1992-03-17

Mr. Pierre H. Vincent (Parliamentary Secretary to Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 32(2), I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the annual report of the Governor of the Bank of Canada and the statement of accounts for 1991.
[Editor's Note: See today's Votes and Proceedings.]


NOWRUZ DAY ACT
Mr. Bill Attewell (Markham-Whitchurch-Stouff-ville) moved: for leave to introduce Bill C-338, an act respecting the Iranian New Year's Day.


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


Bill Attewell: Mr. Speaker, over 150,000 Canadians of Iranian descent contribute to the special mosaic that gives Canada its unique character.
Their roots are founded in the ancient Persian culture.
Nowruz or New Year's Day according to the Persian calendar, falls on the first day of spring. It celebrates the arrival of spring and the renewal of life.
With the help of Dr. Sy Kazemi, a constituent of mine and a leading figure in the Iranian community of Canada, I have prepared this bill so that Nowruz, the Iranian New Year's Day, will be recognized officially on March 21 every year.
Sy has just called again and asked that I close with Happy New Year or Nowruz to all Iranian Canadians.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Mr. Attewell 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 ordered to be printed.


PUBLIC SECTOR BONUSES ACT
Mr. Ronald J. Duhamel (St. Boniface) moved: for leave to introduce Bill C-339, an act to eliminate the payment of bonuses in the public sector of Canada.


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


Ron J. Duhamel: Mr. Speaker, this bill is a very simple one. Its intent is to ensure that those individuals who normally receive very huge bonuses are in fact treated much more in line with others who earn a living in Canada.
What we want to attempt to do is to make certain that there are no large payments that are paid out, some in excess of single family earnings in this country. I feel and some of my colleagues do that this would be a very important measure to show Canadians that we are willing to look at those other Canadians who enjoy substantially more than others.


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

March 17, 1992
Routine Proceedings
Pursuant to Standing Order 69(1), the motion is deemed adopted.
Bill read the first time and ordered to be printed.


PETITIONS
Ms. Beth Phinney (Hamilton Mountain):: Mr. Speaker, I have over 300 petitions here with several thousand names on them.
This is to add to the 270,000 signatures that I have already presented to the House of citizens who feel that there are serious deficiencies in the criminal justice system in Canada. There are many thousands of other signatures that have been presented by other members of this House of Commons.
I would like to add these to those. These petitioners feel that the crimes of violence against a person are serious and abhorrent to society. They ask the government to further amend the Criminal Code of Canada, the Bail Reform Act of 1972 and the Parole Act accordingly.


Ron J. Duhamel: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present today on behalf of my constituents a petition with regard to national unity.
It reads in part as follows. Canada is distinguished as one of the finest countries in the world with respect to its quality of life, its respect for human rights and responding to the economic, social and cultural needs of its citizens. They point out that the government has received advice from several quarters with respect to constitutional change. They would want the government to act quickly.
They ask the leaders of each political party represented here in the House to work together to bring about a satisfactory solution to our constitutional difficulties.

Like most Canadians, these people want a Constitution that meets the needs of our people, be they native, French-speaking, English-speaking or of any other origin.


Mr. Peter L. McCreath (South Shore):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour pursuant to Standing Order 36 to present a petition signed by a number of people from southern Nova Scotia, particularly Lunenburg county.
I notice that many of these people are associated with a very effective second story women's centre in Bridgewater.
These people petition noting that the goods and services tax is applied to feminine sanitary products and whereas these products are necessary for women during most of their lives and whereas the government has decided that the goods and services tax should not be applied to certain necessities such as food and medical services, they the undersigned humbly pray and call upon Parliament to consider removing the goods and services tax from women's sanitary products.


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
Mr. Albert Cooper (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons):: Mr. Speaker, the following question will be answered today: No. 225.


Mr. Taylor: With respect to Revenue Canada Income Thx Regulation No. 7303 relating to Northern residents' deductions (a) did Schedule IX originally state that residents had to live more than 160 km from a town of 10,000 in Saskatchewan (b) did Schedule IX appear in a subsequent printing without reference to the province (c) are there 2 versions of this regulation and, if so (i) why was it changed (ii) when did this change take place (iii) how was the change publicized?


Hon. Otto John Jelinek (Minister of National Revenue):: (a) Regulation 7303 was added to the income tax regulations in June 1988. Item 4. of division I in schedule IX to regulation 7303(2) lists 9 locations in Saskatchewan that, for the 1987 to 1992 taxation years, are deemed to be prescribed areas for the purpose of claiming the northern residents deductions under the Income Tax Act. Schedule IX has never placed any tests upon the eligibility of areas listed therein e.g., that residents had
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to live more than 160 kilometres from a town of 10,000 in Saskatchewan as suggested in the question.
Regulation 7303(1) provides tests for other areas to qualify as a prescribed area provided that each area earns at least 50 points under the tests. Included in the tests is a 160 kilometre distance requirement from urban centres that might apply to residents of Saskatchewan. This requirement has not been changed since regulation 7303(1) became law.
(b)	Schedule IX has not been amended, but will expire after the 1992 taxation year.
(c)	There has only been one version of regulation 7303 promulgated.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The question enumerated by the parliamentary secretary has been answered.


Albert Glen Cooper: I ask, Mr. Speaker, that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.


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


Some hon. members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Monday, March 16, consideration of Bill C-13, an act to establish a federal environmental assessment process, as reported (with amendments) from Legislative Committee C; and Motion No. 31 of Mr. Taylor (p. 8309).
Mr. Bill Blaikie (Winnipeg TYanscona):: Mr. Speaker, I am happy to have this opportunity to speak briefly to this
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motion and in doing so to follow up some concerns that I have had for a long time going back to my days as the NDP environment critic in this House from 1984 to 1987, and I might add in continuity with a concern I have had since the time that I served on the McGrath committee on parliamentary reform.
That has to do with the whole matter of regulations and the relationship between regulations and legislation.
As I understand this motion that my colleague has moved, it would require that there be a process by which these regulations can be brought back before the House and debated if necessary.
When we consider all the things in modem day legislation that are left to regulation, a Parliament that does not have the ability to scrutinize regulation is a Parliament that is working with one hand behind its back at the very best. So many things which actually give reality or do not give reality to the intention of legislation work themselves out in the form of regulations.
That is why the NDP has moved this motion. It was a concern that we had going back to the special committee on reform of the House of Commons where we felt that one of the ways of empowering the House anew would be to give it more power over regulation.
We saw some of this happen pursuant to the debate and the outcome of the process that attended the bill on gun control, which my colleague the hon. member for Port Moody-Coquitlam handled for us. What we are suggesting here is something along the same lines.
The government accepted it then when its own backbenchers felt that they could not vote for a bill unless they were going to get a second crack at the real content of the bill in the form of regulations.
Surely if it is important enough to do when it comes to guns it is important enough to do when it comes to the environment, unless the government plans in its regulations to do by regulation what it would never dare to do politically. That is to exempt by regulation all manner of projects which otherwise would come under some kind of environmental assessment if we were to respect the spirit and the intention of the bill.
We say to the government that scepticism when it comes to the environment is in order. We want to see those regulations and we want Parliament to be able to

March 17, 1992
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see those regulations. The government would like that we all pass the legislation and that we all feel good about a new bill. Admittedly it is a better bill than the one that came before this House previously. It is a better bill in large part because of the work done by my colleague, the hon. member for The Battlefords-Meadow Lake.
But the fact remains that unless we can be guaranteed that the regulations will indeed live up to the legislation and that the regulations are really up to scratch, we might find ourselves regretting this spirit of co-operation somewhere down the line.
As I started to say earlier, I am told by material we have received from the Canadian Bar Association that the regulations would limit environmental assessment to nuclear reactors with a power capacity greater than 30 thermal megawatts. This would effectively remove from comprehensive study the Slowpoke reactors which Atomic Energy of Canada Limited has proposed for such densely populated and sensitive locations as hospitals and universities, for instance.
The fuel in such reactors is sufficient to cause very serious environmental and health damage if there were to be some kind of accident. It goes without saying, at least I thought it would, that such a proposal to build a Slowpoke reactor at the University of Ottawa, not far from these Parliament Buildings, ought to come under some kind of environmental assessment. But we hear that what the government intends is its usual collaboration, uncritical slavish collaboration with the nuclear industry.
As good a piece of environmental legislation as this is, the government will be able to go ahead and exempt Slowpoke reactors from any kind of assessment wherever it chooses. I just think that gives the lie to a lot of the rhetoric which has accompanied the passage of this legislation so far on the government side.
I just use that as one example. There are many others, but I think it should go without saying that the regulations ought to live up to the spirit of the bill. It is clear that we have reason to worry that they will not. Therefore we insist on the passage of this motion which would make sure that Parliament would have some handle on whether or not those regulations did indeed live up to the legislation.


Mr. Lee Clark (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of the Environment):: Mr. Speaker, I would just like to take a few moments to speak to Motion No. 31, the amendment put forth by the hon. member for The Battlefords-Meadow Lake, and to indicate to the House, as I think most members know, that there is a very considerable amount of opportunity for consultation in the process with respect to regulations. Two of the most crucial regulations have already been presented to the committee in draft form, i.e. the law list and the comprehensive study list. It is anticipated that in fact four regulations may be finalized by the time the bill is eventually implemented.
The subsequent regulations will be proposed to the public as is normally the case. This process involves a considerable amount of public consultation and participation by all stakeholders. In fact I can report to you, Mr. Speaker, that meetings have already been held in some 15 cities throughout Canada as part of this multi-stakeholder consultation process. As a result of conversations I have had with some individuals who participated in the city of Regina, if I recall correctly, they as individual participants were very pleased with the process, encouraged by what they heard and pleased by the opportunity to be a part of the process.
I believe that the regulatory multi-stakeholder advisory committee is at work and provides all who are interested and who are concerned with a very real opportunity to be a part of that process.
In addition I would remind the House that any standing committee-and in this case the Standing Committee on the Environment would be the appropriate committee-has the opportunity to determine its own agenda and certainly to make proposed regulations a part of that agenda, if it so wishes.
We have done a very significant amount of consultation already. I am very familiar with the officials who are part of the process. They are well known to members of the House. The officials who work for FEARO and other officials working on behalf of the Department of the Environment are extremely conscientious in their desire to consult widely and to inform widely. I think members of the House would concur with that because the levels of consultation which have taken place during the course of our studies have been exemplary.
I believe there is a good process of consultation under way. I certainly would encourage the standing committee to place any proposed set of regulations on its agenda if it is at all so inclined, and I suspect it will be. I feel the legislation as proposed now does provide for an appropriate amount of consultation. I would encourage the
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House therefore to support the legislation in its current form.


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


Some hon. members:: Question.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The question is on Motion No. 31. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.


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


Some hon. members:: Yea.


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


Some hon. members:: Nay.


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


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Pursuant to Standing Order 76(8), a recorded division on the proposed motion stands deferred.
Motion No. 32, standing in the name of the hon. member for The Battlefords-Meadow Lake, Motion No. 33, standing in the name of the hon. member for Davenport, and Motion No. 34, standing in the name of the Minister of the Environment, will be grouped for debate.
Motions Nos. 32 and 33 will be voted on separately. An affirmative vote on Motion No. 32 will obviate the need for a vote on Motion No. 34, while a negative vote on Motion No. 32 will require a vote on Motion No. 34.


