due to the deletion of the cod stocks, to say nothing of the thousands more of indirect job losses which are crippling our maritime regions.
I believe many other species are endangered that could be protected by ratification of the Law of the Sea. Important initiatives can be carried through.
Why is ratification important? I believe ratification is important because it puts into the hands of the global community an instrument which authorizes international monitoring and a reaction to illegal measures that are pursued by national or private interests.
The Secretary-General of the United Nations has put forward what is called an agenda for peace in which he talks about ways that we can bring about a better world with more peace and security for all. He suggests that one of the measures that must be looked at in that context is an improvement of our international court. We must have an international court that has increased international legitimacy and a mandate that must be strengthened.
Although at this moment we do not have an international court that has the full support we would want, I do not believe that is any excuse not to go forward with the ratification of this convention at this time. This convention would bring about many advantages to Canada, none the least would be that the Law of the Sea convention maintains Canada's right to complete sovereignty over our northwest passage, something that is very important to all Canadians.
Finally, the convention represents a precedent setting international convention which seeks to protect our environment and which promotes sustainable development of fisheries, fisheries stocks and other marine resources not only for Canada but for maritime nations around the world.


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



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

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

Brian L. Gardiner: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to enter into a very brief debate tonight.
On November 27 I asked the Minister of the Environment a very important question on the controversial Alcan Kemano project in northern British Columbia in my riding. It related directly to a number of documents that have seen the light of day related to this project. They indicated that at the time this whole project was being reviewed by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, there was considerable controversy within the department. The department's own scientists then were questioning the senior staff within the department and indeed the political direction of the department to allow the project to proceed without a full environmental review.
Included in those documents, among other things, was one particular memorandum from a public employee that suggested he had been asked by his superiors to change his expert witness testimony at a time when this particular case was proceeding to court.
It has been very clear over the number of years that this issue has been discussed in public that there is a clear mood in northern British Columbia and, indeed, throughout the province to have a full public environmental review of this project, not to speak of all the excellent work of community groups in my riding in
December 3, 1992

communities like Fort Fraser, Fraser Lake, Vanderhoof, Prince George and other areas. I think there is an obligation on the part of the government to have a full review. The point in my question to the minister that day is that we have learned from the department's own freedom of information officer that there are some
83,000	pages of information on this project which the department refuses to release.
We have been advised by officials in the department in Ottawa that where the proponent, the Alcan Aluminum Company, has provided information to the government that the company has instructed the government not to release any of the documentation.
I say to the Government of Canada, why not release these documents. If the project is so good, why can it not stand on its own feet and have the public information available to people.
I also pursued the question with the minister at the same time, knowing that in British Columbia the new government there thankfully has taken a different approach on this issue. The Minister of the Environment of B.C. will be releasing all of the documents that the B.C. government has produced on this over time and we will get a chance to see the involvement of the Social Credit government of the day. The settlement agreement, as it is called, that governs the flow in this river was signed in secret in 1987. I called on the Minister of the Environment to approach the minister in British Columbia to have a full joint review of this project. Tonight I hope that the person responding from the government side will encourage the minister to do just that. Let us have a full public review of the Kemano project.


Mr. Barry Moore (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of National Revenue):: Mr. Speaker, the government has acted responsibly in this review of the Kemano Completion Project. The 1987 settlement agreement reached between the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, British Columbia and Alcan provided fisheries protection through mitigation requirements for the Nechako River system, and furthermore removed the pristine Nanika River from further development by Alcan.
The Department of Fisheries and Oceans conducted considerable analysis of the potential impacts of the proposed Kemano Completion Project to determine
Adjournment Debate
protection requirements for fish and fish habitat and also undertook public consultation in 1984.
An out of court settlement agreement was reached with British Columbia and Alcan in 1987 after an independent review panel chaired by Dr. David Strangway, the then president of the University of British Columbia, advised that fisheries experts agreed that the potentially negative impacts on fisheries from the Kemano Completion Project could be mitigated.
The Department of Fisheries and Oceans applied the principles of its policy for the management of fish habitat, providing for no net loss of fish habitat and responsible resource management. The agreement formalized the release of flows to protect fisheries, and required Alcan to provide measures to mitigate the potential impacts on fish and fish habitat, thus securing longer term protection for the fish stocks.
In summary, the settlement agreement was entered into with extensive consideration for potential impacts on fisheries and the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans took the appropriate steps to ensure the necessary protection for fish and fish habitat.


SMALL BUSINESS
Hon. Alan Redway (Don Valley East):: Mr. Speaker, tonight I want to introduce you to four small business people from Toronto. There is Jim Frangos, who is a fur coat manufacturer, Nick Piras who is a restaurateur, Will Molson and Susan Bellan, who are retailers.
What do they all have in common? They are all being forced out of business because they cannot get a bank loan. Jim Frangos, the fur coat manufacturer, has been in business for many years. He built up a good business. He has borrowed money from the banks over the years numerous times, and always paid his bills. Right now the banks will not lend him any money. He is in peril of losing his home and in peril of losing his business.
Fur coats, however, are actually selling again. It is interesting to note that right now Canadian furs are being shipped to Greece. They are manufacturing fur coats in Greece and shipping them back to Canada to sell here and elsewhere around the world. There are all sorts of fur coats being sold, but the banks will not lend a fur coat manufacturer in Canada any money to stay in business.

December 3, 1992
Adjournment Debate
Nick Piras, a restaurateur, has a fine high-class restaurant in Toronto. He has been in business for many years. He has built up a good business. He has borrowed money from the banks. Again, he has never missed a payment, but the banks will not lend him any money. I have a letter from his banker right here which states: "Dear Nick: This is to confirm that the bank is not prepared to provide additional financing for your business".
Will Molson and Susan Bellan, who are retailers, have been in business for 12 years now. They borrowed money in the past. They have never missed a payment and they cannot get a bank loan.
A few years ago it was an entirely different story. One could go into a bank and ask for a loan and they would say: "How much?" In fact, if one asked for a certain amount of money they would say: "Won't you take some more?" Not any more.
Mr. Speaker, as you know and I know, the story is entirely different. A small business person cannot get a bank loan. In fact, I have been told that the banks, all of them, want to clear off their books about 25 per cent of bank loans that are outstanding.
We know that the Minister of State for Small Businesses and the Minister of Finance are most sympathetic with this situation. They have been trying to help. In fact, in the February budget there were some things for small business in it. In the economic and fiscal statement yesterday there were some things for small business. The legislation to implement those things that were in the budget last February still has not been passed. In fact, we had a debate on second reading of a bill a few days ago. Still we do not have this legislation through.
The banks themselves are not being outstanding either. We know the Minister of State for Small Businesses has met with them numerous times and pleaded with them to do something. Yesterday the Minister of Finance in his statement stated: "I am serving notice to Canada's banks that I expect them to make a special effort to play a constructive role in ensuring the success ot this program". Those are great words, but there still is not any action.
Jim Frangos just cannot wait. Nick Piras cannot wait. Will Molson and Susan Bellan cannot wait and thousands of other small business people cannot wait.
I want to ask the minister tonight just what am I going to tell them.


Barry D. Moore: Mr. Speaker, I hope you will give me the chance to respond because there is much good news in the highlights of the Minister of Finance's economic statement given yesterday in the House.
A significant part of the statement by the Minister of Finance was devoted to small business and to new and improved ways of helping this very important sector of our Canadian economy. I would like to highlight a few of them.
The Small Businesses Foans Act program which assists small business in obtaining access to financing will be made even more effective by the increase in maximum loan size to $250,000. This higher limit will permit larger program loans for all eligible businesses, including firms investing in technology, to improve their competitiveness. A number of other improvements are being made to the program and these will be made public tomorrow when the Minister of State for Small Businesses and Tourism tables a bill to amend the act.
As indicated in the economic statement, the government is also working to broaden the implication of the program to include some forms of working capital loans. The Small Business Financing Program, aimed at helping financially troubled businesses lower their cost of debt, is being extended to December 31, 1994.
The revitalization of our manufacturing industry is of a high priority and this process will be helped by the introduction of an investment tax credit on the purchase of machinery and equipment. This two-year program will lower cost and promote investment in modernization and technology. Farge amounts of capital from Canadians in all walks of life are presently held in RRSPs and RRIFs. In order to direct some of these funds to investment in small businesses the rules for self-directed RRSPs and RRIFs are being simplified together with the reporting requirements of trustees of these types of plans. The simplified regulations should result in an increased flow of capital to small businesses which is what the hon. member is looking for.
December 3, 1992

The statement gives recognition to the importance of technology today by improving and simplifying R and D rules for small businesses. These will eliminate confusion and uncertainty among business persons and allow them to proceed with projects knowing that their expenditures do indeed qualify for tax credits and other benefits.
We will be mentioning in passing other initiatives in the economic statement designed to help small business continue in its vital role, improvements to the industrial research program, a reduction of the regulatory burden and a holiday from unemployment insurance premiums for new employees of small businesses.


WESTRAY COAL MINE
Mr. Russell MacLellan (Cape Breton-The Sydneys):: Mr. Speaker, I am here concerning my question of May 22 of this year regarding the Westray mine.
I asked the Minister of State for Small Businesses and Tourism about the safety of this mine and all we got were vague generalities. I want to know, and the people of Nova Scotia and Canada want to know, about the role of the government, particularly his and that of the Prime Minister regarding the safety of this mine.
In his response to my supplementary: "What the Prime Minister was talking about is that this is over all an economic or business decision for the Government of Canada and not a safety decision; in fact, the Devco report of 1987 emphasized almost entirely nothing but business questions. That is what he was talking about".
The Devco report did relate to safety decisions. The government supposedly, with the statements of the Minister of State for Small Businesses and Tourism, had independent inquiries coming from experts on the safety of the Westray mine. The fact is that the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources was concerned with safety.
The problem is that nothing was acted upon regarding safety. In fact the minister of energy would not even answer a question in this House that was put to him on the question of safety.
Adjournment Debate
The fact of the matter is that we in Atlantic Canada are in a desperate economic situation but not desperate enough to forego the safety factors on job opportunities. The people of Pictou county are no exception. The people want to work. It is not a question, as my colleague from Cape Breton-East Richmond and I have stated, of Cape Bretoners feeling that Pictou county coal was going to be a competition. The question is the safety of people.
In fact in Cape Breton right now we have had a very serious problem with regard to flooding of the Lingan mine, to the extent that the Lingan mine has now been closed four months ahead of schedule. It has also put at risk the Lingan-Phalen mine which employs another 700 people and is the sole source right now of metallurgical coal that is blended with the higher sulphur coal that gives the Cape Breton Development Corporation coal its readily accessible markets.
The problem, of course, is if we lose the Lingan-Phalen mine, then Devco and industrial Cape Breton is in even more of a difficult situation.
The fact of the matter is management at Devco closed Lingan-Phalen until they could be absolutely sure there was not going to be any flooding. That will be closed for months and it will mean severe economic hardship. The fact is the safety of the people came first.
We want to know what safety factors were not considered by this government. We want to know what fell down, who fell down, in this regard. It is not a big question. We want some answers and the fact is we are not getting them. The most incredible thing relating to the inquiry set up by the province of Nova Scotia into this terrible disaster was that the wording of the inquiry was found to contravene the rights of the officers of the Curragh Resources to be able to get a fair hearing in a criminal action.
It is almost impossible to believe that the province of Nova Scotia, the Attorney General, the whole Department of the Attorney General, would not know how to word an inquiry so it would not run foul of that concern, particularly when it had the precedent from Ontario just a few years before. There is a lot of skulduggery here. We were not allowed to have this heard in the standing committee on industry. The families are agonizing over

December 3, 1992
Adjournment Debate
unanswered questions and I feel it is only fair that the government do more to provide those answers.


Barry D. Moore: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity today to clear up the hon. member's confusion surrounding the reports of the independent mining consultants regarding the development of the Westray mine.
As the responsible minister said in this House on many occasions, reputable independent mining consultants were engaged by the lender to ensure that the mine was in compliance with provincial regulations. As guarantor of the loan to Westray, we reviewed these reports in order to ensure that the interests of the Canadian taxpayer were safeguarded.
According to the report submitted by Associated Mining Consultants Incorporated, at no time was the Westray mine not in full compliance with the regulations governing mining operations in the province of Nova Scotia.
The government has released thousands of pages of documentation relating to this file and has answered fully literally dozens of questions in the House in this regard. Given this fact, it is understandable that the hon. member might have misunderstood various responses to certain questions, but I can assure him that at no time did the government offer conflicting information as indicated by the hon. member in his question of May 22,
1992.


EMPLOYMENT EQUITY
Ms. Margaret Mitchell (Vancouver East):: Mr. Speaker, on June 8 I asked the Minister of Justice to extend the mandate of the Canadian Human Rights Commission in order to enforce employment equity under the Canada Public Service Act as well as within federal agencies. I expressed concerns that victims of racism and discrimination often have to wait two to three years-in the case of Chander Grover I think it has been six years-to have their cases dealt with because of inadequate resources.
The minister in response to my question refused to even recognize that there was a problem.
The Canadian Human Rights Commission needs adequate funding to deal with both systemic discrimination as well as individual complaints. Because of inadequate resources, as I said, complainants often have to wait far
too long to have their cases processed. Yet instead of increasing funding, this year $347,000 was cut from the commission's budget.
In addition, termination of the Court Challenges Program by the federal government in the last budget was another serious blow to equality rights for women and minorities. This means that disadvantaged persons no longer have legal funds for test cases and equality cases under the charter, cases that are so important in interpreting and sometimes in changing our laws.
We also found in that budget that the government refused absolutely to fund a race relations foundation which had been promised as part of redress for Japanese Canadians. This was another betrayal.
This week we learn that advocacy groups have had 10 per cent per year cuts in their grants under the mini budget. These groups are essential to fight for disadvantaged and powerless Canadians. This 10 per cent per year cut has to be added to very dramatic cuts they have had that have accumulated over the last three years. In some cases it must bring it up to 60 per cent or 70 per cent cuts which essentially will destroy many very important organizations.
I am ashamed that our government as an employer itself practises systemic discrimination. It has not increased the hiring of visible minorities over the past four years. The 3.6 per cent participation rate in the Public Service compares very poorly with 7 per cent racial minorities in the general work force.
In June the minister told us the review of the Employment Equity Act would provide a better context for understanding what needs to be done, but nothing has been done. The parliamentary committee asked for direct enforcement by the Human Rights Commission and the commissioner himself has for years advocated several reforms in this direction.
By the year 2001, 80 per cent of new entrants into the labour force in Canada will be women, visible minorities, aboriginals and persons with disabilities. Canada must protect their rights to equality and must open opportunities for their advancement. The government must act now to renew and review the Canadian Human Rights Commission and amend the Canadian Human Rights Act so that we can achieve real equality in Canada.
December 3, 1992


Mr. Rob Nicholson (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada):: Mr. Speaker, I do not agree with the comments of the hon. member.
First of all, the Employment Equity Act was reviewed over the past several months by a special committee of Parliament chaired by the hon. member for Don Valley East. That report has been tabled in Parliament and the government is having a look at it. We have 150 days in which to respond to the committee's report.
The Minister of State for Employment and Immigration is also examining the report in consultation with the Minister of Justice and other interested ministers, and the role of the Canadian Human Rights Commission is obviously an issue that is being considered fully.
I should point out to the House that the Government of Canada itself has had employment programs and in fact considerable progress has been made.
You have heard, Mr. Speaker, that somehow the Canadian Human Rights Commission has not been getting any money but in fact I point out that since the fiscal year 1987-88 the budget of the Canadian Human Rights Commission has increased by 66 per cent as well as a 27 per cent increase in person-year allotment. There are a lot of government departments that would like to have had that in the last five years. The hon. member should point that out.
The Canadian Human Rights Commission is independent of the government. The commission is responsible for the enforcement and administration of the Canadian Human Rights Act. The way in which it administers the act and allocates its resources is a matter which the commission must decide. However, I understand the commission has taken a number of steps to speed up the processing and resolution of complaints.


REPORT OF THE AUDITOR GENERAL
David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, on November 25 I put a question to the minister responsible for small business concerning the Westray coal disaster. At that time I called on the government to conduct a federal inquiry into matters surrounding that particular place of operation. Unfortu-
Adjournment Debate
nately the government has not seen fit to instruct its officials to hold a parliamentary inquiry.
I want to remind the parliamentary secretary to the minister responsible that this is one of the most serious and tragic events that has happened in the history of Nova Scotia and for this federal government to turn its face away from the people and particularly the widows and family members of those deceased miners is despicable.
The Auditor General pointed out in his report that only $9.9 million in fees were paid to the management. Not a bad day's pay. The government gave a guarantee of 103 per cent of pre-production costs. That is what the Westray promoters got. Not a bad day at all for them.
I want to remind the parliamentary secretary again that the people of Canada, the people of Pictou county and the people of Nova Scotia deserve as a minimum a parliamentary inquiry to discover all of the facts surrounding this tragic event.
It is not sufficient for the government to say that it will let the province do it because we know what the province of Nova Scotia under the leadership of Donald Cameron has done with that particular issue. We know about the safety concerns at this particular mine which is regulated by the province of Nova Scotia. It is an absolute and utter disgrace, as the charges which have been evidenced to date will indicate.'
I want to remind the parliamentary secretary that in my own district as of today the Lingan colliery has shut down and the Phalen colliery is shut down. For many safety reasons I would advise workers not to go back to the Phalen mine. In point of fact on Saturday of this week I will be meeting with mining representatives to discuss that very issue.
On the Westray issue this government was drunk with stupidity, falling over itself to provide money, $9.9 million in management fees to the promoters, 103 per cent loan guarantee on pre-production costs.
It would be appropriate and morally responsible for the Government of Canada to conduct a parliamentary inquiry in order to give the officials that the government has been protecting for the last number of months an opportunity to come forward, put their case before the Canadian people and account for their omissions or,

December 3, 1992
Government Orders
indeed, have them account for the nice little goose egg they made with the Tory administration in Ottawa.
The parliamentary secretary, whom I know to be a respectable man in this Chamber, should urge his ministers and his colleagues to have the appropriate committee examine in detail all of the information which is there for everyone to see, except the people of Canada who do not have an opportunity to question those in authority.
I urge the parliamentary secretary to do that on behalf of the people in Pictou county who are calling upon the Prime Minister and the government to order a parliamentary inquiry.