Mr. Len Taylor (The Battlefords-Meadow Lake) moved:: Motion No. 32
That Bill C-13 be amended by adding immediately after line 40 at
page 49 the following new clause:
"71.1 A review of the operation of this Act shall be completed
(a)	on any day before January 1, 1997 and
(b)	on the expiration of every fifth year after that day
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by the Minister, who may for the purpose of that review consult with representatives of such organizations as the Minister considers appropriate, and the Minister shall cause a report of the results of the review to be laid as soon as possible before each House of Parliament."


Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Davenport: Motion No. 33
That Bill C-13 be amended by adding immediately after line 40 at page 49 the following new clause:
"71.1(1) The administration of this Act shall, within five years after the enactment of this Act, be reviewed by such committee of the House of Commons, or of both Houses of Parliament, as may be designated or established by Parliament for that purpose.
(2) The committee designated or established by Parliament for the purpose of subsection (1) shall undertake a comprehensive review of the provisions and operation of this Act and shall, within a year after the review is undertaken or within such further time as the House of Commons may authorize, submit a report to Parliament thereon including a statement of any changes to this Act or its administration that the Committee would recommend."


Hon. Frank Oberle (for the Minister of the Environment) moved:: Motion No. 34
That Bill C-13 be amended by adding immediately after line 40 at page 49 the following new clause:
"72.(1) Five years after the coming into force of this section, a comprehensive review of the provisions and operation of this Act shall be undertaken by the Minister.
(2) The Minister shall, within one year after a review is undertaken pursuant to subsection (1) or within such further time as the House of Commons may authorize, submit a report on the review to Parliament including a statement of any changes the Minister recommends."


Leonard William (Len) Taylor: Top
of the morning to you, Sir.
Mr. Speaker, this amendment calls for the minister to ensure that a full review of the act occurs at least every five years starting with the first review on or before January 1, 1997.
The amendment is very similar to the call for a five-year review of the act governing agriculture legislation passed in this House earlier this session, the Gross Revenue Insurance Program and the Net Income Stabilization Account program legislation which were brought before this Parliament and passed in the form of Bill C-98.

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This bill to establish a federal environmental review process charts new waters. We have all acknowledged that over the last day here in the House. The bill seeks to lay out in law the role which the federal government and its agencies must play in assessing the potential environmental impact of major undertakings.
Given all the new environmental assessment or the lack thereof, given all the news generated in the form of James Bay II, the Oldman dam, Rafferty-Alameda, Kemano, Point Aconi and others, there can be no question that this is the most important single piece of environmental law ever brought before this Parliament.
As I said, the bill charts new waters and many of these waters remain murky. We already know of many of the weaknesses of the bill, weaknesses that the government refused to face during the committee work on the bill. We know that there will be other problems found down the road as we move along in the bill, as the provisions of this bill and its regulations are brought into play, tested and explored.
The future of our environment that we know we borrow from our children rests in part on the ability of the federal government to protect the environment from damage that may be caused by activities, policies and programs. The ability to review this act in depth at least every five years is one step in strengthening that protection for our environment.
This is not a new concept. All three political parties participating in the review of this bill have voiced similar concerns. As we know from the matter in front of us today, all three parties in the House have amendments in this regard.
I raised the need to review this act during committee discussions. The parliamentary secretary who is in the House today stated on one occasion: "I would remind Mr. Taylor, while this bill indeed is breaking new and important ground, legislation can of course be amended at any time".
Karen Brown, vice-president of policy and regulatory affairs of the Federal Environmental Assessment Review Office, stated before the committee: "The problem that we have right now is that we don't have enough experience to know exactly how we would work it into the bill. Until we get further experience we are really not sure what it is we would regulate and how".
The hon. member for Davenport who spoke quite well during the debate yesterday, representing the Liberal Party for much of the committee hearings, stated: "This was a technically difficult bill and, as Mr. Thylor said, we have learned a lot. We are charting new territory. We will probably discover the weaknesses and strengths of this bill as it is being practised. Probably in a few years there will be a set of amendments that will close the loopholes".
The parliamentary secretary also alluded to the future need to amend this act, and I quote him from the discussion during committee: "I guess my inclination would be to see how it operates", meaning the act. "When we reopen this after a bit of experience, perhaps Mr. Taylor's amendment would be at the right time".
All in this House and all Canadians agree that protecting the environment is central to the work the government should be doing. This bill sets out an environmental assessment process which would take a step toward strengthening the protection of the environment. As all of us who have been actively involved with this legislation know, the bill does not go far enough in protecting the environment. Because it charts new waters there will be undoubtedly important areas which will not be covered by the bill. Some important matters have already been ignored altogether. In other ways which may be unknown to us at this time, this bill will fail to address properly the needs of Canadians for strong environmental assessment and protection.
The simple motion before us today calls for the government to review this bill after five years and for every five years after that, to acknowledge that we should have a look at the very technical aspects of the bill to ensure that we are doing exactly the right thing.
The minister responsible has the authority to do this. It is a very simple task that the department should be doing in any case. The review allows for a more public presence in that review process.
In conclusion and put very simply, I state that there is every reason to support the motion I am putting before the House. There are many good reasons to support this review mechanism. I ask members of this House for their support for my motion.


Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Davenport: Mr. Speaker, we have reached now an interesting point in our discussions. We have before us three different approaches to the same problem. One proposal is from my colleague for
March 17, 1992

The Battlefords-Meadow Lake, one is proposed by the Minister of the Environment and one by the Liberal side.
The question is, how do we put into the legislation the best possible, the most appropriate, the most open process to review the legislation itself?
When we debated the Canadian Environmental Protection Act some years ago in committee, the government of the day, which is the same government as today, did accede to pressures and the interventions of various participants. Included in that, I believe, was the distinguished member for York East who was a member of the committee and made a substantial contribution at that time to include in the Canadian Environmental Protection Act a review process which is the same as we are proposing here for this particular legislation, namely Bill C-13.
We are proposing something that exists in another statute. The idea is to set into motion a review of the legislation after five years. I believe all three sides agree on this. However, there is a difference in the approach in that we propose a review which is open and public. The proposal of the Minister of the Environment, which is the object of Motion No. 34, is very narrow I would say, because the minister would consult those whom the minister of the day considers appropriate. That could be a very narrow, limited consultation process and not a very open one.
If I understand the NDP proposal, it is also not as open as we are proposing. I have taken a careful look at the amendment proposed in Motion No. 32.
Therefore, what I am saying is that of the three options before us, it seems to me that the Liberal option is the one that will allow an established committee of the House of Commons or an established committee of both Houses of Parliament to hold public hearings so as to get the input from the field, from the affected sectors, from the public at large, as to the adequacy and the desirable changes and other aspects of the bill when it has reached the age of five.
In essence, that is what we are saying. There is not much that I can add except to stress the fact that public participation in environmental matters is a principle to
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which all three parties subscribe. It is my hope that on the government side there will be a favourable attitude to a proposal for a review of the legislation that does put emphasis on the role of the public five years from now when this legislation will inevitably come under scrutiny.


Mr. Dennis Mills (Broadview-Greenwood):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to pick up on what my colleague from Davenport said. I think that his approach is correct when he talks about using a committee of both houses and having more of the public at large involved.
I want to come at it from that sector of our community that is so important to making the success of that and that is the business community. We have a shifting attitude today from the business community in this country toward the environment, whereas three, four or five years ago, there tended to be an attitude where business and the environmental movement tended to operate in isolation.
Increasingly, we see a situation where the business community is taking a more proactive role in all areas of the environment. We in this House do not in any way, shape or form want this review process to move that relationship backward. If we can have a situation which promotes more business participation and involvement in the actual process of this bill, then I think we are going to create a lot more good will.
I keep referring to this organization. I do not believe we are utilizing all the resources of this national round table on the environment as much as we should. They have experts involved. It is a public-private sector organization which advises this Parliament. They have been able to bring together leaders from all aspects of the community and the business community. They keep stressing in their communication all the work that they do, that as we pull the leaders of the business community into this process, it has not only has a national effect, but most of these organizations have international linkages. Those international linkages are so important in getting a common environmental review assessment process going.
I support my colleague from Davenport and his motion. Any time we can have a more open, public at large participation through the committee process, it is only going to serve to refine the bill even more.

March 17, 1992
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Mr. Jim Fulton (Skeena):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to support the motion proposed by my friend from The Battlefords-Meadow Lake and also the one put forward by the member for Davenport.
It is unfortunate to hear from the government side this morning that it is not prepared to move on the matter of regulatory scrutiny. I would be very surprised if the government did not support in some way the proposal on five-year scrutiny of either the minister, or the member for Davenport, or the member for The Battlefords- Meadow Lake because if one looks simply at the rate of accelerating interest in and need for environmental assessment, one realizes that this legislation will be in need of a major overhaul in less than five years.
Even the last couple of days of debate have revealed some of the more obvious shortfalls of this legislation that have been incorporated into it for political purposes.
Let me deal with the time line again for a moment because it was only 17 years ago that the first cabinet directive was made in relation to environmental assessment, back in 1974, and it was only eight years ago that the now famous 1984 cabinet guidelines order was passed by cabinet. Many members of the House and many Canadians now understand that the wording was poorly drafted because it was not legislation, it had all kinds of open-ended sections to it and it has only been through a very extensive, costly, and time-consuming court process that it has come to have the kind of administrative legal impact that it has now.
We know now how long this legislation has been in the drafting form. It is some four years. Bill C-13 is very different legislation from what it was when it was called Bill C-78 and when in fact it first came out of the drafting process.
I want to compliment the minister. It is unfortunate that he could not be here for the debate, but I think we all understand why. It was the government itself which chose this particular period of time to have this debate. The minister's own travel schedule precluded his presence, but I want to compliment on the kind of process that he agreed to in terms of the legislative committee. I had hoped that it would carry on during this process and we would have seen more changes here.
It is, I think, worth other committees having a look at the kind of new process that was utilized by bringing in competent legal experts from the field of environmental law. Bill Andrews from the West Coast Environmental Law Association and Brian Pannell with his legal expertise in association with the Canadian Environment Network provided a very critical kind of assistance to the legislative committee.
All of us have realized that the number of changes that took place during the legislative committee process is likely to carry on. It would be naive to think that the body of growing expertise, not only in the area of environmental law but the ability to understand why we have to assess alternatives, is really making the best use of our resources. Is this particular proposal for a dam, a forest project, or anything else, really the best approach.
We are going to find an exponential increase in speed in the need for changes to Bill C-13. It would be deeply regrettable to not have the kind of review procedure that is being proposed and I am reasonably confident that we are going to see a positive vote on this some time later today.
The lack of opportunity within the legislation as it now stands for proper assessment of policies is an enormous and glaring loophole. Examples that jump to mind obviously are in areas such as the field of energy, where this government has just in its most recent budget put forward $178 million for Atomic Energy of Canada Limited and only about a third of that on the other side of the ledger for conservation and energy efficiency.
We have argued vigorously all along-the government has not listened-that policy assessment should be much more clearly delineated for assessment procedures under this legislation. I think when the public finds out that they are not getting sustainable development policies from government, not necessarily this one, but perhaps from a future government, they are going to want the legislation changed. A review procedure timetable could well allow on a regularized basis for legislation such as this. It might become every two years, every five years or whatever a regularized redrafting process for this kind of legislation that will need to be changed increasingly quickly.
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The reason I say that is that there continues to be many people who hold high office in both the public and private sector who do not know such simple things as the fact that the Pacific Ocean has already risen in direct relation to global warming. People do not seem to stay abreast of these kinds of gigantic, ecological phenomena that are now scientifically known to a certain extent and understood. It is similar to the ozone hole, a very recent issue here in this House.
Should it not be the case that all of the government's policies related to the potential impact of CFCs or other ozone depleting substances undergo scrutiny? We know about it. We were warned in this House by the Minister of the Environment to be careful with our children and to be careful with children generally to keep them out of the sun because of the potential for increased depletion of the ozone over much of Canada later this year. It is not in the legislation now. We are just about to take a vote on a piece of legislation and it is relatively easy already to find areas of incredible weakness within the legislation already.
What about species loss. Mr. Speaker, I know you know about the issue of a loss of one acre every five seconds of forest land in Canada. Most people do not reflect on the rate of loss of forested land in this country. It is the kind of thing that should be clearly delineated in a piece of legislation like this.
It is only through amendments, such as that proposed by the Minister of the Environment, the member for Davenport and my colleague from The Battlefords- Meadow Lake, that we can constructively assure ourselves and the public that we will be able on a regularized basis to update legislation that is needed to address the largest single issue that we face, which is how to get the economy of this country and the economy of the world linked into sustainable development in its truest sense, which is sustainable habitat and some kind of steady state economics that does not have the kind of increasingly fast-moving, negative entropy that we are seeing right now, not only in the developing world, but in the most advanced countries where, the general environment and general consequences of a declining environment are affecting the populations in those countries.
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I have spoken about the speed with which we have seen the change from 1974 until today, and that is a very short period of time. Many pieces of legislation do not have to be redrafted and changed as often. The bulk of changes that we have seen in relation to the assessment procedures from the 1984 cabinet guidelines EARP have come from court decisions. I do not think that this piece of legislation of itself is going to slow down the number of times that the public are still going to be seeking some kind of assistance from the courts.
I see you preparing to rise to support the brilliance of the amendment by my friend from The Battlefords- Meadow Lake, Mr. Speaker, so I will take this somewhat unique opportunity to sit down now.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I just want to bring to the attention of hon. members again relevancy, particularly to this motion. I appreciate the hon. member winding up by giving us an overview of the whole bill again, but I think it is important that we do get down to the nitty-gritty of the motions, please.