Barry D. Moore: Mr. Speaker, I have been asked to respond to the suggestion made in the Auditor General's report and also by the hon. member that the government provided assistance to Westray that amounted to 103 per cent of the net pre-production costs.
The company was required to provide $15 million in cash during the pre-production period, plus share in the loan insurance risk, with possible tax benefit credits, principally in future years. The total financing by Cur-ragh totalled $30 million, consisting of $9 million in cash, $6 million in deferred management fees, and $15 million which represents 15 per cent of the bank loan guarantee. They were also fully responsible for any cost overruns that occurred.
The Auditor General's report offsets the $30 million of company financing with $34.2 million of potential tax benefits. It could be easy to misinterpret the manner in which the potential tax benefits are reported without also realizing that tax benefits are potential and are realized only if there are profits against which they can be applied.
In this instance these benefits did not all materialize as Curragh suffered losses subsequent to the start-up of the Westray mine.
The Auditor General's exhibit 13-7 does not represent actual cash flow or actual costs but simply what might have occurred had Curragh been more profitable than it was and had been able to take advantage of the tax concessions. In actual fact all of the tax concessions were
not available to Curragh and the Westray mine is reported to have cost Curragh in excess of $28.5 million.
One must realize that the purpose of loan insurance is to encourage financial institutions to loan money to projects which, by their nature, would not normally be financed by these institutions or only at extremely high rates of interest. We were satisfied that Curragh shared a significant portion of the risk as demonstrated by the size of their reported loss on this project.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Pursuant to Order made Tuesday, December 1, 1992, the motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been withdrawn.
Pursuant to Order made Tbesday, December 1, 1992, the House will resume debate on the motion for second reading of Bill C-98, an act to provide additional borrowing authority for the fiscal year beginning April 1, 1992.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Mazankowski that Bill C-98, an act to provide additional borrowing authority for the fiscal year beginning April 1, 1992, be read the second time and referred to a legislative, committee in the Economics envelope.
Mary Catherine Clancy: Mr. Speaker, I would like to say I am delighted to rise in this debate, but I am afraid that would not be true. I am inured to rise in this debate because of what the government perpetrated upon the people of Canada yesterday. I am most particularly upset, as are the vast majority of women in this country, with regard to one particular aspect of yesterday's so-called economic statement.
Others more eloquent than I have talked about the attack by this government on the unemployed but I want to talk particularly about the attack on women in this country. I refer of course to the utterly despicable decision by this government to refuse unemployment insurance benefits to people who quit their jobs volun-
December 3, 1992

tarily. This isolates thousands of women, possibly more than thousands in this country, who will quit their jobs because of sexual harassment.
I had a lot of things thrown at me in this Chamber today but I heard ministers of the Crown stand and say: "Nothing to worry about. Sexual harassment will be just cause". Well let me explain the concept of just cause within the concept of the Unemployment Insurance Appeal Board and within the concept of the woman applying for benefits after she has quit her job because she has been sexually harassed.
First of all let us look at the process and the time. I am giving you times that are 8 to 12 years old because I chaired the Unemployment Insurance Appeal Board from 1980 to 1984. My knowledge of time spans comes from that time. I can only say if those time spans have not lengthened considerably then it is the only place within the entire legal system where they have not.
What happens? I will tell you what happens. A woman leaves her job because sexual harassment is intolerable and unbearable. She does the standard thing and goes to the employment office with her documents to apply for unemployment insurance. She explains she quit her job because of sexual harassment. Without fail, in my experience and in the experience of my colleagues knowledgeable in this area, she will be disqualified. Under the old rules that meant she bore a penalty period of approximately eight weeks. For most women then, in spite of the penalty period that was enforced, there was the knowledge the remainder of the claim would be available. Many of them would bring forward an appeal to the Unemployment Insurance Appeal Board. Some of them, having lost there, would then take the appeal to the umpire, a judge of the Federal Court.
I will quote my colleague, the member for Gander-Grand Falls, who is one of the most knowledgeable people in this House when it comes to representing his constituents before Unemployment Insurance Appeal Boards. In Newfoundland you would be looking at about eight weeks from disqualification to appeal. You would be looking at at least another week to knowledge of the decision on your appeal board but you could be looking at as long as two years before the Federal Court judge came to Newfoundland to hear the appeals from the
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decisions of the appeal board. By that time who would care? What would have become of the person who had been disqualified?
As I say, under the old rules a woman in that position could at least look forward to the remainder of her claim. Now she can look forward to nothing.
I heard over and over again sexual harassment is just cause. Well it certainly is, but little has been shown by this government that it believes it.
I rose three times in this House last week and once this week on different issues of sexual harassment. There are two women from the Public Service in Halifax who are currently at home collecting UI benefits. They are lucky they are still under the old rules. The Public Service of Canada in two separate investigations found sexual harassment against these two women yet they are at home without jobs, collecting UI benefits. Their harasses who are known to the Public Service Commission are in their jobs. According to a report someone in that very office is highly amused the member of Parliament for Halifax has brought forward this complaint and these women have gone public in the press. I promise that sometime before I die people will be laughing from the other sides of their faces.
There are other incidents of sexual harassment in the Public Service of Canada. I have an incident of a woman who was at managerial level in another Public Service branch who is also at home collecting unemployment insurance benefits because she dared to complain.
I have another incident of a woman who was on contract and was told by a minister of this very House the report she made would not be left on her file. She is also currently unemployed.
We have a report from the advisory body on the status of women to the Associate Minister of National Defence that was published last week. I raised it in the House yesterday and it says: "The Armed Forces of Canada: Complaints rise from every base in this country on sexual harassment".
Does this sound like a government that has a policy that would consider sexual harassment just cause for leaving your employment? If it does to you, Mr. Speaker, I can only say it does not to the women of Canada, and the women of Canada are upset.

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We are not going to sit back and allow a whole series of Anita Hills to be pilloried in this country the way they were in the United States. This makes us angry and it is not just women parliamentarians, women lawyers and those of us who have a voice and an arena in which to speak who are angry. It is women across the board in this country. It is store clerks, secretaries, clerks in government departments, people all over the place who work for low wages and have glass ceilings keeping them from advancement. They are angry and they have a right to be angry.
This government has changed the rules in UI so if these women are sexually harassed and quit their jobs they have to prove their cases. They are going to have to hire lawyers to do it. I would like to know where the government, and in particular the Minister of Employment and Immigration, thinks they are going to get the money to do this. By accidents of birth, education, and personality a number of us can combat this kind of behaviour and cut it off where it deserves to be cut off.
The woman who can barely afford bus fare, to quote one of my hon. colleagues in the other place this afternoon, does not have that luxury. She does not have that kind of money. In this economy where this government has cut so much to so many groups, there is not a legal aid office that can afford to take on cases like that.
I know my hon. colleague, the member for Cape Breton-East Richmond and our critic for justice, knows that as well. Legal aid lawyers are too busy with security of the person cases to have time to represent these.
Not all members of Parliament are committed as the member for Gander-Grand Falls to representing constituents in these situations.
What happens to these women? I will tell you what happens to them. They quit their jobs. They do not have the money for legal representation. They know the "cubs" as they are called, which are the reports of the umpire, show unequivocally that sexual harassment has not been found to be just cause. So what happens to these women? They go on welfare. They go on social assistance. They walk away because they cannot sacrifice what little money they have for lawyers' fees and they do not have enough to cover them anyway. There is no legal aid and there sure is no recourse from their government
in Ottawa. The government in Ottawa, through its senior public servants, its minions, the supposed personnel officers for this government, says sexual harassment complaints are childish. They say sexual harassment is something women have to learn to live with. We will not and we are not going to put up with it.


Hon. Jean Corbeil (Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise this evening to support the important and progressive economic program tabled yesterday by my colleague, the Minister of Finance. I will talk more specifically about the measures in this program that deal with transport.
Over all, the measures that were announced will significantly affect every Canadian. Some have said that it is strong medicine and too extreme. Based on my own experience as a businessman and a politician at the municipal and federal levels I can only applaud the strategy developed by my colleague to reduce expenses and, at the same time, to apply the economic stimulus that is so necessary to our country in the present circumstances.

Transportation cannot be immune from such a balancing exercise. Belt tightening has to be shared by all Canadians.
As the Minister of Finance said in his statement, the government will commit $500 million in new federal spending during the next two years to a strategic investment program. I am pleased to note a considerable portion of these funds has been earmarked for transportation infrastructure.
The federal initiative comprises two parts. First, the federal government will invest up to $255 million in federally owned highway infrastructure which is key to economic development. Among other things funds will be allocated to the maintenance of the federal bridges in Montreal, namely the Champlain and Jacques Cartier bridges. These bridges have reached their full capacity and handle some 80 million vehicles a year. At this rate the rapidity with which these bridge facilities are deteriorating cannot be overstated. Given their strategic importance for the Montreal region as major national and
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international arteries, it is our responsibility to ensure these links are maintained in safe and usable conditions.

A second important federal intervention concerns the Trans-Canada Highway in the national parks located in Newfoundland, Alberta and British Columbia. More than 200 kilometres of the Trans-Canada Highway belong to the federal government and major sections of that highway no longer meet safety standards.
Provincial highways have aged in spite of the efforts made by provinces. If we want to meet present needs and promote economic growth for tomorrow it is essential to do these repairs and to expand our whole highway system. Without interfering in provincial jurisdiction the federal government has now announced its intention to invest jointly with the provinces in some provincial road projects that are national priorities in terms of security and economic growth.
Consequently, the federal government will invest over $400 million in upgrading provincial highways across the country. We believe that the provinces will be pleased with this unprecedented federal effort and will participate with us in implementing this ambitious highway investment program. We will very soon discuss with the provinces the specific projects to be undertaken as well as the provinces' financial involvement. We hope that construction can begin as early as next spring thus speeding the economic recovery. It is estimated that these projects will generate approximately 11,000 person-years of employment over the next five years.

In addition to upgrading existing highways and bridges it is also time to begin the construction of new strategic infrastructures. Consequently the federal government will commit to the construction of a fixed crossing to P.E.I. provided the province agrees to recognize the facility meets Canada's constitutional obligations to the province. To demonstrate this commitment the government will allow advanced engineering and environmental work to proceed.
Assuming provincial agreements and successful negotiations with the private developer, project construction could begin next spring. The project is expected to generate up to 3,500 person- years of employment over a
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five-year construction period. Roughly 70 per cent of the estimated $800 million to $900 million project cost will be spent in Atlantic Canada.
Surface transportation has many interdependent links. For an integrated approach it is vital we ensure improvements are undertaken which strengthen the transportation system as a whole.
At this time I am pleased to be able to inform this House of developments in two other areas of transport activity. On the port side, Canada Ports Corporation has a key role to play in ensuring that our ports make the necessary key commercial investments needed to meet the competitive challenge of global markets.
I understand that Canada Ports Corporation has given high priority consideration to strategic capital investments in a number of areas, including a major new container facility for the port of Vancouver at Roberts Bank and an expansion of existing container facilities, as well as rail network improvements, in the port of Montreal.
The government will be exploring similar non-budget financing opportunities in other areas as further strategic infrastructure projects with clear and direct commercial potential are identified.
On the rail side the government is prepared to make available new funding for the development of a more efficient rail system in high-traffic areas. Works will include new grade separations and other improvements with high safety and efficiency pay-offs.
Let me now turn to another vital element of our transportation infrastructure, namely our airports. The initiative provides for airport capital projects based on commercial arrangements, arrangements which will not require new government spending.
Airports in particular can make a strong contribution to the economic life of their communities as independent commercial entities. The transfer of a number of federal airports to local operating authorities with independent financing capabilities is already facilitating productive new investments such as the development of a major new runway facility for Vancouver.
Similarly, pending consideration of the report of the environmental panel, it is anticipated that any new runways at Pearson International will be constructed and funded on the basis of a commercial approach. The

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importance of Pearson cannot be overstated. The airport now generates more than 56,000 direct and indirect jobs, which in turn generate $1.9 billion a year in personal income and $4 billion in direct revenue for local businesses and the tourist industry.
Modem facilities at Pearson are vital to the economic and social development of metropolitan Toronto, southern Ontario and all of Canada. In the case of terminal 3 it was the first time that government asked the private sector to provide a terminal building and operate it without government funding. The opening of terminal 3 in early 1991 and the improvements completed to terminal 2 in 1990 provided the additional terminal capacity to meet the short-term needs of Pearson Airport.
The government is committed to expanding Pearson's terminal capacity to provide better service to an increasing number of users. Development must however proceed in a responsible manner within established guidelines.

Members know very well that the environment is changing for all airline companies of the world and Canada is no exception. Our two main carriers have undertaken an organizational realignment in order to try to meet the challenge they are faced with.
Last March the government issued a request for proposals for the retrofitting and operation of terminals 1 and 2 at Pearson airport.
As the Minister of Finance said, we are ready to launch the project for terminals 1 and 2 in Toronto if we can get private funding. The project will be carried out in such a way as not to disturb these companies in their efforts to remain cost-effective. It should allow for the creation of 2,000 to 3,000 jobs each year during construction. I will be in a position to give you more information on this initiative in the near future.

During the next five years I envisage an expenditure of up to $20 million on airports north of 60. In our modern technological age the concept of infrastructure embraces more than roads, bridges and runways. High technology infrastructure has an important place in our modern transportation system.
For example International Civil Aviation is moving to microwave landing systems as the standard for instrument landing with a 1998 target for implementation. Therefore, there is a need to prepare Canadian airports for this development.
In the context of this initiative the money we are allocating to the MLS project will allow for an early start in applying the latest technology to air navigation.
MLS provides an opportunity for development of advanced technology within Canada which will both answer our own immediate operational needs and give us a product with considerable export potential.
This key economic sector will also gain from many of the other initiatives announced by my hon. colleague in his statement.
In the coming weeks we will be working diligently to finalize agreements with our partners in the various components of this initiative and we will commence work as soon as it is feasible to do so.


Derek Nigel Ernest Blackburn: I am not particularly happy to participate in this debate today on the Minister of Finance's economic statement that he delivered before the House yesterday. I say that because I think it was one of the saddest documents I have had the misfortune to listen to and read in this Chamber. However, do not just take my word for it.
The Minister of Finance today was quoting various articles from the Toronto Star to reinforce his arguments in response to questions during Question Period. I would like bring to the House's attention Carol Goar's article in today's Toronto Star. It is headlined: "A brazen attack on the weakest". That headline is referring to the minister's economic statement of yesterday. In the first paragraph she writes:
A government that would cut unemployment insurance benefits at a time like this is not just heartless. It is dangerously out of touch with the people it purports to serve.
By reaching into the pockets of the unemployed yesterday, finance minister Don Mazankowski transformed a mid-course economic correction into a brazen attack on the nation's most vulnerable citizens.
Many speakers on this side of the House have drawn attention to the absolute unfairness of the economic statement which was in fact a budget for the next fiscal year. It is not surprising that a Conservative government that still holds to the old ideology of the trickle-down theory of economics, that if we make it richer for the people at the top they will spend money and invest
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money and it will somehow trickle down to the middle and lower income groups, a government that still adheres to that kind of economic philosophy is so out of whack, so out of date with the present reality that it no longer deserves to hold power in this country and to be in government.
After all the Americans discovered in the past year or two just how Reaganomics had destroyed their economy over the previous 10 years and they took action. They took action the democratic way and threw out a Republican conservative president of their country. That is exactly what the people of this country are going to do in the next seven or eight months when this government gets up enough nerve to call an election.
In the limited time that I have this evening I want to zero in on two aspects of that budget. The first aspect concerns the changes to the unemployment insurance system.
I do not know why the Minister of Finance would pick the weakest in our economy, the weakest in our society, to fight the deficit on. I really do not understand it. These are the people who are unemployed. These are the people who have been in and out of work for the past two or three years. Some of them have been out of work completely for the last two or three years. Yet this is the group the Conservative government of the day has targeted, on whose backs it has decided to fight the deficit and the debt.
The measures taken by the government are nothing short of Draconian. I do not think there is any question about that.
The initiative says that those who quit their jobs without just cause and those fired for insubordination will simply not get unemployment insurance benefits, period. I did not think that I would be in this Chamber long enough to witness any government taking that kind of extreme and unfair action, particularly at a time of severe economic depression in this country.
Who says, for example, what a just cause is? How do we know whether the applicant quit because he or she did not care or because he or she was working for an
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abusive boss? These tribunals, this appeal process, is really not a court process.
They are not the rules of evidence. They are not the protections for those who are innocent. I suggest that when some of these cases get to the umpire, and the backlog builds up year after year after year, that these tribunals will be emotionally charged to the point where I doubt very much whether natural justice will have its day in court.
I suggest that the Minister of Finance go back to the blueprint, go back to his drawing board, and in the name of decency withdraw that Draconian measure which he introduced yesterday in his budget.
Whose decision will it be to say whether the applicant had a reason to quit? Is it the employer's word against the applicant's? If that is the case we all know whose side this government will be on.
What about workers who quit because they are breathing in toxic fumes and the company refuses to clean up its act? What about the woman who is forced to quit her job because her husband gets a transfer to another city? Is that going to be considered just cause? After all she has paid into unemployment insurance for many months, or many years in most cases. Should she be deprived of benefits simply because, through no fault of her own, she has to quit and remove herself to another city or another province?
Does anyone on the government side really appreciate just how long these appeals take? Can the House imagine an employee going to his employer and saying: "I am not working in that paint shop another minute. It is killing me. The toxic fumes are so intense I cannot breathe". Can the House imagine how long an environmental investigation assessment would take? It would take not weeks or months but possibly two or three years.
In the meantime the employee could be adjudicated as having not exercised just cause in quitting his job and therefore be denied unemployment insurance because the tribunal at that point, or the umpire, would not have the scientific evidence at its disposal in order to come to a decision in favour of the employee who has quit.
This is extremely unfair. It is going to open the whole process to even more abuse, this time particularly on the part of the employers. If we are talking about sexual harassment-and the hon. member for Halifax went into a great deal of detail in her remarks, and I agreed with everything she said-it is going to be extremely unfair to

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women who are victims of sexual harassment, not necessarily physical harassment but verbal harassment. How do people prove that unless they walk around with some kind of a concealed microphone or tape recorder on their person? Do members see how this is going to bring so much tension, strife and conflict within the work place?
The government is reducing its costs of unemployment insurance but little does it realize that by withdrawing money or reducing money within the unemployment insurance envelope it is actually going to hurt small business in an economic downturn, in a severe recession.
In my riding of Brant there are many small businesses, small retail shops, which without welfare cheques from their customers and without unemployment insurance cheques from their customers would not make it during a recession. A lot of them do not want to admit it but it is the absolute truth. When people receive unemployment insurance they do not take that money and sock it into some luxury condominium in the Cayman Islands. They spend all that money and they spend it at home. They spend it on groceries, clothes, gasoline, car repairs, you name it. It goes directly back into the local economy.
Cutting back $550 million in unemployment insurance benefits means that there is so much less money to go back into the local economies across this country.
In cutting back on unemployment insurance, in tackling the poor in this country, the disadvantaged and the unemployed I noticed that the Minister of Finance once again very conveniently side-stepped the big issue of taxing family trusts. There is over $50 billion in family trusts, controlled by fewer than 100 families, in this country. It will now go untaxed for another 50 or 75 years until the last child living today dies. That could be 80 years. It is estimated that there will be accumulated tax losses of close to $ 100 billion over the next 50 to 75 years.
Even in one year alone, if those family trusts were taxed-and I am talking now about the Westons, the Bronfmans, the very wealthy people in this country-it is estimated that we could get $35 billion in taxes-billions of dollars, not millions-from that source. These people
would be forced to pay their fair share of taxes. That is equal to one year's annual budgetary deficit.
That is how serious this government is about making the tax system fair in this country. It is an absolute shame that this government allows the very rich and powerful in this country to get away without paying their fair share of taxes. At the same time it goes after those on unemployment insurance to cut back on their benefits. In my view, this government ha's become an absolute national disgrace.