Ms. Lynn Hunter (Saanich-Gulf Islands):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to also commend my colleague, the member for The Battlefords-Meadow Lake, on bringing forth this amendment. It is an important amendment and an important addition to Bill C-13.
We have to remember that Bill C-13 is being brought forward and we are debating this just two and a half months in advance of the earth summit in Brazil.
Canada has an opportunity to have the best environmental assessment legislation in the world. That is what we are trying to do. My colleague from The Battlefords-Meadow Lake in committee tried to put forth some positive additions to the legislation and the legislation, to the government's credit, has been altered because of those interventions by both the member for The Battlefords-Meadow Lake and the member for Davenport.
However, having said that, I think that we all have to be reminded to have a little humility in this process. Although the bill is very much improved from the former bill, Bill C-78, it is not perfect. As I said yesterday, the search for protection is sometimes the enemy of the good.
What has occurred in the last five years in reaction to a vacuum in environmental assessment legislation has been a series of very expensive court challenges, not just to the communities involved but to the industries putting forth. It is also expensive to the government, the

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taxpayers. Our money has gone forward because of a void in the legislation.
Although this Bill C-13 is much improved, let us take a realistic look at it. We cannot have thought of everything. I can already see some of the gaps in this bill that may very well provide all sorts of problems down the road. This is why it is important to have that five-year review as a mechanism that will reassure those people: "After five years, the House of Commons will review this legislation again". There is some certainty that we have five years.
That does not preclude the suggestion of the member for Davenport that a parliamentary committee review what is going on. Parliamentary committees are creatures unto themselves. They can review whatever they like to review, and that is as it should be.
The parliamentary committee on the environment has the ability to call witnesses on any issue. This five-year review mechanism suggestion put forth by the member for The Battlefords-Meadow Lake is an addition to that. I think it is a very positive addition.
In conclusion, I cannot see why this amendment, as proposed, could not be supported from all sides of the House. It is once again another positive intervention from the member for The Battlefords-Meadow Lake. He has achieved a great deal in committee and this is just one example.
I ask for the indulgence of the House in supporting this amendment.


Ron J. Duhamel: Mr. Speaker, I want to make a few brief remarks on the various amendments before us which basically deal with the involvement of the public in the review of Bill C-13.
As I understand the legislation right now, the government does not specifically address the whole notion of involving the general public in consultation in the review of this particular bill.
My colleagues to the left have indicated that yes, there should be some consultation involving the general public. That, in a sense, should be in the hands of a minister. At least I interpret it that way and I do not say that unkindly. I am a little nervous about that.
I would much, much prefer that it be consultation and involvement of the general public as directed by this House, or perhaps with the involvement of both Houses. We all know that environmental assessment has been a problem. I think we acknowledge that this is a step forward.
What we want to do whenever this particular piece of legislation is reviewed is to ensure that it is another step forward. The involvement of the public is clearly a key to achieving that kind of progress.
I think it addresses another issue. We are talking about the involvement of the general public in legislation that deals with the environment. At the same time, the involvement of the general public is a question that needs to be looked at by all governments at this particular period in our history.
We are not without knowing that we have an electorate, the general public who is much more knowledgeable, who is better read and who is much more sensitive to a number of issues whether they be environmental, economic, social, cultural or what have you.
There needs to be a mechanism whereby the general public can in fact be involved in a significant kind of way in the review of legislation whether it relates to environment or other issues.

With these comments, I just want to emphasize the main point, which is that the general public must be involved, not only in reviewing some environmental legislation, but I would say that we must go much farther and begin to review other legislation in other areas. This phenomenon of the public's desire for greater involvement is fairly recent.


Mr. Ian Waddell (Port Moody-Coquitlam):: Mr. Speaker, also the top of the morning to you on this St. Patrick's Day.
I rose in this debate before to speak generally on the environment. I said at that time that the environment is a huge concern of my constituents in Port Moody-Co-
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quitlam, which lies about some 30 kilometres to the east of Vancouver. It is one of the fastest growing suburban areas in Canada. It has a magnificent setting at the mouth of the Fraser River up against the coast mountains. Also the flowers bloom there today as it snows in Ottawa.
The concern for the environment reflected from my riding comes especially from young people who see the environment as a great priority. They are right. There is a commitment by myself, my colleagues and the New Democratic Party. We have taken a collective decision that the environment will be a priority. That is why we have been speaking and offering amendments. I congratulate my colleagues for their work.
This amendment calls for a review of this act so that we can update it, so that we can make sure it is working and so that we can scrutinize it because things change so quickly in the environment. I want to to show how these environmental matters work and why we need to review things so quickly.
Let us take the mighty Fraser River and deal with that and the environmental problems. The Fraser was named by David Thompson, the explorer, after the fur trader, Simon Fraser, of the Northwest Company, who was the first European to follow its course to its mouth in 1808.
Aboriginal people had been using the Fraser River to live beside and to fish in since time immemorial. This is one of Canada's great rivers. It is 1,368 kilometres long, rising from your province-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Again, I appreciate what the hon. member is saying. A lot of us appreciate the history lesson we are getting here. I still would like to mention relevancy. I know the hon. member will come back to it. But within the 10 minutes that he has I would appreciate it if he would speak on the motions, please.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Of course, Mr. Speaker is right. I just wanted to show the area of the river. Here are a couple of problems that pertain to this bill and why it needs review.
The first one is that there are industries and projects by the river. For example, in September 22, 1990 our environment critic, the member for Skeena, wrote to the minister about a de-inking plant that started up on the banks of the river. He wanted to know whether there
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would be an environmental assessment project of this plant.
In this bill there is some question of the regulations that will be made and will it be necessary to have an environmental assessment for small projects. This is something we are concerned about. It seems from the debate that it will not be necessary. We want to know how it is going to work. If you have a collection of small projects, like a de-inking plant and other plants on the banks of the Fraser, that affects the water quality of the river.
Should there be an environmental assessment under this bill? Probably not. Likely under the bill there would be, but we want to come back to this bill, to revisit the bill, to see whether it is working, to see whether the regulations are too broad, and so on, and whether there has to be more environmental assessment even for a small project.
For example, a small nuclear reactor was talked about by one of my colleagues here. If that goes in at a hospital beside the river, will that be environmentally assessed, or should it be assessed? Well, let us have a look at that and see how the bill is doing.
Another area I want to talk about is as to how it fits in with the other projects. I will give you an example.
I wrote to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans on May 16, 1991 about a debris control board on the river, about a board that got $180,000 from the federal government and money also from the Association of Forest Industries, a like grant of $180,000 and another $180,000 from the provincial government. And what that board did is it cleared up the debris in the lower Fraser River.
Now that is a very important environmental project. And it appears that the federal government is going to drop the funding for this and really open it up which will endanger fishermen, endanger yacht owners and so on, and endanger the port of Vancouver by allowing debris in the lower river.
The problem is that the government cannot on the one hand come to the House and say: "Here is a bill that is really going to tackle the environment," and the next week with a green plan, come and say: "Look, we are going to spend $10 million on the environment," and forget the kind of small but effective projects like the Fraser River debris trap.

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One of the local journalists, Sandy McDougall of the Tri-City News in my area of Coquitlam wrote that it is the small projects that are really the effective things that can be done for the environment and I agree.
That is why I have been taking this cause up in the House. When the government brings in a huge environment bill, or the government brings in a big green plan or huge $10 million or $20 million projects, I am saying deal with the small things. They have an environmental impact and they are worth looking at.
I wrote again to the present Minister of the Environment on February 11, 1992.1 asked him to have another look at reinstating the funding for this environmental project. The mayor of Port Coquitlam and the council wrote on this project. Not only that, but also the Vancouver Port Authority wrote, the yachting people wrote, and so on. I am just looking here at a letter from the Centennial Sailing Club, for example, which said; "You have got to change your view about funding the debris control traps on the lower Fraser River because this is an important environmental issue".
Let me just conclude by saying that we have to have a further look at this bill. We have to keep looking to see whether it is working. We have to not only consider the big projects but also we have to consider the small projects. A good example is this debris trap. It costs $180,000. That is a small amount in the context of all the money spent, but here is an effective environmental project, here is something worth looking at.
I urge the government to reinstate it as this bill passes this week. I understand the government might even be prepared to do that. If it does, I will be the first one to applaud it. I say to the government: Let us make this bill work; let us consider the small projects; and let us have a review of this bill as this amendment suggests.


Walter Leland Rutherford (Lee) Clark: Mr. Speaker, I have a few brief comments on the three motions grouped together which are Motions Nos. 32, 33 and 34. Perhaps I could take the opportunity for the benefit of those who are watching or subsequently reading Hansard, the recordings of this
debate, to note that government Motion No. 34 calls for a new clause, clause 72, which reads:
(1)	Five years after the coming into force of this section, a comprehensive review of the provisions and operation of this Act shall be undertaken by the Minister.
(2)	The Minister shall, within one year after a review is undertaken pursuant to subsection (1) or within such further time as the House of Commons may authorize, submit a report on the review to Parliament including a statement of any changes the Minister recommends.
Very briefly, government Motion No. 34 is indeed an attempt to draw upon the suggestions of both Motions Nos. 32 and 33 and to provide for the type of subsequent review that many members, as they have already indicated, believe would be helpful. In other words, in very simple terms, there would indeed be a comprehensive review of the act after its operation, five years after it has come into force.
The minister would then report to Parliament, which of course is a public document, and as always the Standing Committee on the Environment would have the opportunity, if it wished, to place this report on its agenda, to invite the minister to appear as a witness before that committee and as a committee is empowered to do, to invite other witnesses if it so chose.
In a very real sense, the government has indeed attempted to draft what might be described as a suitable compromise, recognizing the merits of the arguments as presented in both cases, ensuring indeed that there will be a review after five years of the act being in operation, ensuring that that review will be made public and ensuring as well that the Standing Committee on the Environment, if it is so inclined, certainly will have the opportunity to have the minister bring that report before it for its examination and indeed, to ask other interested members of the public to appear as well.
In a sense Motion No. 34 is a reasonable compromise of Motions Nos. 32 and 33.1 would hope therefore that the House would support Motion No. 34.


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


Some hon. members:: Question.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Motions Nos. 32 and 33 will be voted on separately and an affirmative vote on Motion No. 32 will obviate the need for a vote on Motion No. 34, while a negative vote on Motion No. 32
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will require a vote on Motion No. 34. Therefore, the question is on Motion No. 32, standing in the name of Mr. Taylor.
Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.


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


Some hon. members:: Yea.


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


Some hon. members:: Nay.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: In my opinion the nays have it.
And more than five members having risen:


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Pursuant to Standing Order 76(8), the recorded division on the proposed motion stands deferred.
The next question is on Motion No. 33 standing in the name of Mr. Caccia. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.


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


Some hon. members:: Yea.


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


Some hon. members:: Nay.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: In my opinion the nays have it.
And more than five members having risen:


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Pursuant to Standing Order 76(8), the recorded division on the proposed motion stands deferred.
The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred divisions of report stage of the bill now before the House.
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Walter Leland Rutherford (Lee) Clark: Mr. Speaker, a point of order. If I heard you correctly, you have not yet addressed government Motion No. 34.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Once the vote is taken on Motion No. 32, we will take it on Motion No. 34. We cannot do it until we have taken the vote on 32 and 33. Therefore, we cannot take it on 34. We will do that later on today. It that clear for the hon. member?


Walter Leland Rutherford (Lee) Clark: As always, Mr. Speaker, your words of advice are both clear and acceptable.


Mr. Redway:: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. I believe there is agreement that the votes will be deferred until three o'clock today.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is it agreed?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Agreed and so ordered. The vote will take place at three o'clock this afternoon on the deferred divisions.


WILD ANIMAL AND PLANT PROTECTION ACT
Frank Oberle: that Bill C-42, an act respecting the protection of certain species of wild animals and plants, be now read the second time and referred to Legislative Committee C.


Walter Leland Rutherford (Lee) Clark: Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by saying that it is a pleasure for me to be able to speak to the House today by way of introduction of second reading of Bill C-42, an act respecting the protection of certain species of wild animals and plants.
This is very important legislation which certainly has the attention of the nation, as is evidenced by the amount of mail which I have received. It is a bill which I am pleased is now before us for second reading debate.
Mr. Speaker, as you may recall, in 1987 the Government of Canada sponsored a major international conference here in Ottawa, the Sixth Conference of the Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.
The present Minister of State for the Environment had the honour of presenting the welcoming address at

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that conference and she had the privilege of announcing to the 650 delegates representing 88 countries and over 100 non-governmental organizations that Environment Canada was developing new legislation to control international trade in and interprovincial transport of foreign and Canadian wild species.
The Wild Animal and Plant Protection Act, which we refer to as WAPPA, is that new federal legislation. It will regulate international and interprovincial trade in wild animals and plants, including their parts and products. Its objectives are to protect Canada's wild animal and plant species from illegal trade, to help protect wild animal and plant species in foreign countries from poaching and smuggling and to protect Canada's ecosystems from the introduction of designated harmful species, the so-called biological pollutants.
The importance of the issues addressed by Bill C-42 should not be underestimated. In a February 1991 submission to the Minister of the Environment, the coalition of leading wildlife and nature organizations, known as the Group of Eight, identified 10 priority issues for biodiversity and sustainable development in Canada. One of these is improved federal wildlife legislation concerning poaching and illegal trade in wildlife and effective enforcement of such legislation.
Bill C-42 will complement existing provincial and territorial legislation governing the conservation of wild animals and plants. As well, it will allow Canada to better comply with international agreements and support the efforts of other countries to conserve and protect species, especially endangered ones.
As I shall explain later in these remarks, unless this legislation is passed, the federal government will have limited capability to stop trade related illegal exploitation of wildlife, whether this wildlife is the falcon in Canada, or the rhinoceros in Africa.
Therefore, it is especially gratifying to be able to begin debate as that legislation, Bill C-42, moves to second reading today.
Before getting into the specifics of the legislation before the House, I would like to discuss the context within which Bill C-42 was developed. On December 11, 1990 the Government of Canada set out a comprehensive policy and action plan to implement sustainable development in Canada. As members know, that was Canada's Green Plan for a Healthy Environment whose objective is "to secure for current and future generations of Canadians a safe and healthy environment and a sound a prosperous economy". To meet this challenge the green plan set out specific goals and targets and schedules for attaining them.
As part of its program to conserve and protect Canada's special spaces and species, the plan proposed introduction during 1991 of new legislation to deter poaching and illegal trading of wild animals and plants. The government is dedicated to fulfilling its green plan commitments and Bill C-42 received first reading in the House of Commons on November 7, 1991.
This bill is an important green plan initiative and embodies many of the principles of that plan. Poachers, smugglers and traffickers in wild species have no respect for nature and respect for nature is a fundamental tenet of the green plan. The plan emphasizes a strong relationship between a healthy environment and a healthy economy. Illegal trade in wild species undermines that relationship. The green plan stresses co-ordinated action by the federal government. All federal agencies concerned with trade in wild animals and plants will respond under Bill C-42.
Furthermore, implementation of this legislation will also reflect the shared responsibility of the federal and provincial governments with regard to wild species. The strengthening of these partnerships is also an important tenet of the green plan and the Wild Animal and Plant Protection Act will have the added benefit of ensuring the efficient use of public resources. Equally important, the legislation will provide a framework within which all affected and interested parties can work together to develop a program which attacks poaching and illegal trading in wildlife effectively. The Wild Animal and Plant Protection Act will indeed be a partnership for change.
Any co-ordinated and comprehensive approach aimed at fostering a healthy environment must take into account the protection of wildlife. That is why Canada's green plan called for the national wildlife strategy which was announced on November 29, 1991. Bill C-42 is an important component of that strategy.
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Under the heading "new legislation to attack poaching and illegal trading", the words of the green plan as they set out the objectives of the national wildlife strategy have great relevance in describing the problems faced in the protection of wildlife from poaching and illegal trade.
The illegal trade in both wildlife and wildlife products is big business both in Canada and around the world. In some circumstances it is having a devastating effect on wildlife populations. For example, the future of the world's rhinoceros population is in grave danger because of the demand for the animals' horns for traditional Asian medicines and for dagger handles in the Middle East. In Canada there is a growing export market for bear gall bladders, again for traditional Asian medicines.
Mr. Speaker, as you and I know, I have spoken publicly and in this House before with reference to the slaughter of a very famous black bear in Riding Mountain National Park called Duke, perhaps the largest black bear in all of North America, that was tragically slaughtered for this very purpose.
In response to these and similar problems here is the commitment that the Government of Canada made in its green plan:
In support of Canada's international obligations under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (the CITES Convention), Canada will reduce the threats that poaching and illegal trade pose to domestic and foreign wildlife conservation by introducing the Wild Animal and Plant Protection Act in 1991.
In addition Canada's green plan called for strengthened wildlife law enforcement through tougher laws and stiffer penalties and for special measures to reduce the poaching and smuggling of wildlife in Canada. Bill C-42 fulfils these commitments.
The legislation now before the House will provide Canada with integrated, contemporary and forward looking trade controls for the conservation of Canadian and foreign wildlife and the protection of Canadian ecosystems. It will prevent illegal trade in wildlife, particularly endangered species. It will also assist in protecting Canada's ecosystems by controlling trade in designated harmful or undesirable animal or plant species.
The Wild Animal and Plant Protection Act will prohibit trafficking in Canadian and foreign endangered species
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and their products which are controlled by the CITES Convention. Through improved enforcement powers, the act will enhance implementation of the CITES Convention on endangered species. It would also prohibit wild animals and plants from being brought into Canada if they have been taken or otherwise dealt with in violation of foreign conservation laws. Similarly, if wild animals and plants had been taken, possessed, transported or sold contrary to provincial or territorial wildlife laws, the bill will prohibit their transport across provincial or territorial borders.
These provisions will ensure that poachers and smugglers do not escape prosecution simply by leaving the jurisdiction where the illegal activity took place.
Obviously this challenge cannot be met without additional resources. The government is serious about this legislation and is making available new resources in times of restraint. The bill provides a $12.3 million support program under the green plan and resources obtained under the green plan will establish enforcement capabilities which ensure that implementation of the bill is effective, efficient and fair.
The legislation will also provide much tougher penalties, sufficient to deter poachers and smugglers; fines of up to $100,000 and prison terms of up to five years.
Canadians recognize that the need for the Wild Animal and Plant Protection Act is very great. Indeed, in July 1990 Zoocheck Canada, an NGO, was sufficiently concerned to sponsor a special forum entitled "The Trade and Traffic in Wildlife". Held at the Metro Toronto Zoo, the meeting was attended by Canadian and American experts on international wildlife trade and drew attention to this matter.
International trade in wild animals and plants remains considerable. Illegal trade in wild species continues to be fuelled by the high value placed on certain species, their parts and derivatives.
Canada's wild species are being poached, Canadians are smuggling wild specimens and Canada is being used as a transit route to the United States and elsewhere for illegal shipments of wild animals and plants. The present federal legislation lacks a needed regulatory and enforcement capability.