Pauline Browes: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to address members tonight concerning the economic statement recently brought down in the House of Commons.
The theme of investing in growth, investing in people, investing in our infrastructure are the themes I have heard in my own community of Scarborough Centre.
Scarborough Centre is a riding in metropolitan Toronto which has many small businesses. The heart and soul of every community and, indeed, the Canadian economy, is small business.
When businesses expand communities prosper and the Canadian economy grows. Businesses with 50 or fewer employees account for about 45 per cent of private sector employment in Canada. They have been responsible for most private sector job creation in recent years.
Between 1979 and 1990 small business has created more than two million new full-time jobs for Canadians. This is more than 80 per cent of the total jobs it created during that period. I am veiy proud of the vibrant small businesses we have in Scarborough Centre.
A business, however, is more than just a business to those who start it. It is a symbol of pride and fulfilment of a lifelong dream, the fruition of an idea, the result of tireless hard work and determination to make that idea come to life. The Government of Canada is working very hard to preserve and foster this sense of pride and to keep the dreams of every small business person alive in Canada.
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Yesterday in the House of Commons my hon. colleague, the Minister of Finance, set out a plan to encourage the creation of more small businesses in Canada and the retention of existing ones.
The RRSP home buyers plan has been extended by another year and the Small Business Financing Program by another two years. He also introduced a one-year 10 per cent small business investment tax credit for purchases of machinery and equipment. That is going to be very good news indeed for Scarborough Centre and all of metro Toronto.
As well, he outlined plans to provide most new and existing small businesses in Canada with relief in the area of unemployment insurance premiums for 1993.
To encourage small businesses to expand and to hire new employees the government will, in effect, pay any increase in unemployment insurance employer premiums over the 1990 levels up to a maximum of $30,000. Therefore, any incorporated or unincorporated businesses whose employer's share of unemployment insurance premiums in 1992 was less than $60,000 will be eligible to benefit under this program.
These innovative measures will allow small and medium-sized businesses in Canada to continue to grow, to modernize, to create jobs in communities across this great nation of ours.
I know the benefits to a community of a prosperous local business sector. In my own community of Scarborough there are numerous examples of small businesses that are doing well. Some small businesses have now grown to medium and large-sized ones.
When it comes to unemployment insurance, we have talked to our constituents across Canada and we have heard of the costly abuses of unemployment insurance. We can all cite examples. That is why a very important aspect of this economic statement has been incorporated to deal with these abuses.
It was announced that some persons who voluntarily quit their jobs without just cause or who lose their jobs because of their own misconduct will not be eligible for unemployment insurance.
Let me hasten to say that just cause has already been defined as reasons of health, safety concerns, transfer of a spouse to another region of the country, and harassment. I feel confident those abuses which have taken
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place will indeed be curtailed because of the inclusion of this just cause provision in this economic statement.
Now let me turn to the environmental aspects of the statement. Many companies in Scarborough and across Canada have demonstrated a commitment to the production of environmentally friendly products and environmentally sensitive production processes. This is very important since the environment is one of Canada's and the world's fastest growing industries.
Yesterday's economic statement has in no way reduced our government's commitment to protecting Canada's environment.
Although the green plan's budget has been reduced, funding for green plan initiatives will continue to grow significantly on a year to year basis at a time when expenditures on most programs will decline or be frozen. In fact, spending under our green plan program will continue to increase by some 30 per cent each year in the next three years.
As well, there is very good news for our national parks. In British Columbia and Alberta the national parks and roads will be improved as will the national park in Newfoundland. That will improve safety and make it far more accessible for visitors in our magnificent national parks.
The green plan's budget however should not be taken as a measure of its success or its failure, not the budget alone. The green plan's mandate is to improve decision making and decision-making processes and to change people's attitudes relating to the environment. Its accomplishments can only be judged by its ability to achieve its all-important goals, and this goes to the heart of the green plan and what it is all about.
There is good news concerning the expansion of environmental industries. The world market for environmental products in 1990 was approximately $200 billion U.S. By the year 2000 it is expected to grow to some $375 billion U.S. currency.
In Canada the market for environmental products is estimated to be some $7 billion. This $7 billion of environmental industries creates another $13 billion in indirect economic activity for a total of over $20 billion.
Some 150,000 Canadians work in this rapidly growing sector of our economy. It is growing steadily and is the real growth industry in Canada. I am so very proud to hear about the number of students enrolled in those environmental studies in order to go into these indus-

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tries, to begin new industries, begin those new businesses that are being talked about in this economic statement.
Our government also believes that one of the keys to economic prosperity for Canada is the reduction of Canada's national debt. The hon. finance minister's economic statement yesterday reflects this position.
Individually and collectively, it is incumbent on us to curtail further deficit increases. Debt load leaves countries vulnerable. It is money which cannot be used to help our small businesses or develop our economy.
Our government has reversed the Government of Canada's operating deficit of some $16 billion in 1984 to an operating surplus. This economic statement further assists in this respect.
All Canadians have a responsibility to do their part in helping to reduce our country's burden of debt. That is why I fully support my colleagues announcement of a two-year freeze in the salaries of the Governor General, the Lieutenant-Governor, the Prime Minister, all ministers and indeed, each of us in the House of Commons, as well as on salaries of the public servants of the Crown.
The measures announced by my colleague yesterday in his economic statement demonstrate the Government of Canada's commitment to fostering the success of small businesses in communities throughout this magnificent country of ours.
As well, it sends a positive message to all Canadians. It is a message that this government is serious about fostering the entrepreneurial spirit of Canada's small business men and women.
This government is serious about preserving the heart and soul of the Canadian economy, the small business sector, in order that our children and indeed our grandchildren will have opportunities and will be the beneficiaries of our responsible actions and decisions.


Russell Gregoire MacLellan: Madam Speaker, it gives me a great deal of pleasure to speak on the economic statement delivered yesterday by the Minister of Finance.
I have quite a few concerns about the economic statement. I will relate them to the Minister of Finance who is in the House. I appreciate his presence. First of all, because he is here, I have to give credit where credit is due.
For a long time we have been trying to promote an industry on Cape Breton Island that made microwave landing systems. I have spoken to the Minister of Finance on this in the past. He has been very supportive to the extent that the government has awarded a contract to this company.
It is going to be of tremendous importance to my riding which has terrible unemployment. Not only that, but it is also going to enable us to get away from the older stereotyped industries of coal and steel. It will get us into a technological type of industry in which Cape Bretoners can develop a track record. They will be able to get the news of this track record across the country and thereby attract other important sophisticated research and development and technological industries to my riding.
There will be those who say: "Well, he really did not do anything. The government really did not do anything. This contract was announced awhile ago". But with the cost cutting, with the concern we have had on reduction, there has been this problem hanging over our heads that this contract was going to disappear. In fact the Minister of Transport, who is in the House, will know that this was scratched from the list as recently as August but put back on for which I am very grateful. Now we have it secured. That is tremendously important.
I also want to say to the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Finance and indeed to the government that our problems do not end in Cape Breton. There is the problem of what we are to do, how we are to employ those coming out of the steel plants and the mines having lost their jobs over the last number of years. We have an unemployment rate of about 30 per cent. It is really difficult. There are no easy answers and I recognize that.
I also want to say that twinning of highways is not an answer for Cape Breton. Going from Halifax to Sydney there is a good deal of traffic between Halifax and New Glasgow. Then after New Glasgow and Antigonish, the traffic reduces somewhat. It reduces even more getting to the Strait of Canso. Then when one gets to Cape Breton, the traffic is drastically reduced. When you get on to Cape Breton Island, not only is the traffic drastical-
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ly reduced but there are two roads from the causeway to Sydney. There are twice the number of ways for you to get from the Strait of Canso to Sydney. We really do not need highways. But we do need help. We need help with infrastructure because unemployment and welfare has drained our municipalities something fierce.
We have had increased welfare costs in some of our communities of as much as 300 per cent. They cannot repair the infrastructure. They just cannot do it. The money is not there. Through the catch-22 situation that exists, we have to be able to upgrade our communities to make them attractive. Although we were starting to attract, hopefully, the nucleus of new technology, we want to have people who want to live in our communities. For that reason we do need a lot of help in that regard.
I am very pleased there is assistance for the parks in western Canada. Having travelled in western Canada, the national parks in that part of the country are absolutely gorgeous. They are a national treasure and should be upgraded and maintained. The federal government has said that federal roads and roadworks in western Canada's national parks will be upgraded and I think that is very important.
I would also say that on Cape Breton we have the Cape Breton Highlands National Park which needs some help because it is the flagship, so to speak, of the tourist industry on Cape Breton Island. Not only Cape Breton Island benefits but the whole province benefits because it brings tourists through the province to the park. With some seed money we can develop that park to benefit the whole province of Nova Scotia. As well, we can give much-needed jobs to people who are having a very difficult winter mainly because of the problems we had last year in our tourist industry and the problems we are enduring through the fishing industry on Cape Breton Island.
I would ask the government, and particularly the Minister of Finance, if he would please consider this.
I would say too that it is important when you take things away. People in Canada understand that at times you have to tighten your belt, you have to reduce the benefits sometimes and the incomes that have been forwarded and provided to the people of Canada. But it is very important at the same time to give the people an
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idea of where it is going to end, to develop a program that tells the people you are preparing to contribute to the reduction of your aspirations and benefits, but this will lead to a specific conclusion. We do not have that in this economic statement. We do not know where it is going to end.
The Minister of Finance mentioned that the net foreign debt is far higher for Canada than any other of the G-7 countries. He also said that Canadians paid more than $22 billion in interest last year to foreign lenders. These figures are alarming. The fact is that we have to be able to deal with that.
The Minister of Finance in his budget last year targeted the repatriation of foreign debt. I think it is very important for the Minister of Finance to tell us where we are going to go. His deficit expectations for this year were not met because the revenues were not as high as the government expected.
However, this question of foreign debt is vital, particularly when we are dependent upon the sale of our treasury bonds to be able to pay the interest on this debt as it occurs. So the treasury bonds are not being sold to Canadians; more and more they are being sold to foreigners, particularly to Americans, which is requiring us to keep our interest rates high to make those bonds attractive.
We also have to keep our dollar high so that we are not paying an increasing amount to foreign countries in currency exchange. I realize that. The fact of the matter is that we have to deal with it. The fact of the matter is that we have not dealt with it. People need to know, they have to be able to see where we are going. People do not want to see their benefits that they have worked so hard to obtain, the better standard of living we have, our health care programs, our increased allowance for pensions, eroded without any idea as to where it is going to end. That will only cause further dissatisfaction, further uncertainty, and a tremendous amount of fear. We have to know what the government's plans are for bringing this slide to a halt.
Certainly there may be fat in the system, but there are a lot of poor middle-income Canadians who do not have any fat to give to the government, that there is real need in this country which we cannot ignore. We cannot

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continually take away from these people. We cannot take away from the regions.
Perhaps we can modify what we are going to give on a short-term basis. People have to know. If they do not know, then they cannot accept this. They just cannot see that it is ever going to end. They are going to see the work and the development over the last few years and the accumulated improvements in the standard of living gradually disappear at their expense.
That is not going to work, I am afraid, in areas of high unemployment where the government is not being forthcoming with a plan. We are going to have a great deal of dissension, a great deal of hardship and a great deal of unhappiness and lack of confidence in the system. I am afraid that we have to deal with this. We have to deal with the people in need. We have got to address where this country is going.


Mrs. Sheila Finestone (Mount Royal):: Madam Speaker, I was just talking to the Minister of Finance and I do not think that the members of my Mount Royal riding are going to be particularly happy, as I told him, with this budget.
I can only hope that the end result will in the long run somehow repair the dramatic damage that has been done to our country through the poor public policy and particularly the financial policies undertaken by this government.
As I stand here to speak for the constituents of Mount Royal, believe me it is not to applaud this government, but to address the failures as they have impacted on my own riding and the people who live there.
It is quite obvious that the new economic statement continues the faulty economic policies. Many of my constituents in Hampstead, Cote St. Luc, Snowdon, Cote des Neiges and the town of Mount Royal keep telling me that this government is simply out of touch with the real people and they have not addressed their concerns. There is nothing positive in a really constructive way in this budget that makes them feel comfortable and feel hopeful.
It does not matter what their background, what their economic status, the level of their education, their mother tongue, their country of origin, where they live in
my riding, whether it is in a home, whether it is in an apartment and in the worst case some in the street, this government has ceased really to represent their needs and this budget simply confirms it.
I am talking about Mount Royal riding's population of
90,000	that includes a significant immigrant population from the world over: the Caribbean, East Africa, East Asia, Europe, the Middle East, eastern Europe, South America, from seniors who I am always proud to say make up over 20 per cent of my riding to single parent families, two parent families, the under employed to the unemployed, are all anxious for a more stable economic future, yet gained little hope from yesterday's declaration by the Conservative government.
Do not lose hope is my message to them. Do not lose your spirit. I know that you walk through the streets in my riding and you see all those empty store windows and all those endless for rent signs. We say that M. A Louer owns an awful lot of property in Mount Royal.
Thousands of jobs have been lost under the government's policies, particularly in textile, in clothing, in the food processing industry, in small business and in sales and services. When you add the youth job losses because of the cuts this government has brought in, particularly this past summer under the federal youth employment programs, the problem gets even worse.
Let us consider the Adjustment Training Program. I had a large number of young people who were quite excited about being admitted for re-education and training, if you would care to put it that way, but then the government reneged in the middle of all this and cut their opportunity at the third term, in mid-stream. Many of them have lost hope. I say to all of them, do not lose hope. I know that you have been very unhappy with the government. Obviously Tories do not know how to look at this world through proper glasses. They use those rose-coloured glasses that are not answering the needs.
I see in the community centres I visit, at the line-ups at the food banks, the images of the tremendous social needs out there. Children are going to school hungry, yes, in Mount Royal riding. People are living in dwellings that need upgrading. Our youth need training and skills. Again in yesterday's budget, this government has failed to be the compassionate and caring government it would like to pretend it is.
December 3, 1992

The story of poverty in my riding might shock some members of this House. Thousands of people live below the poverty line, from the working poor to those on social assistance, from the single mothers to the single elderly who rely on sponsored, in-home health care, meals on wheels and the food bank because their needs exceed their means. Yet they too receive little hope from the Prime Minister's trickle-down budget and the made-in-Canada recession. We have had the wrong policies at the wrong time. We have the GST and free trade instead of freer trade which would be good for all of us. It is not "any deal at any price" but a proper deal, a fair deal that we as Liberals have always believed in.
One could lose hope, but do not. Go out and help a neighbour. Go out and work as a volunteer. Do something. Do not get depressed because I know that it could be depressing when you know that Montreal is the capital urban city of the unemployed in Canada. I worry about the one in five unemployed. Perhaps now it might fall to one in four, although not yet I think, of our population who is without a job.
I worry for those who need better skills to find jobs. I share the concern of parents whose children have grown, become well-educated and yet still cannot find work. I worry about the 70 per cent of English speaking students who have said that they plan to leave upon graduation from college and university. I say, stay. You will find the way despite this government.
What do we get from the Conservatives? "Stay the course," they say. "Watch the deficit," they say. "We just cannot afford to help any more," they say. I say in response, we cannot afford not to help. Luckily the people in this riding are strong willed and still hold out hope with or without the care or help or caring of a national government.
Conditions in the riding and across the country prove that we need a change of course and yesterday's economic statement was really the last straw. This government has failed to meet the historic Canadian test of compassion, fairness, balance, putting people first, of giving Canadians the tools they need to win, the economic competition and simply giving hope.
I fear that we have become a country of little more than balance sheets and deficits as the only priorities. We simply cannot ignore the human debt and deficit in the name of financial debt and deficits, for doing so means we give up the social priorities that made us the great
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nation we are, that has made us different and has made us the envy of the world.
It is not too late to hold on to caring and compassion and, yes, competitive Canada. These are not mutually exclusive goals. In fact, they are inherently Canadian goals and they make sense for the country we wish to build, particularly when we hear the echo of that early Haida saying: "We have not inherited this land from our grandparents. We have simply borrowed it from our grandchildren".
In the last moments I would like to address the communications and cultural issues which are my responsibility in this House. Once again, Canada's arts and cultural community have felt the lash of the Tories. In their first economic statement in 1984 culture was cut by $122.5 million and in what we all hope is their last economic statement, there will be a further cut of $80 million over the next two years, this coming just two weeks after the sector suffered a 2 per cent blow to the tune of $11.8 million.
Let us for a moment look at this government's support to culture since 1984 when it took office. These numbers are based upon the government's own spending estimates. From 1984 to 1992 there has been a 24 per cent cut in direct and indirect federal cultural spending in real terms. This is a drastic, unconscionable cut, if we truly believe in nation building.
It is also interesting to compare the trends in cultural spending and the federal defence budget. Federal defence spending increased 38.6 per cent during the same period. The notion of a proud and independent Canada seems to have faded in the interest of the war games and war toys.
Culture is the very essence of our national identity and the bedrock of our national sovereignty and national pride. It gives meaning to the lives of every Canadian and enriches the country socially, politically and economically. It gives us pride in our country.
A cultural defence for Canada is what we need. As we look at what this government has done, as we look at the Auditor General's statement on some of the unnecessary spending that has gone on, I sincerely hope the government will stop and give priority where it counts, to people, to people and work, to people and the social world in which they live, and to people and the expres-

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sion of culture, the ultimate expression of a country in this great world in which are privileged to live.