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This urgent need to better protect our wild animals and plants has led to the first overhaul of federal legislative trade controls on Canadian wildlife in half a century. This reform is long overdue. Present instruments to control trade in wild species are complicated and unfortunately inadequate.
For example, at present, Canada's Department of External Affairs is responsible for the legislation through which the CITES Convention is now enforced in Canada. This is done under regulations of the Export and Import Permits Act which was initially passed in 1947 following the establishment of various trade controls during World War II for supply and other reasons.
As things stand now, Customs Canada and the RCMP are the only enforcement bodies with the legal authority to make interventions in this field. As excellent as these groups are, they have many other responsibilities and priorities and are not necessarily fully trained in or familiar with wildlife and conservation issues. Under present arrangements, the responsibilities of the federal department most related to the issue, Environment Canada, are either non-existent or strictly limited.
Similarly, the Game Export Act of 1941, which controls interprovincial transport and export of Canadian wildlife, is weak and dated. It applies only to dead game and fur, yet live specimens and non-game species are poached and smuggled. Its enforcement powers are weak. For example, there is no power to inspect. Penalties are limited to a maximum of $1,000. There is also a need to introduce into federal legislation flexibility which does not exist presently under the Game Export Act.
The inadequacy of legislation in this field has long been recognized. As early as 1953, recommendations were made by federal-provincial wildlife conferences to the effect that the Game Export Act be changed to better control exports, imports and interprovincial shipments of live game.
Further recommendations regarding wildlife were made in 1957,1960,1961,1968 and 1970 and yet few legal instruments were passed. Despite these recommendations to expand and improve inspection for wild species, until now legislation in these areas remained a helpless hodge-podge of far from satisfactory federal measures.
Because the existing laws in this field have been weak and dated, Canada's implementation of the CITES Convention and the Game Export Act has been severely hampered and wildlife has suffered the consequences.
From 1982 to 1985 the federal government presented white papers on the topic to the provinces. Then in 1987 the consultations which led to the present legislation began in earnest, each new version of the draft bill a refinement of its predecessor. Four workshops were held during 1990. These helped develop and define the roles and responsibilities of the federal and provincial governments and helped outline the regulations that would be needed to prevent poaching and smuggling of wild species.
The result is Bill C-42, the bill that is before us now: its prohibitions, regulatory authorities and planned administrative delegation of responsibilities. The proposed act respecting the protection of certain species of wild animals and plants will give the federal government through Environment Canada the authority, first, to control import or export of wild animals or plants, or their parts or products, according to the international agreements and the conservation laws of other countries.
Second, it will be given the authority to control import or transport from one province to another of designated live wild animals and plants, thereby preventing the introduction of species potentially harmful to Canada's ecosystems, or to the ecosystems of a receiving province.
Third is the control of transport from one province to another of any wild animals or plants, or their parts or products, that had been obtained or removed in contravention to conservation laws of a province.
Fourth, it can prohibit the possession of wild animals and plants, or their parts or products, that have been imported or transported or about to be exported or transported in violation of the act.
Fifth, subject to regulations for conservation purposes, it has the authority to prohibit possession of endangered wild animals and plants, or their parts or products, if possessed in order to sell or distribute them.
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The time for this legislation has come. Concern about illegal trade in wildlife is growing. For example, the subject of the World Wildlife Fund's 1991 fall fund raising campaign was illegal trade in black bear gall bladders. I would like to quote briefly from the literature:
The World Wildlife Fund wants to make sure that this new threat to Canadian wildlife is confronted right now, before it gets entirely out of hand. Canada urgently needs clear legislation. And we must have strong enforcement.
I should perhaps mention that Canada has already taken early action with respect to the black bear situation by unilaterally listing the species on Appendix III of the CITES agreement. But this alone is not enough. As the World Wildlife Fund notes, clear legislation and strong enforcement are also needed.
Bill C-42 will be of great benefit to wild and endangered animals and plants in Canada and around the world. Its purpose is not to stop all trade in wild animals and plants. Rather it will protect endangered species from trade related overexploitation, prohibit trade in illegal wildlife and regulate ongoing trade in non-en-dangered wild species in order to prevent poached wildlife from entering the legal trade.
Perhaps I could explain the provisions in some detail. For example, one of the major objectives of Bill C-42 is conservation of the world's endangered wildlife through the elimination of illegal international trade in wild plants and animals.
WAPPA will make it illegal for a person to import into Canada any wild animal or plant which that person knows to have been taken, possessed, distributed or transported in contravention of the laws of any foreign state. Thus the act will ensure that a person cannot escape prosecution for the violation of another country's wildlife protection laws simply by leaving that country and hiding out in Canada. Canada will not be a haven for those who poach and smuggle wild animals and plants in other countries.
WAPPA will replace the Game Export Act and regulations made under the Export and Import Permits Act through which the CITES convention on endangered species is implemented in Canada. Each of these acts controls international or interprovincial transport of wildlife through the use of a permit system. These permit systems must and will be maintained under the new legislation. To avoid unnecessary paperwork for
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importers and exporters where foreign, provincial or territorial permits fulfil the objectives of the act, through regulations these will be accepted instead of a federal permit.
Under the act federal permits will be required for the import and transport within Canada of wild animals and plants where this is necessary to prevent the introduction into the wild of potentially harmful wildlife. A list of species of concern will be developed in consultation with the provinces, territories and interested parties, and designated in regulation. The federal government is constitutionally responsible for matters relating to international trade and interprovincial transport. This is the reason for the requirement for a federal permit. However, upon agreement, administrative responsibility for the issuance of some permits will be transferred to the provinces. Individual provinces and territories will therefore determine what wildlife may be brought into their respective jurisdictions from other parts of Canada.
The Hon. Bud Wildman, minister of natural resources for the province of Ontario, recently wrote expressing his support for the legislation:
- the revision of the Game Export Act in CITES related legislation. The steps taken by your government indicate that Ontario's concern for the conservation of wildlife and plants have been adequately addressed in the proposed Wild Animal and Plant Protection Act-The conservation and welfare of Ontario's ecosystems are high priorities for the provincial government. Accordingly, I am offering my full co-operation and preparation of the supportive legislation.
Domestically WAPPA will work to conserve Canadian wildlife within our borders by controlling the interprovincial transport and export of wild animals and plants. The act will prohibit trade in wild species subject to provincial and territorial conservation laws in various ways. If a provincial or territorial permit is required for the removal of wildlife under the act interprovincial transport cannot occur until that permit has been obtained. The new legislation also prohibits interprovincial transport if removal from a province or territory is simply prohibited or if a person knows that the wildlife has been taken, possessed, distributed or transported in violation of any provincial or territorial law.
One of the most important sections of the new act is the one that deals with the possession of wild animals or plants which are being or, have been traded in contravention of the act. This section also addresses possession of endangered species for the purpose of sale or distribution. This provision is essential in order to fight illegal

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trade in wildlife generally and commercialization of endangered species in particular.
By means of the prohibitions regarding possession of wild animal and plant specimens, the act makes a significant contribution to stopping poaching and illegal trade in wildlife. The act ensures that all those involved in illegal trafficking in wild specimens, not just poachers, shippers or transporters, are liable to prosecution.
For example, those who receive wild animals and plants which they know have been imported or transported illegally can be prosecuted, even though they were not involved in the actual import or transport. Thus the act will strike at the market for illegal traffickers. All too often it is these people who encourage others to commit the import or transport offence.
At the same time, however, legitimate trade in endangered species must be protected. Regulations will be put into place which ensure that zoos and others who captively breed or artificially propagate endangered species may continue to do so. This will ensure that the benefits these important conservation activities bring to endangered species are not compromised.
These regulations will be developed in close co-operation with our many government and non-government partners, and in particular those who will be directly affected by this legislation. Organizations such as the Canadian Association of Zoological Parks and Aquariums, the Avian Preservation Foundation and the Pet Industry Joint Advisory Council of Canada support the objectives of the legislation. These organizations have offered their assistance in preparing the regulations, and the zoo and aquarium association wishes to assist with implementation of the act in ways such as public awareness, species identification, the temporary or permanent holding of detained or seized live specimens and the development of guide lines for the private breeding of endangered species.
The poaching and smuggling of wild animals and plants is a lucrative, large and growing business, and I say that with regret. Domestically illegal trade in such wild species as bears continues in order to satisfy demand for live specimens or their parts. As I have mentioned, WAPPA contains stiff new penalties for those who would
prey upon Canada's wildlife heritage and that of the world as well.
Undoubtedly members of this House have heard the term "polluter pay principle" applied with reference to environmental matters. In seeking to stamp out poaching and smuggling, the new act applies the "poacher pays principle".
By providing for both summary conviction offences and more serious indictable offences, the act enables the punishment to fit the crime. Under the act a prosecutor may elect to proceed either by way of indictable offence or summary conviction. For an indictable offence a more severe penalty is provided: up to $100,000 in fine and/or up to five years imprisonment. Less serious summary conviction offences are punishable up to $10,000 in fine and/or six months imprisonment.
Under this act an offence will be considered serious when it is detrimental to survival of a species; in other words when it involves an endangered species or large quantity of specimens of a threatened or other species. Offences where there is or has been serious harm or risk of harm to Canadian ecosystems will also be considered to be serious.
Like the Game Export Act which it replaces WAPPA includes a fines cumulation provision, that is a court can multiply any fine imposed by the number of specimens in a shipment. This provision eliminates the need for a prosecutor to lay a separate charge for each specimen in a shipment.
Furthermore, the new act includes a proceeds of crime provision. Such provisions are now commonly included in legislation controlling undertakings where large profits from illegal commercial activities are possible. The high value of a growing number of wild animal and plant specimens is encouraging people to poach and smuggle wildlife, and thus earn such illegal profits. The proceeds of crime provision will allow a court to impose an additional financial penalty where such profits have been made.
On the other hand, some minor offences such as contraventions of various regulations are more effectively and fairly dealt with if the accused is presented with options other than a court appearance. Therefore the
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new act also contains provisions to enable enforcement officers to act efficiently in cases where the offence is relatively minor. It creates a class of ticketable offences to which an accused may plead guilty and pay the prescribed fine without having to appear in court.
When a suspect is found guilty of a ticketable offence, any specimens that have been seized in relation to the alleged offence will be forfeited. The collection of unpaid fines will be facilitated by allowing the government to proceed through the courts for their collection.
Penalties have a dual purpose. They may deter those who contemplate violating the law and they are imposed on those who do. The stiff penalties provided by the new act will doubtless deter some people who are considering illegal trade in endangered species, or the import of prohibited or harmful species. For those who are not deterred and those who contravene the act severe punishments can be handed out to serious violators, while still allowing the courts to deal with minor violations in an appropriate manner.
The way in which this act will be administered is also important. The Minister of the Environment will be responsible for administering WAPPA through Environment Canada's Canadian Wildlife Service. In terms of enforcement, since the new act will control the import, export and interprovincial transport of wild animal and plant specimens, Canada Customs and the RCMP that are also responsible for the enforcement of the Customs Act must continue to be involved as they have been in the past.
To make protection more effective, however, Canadian Wildlife Service enforcement co-ordinators and national park wardens of Environment Canada will also be officers under the new legislation. In addition, wildlife in Canada is also managed by the provinces and territories and by the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans. Thus provincial and territorial conservation officers and fisheries officers will be designated for enforcement purposes once agreement with their agencies are completed. In addition, the implementation program will be co-ordinated with Agriculture Canada to improve protection for live wild animals and plants.
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The co-operative effort of this expanded roster of enforcement agency will make possible enhanced inspections and information exchanges, stepped up investigations, and lead to the more vigorous enforcement of environmental regulations.
Officers designated under the act will have all the powers of a peace officer. These are described in the Criminal Code and include for example the power to obtain a warrant, to conduct a search, to make an arrest, and to lay a charge against an alleged violator. In the past conservation officers have often been severely limited in the performance of their duties because they lacked these powers. Now they will have full powers to protect Canada's wildlife.
Wild animal and plant conservation is the responsibility of all nations. In Canada the federal, provincial and territorial governments share these obligations. Wildlife issues are so broad, Canada is such a vast country and Canadians have such a deep and widespread interest in wildlife, that implementation of WAPPA calls for true partnership.
Genuine partnership is what this act will result in. Its implementation will be a multi-agency endeavour, involving five federal agencies and the provinces and territories. This co-operative, partnership approach is essential if we are to deter poaching and illegal trading in wild animals and plants effectively.
Finally I would like to stress that WAPPA is consistent with the requirements of the Constitution, particularly with section 35 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms which recognizes and affirms the existing aboriginal and treaty rights of aboriginal people. The proposed legislation will not interfere with the traditional exchange by aboriginal peoples of artefacts and other items made from wild animals and plants.
The act does not pertain to the taking of wildlife nor prevent trade in legally hunted or trapped wildlife. Rather, its provisions apply to illegal international and interprovincial transport. The act is designed to contribute to the conservation of Canadian and foreign wildlife by preventing trade in poached wildlife.
Canadians cherish the wild animals and plants that are both their heritage and part of the legacy they wish to pass on to future generations. WAPPA responds to

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growing concerns that wildlife in Canada and other parts of the world must be protected.
This new act will provide the necessary framework for ensuring this concern is addressed. When this act is in place, Canada will be able to meet its responsibilities for protecting and conserving wild animals and plants not only within Canada, but as part of the world community.
In closing I would like to quote once again from the World Wildlife Fund publication entitled "Wild Hun-ters-Predators in Peril".
Canadians need to wake up to something that is part of a worldwide trend and happening largely unnoticed in this country: the insidious loss of our most spectacular wildlife species. In many cases elsewhere, the fate of species has been sealed despite the best efforts of conservationists because those efforts came too late. But Canada still has the opportunity to do it differently, by not repeating the mistakes made elsewhere.
Many groups in Canada feel exactly the same way you do, Mr. Speaker, because poaching has been a significant problem in your own province of Alberta. The Canadian Wildlife Federation supports the prompt adoption of the proposed WAPPA. "Canada scores points in wildlife protection" headlined an article in the January 1992 newsletter of the Canadian Nature Federation. It further stated "the long-awaited legislation is welcomed by Canadians interested in wildlife preservation and by their counterparts in the international community". The title of the November 24, 1991, Nature Trail column in The Sunday Star encouraged Canadians to "get behind Bill C-42 if you care about endangered species".
The legislation "will allow Canada to hold its head up in the international community". Even the CITES secretariat has congratulated the Government of Canada on its effort to greatly strengthen Canada's role in the implementation of the convention. It sincerely hopes the final legislation will pass and enter into force at the earliest possible opportunity.
I have taken more time than I normally would to introduce this particular piece of legislation to second reading. I do so in a very fervent belief that the legislation indeed is important. I hope it will receive the prompt attention of the House because Canadians throughout our land are waiting for its passage.


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I would just like to indicate to the House that should we complete second reading on this particular bill prior to one o'clock, rather than start with another bill, we will call it one o'clock.
Second, I would like to receive the consent of the House so we can continue third reading of Bill C-13 after we have completed the vote that was deferred earlier. That is what everybody has agreed to.


Mr. Caccia:: Mr. Speaker, we on this side of the House would like to give the parliamentary secretary the assurance he is seeking.


Leonard William (Len) Taylor: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of my colleagues in the New Democratic Party, I also find the proposal of the parliamentary secretary quite acceptable.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I believe there is unanimous consent. So ordered.


Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Davenport: Mr. Speaker, I hope the parliamentary secretary, in his very articulate and wide-ranging intervention, will not get carried away by his own quotations in the assessment of this bill. We certainly welcome the introduction of this bill on this side of the House. After careful examination, we will co-operate for its speedy passage. We would like to bring the parliamentary secretary and the government back to earth as to what this particular bill will achieve. Instead of reading "an act respecting the protection of certain species of wild animals and plants", the bill should read "an act respecting the protection of certain species of wild animals and plants from trade". It is a trade oriented piece of legislation. Certainly it is needed, and brings us in line with the international community and with our commitments made under the CITES agreement of 1975. It will place Canada in a good light internationally.
It is a bill that will require witnesses to be heard at the committee stage. Game wardens and other officials with the Canadian Wildlife Service will probably make some pretty significant contributions to its implementation. I would also include the National Parks people in that. No doubt there is a very broad community that needs to be canvassed.
There is a potential sleeper in this issue and that is whether this bill will control the import of game species for game ranching. We have had an experience recently with imported elk with tuberculosis. The problems that have been created are well known. The government
March 17, 1992

needs to be alerted to this aspect of the bill for potential loopholes in its application.
The bill itself has very strong and desirable implementation features. It gives the minister certain powers to appoint officers who will have the role of justices of the peace to implement the legislation. We hope the government will make the necessary funds available. The offences described in the proposed bill are certainly commensurate with the damage that poachers and illegal importers and exporters are committing.
The point that needs to be made is the one I referred to at the beginning. While this bill is heavily oriented on the trade side in the control of imports and exports from Canada of flora and fauna that need protection, it has virtually no impact as proposed on the conservation and protection of endangered species domestically.
That aspect is not revealed in the title of the bill, and therefore has to be highlighted at this stage. It is still possible, when the bill is examined at the committee level, to introduce certain amendments that will permit the introduction of clauses that will allow Canadians in generations to come to enjoy certain species, both flora and fauna, that may be extinct unless something is done about it. That matter is extremely important domestically and transcends the preoccupation with trade which is emphasized in this particular bill.
I would like to bring to your attention a private member's bill introduced by the member for Davenport in May of last year on this subject. That act is entitled "an act respecting the protection and rehabilitation of endangered and threatened species". It is Bill C-209. It is waiting its turn to be debated. In that bill the member for Davenport, in a rather accurate manner, attempted to specify the purposes that need to be achieved in Canada to protect the endangered areas in both flora and fauna.
In Canada we need to identify, protect and rehabilitate flora and fauna threatened or endangered by human activity.
Second, we need to develop and implement programs to restore the populations of threatened and endangered species of flora and fauna to self-sustaining numbers. This is nothing particularly extravagant or unusual. It has
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been said by a number of conservationists and people in this particular area.
This is what is missing in Bill C-42 which is preoccupied with trade, and quite rightly so. We do not object to that. On the contrary, we support that preoccupation and interest in the protection of the public interest in those terms. At the same time it lacks the conservationist approach for the species that need particular attention.
Since 1964 there has been a Wilderness Act in the United States under which certain areas can be identified and protected. These areas are generally endangered spaces which provide habitat for endangered species. It is regrettable that the government until now did not find the time to table complementary legislation for action of this nature in Canada.
The parliamentary secretary referred to the Wildlife Strategy for Canada which is a very fine document. It has all the right and appropriate words. Unfortunately it lacks an action plan. It fails to spell out the required timetable. It does not identify areas which are prime candidates for protection. It is a good statement of principle without a plan for implementation.
I would like to bring to the attention of the parliamentary secretary as forcefully as I can that C-42 will not provide protection to endangered species which are not threatened by international trade. In other words, it leaves out a fairly important sector.
We welcome the initiative because it is desirable and necessary, but its scope is too narrow. It leaves out too many species, both in terms of flora and fauna.
Finally , I would like to draw your attention to a fact the parliamentary secretary already alluded to in his concluding remarks. Legislation of this kind will be much more effective and achieve its desired goal if it is matched, accompanied and complemented by a very intensive public information and education program.
We really need to sensitize the public and our young people in particular. They are very receptive to flora, fauna and wildlife and particularly to the endangered side of it. We have to perform a very important role which only governments can perform on behalf of the public. We need an intensive campaign which will accelerate and perhaps make the success of Bill C-42 more readily possible.

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Having said that, I really would like to congratulate the parliamentary secretary for having introduced this bill at this time.
I urge him to convince the minister that we now need a companion bill which will deal with the protection of endangered species which are not threatened by international trade.


James Ross Fulton: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity to speak on Bill C-42, which as the parliamentary secretary and my friend from Davenport have already said, is a piece of legislation that is long overdue.
It is urgently required and certainly in terms of the essential principles, although I agree it is very narrow in scope, it is a piece of legislation worthy of support and quick passage. We should get it on to the legislative committee and back into the House.
I must point out at the beginning of my remarks that I regret this is not a piece of legislation that comes at the issue with an ecosystem approach. It is clearly crisis management legislation, and it is something that is becoming increasingly common in this Chamber and in chambers around the world, rather than moving forward with the ecosystem approach. This approach was well discussed and widely discussed in the development of the Brundtland commission report "Our Common Future".
We have to start with the title which regrettably is both inappropriate and misleading. It raises the hope among many Canadians that it deals specifically with the protection of endangered Canadian species and their habitat. In fact, it does no such thing.
The scope of the bill needs to be either massively increased so that it deals seriously with endangered species and endangered spaces in Canada, or there should be a parallel bill.
The title should read "an act respecting trade and transport of certain species of wild animals and plants", or it should read "an act respecting trade and traffic of certain species of wild animals and plants". As read at the moment, if someone were simply to read about it in the paper or a magazine article, one would think from
the title which says: "an act respecting the protection of certain species of wild animals and plants" that it is quite a wide bill.
In fact, it might be something like the 1973 legislation from the United States which has protected species as widely diverse as the snail darter or the spotted owl. Regrettably, this legislation is nowhere near that. I regret that it is being sold to a certain extent as that kind of broad-based protective legislation.
It does do three things. It protects some of Canada's wild animal and plant species from illegal trade. It protects some Canadian ecosystems from the introduction of designated, harmful species and it helps to protect wild animal and plant species in foreign countries from poaching and smuggling.
Therefore, it is sort of CITES plus some other species. When I say plus, it means that they are protected or are in need of protection in certain other countries. We are going to be able to assist some other countries that are faced with chronic poaching, smuggling and illicit trading in both plants and animals.
Oddly enough, our own endangered species have never been added to CITES. One really has to wonder after all of these years just how serious governments of Canada have been in protecting either endangered species or endangered spaces.
Right now CITES lists some 1,000 plants and animals in Appendix I, which is the strongest of the appendices. There are 48,000 species and subspecies listed in total. That, of course, is only a small fraction of the endangered species in the world now. It is estimated at 1,900 and as at the middle of this century we were only losing one major species per year.
That accelerated during the last decade to about about one per hour. Now people like Edward Osborne Wilson and other experts in the field of biodiversity think we may be losing as many as 10 an hour. A lot of that related to the dropping of the canopies of the tropical rain forests at the rate of about an acre a second.
Of course, we are not immune from that kind of loss of space either. We are losing an acre of forest every five seconds. So even as I speak here, many acres of Canadian forests, including Canadian rain forests, will disappear forever.
March 17, 1992

Of the 48,000 species and subspecies listed in CITES, some are very large chunks such as 15,000 species of orchids that are listed because of the phenomenal value in illegal and illicit trade in some plant species.
At the moment the Game Export Act, which is our present piece of legislation for dealing with some of these issues, can only deal with dead animals and fur.
One does not have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that it is not going to get us very far today in terms of the kinds of traffic and trade there is, such as from my home province and from yours, Mr. Speaker, in a point touched on by the member for Brandon-Souris, which is of black bear gall bladders, paws and other parts that are traded for vast sums of money, particularly to the Orient.
Big smuggling and trade is left wide open. This legislation, as I said, should go quickly to the legislative committee where witnesses expert in this field, World Wildlife, Canadian Nature Federation and others well aware of the international and national ramifications of such a bill can be heard.
In 1975, external affairs made regulations under the Export and Import Permits Act to allow us basic compliance with CITES, which is the internationally recognized legislation on international trade and endangered species. However, since then most of the other 112 signatory nations have introduced much better compliance and enforcement provisions than those held by Canada.
Canada has promised since 1987 to develop new legislation. Consultation with the provinces has gone on since 1982. For a full decade there have been discussions with the provinces and territories regarding the need for this kind of legislation.
The green plan wildlife component in 1990 called for the introduction during 1991 of "new legislation to attack poaching and illegal trading" of wild animals and plants and to "strengthen wildlife law enforcement" and special measures for the enforcement of federal wildlife legislation.
Bill C-42 was finally introduced November 7, 1991, a delay of four and one-half years since the government
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had first indicated that this legislation was coming forward.
It cannot be described as a piece of legislation that has an enormous amount of cabinet or government-wide support, although there is enormous support for it across Canada among those who are aware of the reckless endangerment of species around the world due to trafficking.
There are some very serious problems with the bill that will have to be remedied in the legislative committee.
First, the title must be changed. It is clearly misleading and it would be inappropriate for a piece of legislation to pass with such a misleading title attached to it. As I have said, it should be changed to "an act respecting either the trade and transport or the trade and traffic of certain species of wild animals and plants".
In the definition section of the act the word "animal" is found. It must be expanded in definition to include those Canadian species presently covered by the Game Export Act. This may have been something that was simply forgotten as it was being drafted. Similarly, the word "plant" which is found in the definition section must be expanded to cover Canadian plants.
The bill contains powers to promulgate regulations. These, to as great a degree as possible, should be included now and provided at the legislative committee process.
We debated earlier today how inappropriate it is that Bill C-13 is rocketing through the House without having the 15 sections of regulations at least available for members to view. In a piece of legislation such as this, surely since there have been 10 years of consultations with the provinces and the territories and four and one-half years of drafting, one assumes that this government ought to be able to bring the regulations forward so that we can at least have a look at them in the legislative committee.
By the fall of 1990, there were 195 endangered species in Canada and that was a list prepared by COSEWIC, which is the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada. We need an immediate parallel bill to be introduced to protect endangered plants and animals and spaces obviously. Or preferably, this bill