Brian L. Gardiner: Madam Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity to enter into the debate and discussion tonight on the finance minister's mini budget yesterday.
There was certainly a great deal of hype and anticipation, as there always is around a statement that a finance minister is going to make. There was a great deal of that around this particular statement, given the current state of our economy and the general direction or lack of direction of the government. There was a great deal of anticipation about what the government was going to do. Some of that anticipation surrounded the thought that there would be a significant and large infrastructure program across the country. Even in the hour or two before the introduction of the mini statement there were some discussions and thought that the government would try to address and deal with the whole question of the goods and services tax and the impact it has had on the economy.
I would like to make a few points on the general situation we find ourselves in now and to concentrate ever so briefly on two areas of particular importance and interest to my constituents.
I want to congratulate my colleague, the member for Essex-Windsor, on the comments he made yesterday in his initial response to the Minister of Finance. He laid out pretty clearly some of the desperate straits this government has got us into.
When we take a look at some of the evidence and information we see the kind of challenge we have before us. We are talking about 11.3 per cent unemployment. A recent report came out saying that there are 3.8 million Canadians in poverty, the worst it has ever been. By the government's own statistics there are some 2.5 million people on welfare. There is 11 per cent unemployed.
There was discussion surrounding the inability of the government and the finance minister to predict accurately the budgetary situation in relation to what the deficit would be. According to previous estimates of the government, at one point the deficit for 1993-1994 would be
$22.5 billion. Of course we now have the report that it is around $32.6 billion for next year. At one point it even suggested that in two years it would be down to $5 billion.
I find interesting the comments of some commentators on television. They seem to have forgotten many of the comments they and others made on the previous estimates of where the budget deficit would be. They seem to have forgotten and have quickly and easily rewritten history as far as the predictions of the government go.
I would like to move to two areas that were not included in the financial statement. The first point I want to pursue briefly is the question of the green plan which was discussed today in Question Period. I appreciated the honesty of the minister who responded when she said that the third cut to the green plan would be reviewed by cabinet. It would review some of the current programs under that plan to see the nature of the programs and how they would be operating in the near future.
There are three components of the green plan that I am particularly concerned about. First is the Fraser River Basin Management Plan in British Columbia where the Fraser River starts. It starts at one end of my riding nice and clean. When it turns south in Prince George it starts to get a little dirty.


Pauline Browes: The plan will be saved.


Brian L. Gardiner: The minister says that it will be saved. I hope she is as honest in the debate now as she was in Question Period when she says that the Fraser River plan will be saved.
Turning to the the other programs, maybe we will get the minister to respond as well. I am concerned about the Model Forest Plan and Tree Plan Canada. Let us hope the minister can give the same assurance. She is not doing that now. I am pleased about the Fraser River but we will hear-


Pauline Browes: It is a very important program.


Brian L. Gardiner: They are very important programs. I know we will hear from the government later. Let us hope they do not get the same treatment as some of the other programs have.
December 3, 1992

Most people have seen in the documents the minister brought forward some specific mention of a number of infrastructure programs in Atlantic Canada. Of course they are needed. There are some projects in national parks in British Columbia and Alberta-I think about Jasper near my riding and the Alaska Highway-that are needed.
The government has now had two years to take a look at a very important infrastructure program for northern British Columbia, the Yellowhead Highway Program, to upgrade and improve that particular highway. It was there before. It was cancelled by the former Social Credit government. The current government has not given us a great signal that it intends to proceed with that program.
Yesterday I wrote to the provincial minister, the member for Kamloops, the Hon. Art Charbonneau, and our federal transport minister to remind them of that program. It would be an excellent opportunity for us to improve the program. If I am not mistaken, the Yellowhead Highway goes through the riding of the Minister of Finance. I see him smiling. I would hope that means good luck for a Yellowhead program in the near future.
I have my Fraser River Program and I will get my Yellowhead Highway Program from the Minister of Finance tonight. However, I encourage the government to look at the program because it is important for northern British Columbia. I would strongly encourage the government and the minister to take a look at that particular highway because of its need. It is part of the national highways network. Of the $300 million that has been set aside for other initiatives with the provinces, I encourage this government to take a close look at that particular highway, to include it and to build in a program that would improve the Yellowhead Highway in some areas, bring it up to some standard. We are not talking about a lot of work.
I would like to conclude with those two comments on the importance of these programs. There is a need to protect the investment we have there and to suggest to the government that when it says it had some choices to make in this economic statement it was right. It made a number of wrong choices. It could have taken the opportunity to close some tax loopholes. It could have given Canadians an opportunity to have a consumer led
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recovery by scrapping the GST and bringing in a fair tax system.
Those are the kinds of messages I hope the government will listen to so that we can try to put Canada's economy back on the road again.


Hon. Ralph Ferguson (Lambton-Middlesex):: Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to speak tonight on this debate regarding the financial statement tabled in the House yesterday by the Minister of Finance which we should really refer to as a budget.
I am very concerned about various aspects of this budget, the fact that it zeros in on the people who can least afford it, the people who need help most. Certainly at this time of the year as we enter into the festive season, rather than giving a message of hope and inspiration it is ensuring us of increased and enduring hardship as we go into the new year. So much for a happy new year.
I could not help but notice in one of the documents yesterday an error that I think should be corrected because a lot of people may see it and take it to be fact. On page 66 of the document Investing In Growth, tabled December 2, 1992, it speaks about trade barriers within Canada and says "marketing boards, pricing and distribution of policies of provincially regulated marketing boards (pork products for example) can reduce interprovincial trade".
I am sure it is an oversight on the part of the minister. As a former Minister of Agriculture I am sure he is well aware that there are no interprovincial barriers to pork production. If there was to be a barrier to interprovincial movement it would have to be a federal barrier. The federal government, under the British North American Act, has jurisdiction over interprovincial trade and export trade. Only provincial governments can trade within the provinces. At the present time we do not have a national pork marketing agency. They are individual provincial marketing boards. Consequently that is an error. I draw it to the attention of the Minister of Finance. I am sure he will want to correct that statement.
I also want to point out that I am deeply alarmed by the cuts that took place in Agriculture Canada's budget. As I look at the chart that we have from the National Council of Welfare, property rates by occupation, 1990, it shows that in the heads of families the second highest is in farming, fishing and forestry. Here we have very little

December 3, 1992
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if any help for those industries except the 10 per cent investment tax credit made available to them. Of what use is that to the fisheries industry at the present time with the cutbacks it has had to face? How many farmers, with the incomes they have had, can use that tax credit?
I am very disturbed because farm income has utterly failed to keep pace with the Canadian average family income. About three years ago the government started referring to farm family income that included the wages of a spouse who was teaching school or nursing or if the husband was off driving a truck to supplement the farm income.
While that total family farm income for 1990 was $37,958, $21,251 of that came from sources that are not connected to the farm, such as the off-farm income I referred to. To go further than that, it left them a net of a little over $15,000 coming from the actual farm operation. Of that $8,091 came from government subsidies, either federal or provincial, but they were combined. That left a net figure of $7,615 coming from the farming operation itself. That is a national disgrace. It cannot continue. If these trends continue Canadian agriculture as we know it today will be completely destroyed.
There are some other things I want to touch on here. I am not an economist but common sense tells me as we look at what has been happening over the last 10 years. Our merchandise trade over the last 10 years has dropped from $17.6 billion in 1982 to $7.3 billion in 1992. The merchandise trade surplus has dropped by over $10 billion in those 10 years.
I also want to point out the current account deficit in Canada has gone from a surplus position in that same period of over $2 billion a year in 1982 to a deficit of $26.7 billion in 1991. That is money flowing out of Canada in either interest payments, dividends or as we heard today in Question Period, through loopholes in the tax system.
Canada cannot afford such haemorrhaging. We have done nothing to stop it and it is getting worse each year. As that continues to get worse then of course we are going to face increased hardships and further attacks on the unemployed and those people in society who can least afford it.
I am deeply concerned because one of our prominent economists, Arthur Donar argues that for each $20 billion in current account deficit, 500,000 jobs are lost and the government is allowing that to happen.
One very large food distribution and retailing firm operating in western Canada sent $538.7 million in dividends out of this country in 1990 to its parent company in the U.S. It borrowed over $400 million to do that. Guess who is going to pay back the amount in excess of $400 million? It is going to be the Canadian consumers and that money has gone out of Canada. Those dividends are part of that current account deficit. This sort of thing has to be arrested.
I am further disturbed about the closures of food processing plants. I will give you the Ontario figures first. From 1989 to 1992 a lot of plants closed. In the province of Ontario alone there were 59 closures. We keep a close check on what has been happening across Canada and some of these figures are available from Agriculture Canada, Statistics Canada, the Department of Labour as well as press reports. We find there have been over 100 closures.
As those plants close, Canadian producers lose a marketing alternative. When they lose those alternatives, we have to import those products. In that regard it adds to our current account deficit.
I am disturbed the government did not include some facts and figures on the current account deficit in the financial statement given yesterday. That is vitally important to this nation if we are going to continue to prosper and keep this social safety network that has served this country so well for so many years.
This country is built on the understanding of the needs of those less fortunate. It is built on the principle of care and compassion for the less fortunate. There has to be a dramatic turn around in policy or else there will be a lot of needy people here in Canada who are even worse off than they are now.
I am deeply concerned also about what is happening in other countries in terms of the concentration in the food production processing industry.
December 3, 1992

I have some facts here which come out of the sociology department of the University of Missouri. They point out that in the United States four firms control 69 per cent of the beef processing. Four firms control the same percentage of beef cattle feed lots.
I could go on and on because I have the firms listed here. The same firms are involved in production and processing. As those firms move to Canada in a big way, they will continue to erode and destroy the food producing and processing sectors in Canada.
I am deeply concerned. I do not often speak in this House on such issues as we have at the present time. I am really disturbed about this budget that was brought down. It is going to impact so viciously on so many people who can least afford it.


Mr. Rene Soetens (Ontario):: Madam Speaker, I rise with pleasure to participate in this debate today. I want to start off by saying to the minister of revenue I cannot give him three cheers for the particular statement he gave in the House yesterday, but I will give him two and one-half for sure. I will explain slightly why I would not give him the other half although he was certainly going in the right direction.
There are a lot of very good things in this budget. I want to compliment the minister on the fact that during this whole process as he was preparing for this particular statement, he listened, asked for and received advice from numerous people including your humble servant who is now speaking.
I am happy to say some of the things I recommended to the minister as being very appropriate to include in this statement are in fact there. They were not just hair-brained ideas I came up with to give to the minister.
In fact during the summer recess when we were back in our ridings I certainly took advantage of the opportunity to meet with numerous business people. I met with a group in conjunction with a meeting organized by the mayor of Whitby, the Durham Regional Manufacturer's Association, the Whitby Chamber of Commerce and the Whitby Junior Jaycees.
We came together with several vice-presidents of banks, I might add, to talk about the financing problems that exist for small businesses. In that meeting the issue
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was raised that the Small Businesses Loans Act existed, but it was there for people who wanted to invest in such things as new equipment. They appreciated the minister raised the amount from $100,000 to $200,000, but they were concerned it could not be used to assist them in their cash flow requirements on a daily basis.
I am happy to report in the minister's statement there is a clear indication there may be some assistance in those areas which were requested by the business community, the people who create jobs in the town of Whitby, the town of Ajax and the town of Pickering. I think that is a very positive step and I congratulate the minister for it.
Again, it was not my idea. It was an idea brought to me by the business community I met with during the summer. I thank the minister for that.
But he went a little further because there are businesses that are very successful and are experiencing good economic activity. They want to buy some new equipment. Not only has he improved the financing opportunity for that equipment, he has improved the tax credits for them to be able to afford to buy that equipment. That creates jobs. That equipment is manufactured in whole or in part in many areas of Canada and that creates economic activity everywhere.
There are some other things I was asked to deal with by the people I met. Unemployment insurance was of concern, not only to the business community but to my constituents who were on unemployment insurance and wanted to find jobs. Unlike some stories, I do believe and most of my constituents indicate, they want jobs. They do not want to sit at home and collect unemployment insurance. They do not want to sit at home and collect welfare. They want to find jobs.
The minister has put some very positive things in here. The first is for those businesses that want to hire the people who are on unemployment insurance. They do not face an increase in premiums because they are hiring some people. My riding has many small businesses. The minister, with full credit to him, has said to these small businesses: "We will not charge you more in the way of unemployment insurance premiums if you hire new people and get them working for you". That is very positive.

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On the other side many of my small business people have said when they do hire somebody they work their 20 or 22 weeks and then for whatever reason they can come up with they quit. They say they invest all this time, money and effort in training these people and lo and behold they qualify for unemployment insurance, they get their 20 weeks and quit. 1 can tell you the small business community has commented to me about that.
As a member of Parliament who represents one of the largest ridings in Canada, I can tell you many of my constituents tell me they are tired of these people who quit their jobs and go on unemployment insurance because they think they are entitled to it.
I want to congratulate the minister for that very bold step of telling people if they have jobs not to quit just to go on unemployment insurance because they are not going to get it. I congratulate the minister fully on that particular step.
I also congratulate the minister on another very appropriate step that relates to the unemployment insurance scheme. My constituents have faced very difficult times in the last few years and will not be getting salary increases. In fact many of them, if not most of them, are working for less money now than two or three years ago. But lo and behold if you go on unemployment insurance you are going to get an automatic raise in April of some 3 per cent or whatever.
I congratulate the minister for telling those on unemployment insurance they are not getting a raise next year. He did not say their unemployment benefits would be cut. He said they would not be raised. The raise that would have taken place next year of some 3 per cent is being cancelled. I congratulate the minister for that.
I also congratulate the minister for the salary freeze. You do not often like to admit these things but I was one of those who in fact encouraged it to happen. I encouraged it to happen in the Public Service and throughout the various government corporations that are affected. I encouraged it to happen for senators and I know that will just cause them to have another reason to have their thoughts about me. I also encouraged it to happen for members of Parliament.
I would have liked a raise, but I have 185,000 constituents and many of them are not getting raises. I think it is about time we in this collective Chamber decide we have to live within the means. Someday in the future when this Parliament and our budget systems in Canada are much more in line with the economic realities, maybe we can afford to give members of Parliament a raise. A two year freeze on MPs' salaries and all those others affected certainly does not bother me in the least. I can tell you I was one of those who recommended this and I have no hesitation in supporting that particular activity.
I think the minister was very wise in his statement relating to the infrastructure problem. We have unemployed people across Canada, there is no doubt about that. One of the easiest and quickest things we can do to get some people back to work is to put some money into building roads, bridges, highways and all those kinds of things.
First, they are very locally oriented so if you are going to build a bridge in Ajax, the construction workers of Ajax are probably going to be working on it. Across Canada, construction workers probably have one of the highest rates of unemployment. Lo and behold the Minister of Finance in his economic statement has said the government is going to put some money into infrastructure development.
It will be good for Atlantic Canada. It will be good for western Canada with highways through the national parks. It will be good for southern Ontario because money is going to be put into level crossings at railroads where a safety factor often has to be addressed. Those are very high concentrations of employment creation and I commend the minister for making those steps.
I also commend the minister for his commitment to getting on with the job of building the fixed link to Prince Edward Island. As someone from Ontario, you might question why I would even care about that. Those kinds of projects are important to the over-all structure of Canada. There is the whole highway aspect of eastern Canada and the maritimes. Part of the problem in this country is you must have the transportation systems in place to have economic activity. You have to make it possible for people and business to locate in regions of Canada and yet get to other parts of Canada. It is a very good economic decision.
December 3, 1992

I travelled extensively throughout the United States in my previous career. I was always amazed at how easy it was to get into some very rural parts of the United States. There would be large industries and maybe one industry towns. Manufacturing industries were located there for many reasons. One of them was the transportation systems were in place to allow industry to get its products to market. The best thing we can do for the maritimes and other regions of Canada is put in place a transportation system to allow industry to locate there without having to get a government grant. Government grants to locate industry are not the best thing.
I talked about some of the other things. I am really running short of time. I like the cuts in grants to organizations of 10 per cent across the board. However, this is where I miss out on my half a per cent. I had some in mind that I recommended should be cut totally and I am sorry they were not; the National Action Committee on the Status of Women, the Canadian Labour Congress and some business groups that get grants. There is a whole bunch I would like to cut off totally. Recognizing them may be difficult to do.
In very short order, I just want to put the minister on notice that I will be back for his February or March budget telling him about the groups I am ready to cut. I will also be back to tell him how I think we ought to adjust the MPs' pension plan and finally and certainly not least of all, I will be telling him how I think we have to address the deficit even further than we have already done.
I give the minister a good mark for effort on this. I cannot quite give him three cheers. However, it is probably one of the best statements I have heard the minister give and I give him full marks for that.


Mrs. Ethel Blondin-Andrew (Western Arctic):: Madam Speaker, I am happy to have this opportunity to speak about the economic situation in the north and generally in Canada.
Canadians in every region of this country have suffered in this recession, northern Canadians included. In fact, northerners must cope with additional economic difficulties due to their geographic location from the main economic corridors of the country. As a result, the
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cost of living in the north is 60 per cent higher than in the south. Major transportation routes and infrastructures remain basically incomplete.
A serious housing shortage threatens many northern communities. There is, I believe, a backlog of 3,500 units. The number of housing units, as has been announced, has been cut in half. This is something that is intolerable and unacceptable with the kinds of conditions northerners live in.
A lack of financial support threatens important aboriginal programs and organizations such as Indigenous Survival International, the fur industry defence program. There was no announcement for a commitment to those particular efforts that are much needed by the traditional harvesters of Canada.
With regard to public infrastructure, the NWT highway development, yesterday's economic statement outlined the government's commitment to undertake regional infrastructure projects to strengthen our national transportation system and communications network. Improving transportation in the north is crucial. Transportation is essentially the lifeline of the north due to the vast distances and the isolation which exists between communities. Transportation costs in the NWT are the highest in Canada. Economic development in the north cannot proceed without proper roads.
Never mind roads, if we lose Canadian Airlines as one of our carriers in the Northwest Territories, we will have a monopoly that will drive prices to a rate that would be intolerable and I think unconstitutional and unfair to people in the region who essentially will not have any other choice. They do not have a highway system.
The GNWT has identified the need of $3 billion for development. The government leader, Nellie Cour-noyea, has raised this issue with federal leaders at various meetings. I believe this was an issue that was profiled at the economic meetings among the premiers of the country. New roads are the constitutional and legal responsibility of the federal government. It has to be noted that only existing roads were transferred to the Northwest Territories, not any new initiatives.
I guess gone is the dream of Roads to Resources that Mr. Diefenbaker implemented. That certainly is not a Tory goal at this stage of the game.

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The Kitikmeot region in the NWT is very mineral rich but cannot develop without a transportation network. The Mackenzie Valley highway extension from Fort Wrigley to Inuvik is 804 kilometres and will cost $500 million. This is something that northerners have supported. I put forward a petition to the Elouse just recently about this.
GNWT cannot afford to build any new roads without the federal government contribution. While the government will spend approximately $5.25 million in the
1993-94 fiscal year, the needs are great and the north simply cannot be developed without transportation infrastructure. There is a great need in the north for new roads and ports, but $3 billion is needed and so is the initiative of the federal government where the responsibility lies squarely.
Yesterday's economic statement outlines that federal roads and roadworks in western Canada's national parks will be upgraded. We as westerners from the north, of course, assume that this includes the Wood Buffalo National Park, one of the outstanding parks in the world. Wood Buffalo National Park is one of Canada's most precious prizes in terms of parks.
The superintendent of Wood Buffalo National Park has announced that the park can no longer operate the winter road between Fort Chipewyan, Alberta, and Fort Smith, Northwest Territories. We need to extricate a definite commitment from the Minister of the Environment and the Minister of Finance that this indeed includes the initiative that was announced yesterday. The amount that they are asking for is a meagre $76,000 to keep these communities connected by a winter road. The 130 kilometre winter road provides winter-only access between Fort Smith, a population of 2,500, and Fort Chipewyan, a population of 1,300.
This other community outside of my riding borders the community of the hon. member for Athabasca. He also has an interest in seeing that this particular goal is achieved.
The road is open for four months a year approximately. This is the only means of access and transportation link between the isolated communities during winter months. The average cost to operate the road for four months is $60,000. I said $76,000; it is $60,000.
Clearly, as far as developing regional infrastructure projects, the federal government must consider a permanent road through Wood Buffalo National Park and a policy funding initiative whereby the cost of maintaining and continuing the Fort Smith winter road would be guaranteed, possibly through cost-sharing initiatives split between the province, territories and federal government.
Another issue that came up yesterday was that there would be an improvement in the airports in the north. The federal government has different levels of airports for which it has maintained support. The federal government must provide the desperately needed funding that would enable the GNWT to meet the existing needs and requirements for the improvements and upgrading of a number of community airports in the Northwest Territories in light of the fact that northern residents rely upon air transportation more than any other means of transportation. This critical and basic need is also an issue of safety.
The responsibility that the federal government had for the grassroots community is no longer there. It has transferred that responsibility to the GNWT. Those communities have real need. If no further resources are going to be allocated to the government of the Northwest Territories, we are not going to be able to deal with these specific needs.
I can think specifically off the top of my head of two instances where safety is an issue. In the community of Fort Franklin we had a very major accident in the last 15 years. We did not have the requirements met and there was an accident which resulted in the loss of life. The community is very concerned in that the airport runway is situated so that aeroplanes fly right over a schoolyard so the community wants the airport relocated.
In the community of Trout Lake, Northwest Territories, which is also a priority listed under the GNWT's airport plan, the community experiences severe crosswinds, extremely dangerous because it is not a sometimes thing. It is a constant problem for people going in and out of that community.
Regarding the home buyers plan and the Northwest Territories housing needs, the Minister of Finance said the RRSP program for first time home buyers would be extended for one more year. This is good news. Unfortunately, there are virtually no private housing markets
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outside of Yellowknife. This means a lack of affordable housing alternatives in most communities.
The federal government's decision to reduce the NWT housing budget will mean 200 fewer low-cost shared social housing units which will be built in the Northwest Territories in 1993. This comes at a time when the need for housing in the Northwest Territories has risen by 14 per cent over the last two years, in spite of the GNWT providing 800 units during this two year period. The NWT housing unit needs are unique. Severe climate isolated communities make construction and maintenance of housing unit costs five times higher than in the south. A higher percentage of residents in the north rely on social housing assistance as compared to the south.
The federal Department of Indian and Northern Affairs and Development does not contribute funding specifically for native housing in the NWT as it does in other jurisdictions. The birth rate in the Northwest Territories is more than twice the national average.
The federal reductions will have a definite impact: increased numbers of families in need of housing assistance, overcrowding and inadequate conditions will increase social and health-related problems, and loss of construction and other jobs in the private sector. The government needs to reinstate social housing funding to the NWT to the 1991 level. This is being recommended to the aboriginal affairs committee in the housing study they are doing. Hopefully we will be able to get some redress there.
Program cuts are of particular interest to natives and interest groups. I really resent the way in which interest groups or advocacy groups are being labelled by the government.
I might end by quoting one of the people who has written to me on this particular issue. What has happened over the last couple of years is that advocacy groups are being referred to in a very negative way. They pick up where the government has left off and I think that they do very good work.
I would like to quote one of the people from my riding who has indicated to me concern about the kind of situation that will be created by the reduction. Lynn
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Brooks with the NWT status of women has indicated the situation for women and children living in some of the northern communities is virtually explosive. In order to help and to have resources available, there needs to be funding. Women, children and seniors always fall at the bottom of this list.
In closing, I have to say that these cuts are very detrimental to the other community programs that we have, specifically the friendship centres. The Tree of Peace Friendship Centre in the Northwest Territories which offers very important programs like kindergarten, adult education, native outreach, drug and alcohol abuse programs and a camp for children in the summer is very important to our community. It cannot endure this 10 per cent cut.


David Stupich: Madam Speaker, Bill C-98, Borrowing Authority Act 1992-93, No. 2. The statement of the minister yesterday in speaking on this bill of course was an admission of failure. The minister kept talking about what the deficit is going to be this year, what it is going to be next year and the year after. For four years I have heard ministers of finance tell us quite confidently what the deficit is going to be five years from now and then estimate what it will be this year and perhaps next year.
Madam Speaker, I am sure you have had occasion in your career, or in your home life at least, to have used a funnel. There is a small hole at one end and a big hole at the other. As you pour material into the large hole, you can direct the flow through the small hole. Everything works out fine as long as you do it that way.
But, Madam Speaker, it would not occur to you to turn the funnel upside down and do it the other way around, trying to pour something into the wrong end of the funnel. That is what the Minister of Finance has been doing in trying to get the economy going. He is trying to pour the medicine into the wrong end of the funnel. In the process of doing that, of course a lot of it is being wasted. It misses the small hole and as it comes out the large hole, it is spread around and does not do any good.
The process has failed for two years now. This is not the first time they have tried it. Each time we get a new budget or a statement such as we had yesterday, the minister is trying to deal with the problem by going backward, pouring the medicine through the small hole

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and letting it come out the large hole and losing the effect.
Other members have talked about 1.5 million people unemployed in this country. They have talked about 2.5 million on social welfare, a total of four million people. That is a serious problem. It is very serious for the people involved. The talk so far has been about them and the harm this is causing them and what they are doing without.
There is another way of looking at those people. They are all potential customers. They all want to purchase something but they do not have the wherewithal to purchase it. What does the government do? The government says: "We will help small businesses produce more stuff. We are going to give them breaks on their depreciation allowance so that they can claim more depreciation for small businesses". This is the case after it was introduced in the budget this spring.
That will not help small businesses. It will not help them if they cannot produce anything and they cannot produce if they cannot sell. They cannot sell if there are not customers out there wanting to buy and able to buy, with the wherewithal to buy. That is the problem.
The government is going to increase the loan limit. What is the point in saying to the prospective borrower and to the lender that if this business person can produce financial statements that show that he or she can produce at a profit, and that unless they can do that the bank is not going to lend any money at whatever rate or whatever limit? If that business person could come to the prospective lender and say: "Here are my projections. I know that this business is out there waiting to buy if I produce this item. Will you lend to me knowing that I can make a profit on selling these items", then that prospective borrower has a much better chance of getting that loan.
What the government should be doing, instead of taking away from the unemployed and taking away from the people who do not have money, is giving the money directly to them, pouring the medicine through the small end of the funnel rather than through the large end, directing it to the people who need it most.
The Minister of Finance has been listening to a lot of advice since we started this debate at about 3.15 yesterday afternoon until midnight last night and probably until midnight again tonight. I have some sympathy for him. He is listening to a bunch of his own members tell him what a great job he has done, and he is listening to opposition members tell him what a terrible job he has done and, as I did, to say that it is an admission of failure when he comes in with the statement he made yesterday.
I am not sure if he would not like to consider for one moment what I have been talking about, which is that he should work it the other way around: put the money where the prospective customers are and make the purchasing power available to the four million people who are on social welfare and who are unemployed. Then small business will have the opportunity that it needs to expand.
That will create employment. That will get the economy going. As for giving the money directly to the small business people, if they are already making a profit, so be it, they will get a little more. If they are not making a profit it is not going to help them. They are not going to be able to borrow. They are not going to be able to do anything. It might slow down the time it takes them to go bankrupt as businesses are doing at a great rate in this country.
There is a way. It is not new. There is nothing new about it at all. This government has not tried it. There should be more money spent on education. The government has cut back on the money going to the provinces to help them with their educational programs. The government did not produce the training programs that were promised as part of the free trade deal. There are things like that that could and should be done that would get things moving in Canada.
More than anything else the thing that the government can do right now that would be most impressive would be to put money in the hands of the people that we know would spend it in Canada on goods that are being produced in Canada, not on goods that are being imported, especially with the dollar going down. That is good. That means that people are going to be buying more Canadian produce and more Canadian articles because it is more expensive to buy the imports. It helps us sell in outside markets.
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Interest is something that does have to be paid. To the extent that it is interest on borrowed money we have to export to be able to pay that interest.
To the extent that it is interest paid on money borrowed within Canada then that is simply redistributing income within Canada, shifting the income within Canada. That is not as serious a problem.
That advice was given by a finance minister in the province of British Columbia in the early 1940s, incidentally another Tory, the hon. Herbert Anscomb. He said: "A government should never borrow but in the event that it has to borrow in bad times to maintain its public service then it should never borrow externally. It should do its borrowing internally".
That, too, is not new. We did that during the war, and we prospered. We borrowed internally because there was nowhere else to borrow. Everybody was busy doing their own thing. Everybody was busy expanding their own industries in their own countries. We borrowed it all internally. We piled up a tremendous debt during the war doing that, and we paid it off afterwards because we kept the money circulating within Canada. It is only when we started borrowing from abroad that we started to run into trouble.
However, the immediate answer for now is simply to put this money where it will do the most good. Instead of giving it to people and saying: "Go out and hire somebody, it does not matter what you do, just hire somebody", and then not being able to police it anyway, instead of giving them increased depreciation allowances that will let them write off their taxes faster put the money in the hands of the unemployed, put the money in the hands of the people who are on social welfare, and they will create a genuine business boom that will start the economy of Canada moving again.
We have gone down the wrong road. We have cut back on education and cut back on training. We are giving money to companies. I have no real quarrel with taxing corporations or not taxing them. As a matter of fact, I would be inclined to look at the Carter report again if I really wanted to get things going. Carter went so far as to recommend no corporation tax but said to make sure that we get it from the individuals who are profiting from the business activities of those corporations. Of course, that would mean a total change in the tax structure and I
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do not recommend doing that all in one fell swoop. That is something that would have to be done gradually.
To return to what I was talking about, the funnel analogy, put the medicine in the right end of the funnel, let it spread around and let it be picked up by people who would benefit from it and who would then benefit the whole economy by spending that money within the economy.


Jesse Philip Flis: Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to enter the debate on this economic statement presented by the former Minister of Transport with whom I had a lot of memorable days and years when he was the critic for transport and I was a parliamentary secretary. He says those days are over. Yes, but I thought he had learned something over the years and judging from his economic statement he has not learned very much.
My constituents of Parkdale-High Park are pleased to hear that the home buyers' plan, which we had recommended for the last two years now, has been extended by one year. However the problem in my riding is that most of them cannot afford to buy a home right now and therefore the real estate economy is down. Even if some of my constituents of Parkdale-High Park could afford a home they may not buy one for fear of losing their job in this new economic order cooked up by this Conservative government.
If people lose their jobs under this new regime they may no longer qualify for unemployment insurance. This is the kind of thing that makes the blood boil in most Canadians. It creates a national anger that is growing and spreading across this land. I have never seen such frustration, such anger as we have in our country right now.
For those who have paid UI premiums for years the safety net has now been removed. If they are fired or if they leave their job voluntarily they no longer qualify for UI benefits. Tell me, how many Canadians does this government intend to force onto the welfare rolls? How many women have been forced to leave their jobs because of sexual harassment? Without at least the UI option this government simply expects women to grin and bear it. The Minister of Employment and Immigration rose in the House today and provided no reassurance to women. The minister's only response was: "Trust me". Canadians are through trusting this government,

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especially this Minister of Employment and Immigration and the last two finance ministers.
My daughter, who is in her second year of university, did for one of her projects a study of projections made by finance ministers over the last eight years. She was horrified. She came to me and said: "Dad, those ministers lied". I said: "No, no, Elaine, we do not use that word. That is not parliamentary". However, this young Canadian starting university was shocked that she cannot trust the finance ministers who are setting the economy for this country.
This government told Canadians that the first priority was jobs, jobs, jobs. Instead, what do we have? Higher taxes, taxes, taxes. The reality of the situation is that the national unemployment rate is 11.3 per cent. In metro Toronto the unemployment rate is a full percentage point higher than the national average, 12.3 per cent. Toronto and Montreal were cities of opportunities. I remember people from Saskatchewan and Manitoba coming to Toronto, people from Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island coming to Montreal or Toronto to find jobs because that is where the jobs were. Now the people from Toronto, people from my riding, are looking to go to other provinces, but there are no jobs there either. For young people aged 18 to 24 that rate may be as high as 23 per cent.
My constituency office is becoming an employment office. It is very sad to see students with masters degrees and Ph.D.s begging: "Mr. Flis, can you help us find a job?" They are that desperate. People who were selfemployed, architects and project managers in engineering who have worked for 15 or 20 years, are now coming embarrassed to their member of Parliament saying: "Mr. Flis, maybe through your contacts you can help me find a job". They are too embarrassed to go on the welfare rolls. They are too embarrassed to go on the UI rolls, but they are forced to do this. How can the minister look Canadians straight in the eye and say: "Trust me"? No one trusts this government any more.
Let us look at the small business employment and investment package. It says that the ceiling for loans to small firms under the Small Businesses Loans Act will be
increased to $250,000. That sounds great but the problem is that the banks are not willing to invest in small firms during this recession. Twice nothing is still nothing.
Small business people come to my office and explain to me that they have a payroll to meet, they have to pay income tax to Revenue Canada, and because of a low cash flow they cannot pay it that month. Revenue Canada penalizes them 20 per cent. Representatives from one firm came to me owing $80,000 to Revenue Canada, and Revenue Canada is insisting that this be paid immediately. The firm is saying: "If we pay this $80,000 we go bankrupt. We employ 10 people. If Revenue Canada would forego this penalty the firm agrees to pay the interest but if Revenue Canada could forgive the penalty for at least the duration of the recession then I could maybe survive".
Representatives from another business came to me owing Revenue Canada $40,000. They said: "Mr. Flis, it means going under. If we are forced to pay this, it means going under". I did refer them to Revenue Canada because I understand that there is a plan to help small businesses that are being threatened with bankruptcy to somehow negotiate with Revenue Canada to save these businesses. Mr. Minister, this is a good plan but why are you not advertising it? Why do not more small businesses that are going bankrupt know about this? To announce that the small business loan has increased to $250,000 does not mean a darn thing because they go to the bank and they cannot get $40,000.
They cannot get a $50,000 loan. They are kicked in the rear by Revenue Canada and they are kicked from the front by the banks.
Instead of the banks being good corporate citizens, what they are doing is deteriorating the state of the economy of this country. Together with Revenue Canada and the banks, the small entrepreneurs, the businesses, are not getting much help today.
No one has confidence in this government any more. The money lenders do not have confidence. Entrepreneurs do not have confidence. Consumers do not have confidence-nobody; as the Russians would say, nada.
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Look at the deficit fighting program of this government. It represents a litany of unrealistic and failed promises in the billions. Where cost savings have been realized, the government takes a bow. These savings are usually at the expense of the provinces which in turn must pass along the burden to the municipalities. My leader pointed out in his debate that he met with the mayor of Montreal. The mayor is very concerned how the city cannot bear carrying the welfare payments for the unemployed.
I happened to be on a Liberal task force crossing Ontario. We talked to the chairman of metropolitan Toronto, Alan Tonks. He has the same concern. The people are exhausting their UI benefits. They are forced to go on the welfare rolls and the big and smaller cities cannot afford the tab.
The minister stands up here and says look what a great job we are doing because we are cutting back. It makes the federal government look good but who ends up picking up the tab? Provinces are not picking up the tab. The poor municipalities end up picking up the tab. They end up becoming the fall guy.
This government professes that governments should be run on the same principles as business in the private sector. If that is so, the Minister of Finance would have been fired a long time ago. He did a better job in transport. I recommend that he go back there.
What if the minister then tries to apply for UI benefits? He would soon find out that he is not eligible for benefits through his own misconduct.
Let us look at the record of financial management of this government, this so-called deficit fighting government. In 1984 the national debt stood at $170 billion. By the end of this fiscal year it is $420 billion. When we turned over the reins at $170 billion, we at least borrowed money in Canada from pension plans and so on. This government, no. It is the big shot. It went on the foreign markets. No wonder we have a $420 billion public debt. No wonder we are in the mess that we are in.
I know my time is up, I will close. I am pleased the Minister of Finance is sitting here. I hope that he will listen to the people of Parkdale-High Park. I am just their servant. I am their spokesman but I say to the minister times are tough across Canada.