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should be amended in definition and throughout to give life to Canada's federal constitutional authority for wildlife conservation.
That is a power interestingly enough which the present government was prepared to transfer away to the provinces in the recent federal constitutional package. The Standing Committee on Environment made it very clear that this would be an extremely, if not extraordinarily unwise position for the government to take, it being an existing federal power and authority.
We all know that fish swim between provinces and territories, migratory birds fly across provincial and territorial boundaries and there is a very clear and mandatory role for the federal government to pursue. There are the three heads of power, one of which should clearly be listed in the provisions of this bill. That is peace, order and good government. It is a constitutional footing that should be more regularly utilized to avoid court challenges. Similarly, the criminal law and trade and commerce should be utilized somewhat more strongly. I will come to that in a moment in terms of this legislation.
This opportunity should be utilized to enact the biological diversity bill taking a proactive approach to maintaining diversity as well as an endangered species act. It should be clearly enunciated where limited populations and/or limited habitat are threatened by any activity that steps will be taken to protect the ecosystem.
As the member for Davenport suggested yesterday in our debate on Bill C-13, if sustainable development is really believed in by the government as it is by the majority of Canadians, that kind of wording which was proposed on sustainable development should similarly be used within Bill C-42.
Canada has lost a number of species already to various causes and many more are now threatened. Many Canadians have been misled by the title of this bill and have falsely assumed that like the U.S. legislation that protected the snail darter or the spotted owl, this applies and it does not.
The U.S. law called the Endangered Species Act, the ESA, was passed 20 years ago by Congress in 1973. It is hard to find a school child anywhere in the United States who does not know about the ESA. It has been a useful
piece of legislation, although its funding has been blocked by such notoriously anti-environmental presidents as Bush and Reagan. Again, it is a narrow piece of legislation because it is almost entirely crisis management as opposed to dealing with ecosystems.
We should protect ecosystems and not just the species. That is why the campaigns that are being launched by many groups are based on the concept of endangered spaces. Otherwise, we get species ghettos or unfenced zoos where small numbers of endangered species manage to eke out a marginal existence.
Biodiversity is clearly preferable because the endan-germent of species must be anticipated and prevented. One of the few things that legislatures can actually do is to be proactive rather than reactionary which regrettably is not very successful.
Clause 13 requires a consequential amendment. I am surprised that it is not there already. That clause provides for search and seizure without warrant. I must say it is one of the few pieces of legislation that truly could require such a power.
I can think of a number of situations where enforcement officers involved in dealing with traffickers in endangered plants or animals could find themselves in a situation where they would have to utilize the power. But it is a power that has been found to be very open to abuse.
The only other place you find it in Canadian law is under the old 1978 firearms legislation, the famous old Bill C-51.
I know personally of cases where that search and seizure provision without warrant has been abused by enforcement officers.
One of the surer ways of clearing the mind of those who might want to abuse this power is to require a mandatory report to Parliament on an annual basis, giving all of the specifics of the case where a search and seizure without warrant was utilized. I know there will be a reporting procedure to the courts but that has proven in the past to be very inadequate. It depends on the judge, it depends on all kinds of things as to whether or not any kind of proper follow-up is made. I believe there must be a subsection 13(a) added or perhaps an entire new clause to require specific reporting on search and seizure without warrant.
March 17, 1992

Under the offence and punishment section I find it awesome that the fines proposed are so out of whack with what other departments and other countries have been doing.
Let me give some examples. Under the summary section, punishment is presently set at $10,000 and up to six months in jail, whereas in the United States precisely the same kind of offence carries for an individual a $100,000 fine, up to 12 months in jail, and if it is a corporate entity involved in illicit activities involving plants or animals, it is $200,000.
Indictably we find the same kind of discrepancy: $100,000 and five years under the proposed legislation. In the United States it is $250,000 for an individual or $500,000 for a corporation and five years in jail.
The department, the minister or the government might argue that the cumulative approach is there. If somebody has a whole bunch of animal parts or animals, a bunch of black footed ferrets or other species, then the fine would apply seriatim to each of those. But the fact of the matter is that in the majority of cases one looks into, that is not an effective way to go about it because the courts rarely utilize that kind of consequential fine.
Even in our own National Parks Act which this House recently amended, the fine for poaching threatened species is $150,000 under the summary section and $150,000 and six months in jail indictably. It is very clear. Even if one looks at the Fisheries Act, it is now $100,000 summary or $500,000 and two years in the slammer indictably. Even in Alberta where poaching has become a very serious problem it is set at $100,000.
Bill C-42 must be amended in this clause. The clause on individuals should be set to $100,000, indictably to $250,000 or higher, and a new corporate clause must be included because trafficking in plants and animals is clearly on the rise. It is becoming a much more serious problem and it is quite often dealt with by corporate entities because to traffic efficiently and effectively in extremely highly valued plants or animals requires that kind of corporate structure. I believe that should be introduced and set at least at $200,000 so that we do not become what might be described as a point of entry.
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The parliamentary secretary himself said that Canada could be used as a point of transit for trafficking. Of course that is what we are becoming right now because we have almost no legislation in this field. It is basically vacant other than the 1975 action by External Affairs and the Game Export Act.
The issue in terms of fines is very important. International traffickers look at North America as a large market for endangered plants and animals because people like for whatever reasons the exotic. It is very important that we not have the United States, the great republic to the south of us, with fines set at $100,000 and $200,000 for almost any of the offences and Canada at $10,000.
If you are a smuggler, Mr. Speaker-and I am not suggesting you are-which country would you want to come into? Would it be a country with a $10,000 fine or a country with a $200,000 fine? I would suggest that as a good smuggler you would choose Canada as a point of entry for your smuggling purposes. I do not think we should allow that. When one looks at the rate of species lost, as I said the time clock is accelerating exponentially. We used to lose a species a year. Then it went to a species an hour. Now it is at least 10 an hour.
We need some crisis management legislation, but let us at least make it effective. We can expand this bill so that it covers the waterfront and in fact deals effectively with what Canadians also want, which is protection for endangered species in our own country.
Finally, on the corporate section that should be included, it should be set at least at $200,000 with six months in jail and $500,000 with five years in jail when proceeded with indictably, simply to bring it into the context of other existing Canadian legislation and legislation in the United States. This problem is just like the drug trade. There are enormous profits to be reaped from going and getting snakes, bugs, monkeys, parrots or orchids from all around the planet. One of the major market zones is in our own country and another is in the United States.
If we are to have legislation that works, let us do it quickly and let us do it at the legislative committee. We are going to need more dough too. I note that there is $12.3 million under the green plan, but that only provides 29 new person-years over the next six years. I do not think 29 men and women being added over the next

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six years will be able to do the job. We are going to have to do something more in that area too.


Mr. George S. Baker (Gander-Grand Falls):: Mr. Speaker, I have just a few words concerning this legislation and I give them after listening to the hon. member for Davenport.
The bill before the House is entitled an act respecting the protection of certain species of wild animals and plants. Then it says the act of Parliament which will come from this legislation will be called the Wild Animal and Plant Protection Act.
That is fine. If we could take the name of the legislation at its word it is an excellent piece of legislation, but we cannot. This does not cover what people would think it would cover if they read the title of the legislation, as the member for Davenport pointed out.
What does it cover? It covers all animals and plants listed under fauna in the appendix to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora signed on March 3,1973 in Washington, D.C.
The legislation limits the protection of endangered species. It gives the government the power to enforce a law only on an endangered species listed in the appendix to the convention. In other words, it would enable an enforcement officer to go into somebody's house without a warrant, as is listed under section 487 of the Criminal Code, only if the enforcement officer believes that in that dwelling or in that truck or car there is a portion of an endangered species and only if it is listed in the appendix to the convention.
In other words, there are three species of seals listed in appendix III of the convention. But the Pine Martin is not listed. That is an endangered species in the province of Newfoundland. If portions of those three particular seals listed in appendix III to the convention are to be found on somebody's property then the enforcement officer has the power under the act, but if an endangered species in Canada is in somebody's possession it does not give the enforcement officer the same authority.
The legislation, as the member for Davenport has pointed out, is an opportunity for the Government of Canada to spread the net even further. It gives it the
opportunity to be able to cover the endangered species. The animals are listed under fauna in the convention. It gives the government the opportunity to do what the Canadian Wildlife Service has wanted it to do for years. This is the vehicle. If the government saw fit, all it would have to do is go to Bill C-209 which is before this Chamber in the name of the hon. member for Davenport and incorporate it into this legislation. Then it would have a complete piece of legislation, not just a partial piece of legislation that to the objective viewer would seem rather limited and restricted in its character and certainly not as serving the wishes the Canadian Wildlife Service as I see them and as we should be serving those wishes.


Dennis Joseph Mills: I will be brief, Mr. Speaker. I too want to voice my support for this bill and the work that the member for Davenport has done on it.
I want to refer in my remarks specifically to a scientific American journal of September 1989 entitled "Managing the Planet Earth". In this particular journal there is an article on threats to bio-diversity. As I was reading this a few months ago I noticed a paragraph which I think is extremely relevant to the bill we are discussing today. I would like to read directly from it:
Wild plant and animal species also represent vast reservoirs of such
potentially valuable products as fibres and petroleum substitutes. One
example is the "babassu palm".
Then it goes on to explain that and says:
Another striking example is the rosy periwinkle.
People sometimes wonder why we are so adamant in trying to preserve these wild plants. It continues:
-rosy periwinkle is otherwise known as Catharanthus roseus, an inconspicuous little plant that originated in Madagascar. It yields two alkaloids, vinblastine and vincristine, that are extremely effective against Hodgkin's disease and acute lymphocytic leukemia. The income from these two substances alone exceeds $100 million a year.
On it goes. There is also a Thomas Eisner at Cornell University who has suggested, in addition to the compilation of biological inventories, that:
-programs should be established to promote chemical prospecting around the world as part of the search for new products. The U.S. National Cancer Institute has begun to do just that: their natural products branch is currently screening some 10,000 substances a year for activity against cancer cells and the AIDS virus.
March 17, 1992

Sometimes when we talk about such bills in this House of Commons people out there are wondering what we are doing here spending all this time talking about preserving wildlife and wild plants, et cetera. The fact of the matter is that we are talking about something that as we preserve it we are also preserving human life. As we take this bill to committee, I think some time in our communication we should link it to how it affects the day-to-day health of our life.