Fernand Jourdenais: Madam Speaker, I welcome this opportunity to participate in the debate following the recent economic statement made by the Minister of Finance. He gave us a good description of our economic future and of how we will reach our goals.
We will continue to follow sound monetary and fiscal policies. We will continue to increase the efficiency of the public sector. We will continue to open our markets while improving our productivity and our competitiveness in order to meet the competition challenge. We will invest more in our human resources and in our infrastructure in partnership with Canadians and other jurisdictions in order to promote growth.
Many Canadians, including my colleagues opposite, have trouble dealing with the globalization phenomenon which started in the 1990s. Some would have liked things to remain the way they were and Canadians to have a false sense of security thanks to an imaginary protection against the outside world.
Mr. Speaker, we must still face contemporary economic realities. We can no longer live turned in on ourselves and looking towards the past. We must have a forwardlooking vision. The last thing we want is for the Canadian economy to fall into a permanent slump. The new initiatives and maintenance of the policies announced by the minister will help us enter the 21st century on the right foot.
I do not pretend for a moment that the changes and restructuring that we have gone through and continue to undergo have been easy for anyone, including the federal government.
Nevertheless, since 1984 we have pursued an economic program to give all Canadians a more secure future with better economic opportunities and we now see the result of it. For example, Canada has the lowest inflation rate among the seven largest industrial countries, the G-7, namely 1.4 per cent this year. Productivity growth is now 2.6 per cent and our trade efforts abroad are starting to give results. Canada's merchandise balance of trade, a key to reducing the current account deficit, is up nearly $2 billion over last year.
Consumer confidence is being restored. Employment has started to grow, domestic demand has strengthened and real exports are rising. The improvements are slight but undeniable. But that is not enough. Our economy is slow to come out of the recent recession. One of the

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factors holding us back is the low growth in all the G-7 countries, our trading partners. They have the same problems we do.
In his statement on Canada's economic future the Minister of Finance reiterated and strengthened the government's commitment to continue working to expand our markets. The importance of permanently expanding our trade potential internationally was a highlight of the statement. I would like to spend a few minutes on this subject.
International trade is vital for the Canadian economy. Canada depends more on foreign trade than any of the G-7 countries except Germany. You see, Mr. Speaker, the Canadian market is relatively small. If we want Canadians to keep the standard of living to which they are accustomed we need international trade.
Canada exports more than a quarter of its domestic production and one job in four depends on our country's exports. Exports create jobs and help companies reduce their production costs, while imports offer consumers a wide choice of low-priced goods and services.
One way to stimulate foreign trade is to improve access to markets through clear and equitable trade rules. Trade barriers hurt Canada much more than they hurt nations with a large domestic market and our country is also more vulnerable to trade instability. These problems can only be solved by negotiating trade agreements. The trade agreements offer new opportunities to businesses that want to be competitive worldwide by improving their products and lowering their costs. The agreements also provide dispute settlement mechanisms which make trade relations surer and more stable.
Since foreign trade is so important to maintaining and improving our welfare, Canada has been a leader in the effort to liberalize world trade since the end of the Second World War.
As part of a two-pronged trade liberalization strategy, Canada has worked for freer international trade through the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, GATT, and free trade agreements with its regional partners.
As a result of successive GATT negotiations, customs duties on our imports have been reduced and our access to foreign markets has improved. For example, Canadian import duties have fallen from over 10 per cent in 1955 to less than 4 per cent in 1990.
On Wednesday, the minister reiterated that the government will work to bring the Uruguay round negotiations to a conclusion. The success of these negotiations would have a major impact on Canada and the rest of the world and would avoid an escalation in costly trade conflicts.
Canada has also concluded regional trade agreements in accordance with GATT rules. The first important agreement was the auto pact with the United States in 1965.
The 1989 Canada-U.S. free trade agreement falls directly in line with this strategy. In spite of the recent recession FTA has had positive results. Canada has markedly increased the volume and the balance of its trade with the United States since the introduction of FTA. Under the agreement, tariff and non-tariff barriers have been lowered and a dispute settlement mechanism put in place, giving us a more stable access to our biggest export market.
Canadian exports to the United States are up $16 billion since the free trade agreement. Also, FTA has attracted more investments to Canada. Foreign investments in the manufacturing sector increased from $1.3 billion in 1989 to $3.1 billion in 1991.
Investments are just as important as foreign trade to ensure economic prosperity. They increase productivity and allow for the creation of more highly paid jobs requiring higher skills. FTA has made Canada more attractive to foreign investors.
The North American free trade agreement is another step in the ongoing strategy followed by Canada to liberalize exchanges. The minister spoke of our commitment to ratify NAFTA.
The North American free trade zone will be the largest in the world with a population of 361 million and a gross domestic product of $7 billion.
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Thanks to NAFTA, Canada has made major gains which will improve our economic future and open new opportunities to Canadian businesses.
NAFTA will give us better access to an ever increasing Mexican market. It will protect and improve important FTA gains. Finally, it will protect Canadian interests on the American market and will make Canada more attractive to foreign investors. If Canada had stayed out of NAFTA negotiations, the United States would have been the main winners since they would have been the only country to have privileged access to both the Mexican and the Canadian markets.
By staying the course on trade liberalization through NAFTA, Canada will improve its competitiveness, create new jobs and stimulate economic growth.
Trade liberalization will increase Canada's competitiveness and its ability to ensure a high standard of living for its citizens. Competitiveness and a high standard of living will mean more jobs, better security and increased prosperity for every Canadian, which is one of the main goals of the government.
Therefore, I urge all the members of this House to support these initiatives.


Mr. Jack Whittaker (Okanagan -Similkameen -Merritt):: Madam Speaker, it was interesting last week. I had a constituent visit and we were talking about the monetary and fiscal policies of the government and at that time my constituent, Dale MacLean from Penticton, British Columbia, presented me with a tie and he asked me to wear that tie in the House tonight to point out the Mickey Mouse policies of this government.
He talked about the three frontbenchers, Huey, Dewey and Louie sitting there forming the policies of this government and how he felt that the government was in fantasy land because it simply did not lace realities.
When I looked at what was in the particular economic and fiscal statement of the minister there were two things that occurred to me that fit the theme ol this beautiful tie that he presented me with. One was that with Christmas coming it appeared that Scrooge
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McDuck had something to say about this. With taking away the 3 per cent from the unemployed, putting the rest of the economic situation on to the provinces, the government was not acting very well prior to Christmas, and that the Minister of Finance was acting like Scrooge.
I thought that was a rather Goofy policy.
Looking at what the media has said since, I was listening to a number of speeches today by members of the government who were quoting The Financial Times and others. I got a number of clippings from various newspapers. One dates back to November 24 in the Edmonton Journal in the Minister of Finance's own back yard of Vegreville. It was interesting because the headline was "Mulroney's Tories run out of gas". In one of the paragraphs it states: "A mini-budget from finance minister Don Mazankowski is unlikely to make a big difference. The bottom line is this: Brian Mulroney has had eight years to create the jobs and prosperity he promised in 1984 and he has failed". How prophetic.
We can look at a number of others. In The Globe and Mail, Jeffrey Simpson states: "Finance Minister Don Mazankowski's economic statement yesterday displayed all the hallmarks of a government running on an intellectual fuel tank marked empty". He goes on to say further: "By its non-choice, it revealed itself to be tired by the exertions of the past seven years, timid in the face of increasingly painful choices, and too far along in its mandate to make the bold policy choices the country's economic and fiscal problems require".
In The Ottawa Citizen it states that the economic statement is too little, too late, too Tory. It says that instead of broad bold policies "Canadians get Reaganism in aspic".
Hugh Winsor in the December 3 The Globe and Mail states:
Tories could have done something about the rapidly accumulating debt in 1987 and 1988 when the economy was on the boil. Instead, they gave everybody a pre-election income tax rebate while pushing up spending in politically sensitive areas.
In their zeal to slay the inflation dragon after winning the 1988 election, they also killed off hope and economic confidence, which is why yesterday's statement is such a confused effort.
When in doubt, tinker, and yesterday's statement did a lot of that.

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The Ottawa Sun headline says: "Snow clouds?" The article said: "If there is snow on the ground this morning, was linance minister Don Mazankowski responsible?" Further on it states: "The reason some snow jobs work after all is that details are often covered up by whatever has fallen from the sky-the hows and the wherefroms being obscured by the wish to believe that there will finally be some magical solution to ease their burden".
It appears that the finance minister aimed and he shot, but he missed the mark. He did not have anything new to tell us. He went through the same old Reagan economics, the same old Thatcherite economics and he fell well short.
It is unfortunate in the aftermath of the policies set out by this government that there are 1.6 million unemployed and that the poverty rate has increased substantially.
Looking at the Christmas season and what we have to look forward to in Okanagan-Similkameen-Merritt and the Boundary country, I spoke to a number of food banks over the last few days.
In the small community of Merritt, 60 people, 40 per cent of whom are children and 10 per cent employed use the food banks in Merritt. The Boundary country unfortunately does not have enough food for all of the people lining up at the food banks. In Penticton they get 180 people per month and over 40 per cent of those are children. In Oliver, British Columbia, a community of some 4,500 to 5,000 people, 100 people a month line up, 40 per cent of whom are children.
Nationally, there are 1.2 million Canadian kids living in poverty. In 1990 it was estimated there were 3.8 million Canadians living in poverty, an increase of 12 per cent over 1989. Over the year we know that poverty statement has increased. Half of these are considered working poor.
The Canadian Association of Food Banks says there were two million people including 700,000 children who visited a food bank at least once in 1991.
It we look at what has happened with the income tax situation we know and the figures show that the average Canadian family will pay $1,894 more now than what they did in 1984 when this government came into power.
We have pedalled backward instead of moving forward. We have already had a number of people come up and make their speeches and suggest a number of alternatives.
It is important in looking at what is happening in Canada to emphasize the position that when food banks were created in 1981 they were created as a temporary solution to the problem of hunger in our country and in our society. Now there are over 400 of those food banks in Canada and they have so many people lining up that they cannot feed them all.
We look at the situation with seniors. We know once again that so many of our seniors live below the poverty line. Of those seniors, a majority of them are single women.
I looked at the financial statement from the perspectives of British Columbia, western Canada, and Okanagan-Similkameen-Merritt and the Boundary country.
I wondered what was in there that was going to help the people in those areas.
I looked at it from the perspective of seniors. Well, luckily guaranteed income supplement and old age pension were not touched. But the government cut across the board 10 per cent on grants. If the New Horizons grants are cut 10 per cent I will say that in my riding and I am certain in many of the ridings across Canada, those grants have become a necessary part of increasing the education of seniors, increasing seniors helping seniors, wellness programs, increasing the availability of hospice programs, it goes on and on with respect to seniors and I hate to see those cut.
If we look at it from the perspective of the young, I am concerned about some of the cuts in unemployment insurance. We have the situation where we have cut back the mobility of some of these young people who move from job to job but need some time within which to move. They quit and they move on. These are not people who abuse the system. They are people who are trying to do better things. So they quit a $5.50 an hour job, look around and maybe move on to a $7 an hour job. They have been substantially injured in the ability to do that by the cutbacks.
There are so many things in this statement that we could talk about. Agriculture has been cut back. I end by simply saying that the monetary policies of this government have not been cured by this. The fiscal policies have not been cured. The unemployment rate runs
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rampant. People are hurting out there. We have not created those jobs.
Madam Speaker, this is a Mickey Mouse government with a Mickey Mouse policy.


Marcel R. Tremblay: Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to participate in this important debate on the Canadian economy and the future course of our economic policy.
We are looking at investing in economic policies designed to increase and permanently establish prosperity for all Canadians. To achieve this our government suggests that we should improve our productivity if we are to compete on the global market which is becoming increasingly competitive at the turn of the century and beyond.
One of our main priorities is to encourage increased productivity in Canada. This is absolutely necessary if we are to meet the challenge of an increasingly competitive global economy.
This increased productivity will provide a broader scope of options for all Canadians. It will improve our standard of living by making real wages higher and allowing us to buy more goods and services, while having more time at our disposal for leisure and hobbies.
In other words, by working smarter and more efficiently, we will raise our standard of living and our quality of life across the country.
Unfortunately, Canada's productivity performance has deteriorated since the late 1970s. Many people believe our productivity has gone down because ol rising inflation. uncertainty about public policy and government intervention in the economy. Whatever the reason, the fact is that the slowing down of total factor productivity since the 1970s is reflected in weaker growth of labour productivity and real wages.
This drop in productivity growth must be reversed. To achieve this, we must invest more in technologies, physical capital and human resources. However, this will only occur if the economic environment is favourable to productivity-enhancing investment. This requires ma-
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croeconomic stability as reflected in low inflation, fiscal prudence and appropriate fiscal policies that expand the opportunities for people to work, invest and innovate.
Madam Speaker, this is exactly the kind of economic climate our government has tried to put in place since it came to power. However, changes of the kind we had to bring about cannot be achieved overnight. The world recession has also postponed many of the positive spinoffs that would now be felt if the world economy were in better shape. However, the International Monetary Fund and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development are of the opinion that next year Canada will experience the strongest rate of economic growth of any industrialized country. I think that the best way the government can help improve productivity in this country is to stay the course.
For instance we must continue to cut public spending. We have legislated annual spending ceilings through the Spending Control Act. We must also continue to privatize Crown corporations, restructure federal activities and keep public service wage settlements in line. The economic and financial statement presented by the Minister of Finance reinforces the government's commitment to spending restrictions. Thanks to the measures announced by the minister, spending will be cut by nearly $8 billion over the next two fiscal years.
Spending cutbacks allow us to pursue our efforts to reduce borrowing requirements, and, together with a sound monetary policy, have made it possible to keep inflation and interest rates at levels that support instead of undermining productive investment. In fact, I am proud to say that Canada had the lowest rate of inflation, an average of 1.5 per cent over the first ten months of 1992, of all G-7 countries.
Low inflation protects people's purchasing power and reduces capital costs for business. It also leads to lower interest rates. In spite of recent increases, the lower interest rates since 1990 have helped stimulate productive investments and made Canadian goods and services more affordable on both the domestic and the foreign market.
The government must also continue to invest in structural policies that will help productive investments recover. For example, we must realize that we need a skilled labour force to increase our international com-

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petitiveness and our productivity. That is why we have invested in human resources by redirecting unemployment insurance from passive income support to active skills acquisition. That is why spending on worker training and adjustment has increased from $1.2 billion to $3.5 billion in the past two years. That is also why the Minister of Finance announced more aid in his economic and fiscal statement.
We have also invested in economic growth by reforming Canada's tax system. In particular we eliminated the manufacturers' sales tax which cost Canadians jobs and replaced it with the goods and services tax. The GST makes an important contribution to our international competitiveness by reducing the tax included in Canadian exports. Since it came into effect Canadian exporters have saved over $3.5 billion.
To achieve economic prosperity we must continue to invest in the small business sector which is the primary engine of employment growth in this country. Today, thanks to special tax provisions, small businesses enjoy assistance totalling $3 billion annually.
The Minister of Finance has proposed a small business employment and investment package to help small businesses and create new jobs. The measures announced by the minister include capping the employer share ol unemployment insurance premiums for one year, a one-year investment tax credit for small businesses and an extension of the Small Business Financing Program.
We must continue to invest actively in research and development. R and D is essential in developing new products and processes which are the key to success and growth in a global economy.
Since we came to power we have introduced the most generous tax incentives for R and D of any major industrialized country. For instance the February budget provided for additional assistance totalling $230 million over five years to support Canadian companies undertaking research and development.
Furthermore, in his economic statement the Minister of Finance announced changes to allow the tax rules to better reflect how R and D is actually performed in the
business community. We must continue to invest in broadening trade opportunities. As the global economy becomes increasingly competitive, countries and companies that try to ignore this fact will see their share of world trade deteriorate and their economies decline.
That is why we are doing our best to bring about a positive conclusion to the Uruguay round, the series of multilateral trade talks held under the GATT. We are trying to improve our trade relations with east Asian countries, including Korea, Thailand and Singapore.
In 1988 we negotiated and successfully implemented the free trade agreement with the United States, our most important trading partner.
Madam Speaker, as you know the FTA has paid off. Since it came into effect our exports to the United States have increased by more than $16 billion. This represents about 200,000 jobs. The FTA also gave us the power to review any measures taken by the United States including countervail and anti-dumping, while providing for an open process in which arbitrators fairly selected by both parties are able to quash decisions that are unfair.
The North American free trade agreement is a logical extension of the FTA. There is a very real potential for growth in sales of Canadian products and services to Mexico. It is also a fact that the United States plan to enter into some kind of free trade agreement with Mexico, with or without the participation of Canada.
If we had not been at the negotiating table any increase in trade with and international investment in Mexico would have gone to the United States.
In concluding, perhaps I may recapitulate. Further improving our standard of living will require strengthening the rate of productivity growth in this country. What the government can and must do is invest in macroeconomic stability and appropriate structural policies that expand the opportunities for people to work, invest and innovate.
That is what the government has done and will keep on doing.


Fred J. Mifflin: Madam Speaker, I have sat in the House all day and listened to presentations from both sides of the House

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and different parties. I have been amazed by the different approaches that we have had.
As I sat here, as I am sure the Minister of Finance has done for some time, I have really tried to reflect on why we got ourselves into the position that we are in today. What I hear from the other side of the House-and I really do not believe that it believes this-is that it blames it on a policy that happened eight years ago, going on to nine years now, that it was left with a massive debt by the Liberal Party.
I really don't think it does believe that. It is certainly more than that. I think to put in perspective what we are looking at today and the mini budget that came out yesterday, we really need to look at why in the name of the Lord we are where we are today.
There are a number of things that happened. In the last eight and a half years I reckon that about five of them have been reasonably good years, kind of boomish. There has been an opportunity to create jobs and to reduce government spending, the things that the government is trying to do right now. When it takes eight years to get into the rather difficult situation the government has found itself in, it is very difficult to be able with a stroke of a pen and with one budget and perhaps one more main one to go before the next election to really want a policy that is counter to something that has taken eight years to achieve and have it disappear in a short time.
I will grant that the Minister of Finance had very little manoeuvring room. In that sense I would commiserate with him to try and produce a policy that was acceptable to his colleagues and the country, including the opposition.
However, in those eight and half years, and I will use that term even though it is a little less, government spending increased an average of about 4 per cent a year and that was higher than inflation. That was not a good move to begin with. I believe it could have done something about it.
The second thing, the interest payments on the debt, which now represent 26 per cent of all government expenditure, were growing at 9 per cent a year. When you have 9 per cent a year, the interest on the deficit and the national debt and government program spending increasing by 4 per cent a year, it is very difficult to be
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able to do anything to change it. This has gone on essentially on average for the last 8 years.
There are other things that have caused us to have little manoeuvring room. The finance minister's projections have been off. I have made projections in my lifetime and it is very difficult with the world situation for the projections beyond plus or minus 10 per cent or 15 per cent. However, the projections have been very far off and I am sure the minister is embarrassed that they are so far off.
He gets advice from his colleagues and I am sure there is a desire to make it look good for each budget, but we are now at the ninth budget, I believe, and we are hearing the same stories and we are seeing the same projects that essentially leave us with the same deficit we had 8 years ago. A lot of Canadians have trouble understanding that.
On top of the other things that I mentioned, the growth in government spending and the 9 per cent increase on financing the debt, in that period of time there have been 32 tax increases which make it very difficult for the government now to use taxing measures to help it get out of this funny situation that it is in, this disastrous situation that it is in.
The deficit is about $34.5 billion. The government will be taking $122.2 billion and will be spending $156.7 billion. I may be out by $.1 billion. However, when I look at where the revenue comes from, the $122.2 billion, I see a large percentage of that being paid by the middle class. Fifty per cent alone of that comes from income tax. We all know in this House that income tax falls mostly on the middle class.
Twelve per cent on top of that 50 per cent comes from the GST. We know that the GST falls more heavily on the middle class because it spends proportionately more on consumer products. Thirteen per cent comes from the UI contributions of which more than half are paid by the middle class. Seven per cent comes from what are called in the finance department others, made up of cigarettes, alcohol and gas tax, again falling on the middle class.
I do not have to use much imagination nor be accused of exaggeration to say that when I add all this up I am looking at about 75 per cent to 85 per cent falling very

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much on the middle class. Corporation tax accounts for 8 per cent on the figures produced a couple of days ago.
It was not too long ago that instead of being 8 per cent and 50 per cent, without the GST which makes it 8 per cent and 62 per cent, it was more along the lines of maybe 20 per cent and 30 per cent. I am going back a few years before this government took power, but certainly in 1984 the ratio was much different. The middle class paid less income tax as individuals and corporations paid a lot more.
The situation is that the government has found itself in a position where it cannot manoeuvre, so what does it do? I tend not to expect good projections, but I did have expectations as to what was going to happen. I was in my riding last night when I heard what the minister's measures were and I really honestly believed that I had missed something. It was not until this morning when I saw some of the national newspapers that I realized unfortunately I had not missed anything.
On the main point that concerns me in my riding-and I have heard practically every second speaker today speak on it-I have seen something happen that I never really thought would happen, even with this government. With the choice and with the difficult areas of high unemployment, a staggering deficit and a staggering national debt, there were choices. But the choices that were made in my opinion and in the opinion essentially of most people on this side of the House was that neither one thing nor another was done. With unemployment being the main problem as I see it right now-it certainly is in my riding and in my province-instead of doing something for those who were unemployed they were hit. There were measures that could have been taken to stimulate the economy, infrastructure being one of them that we have been advocating for the last 12 months.
Essentially I believe what the finance minister did was look at the unemployment problem through the wrong end of the telescope and penalize those who need help the most. As one of the members said here today, it was like a doctor trying to diagnose a disease and when he could not find the problem he killed the patient.
I still believe that this was not meant to happen because it is an incredible policy. Whether it is called staying the course, whether it is called a sick budget-I do not care what it is called-this has to be a record decision by a government to do something good at a time when the economy is in rough shape. I know my phone has not stopped ringing today. I have heard other members say as well that they have been inundated with phone calls.
Another aspect of this which bothers me is one that many of my colleagues spoke on today. It is the idea of cutting off unemployment insurance for those who voluntarily quit their jobs. I will be honest. I will tell the finance minister that I can understand him having difficulties finding money for those people who just decide they want to quit and collect unemployment insurance. I can understand cutting them off unemployment insurance. One could argue for that policy. But for people who quit their jobs or feel they are in an untenable position and have to leave their jobs because of things like sexual harassment and uncomfortable working conditions that border on sexual harassment, I think we need to look at this policy again. I believe it particularly discriminates against women, but there are people of the other sex who could be in a similar situation.
Unfortunately I do not give many points for the measures that were taken. The $8 billion expenditure reduction from the government was surely only meant for the international markets because most of the money we owe is owed to foreigners, certainly I believe more than 50 per cent. With that $8 billion, as the minister knows, there is no saving this year. That is for future years, for future governments. If the Liberals form the government we will have to do something about that. I am not impressed with that aspect.
To conclude, it has been to me and many of my colleagues a disappointing mini budget. I am sure the finance minister is disappointed too because I have not seen one media clipping that said a lot of good things or had anything good to say about this particular statement.


Mr. Eugene Bellemare (Carleton-Gloucester):: Madam Speaker, I greatly appreciate the opportunity to be able to comment on the mini budget presented by the Minister of Finance. I must add that I am flattered that
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the Minister of Finance is here this evening to listen to my speech. I find that he has a lot of patience and I would like him to pay some attention to the comments I will make.
Like everyone else, I know very well that this budget is his Christmas card to Canadians. A few days before Christmas, he is saying to all Canadians: Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas to all. Merry Christmas and Joyeux Noel to the public servants and Merry Christmas to Canada's unemployed. Again he attacks public servants.
Two years ago public servants went on strike, the first big strike of public servants. It was a disaster for service to Canadians and a disaster for public servants themselves who pleaded with the government for fair treatment. Later, the federal government passed the new Public Service Act, Bill C-26, where it turned management of the public service inside out. In November it cut 2 per cent from the public service budget, resulting in cuts in service to the public.
I find it quite wrong for an employer to mistreat its own employees constantly. Without saying so, it is also mistreating all Canadians, because public servants are there to help the general public. Public servants check to see whether food is spoiled or not. They control airport traffic. They inspect health products, pharmaceuticals, the transportation industry and just about every imaginable industry in Canada in order to protect us. They enforce the laws that protect the general public and they are being treated badly. Ironically, many public servants collect taxes. I find it quite ridiculous for the government to show such contempt for its employees. They were told a year ago that they would have no salary increase for one year and 3 per cent for each of the next two years. Now the Minister of Finance has changed his mind; it is no longer 0-3-3 but 0-0-0. That is his way of wishing his own employees merry Christmas a few days before the holidays. Merry Christmas to those who are there to help the general public, to help the unemployed, to those who look after immigration and customs. That is unfair.
Another big injustice is that instead of attacking unemployment, the government is attacking the unemployed. We know that the Unemployment Insurance Act was amended last year. Before, there was a partnership.
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The Government of Canada contributed a third and employees and employers each contributed a third. The government managed to unload its contribution of one third and put all the responsibility for unemployment insurance premiums on employees and employers. It said that was the right way to go. All of a sudden we see in the budget that the minister is cutting benefits for the newly unemployed from 60 to 57 per cent. The unemployed should be given a hand, not a kick. At present there are
1.5	million unemployed Canadians who receive unemployment benefits. We often forget to say that another
2.3	million Canadians are on welfare. This means that
3.8	million adults are out of work. Not to mention the low wage earners, those who do have a job but are paid peanuts. All they can get are short term minimum wage jobs. You find mostly women in those jobs. More often than not these single parents who have to provide for a family with their menial jobs are the ones hardest hit. Jobs must be created because jobs are the mainspring of the economy, our livelihood. Let us not repeat the mistake the government made in 1988-89 with the free trade agreement.
The free trade agreement was supposed to create jobs. It did not create jobs. It was supposed to help us in exporting our goods. It did not help us in exporting goods. Instead of exporting goods, it has been exporting jobs. '
We are supposed to be helping small business. The government says that it is going to encourage the banks to raise the ceiling from $100,000 to $250,000 on loans for small businesses. If you are an MP, owners of small businesses are coming to your office constantly to see you. As we all know there are in Canada 932,396 small businesses and they create 80 per cent of the jobs.
Eighty-one per cent of these small businesses have less than 50 employees. They are the organizations that create jobs. These same people will tell MPs that they cannot get loans. The banks are nervous. These same people cannot borrow on their investment. They cannot borrow on the investment of their business. They have to put up their own personal home for loans. That is a catastrophe.

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What is the government doing to help small industry? I know the government is doing a great deal for big business and the super rich but what it is doing for the middle class, the upper middle class? Absolutely nothing. It is trampling the smaller people.
What is it doing at the Department of National Defence, for example. Were there any cuts there? I did not see any cuts but it is certainly spending billions and billions of dollars for helicopters. One wonders if they are really essential at this particular time. Should we not give these purchases a second look if we are going to make savings? Why not look at that type of project?
We have not created jobs through infrastructure. The municipalities need to renew, to fix their infrastructure. Things are breaking up. Everything is going badly. Our leader at the beginning of the year made some very valid suggestions on how we could help out the economy.
[Translation j
For instance he suggested a partnership between the federal, provincial and municipal governments for urban infrastructure projects.
Last summer, I had the opportunity to attend a convention of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities.

The members of the federation came and asked and begged the Minister of Transport to help out, to ask the federal government to help out in an infrastructure program and they would become partners. I was astounded when publicly, in front of the whole crowd, he refused to participate in this partnership.
Where is the partnership?
For four years I have been sitting on the public accounts committee. If this government wants to save money it can save tens of millions of dollars. It should read the reports from the public accounts committee. It should read the annual reports of the Auditor General. That is a must. There is waste to the point that we know the RCMP is investigating the botched job that has been done in computer purchases.


Mr. Len Taylor (The Battlefords-Meadow Lake):: Madam Speaker, I rise tonight to speak in response to the Minister of Finance's mini budget of December 2 and in response to the government bill before us tonight, Bill C-98, requesting further borrowing authority.
These are troubled times. These are times when few Canadians feel optimistic about their future, when few Canadians feel secure in their lives, when few Canadians express confidence and trust in their government.
These are troubled times because the economy is unable to support the population. Ours is an economy that allows 11 per cent or more of our people to be unemployed. Ours is an economy that keeps 2.5 million people on welfare, that forces farmers and small business owners into bankruptcy, allows in just three years one in six of our manufacturing jobs to disappear.
Ours is not a healthy economy and the job of the finance minister and of the government is to provide leadership that will keep people working, that will create jobs for those who are not, and will build a capable and confident economic base on which to secure a reasonable quality of life, accessible to most residents of Canada.
However, the finance minister and the Conservative government have clearly failed just as they have failed since they were first elected in 1984. In my province, Saskatchewan, we clearly see the mistakes of this government. The agricultural economy has never been worse. The Saskatchewan Wheat Pool is projecting a shortfall of $800 million this year. The problem is a combination of many things, but they are compounded by this year's drought, frost and snow which has succeeded in reducing crop yields in some cases to absolutely zero.
If ever there was a time for federal government support to the agricultural community, this is it. Three weeks ago the Canada Grains Council reported that Canadian wheat farmers lost $2.5 billion U.S. to U.S. government export policies between 1985 and 1990. In a late October report the wheat pool reported that Saskatchewan farmers have each lost a total of $109,220 over the last nine years because of the international grain war.
We have been behind the eight-ball for years but we have never seen anything like what is happening out there now. In my own area where there were approximately 5,000 crops planted this year the crop insurance
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office has taken in about 3,500 claims. This will not be a year that farmers will soon forget.
In response to the farm community's plea for support, the Minister of Agriculture last week said no. He said the government's finances were worse than those of the farmers. Yesterday the Minister of Finance brought out a mini budget which showed an increase in the year's projected deficit from $22 billion to $34 billion. Despite cuts and decreases in spending, this government's policies continue to expand the debt. The Saskatchewan farm community says it does not like to see this federal debt growing. Indeed, every farmer on the prairies has a piece of a growing national debt of their own, a farm debt that has built to $24 billion.
These are the most difficult times that farmers and their communities have faced. If it is this government's policy, as it is mine, to keep prairie farms producing and to keep farmers on the land, then this is clearly not the year to abandon them.
If it is the government's intention to drive the deficit up further, as the Minister of Finance said yesterday, then the farm community of western Canada must have a piece of it. At least then we will have something to show for our efforts. We will have farmers farming and we will have a more stable economic base in rural communities, where we continue to rely heavily on the health of the farm economy for survival.
At present the federal deficit is rising but we have nothing to show for it except higher unemployment, more bankruptcies, more people on welfare and long line-ups at the food banks.
We have been through this before in Saskatchewan. From 1982 to 1991 the Conservative Party governed our province with cutbacks in government programs, increases in taxes and the privatization of revenue generating Crown corporations. In the end we were left with no increase in the quality of life, nothing to show for the activity and a huge deficit that will take years to handle adequately.
If it is a Conservative Party policy to run up huge deficits without leaving anything behind then I want none of it. At least when farmers, small business owners
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or home owners incur a debt they have a tractor, a building or a house to show for it when it is done.
It is time for this government to show some real leadership on farm and rural issues, take the bull by the horns, so to speak, and develop a long-term policy for agriculture that takes into account revenue and yield shortfalls. It is time to have a full-fledged serious debate in this Chamber about the future of agriculture in Canada.
This means we have to throw out the Gross Revenue Insurance Program, GRIP to us on the prairies, and start over. GRIP is clearly an inadequate program with administrative hassles, headaches and costs that do not have to be there. We need a program that looks at incomes. We need a program that takes into account the cost of production on the farm. Both these matters have been put on the table for discussion by New Democrats for years.
It is time the federal government got serious. It is time the federal government took its responsibilities seriously, recognized that this is a matter of federal jurisdiction, and acted in the interests of western Canada and therefore in the long-term interests of all of Canada.
In response to the minister's mini budget, delegates attending the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool meeting today passed the following motion that I would like to read into the record:
THAT the federal government immediately address the crisis
economic situation facing Saskatchewan agriculture in the following
ways:
a)	stop downloading their responsibilities upon the province and farmers
b)	provide third line of defence funding
c)	cancel their plans of changes to the WGTA and their planned reductions in the Crow benefit amount of $726 million as outlined in the Economic and Fiscal Statement of December 2.
That motion was carried by 100 per cent of the delegates at the convention today, and I agree 100 per cent with them.
Financing disaster shortfalls has always been a federal government responsibility. Any farmer who had to participate in and endure the drought program of three years ago knows full well that Ottawa was responsible for that mess no matter how essential the revenue was for farmers.

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We also know that the federal government promised farmers who were not interested in joining the most recent farm income programs, GRIP and NISA, that they would be excluded from other programs if they did not join. Farmers were promised the third line of defence by the federal government so they joined the GRIP and NISA programs. And now when they need it the most there is no third line of defence payment. This is truly unfair.
We in Saskatchewan know that we have 40 per cent of the farms and 4 per cent of the population. We cannot solve the agricultural crisis on our own. We can no longer accept any more federal government offloading of its debt or its responsibilities on to the backs of the provincial government and the producers of the province.
The Minister of Finance was recently Minister of Agriculture. He knows the seriousness of the crisis on the prairies. Therefore, if he will not act today, we can only assume that he does not want to act. He does not need to be told how a loss of another 10,000 farmers from the land in western Canada will affect our communities and our economy.
He knows investment in the industry during its most troubling, most distressing times can be a life saver. He knows the value of agriculture to the health of the entire country. Frankly I am disturbed he did not take this opportunity to secure the future of this essential industry in the past two days.
Obviously the challenge of the next federal government will be to get this country working again and that includes establishing a viable and productive farm sector.
I am looking forward to the upcoming federal election when all Canadians can debate the national economy and individual Canadians like those in the farm communities that I represent and others across the west can hold this government accountable for its lack of action on these and other issues.
There is an alternative economic vision in this country and New Democrats are proud that our alternative strategy includes a long-term plan for agricultural producers and Canadians in rural communities everywhere. Things have to change in Canada, and if this government will not change them then Canadians have no choice but to change the government.


Mr. Dan Heap (TVinity- Spadina):: Madam Speaker, I am happy for a chance to speak on Bill C-98, authority to borrow money, because this financial statement, this mini budget by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, is the clearest example of wrong-headedness that I have seen in my 11 years in Parliament.
For eight years this government has been talking about making Canada prosperous by raising taxes on the majority of Canadians, people employed by others, people self-employed or the jobless. It is giving the surplus in tax breaks to employers and owners of capital.
What are the results? In eight years this government has taken Canada to 1.5 million jobless. That is not counting the ones that it does not count. We know there is at least a million more, probably a million and a half more, who are either discouraged from working or working much too short a time to make a living because there is nothing else for them to do. But on the official figures, this government has just taken us back to where we were 10 or 11 years ago.
The only difference is that most of the factories where several hundred thousand jobs have been lost are closed and the machinery has been sold and nobody is going back there to work, ever.
This government has also doubled or more than doubled the federal government's national debt. It may satisfy some that there are wealthy Tory supporters who grow richer as owners of a good part of that debt, but they are making most Canadians poorer and this government pretends to care about most Canadians.
Let us look at the finance minister's statement. In table 1, the expenditure reduction, the first to be cut is the people at the bottom of the ladder, the jobless. Instead of 60 per cent of their UI benefits, they will get 57 per cent and the government will save $1.5 billion on that in two and a quarter years.
Then there are the quits or the fired. They can argue as to whether they had reason to quit or whether the employer had reason to fire them, but they have to argue without anything to eat. It is going to be hard. The government will save almost $2.5 billion on those during these two and a quarter years.
Then there will be cuts in science and technology. Those are mostly salaries.
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There are cuts in the native program, some of the poorest people in the country, perhaps in some ways poorer than the urban jobless, a $160 million cut.
Grants, international assistance, $642 million cut in these two and a quarter years.
Canadian regional subsidies, industrial subsidies, transportation subsidies, cut $523 million. Again that means cuts primarily on people employed by others, self-employed or some of the very smallest employers.
The green plan, the third cut in two years, $172 million.
Agriculture, we have just heard from my colleague from Saskatchewan what is happening to the farmers. We know that 20,000 farm families have lost their farms in the last five years and their income was down this year 30 per cent. But the government will cut $80 million from their support grants.
Culture, a good many struggling artists and authors such as those in Trinity-Spadina, the cuts there are $80 million.
Defence, there is a cut of nearly a billion over these three years, but that is only in the operating account. There are no cuts in the capital account. We will come to that.
The departments generally will partly reduce service to the public and partly steal the wage raise that this government contracted to give to the employees as one of the terms of settlement of its union dispute and settlement of the strike. All in all, the governments says it will save $7,815 billion in the next two and a quarter years.
What will the government do with it? It plans to spend a little over $2 billion on what it calls investing in growth. Who will it invest it in? Small business employment, investment program, unemployment insurance relief program for new jobs. About $.5 billion will be spent by this government paying the unemployment insurance premiums that small business employers will not have to pay for new business start-ups or for new employees. The employees will pay but the owners will not.
Temporary small business investment tax credit, small business financing program, changes to the Small Businesses Loans Act and incentives for investments, investing in prosperity, future initiatives and so on, assistance
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to small oil and gas companies, tariff reductions, about $400 million, which is not very much. I do not begrudge it to small business, provided the workers are being treated equally and fairly. It is small even to the small business community, which has the highest rate of bankruptcy that we have known in Canada.
There are program measures, infrastructure. Half a billion over two and a quarter years will build a few roads and bridges and so on. It will make a few contractors wealthy and it will pay a few wages.
Sectoral training initiatives total about $80 million over those two years and developmental uses plan, $600 million, which is a total of $2.2 billion, a long way short of the $7.8 billion that they are cutting mainly, as I said, from people on wages, on salaries or on no wage, no salary but less unemployment insurance or perhaps no unemployment insurance and perhaps no welfare, considering how the government is cutting its share of the welfare contributions.
What is it doing? Is it lowering the deficit? We have got this strange situation where just last February the government predicted that at the end of this year the deficit would be $27.5 billion, reduced. Now it is going to be $34 billion. Next year, instead of $22 billion it will be $32 billion, $10 billion higher. Why, when the expenditures are cut mainly from the lowest workers, is the government falling short?
It is because its trickle-down theory does not work. Taking it from the poorest, pouring it into the top, so that a little wee bit comes back to the poorest some day, is not working. Money taken from the poorest means they buy less food, less clothing, less housing. They spend less on everything. The stores go broke, the factories close, the service industries go broke, the unemployed cannot pay much taxes and the government loses its revenue. That is where it is losing because of its own stupid trickle-down policies.
The money given to the owners of capital is supposed to make jobs. That is the fairy tale we have been hearing. It does not do it, clearly, or we would not have reverted to 1.5 million officially unemployed. Some of it goes offshore to tax shelters and tax loopholes. Some of it goes to high return overseas investments, but does not make jobs in Canada. Some of it goes to land speculation, boosting the price of housing and industry and commerce in Toronto and cities like that. Some of it goes to expensive military equipment. We have all heard about the Pentagon's $400 hammers and $500 toilet

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seats. It is not quite so high in Canada but it is still very high.
What should we do instead? Instead of those cuts we should be cutting $1 billion from the tax loopholes that the Auditor General identified in the offshore tax havens.
We should be cutting the billion dollars from unjustified capital gains tax; not from farmers, home owners or small business, but from people earning more than $100,000 a year who do not need that. We could cut a billion dollars from the entertainment tax credit. We could perhaps cut $4 billion from interest deduction loopholes and $2 billion from defence, not from operating but from the capital, from those helicopters, frigates and the low-level air defence system that we do not need because the Russians are not coming. Probably around $4 billion could be cut by lowering the interest rates by 3 per cent instead of jacking them up in order to make the United States government happy by reducing Canadian imports to the United States.
With that we could pay down some of the deficit. We could also pay decent unemployment insurance, welfare and training allowances instead of asking women to go to training when they have no money for car fare and no money for child care.
We could let manufacturing grow again for the domestic market instead of forcing people to buy imports. We could let the retail sales and the service industries grow again. We could let the jobless get jobs which they want. Government would even get its taxes and would be able to balance its budget.
It would have to do things in a completely different way than what it has been doing for the last eight years. It is high time it either exercised some common sense or quit.


Iain Francis Angus: Madam Speaker, I too want to intervene in this debate tonight. I want to start out in an unusual manner, particularly given the tone of the debate. I want to compliment the Minister of Finance. Although I disagree fundamentally with what he has done in his budget, I respect the fact that he is one of the few ministers of the Crown who will
sit through the debate and listen to the comments from all members of the House. I congratulate him for that.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Iain Francis Angus: Having said that, I want to say that in my years in this House and my 17 years in elected life-at least attempted elected life in some cases-I find this particular financial statement is one of the meanest, one of the crudest and one of the worst that Canadians have ever seen.
The attacks are on those who are the weakest in society, the people who have, not through any fault of their own, found themselves on the scrap heap of not having a job to go to, particularly those who will lose their job once this budget is in place, finding themselves being eligible for less money, a smaller percentage of what they were earning before. If it is a woman in a work place who is being sexually harassed, or a person of colour who is being discriminated against, or someone who is prepared to stand up to the employer and blow the whistle on environmental matters, on health and safety matters and is fired by their employer, they will not get any compensation whatsoever. They will not get any return from the premiums they have paid, in some cases for many years. They will get no insurance. They will be cut off entirely.
The Minister of Employment and Immigration gets up in this House and says they will be given the benefit of the doubt. A lot of the women who are sexually harassed do not want to reopen the wounds. They are not going to go to someone who is a stranger and say they were sexually harassed and here is chapter and verse. They are not even going to say that. We know from experience that women who have been sexually abused on the job do not want anybody to know about it. They are uncertain about their ability to prove it even though they know what is happening to them. By turning the clock back 21 years, we have done a disservice to those women. We have made them open season as we have made people of colour, gays, lesbians, any group in society that can be discriminated against because of who they are or what they stand for.
In that sense, it is a very unfair budget. There was lots of promise out there.

December 3, 1992

The Minister of Finance, himself having been Minister of Transport on a couple of occasions as well as being the critic for his party for many years, knows how people were looking forward to the national highway program. That program would take the Trans-Canada Highway in particular and bring it up to today's standards. It would take it out of the 1950s and 1960s which a lot of the highway is particularly in New Brunswick and northern Ontario where it is still two lanes.
The ministers of transport of all the provinces and the territories and the federal government have worked hard over the last five years to develop a strategy. The Minister of Finance could have said yes to that strategy. It was not perfect but it was there. We knew what the costs were.
There was an agreed-upon standard of four lanes that could have assisted in highway safety. It could have assisted in the rebuilding of the economies of a number of areas in the country, not just by the construction jobs which would have been created. There would be economic spin-offs to communities such as Thunder Bay, Sault Ste. Marie or Sudbury, by having much better highways for commerce to travel on. The government had that opportunity. They were ready but it failed to act.
There is another area where the government has not even touched ever since the winter works program was killed by the Liberals a number of years ago. The Canadian Federation of Municipalities, the NDP and the Liberals have been asking for a municipal infrastructure program.


Sheila Finestone: What did we kill? We totally rebuilt them.


Iain Francis Angus: What you killed was the winter works program that used to provide money to cities to rebuild themselves.
The government had the opportunity to provide funds which not only would have rebuilt the cities, but more important would also have provided the assistance to municipalities to provide the needed sewage treatment facilities. Not just in Victoria, which has been in the news lately, not just in Thunder Bay, which only has primary
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sewage, but in the province of Quebec where a lot of the sewage goes into the St. Lawrence River untreated.
We could have invested in the environment as well as investing in jobs. But this government failed to respond.
Where the government did respond was with cuts. At a time when for the last five or six years, we have been concerned about the viability of our farmers in western Canada what does this government do? It cuts the Western Grain Transportation Act by somewhere around $70 to $80 million.
That grain will still have to be moved, whether it is to Vancouver or Prince Rupert or Churchill or Thunder Bay, and through Thunder Bay down the seaway. Who is going to pick up the extra cost? The people who can least afford it, the farmers who are already hurting. It probably means that more farmers are going to go out of business. I think that is a real shame.
The other decision was to freeze the wages of public employees for the next two years, for another two years in addition to the year that we have now. While everybody loves to bash the people who work for the government, we forget that those people are consumers.
Those people do not just live here in Ottawa, although a lot of them do. They live in cities and towns and villages throughout this country. They shop at the corner store. They shop at the supermarket. They shop at the hardware store. If their consumption power is eroded because this government has frozen their wages, that means that there is going to be less money circulating back into the community.
My sense is that for every dollar we spend employing people, that much and more comes back to the treasury.
Most of these changes are self-defeating. Look at the cuts to FEDNOR, an excellent program in northern Ontario which provides assistance to existing businesses. It provides assistance to new businesses and has just been renewed after a comprehensive review. What does this government do? It cuts the funds that are available to stimulate the economy in northern Ontario, as it has done with Atlantic Canada and the Western Opportunities Agency. These cuts are counter-productive.

December 3, 1992
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Earlier today my leader pointed out that the change as a result of this mini budget is a net loss of 61,879 jobs. A total of 55,000 jobs will be created by the changes but
117.000	jobs will be lost.
Just go through it. The wage cut will cost 9,200 jobs; the operating budget cut will mean the elimination of
43.000	jobs; the UI benefit cut will affect almost 30,000 people; science and technology, 2,900 jobs; the selective native programs, 1,500 jobs; international assistance-we always think of our assistance overseas as money going away from this country-there are almost 1,400 jobs tied into those cuts; regional and industrial cuts, 8,400 jobs; and the green plan cuts will eliminate 5,200 jobs. If the government had gone forward with the green plan and added to it we could have created many more.
As for the transportation subsidy, a week after CN announces that 10,000 jobs will be gone over the next five years this government comes up with a program that is going to cut another 3,200.
This government has no business governing this country. It is bankrupt of ideas. The morality of this budget is under question. It should not go forward and we certainly will do what we can to make sure it does not.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Madam Speaker, as I listened to the conclusion of the remarks by the hon. member for Thunder Bay-Atikokan, I could only think of crocodile tears. I could only think that if he had been speaking in the Ontario legislature he would have made exactly the same speech.


Iain Francis Angus: No, I would not.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Exactly, almost word for word the same. He has a Minister of Finance in Ontario, Pink Floyd, and a premier that we are saddled with-I happen to be from Ontario as he knows. They are doing exactly the same thing to the people of Ontario as this Minister of Finance is doing to everybody in Canada. He has introduced budget cuts affecting the poor and the disabled and has taken money away from the disabled.


An hon. member:: And students.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: And students. This member talks about fairness and he sheds crocodile tears on behalf of the unemployed. Yet his premier is doing it to the same voiceless crowd that this government is doing it to, and
he knows it. He should be ashamed of himself and he should have mentioned the disgust and revulsion he feels at the way the premier of Ontario is treating the people of that province after all his la-di-da promises that are so typical of the New Democratic Party.
However, I do not want to dwell just on him because that is bad enough. I know it is something about which I could go on at length, but I have colleagues in the Ontario legislature who are fighting for truth and justice there. Therefore I will turn my remarks instead to the minister across the way.
As my colleagues indicated by their applause a few minutes ago, I want to congratulate the minister on staying in for the debate. It is a rare thing on the Conservative front bench.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Having said that I would like to go back to some history which I thought would be of interest to the minister. I wish his colleague, the former Minister of Finance and now the Minister of Industry, Science and Technology, was here because I am sure he would enjoy these quotes. He likes it when I quote him. I did the other day and I know he was pleased.
I have a quote now from page 98 of Hansard on November 8, 1984. This was an economic statement. It is similar to what we have had for the last day or two in debate.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: It was a good statement.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: The minister says it was a good statement. I would like to read part of it. It was a great statement. It was sort of the beginning of the end for the Conservative Party. It says:
In our centennial year the net federal debt was $18 billion; by the end of the fiscal year it will be about ten times higher, $190 billion; by 1990, if there are no changes, it could approach $410 billion.
Of course we know it approached it and it exceeded it by miles. The minister himself is predicting that it will be, I think, $490 billion by the end of the next fiscal year. He went on:
Let me put this in more personal terms. In 1967 this debt represented about $4,000 per family; this year it represents about $24,000 per family. And by 1990, if we do not take action, it will be the equivalent of about $54,000 for every Canadian family.
December 3, 1992

Well, they took action. They took all kinds of action. They cut and slashed all over the place, to hear the minister in all the budget speeches, yet it has exceeded $54,000 per family. Perhaps the minister can give us an up to date figure, but my guess is that it is around $70,000 per family now. That is as a result of their actions. They took action.
We have seen some evidence of the action in the economic statement put forward by the minister. It is action that has shown incompetence and inability to deal with the crucial, fundamental economic questions that are besetting this country.
They say they inherited this problem in 1984 and they moaned and groaned and complained about it. I could go on and on with quotes from this famous statement of November 8, 1984, but I only have ten minutes so I do not have time to do it. I would love to quote more because there was all kinds of hogwash in the statement.
Let us turn to his first budget, this famous Minister of Finance who sat so long in his position until he was finally relieved of his responsibilities, thank goodness. However, I am not sure we traded up.
I want to turn to page 5014 of Hansard, May 23, 1985. This was the first budget speech of the new Tory administration as it then was. Of course it is not new now, it is old and tired. He said in his budget speech:
The impact of these actions, and those taken in November, will continue to grow. Our actions will directly reduce the annual deficit by the end of the decade by more than $20 billion. Between now and Ihen, our actions will cut a total of $75 billion from the projected increase in the public debt.
By the end of the decade there would be $20 billion off the deficit. He did not mean the year 2000. He meant 1990. He was speaking in 1985 when he said these words and the decade he referred to was the 1980s, unless he was talking through his hat.
The deficit that year, according to his projections, was to be $33.8 billion. Subtract $20 billion and that puts it to $18.8 billion. Where is that $18.8 billion figure? We have never come close. It never got anywhere near it at any time in the 1980s, in a term of what the government called unprecedented growth in Canada. It claimed it was creating jobs like billy-o. The economy was just booming, thanks to their wonderful policies, but the deficit kept going up and up and up. Now it is back up at $34 billion. The Tories claimed they had all the answers.
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It was $34 billion when he made this budget speech in 1985. His cuts were going to save Canadians so much money they would not know what to do with it. It did not happen. The deficit kept going up and up-financial mismanagement on a most impressive scale.
Let me turn to what else he said in this same budget speech, at page 5021 of Hansard:
The measures I announced in November and today will ensure that the annual deficit is more than $20 billion lower than it would otherwise have been by the end of the decade. About 80 per cent of that reduction will be on the expenditure side. Most importantly, these measures will cut $75 billion from the projected debt over the same period.
He actually had the nerve to suggest to the House that 80 per cent of the cuts were on the expenditure side. We know perfectly well that no government has increased taxes as often and as significantly as the government sitting opposite here today. This minister, although I can give him some credit because he does not appear to increase taxes in this budget, knows what is going on.
I see my friends on my left have flown the coop. They are so embarrassed. Every time he gives us a tax break, Bobby Rae gives us a tax hike and takes all the money back. We got a tax break from this government in July. We are supposed to get another one, I think, in January if I am not mistaken, and Bob Rae has hiked all the taxes in Ontario to take all that money back and then some.
Some of the other premiers have done the same but it is particularly pernicious when the major province of this country, which is supposed to benefit from these tax breaks, as a stimulus to the economy takes all the money back out so the economy is not stimulated. That is what is going on. The NDP premier of Ontario is almost in league with this Minister of Finance. They have twin policies that are parallel. One is supposed to be a socialist government, one is supposed to be a Conservative government but the two of them seem to behave as though they were one party. It is unbelievable. It is like the Bobbsey twins.
I do not know whether my colleague across the way, the Minister of Finance, feels like Pink Floyd, but he sure acts like him and the cuts are just the same.
These statements in these past budgets indicate an incredible inability to control the Government of Canada and its expenditures. This government has absolutely, completely failed Canadians on this point. In 1984 in the election campaign they boasted about their ability to

December 3, 1992
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manage. In 1988, throughout the campaign the slogan of the Conservative Party was "managing change". That was the slogan they pushed to all the Canadian people. We have seen how they manage change. It is change for the worse because the deficit has kept going up and up. The government has been unable to deal with the financial crisis that it is faced with, much of which is its own doing.
Instead of pursuing expansionist policies that might have created jobs, reduced dependence on unemployment insurance, reduced dependence on welfare, all of which are funded by the government, instead of pursuing that kind of policy and then increasing tax revenue as a result of that, the government has relied on cuts and increased taxes. It has been obsessed with lowering inflation to zero. It has been obsessed with that and it has thrown thousands of Canadians out of work. Now it has a provincial government in Ontario that follows exactly the same policies. It is a double whammy for our province and it is a double whammy for Canada.
If Ontario is supposed to be the engine that runs the Canadian economy, how can it do it when it has a government in Ottawa that keeps trying to put the brakes on and when it has a government in Ontario that does not know how to get the brakes off. Instead of trying to stimulate the economy in Ontario by getting rid of these silly labour laws that the minister in Ontario is introducing and so on, things that would attract business and make the province grow a little bit, the premier of Ontario seems bent for leather on changing things around to make it an unpleasant economic environment in that province that will not stimulate business.
The Minister of Finance comes along and says he is stimulating business with a few paltry handouts and then he admittedly makes a genuine attempt with a tax
reduction which the premier of Ontario then steals away.
How are Ontario citizens supposed to prosper in that environment? How are people coming into Ontario supposed to feel that they can participate and grow in Ontario? Ontario used to be a place to stand and a place to grow. It is not any more. The reason it is not is because of the policies pursued by the minister and the policies pursued by the New Democratic Party government in that province. It is a sad state of affairs, a very sad state of affairs.
If the minister will accept some very sound advice, I would suggest he go to the Prime Minister right away and urge the Prime Minister to go to the Governor General, get a dissolution of this House, and allow the Canadian people to express their views on how the minister and his colleagues have been administering the Government of Canada for the last eight years. I am sure when they get the chance, it will be thumbs down and we will get a new government in this country that can do something about the problems that this government has created.


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


Some hon. members:: Question.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Pursuant to order made on Tuesday, December 1, 1992, the question on the motion is deemed put and a recorded division is deemed requested and deemed deferred until six o'clock p.m. on Monday, December 7, 1992.
It being 10.07 p.m., this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 10 o'clock a.m. pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 10.07 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Friday, December 4,1992