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


Some hon. members:: Question.


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


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and referred to Legislative Committee C.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: It being one o'clock, I do now leave the chair until two o'clock this day.
The House took recess at 12.30 p.m.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 2 p.m.

Bill Attewell: Madam Speaker, last Friday evening a masked man entered the Steeles Bakery in North York demanding money.
Angry because of the lack of cash in the till, the man grabbed the 70-year old female clerk. Metro councillor Norm Gardner was working in the back room of his family bakery when he heard the screaming.
*
Mr. Gardner, vice-chairman of the Metro Toronto Police Services Board, was granted a special protectionof-life permit to carry a handgun by the OPP five years ago. This was after his life was threatened.
Mr. Gardner drew his gun and ran into the store where he saw the 70-year old woman staggering and grabbing her chest. The masked robber thrust the cash drawer toward Mr. Gardner and started to run toward him shouting: "Go ahead and shoot me".
Mr. Gardner wisely fired a single shot into the man's leg to protect his staff and himself. The alleged robber fled and was arrested shortly thereafter.
I have known Norm Gardner who is a constituent of mine for over 15 years. He is an outstanding Canadian. He acted in a very responsible manner last Friday.


VIETNAMESE REFUGEES
Mr. John Harvard (Winnipeg-St. James):: Madam Speaker, the world is well aware of the plight of the Vietnamese refugees in Hong Kong.
They are trapped in a refugee camp where the living conditions are horrible. They are trapped there by an agreement called the comprehensive plan of action. It is signed by many countries, including Canada. It says that the Vietnamese must return to Vietnam. For many of the families that is unthinkable and worse than death itself.
One of those families belongs to Luong Nguyen whose brother, Dai Due, lives in my riding.
Luong Nguyen's family arrived in Hong Kong before the comprehensive plan of action was agreed upon. Their Winnipeg-based sponsorship was approved before the plan of action was signed.
As immigration lawyer David Matas put it: "It is gratuitous cruelty on such people to subject them to the plan after they arrived in Hong Kong". Moreover Matas adds, "These people have been duped by Canadian law into thinking they could have been sponsored" and that "the sponsors have equally been misled into believing a sponsorship was possible".
My plea to the government is simple. Help these people.

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CANADIAN VOLUNTEER SERVICE MEDAL
Mr. Ken James (Sarnia-Lambton):: Madam Speaker, yesterday the hon. member for Sudbury complained about the awarding of the Canadian Volunteer Service Medal for Korea.
She complained that Korea veterans in Sudbury had received the medals but there had been no ceremony to mark the occasion. My question is: Why did she not organize a ceremony herself?
We all know that this was the advice all MPs received from the Minister of Veterans Affairs. He urged us in a letter to work with veterans associations and set up presentation ceremonies.
This has been done in a number of locations. There was, for instance, a wonderful ceremony in St. Catharines after five MPs, including a Liberal, worked together to put on a marvellous event.
I have a suggestion for the hon. member for Sudbury. If she is in Ottawa on Saturday, she could show up at Room 200, West Block at 2 p.m. The Minister of Veterans Affairs will be there presenting medals to about 100 members of the Korea Veterans Association. Furthermore, the minister has indicated that he is willing to attend presentation ceremonies anywhere and anytime, if his schedule permits.


SOUTH AFRICA
Mr. Jesse Flis (Parkdale-High Park):: Madam Speaker, the eyes of the world are on South Africa today as, despite some fear and concern, a new course will be charted for all by those who are able to vote in the referendum on the political future of that country.
President F.W. De Klerk deserves much of the credit for bringing the people of South Africa to this point. His call for a referendum is courageous and shows his faith that the people of South Africa are ready to make a commitment to democracy and to equal rights for all regardless of race, creed or colour. That is something we take for granted here in Canada.
With voter turn-out high at this hour, the world can only watch, wait and hope that voters in South Africa will not look longingly back to a time when oppression was
acceptable, but like the people of the Baltics, Ukraine, Poland and many other nations have done recently, will step bravely forward to take their full place in the family of democratic nations.


VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN
Mr. Brian L. Gardiner (Prince George-Bulkley Valley):: Madam Speaker, later today women in Prince George will gather at the B.C. Supreme Court to protest the lack of protection for women by the court system.
A Prince George man who sexually assaulted his former common law wife was sentenced in B.C. Supreme Court to 18 months probation. It was the third time he had been convicted of assaulting her.
Last week, a man who attacked a woman with a metal pipe inflicting cuts and bruises to her head and shoulders and causing her to have part of a finger amputated, pleaded guilty to assault and was sentenced to 90 days in jail to be served on weekends.
I rise today to call on the Minister of Justice to support the call by my colleague for New Westminster-Burnaby for mandatory gender sensitivity training for judges at all levels so they can be aware of these problems.
Violence against women must end now.


DESJARDINS MOVEMENT
Mr. Guy Saint-Julien (Abitibi):: Madam Speaker, I would like to pay tribute to the Desjardins movement, which is going into venture capital this year in order to stimulate regional development and job creation. Desjardins Investment will set up regional development corporations in Quebec's 10 regions, in cooperation with the Quebec Pension Fund, the Quebec Solidarity Fund, the QFL Solidarity Fund and other partners. This is excellent news for Quebec's regions. President Claude B eland declared that Quebec does not lack venture capital but good investment projects.
On behalf of Abitibi-Temiscamingue, I want to thank the Desjardins movement.
March 17, 1992

[English ]


ST. PATRICK'S DAY
Mr. John Nunziata (York South-Weston):: Madam Speaker, today is St. Patrick's Day. It is the anniversary of the death of St. Patrick and it is a day on which the Irish, and those who wish they were, celebrate being Irish.
Although historians are uncertain about precisely where St. Patrick was bom, one thing is certain, St. Patrick was an Italian. I know that some members will say: "There he goes again. He has kissed some kind of Italian version of the Blarney Stone".
I have checked the facts and history records that St. Patrick was the son of Calpumius, a Roman official in Britain. He was born about 389 A.D. and died around 461 A.D. History tells us that he was carried off by raiders at the age of 16 to pagan Ireland. It was there that he met his life-long friend, Shamus O'Nunziata, who travelled with St; Patrick to Rome in the year 432 when St. Patrick became a bishop.
Of course, the rest is history. O'Nunziata stayed in Rome, dropped the O from his name and St. Patrick returned to Ireland. Have you ever wondered why the Italian and Irish flags are virtually identical? Or why you see a shamrock on all Alfa Romeo cars? The moral of the story is that on St. Patrick's Day there is a little Irish in all of us.


CANADIAN MERCHANT MARINE
Peter L. McCreath: Madam Speaker, I again rise to bring to the attention of the House the need to fully recognize for full veterans benefits the members of the Canadian Merchant Marine who served on the high seas during World War II.
My late uncle, Captain Ernest Shatford was one such man. From 1939 to 1945 he traversed the Atlantic Ocean many times, from Nova Scotia to Europe, from Newfoundland to the Caribbean. For six years, his life was on the line for Canada and for Canadians. Yet he died two years ago this week ineligible for long-term care in a veterans hospital.
Canada's merchant marine veterans should be eligible for all veterans benefits including full benefits under the Veterans Independence Program.
There should be a book of remembrance with the names of Canada's merchant mariners who gave their lives in the cause of Canada.
The Minister of Veterans Affairs should use his good office on behalf of the government of Canada to encourage the construction of a suitable memorial to honour the memory of Canada's merchant seamen.
These suggestions should not only be accepted by the government but accepted and implemented as soon as possible.


TRIBUTE TO THE LATE ROGER LEMELIN
Mr. Marcel Prud'homme (Saint-Denis):: Madam Speaker, Roger Lemelin is no more. Perhaps better than anyone else, he depicted our social history. It was therefore very natural for the people to recognize themselves in his books and television series.
A man of letters, he won all the awards and was the first writer from outside France to sit on the jury for the Goncourt Prize.
A man of action, he skilfully directed America's largest French-language daily for 10 years.
Roger Lemelin was also a great patriot. In his last editorial in La Presse, published in 1981, the author of the Plouffe family series wrote that in taking his positions, he always wanted a stronger, more united Canada where a French Quebec, with its wonderful distinctness, could enjoy the riches of the vast territory of Canada while strengthening its cultural identity as a young nation.
He told members of the Canadian Press in Toronto on May 2, 1979 that never did he think that he would stop being French and that he had fought for French culture all his life. "I am glad to be a French Canadian," he said.
On behalf of my party and myself and, I am sure, all members of this House, I would like to express to his widow and his whole family our admiration and our deeply felt condolences.

March 17, 1992


GASOLINE ADDITIVES
Mr. Garth Turner (Halton-Peel):: Madam Speaker, today UCO Petroleum has announced its intention to open 19 retail outlets in Ontario for the sale of gasohol, an environmentally friendly alternative to gasoline.
Gasohol is made by blending 10 per cent ethanol with 90 per cent gasoline. It actually produces more octane to car engines while producing less of the emissions that cause things like acid rain and the greenhouse effect.
I rise to congratulate UCO Petroleum and also the Minister of Finance. Today's announcement comes as a direct result of the federal government's budget announcement to remove the federal excise tax on ethanol and methanol in blended fuels.
This is environmental, economic and agricultural leadership on the part of UCO Petroleum and the government. I am sure all members of the House will add their encouragement and support of gasohol, Canada's future fuel.


BANK OF COMMERCE
Mr. Ray Skelly (North Island-Powell River):: Madam Speaker, 22 women in Powell River, British Columbia, are on strike against the Bank of Commerce. The Bank of Commerce runs its Powell River branch with strikebreakers brought from Vancouver Island every day.
This situation is grossly unfair. The bank does not have to bargain in good faith with these women. As a matter of fact, the bank would rather crush these women in their strike as an example to their other employees.
As a result, organized labour in the province of British Columbia is planning to carry out a province-wide boycott against the Bank of Commerce in order to carry the message of these women and the plight of these women to the entire province.
This is completely unnecessary. If the Minister of Labour would use his good offices to try and get both parties back to the bargaining table to find a solution to this, rather than the continued harassment and exploitation of these women by an organization that has assets of tens of billions of dollars and annual profits of-


Madam Deputy Speaker:: The hon. member for Calgary Southwest.


JUDICIAL APPOINTMENTS
Mrs. Barbara Sparrow (Calgary Southwest):: Madam Speaker, last week three historical federal judicial appointments were announced, all of them women. The number of women in the federally appointed judiciary has increased steadily from 37 in 1984 to 100 in 1992.
On March 12 Canada named Madam Justice Catherine Anne Fraser as Chief Justice of Alberta and Chief Justice of the Court of Appeal for the Northwest Territories, a first for a woman.
Madam Justice Karen M. Weiler and Madam Justice Rosalie S. Abella both were appointed to the Ontario Court of Appeal. Madam Justice Abella is the 100th woman currently serving on the bench here in Canada. I offer my congratulations to all three.
Since this government has come into office, there has been an increase of 100 per cent in the appointment of women to agencies, to boards, to commissions, all in decision-making positions.


COMMUNITY NEWSPAPERS
Mr. Rod Murphy (Churchill):: I would like to rise in defence of the community newspapers in this country.
As a result of the budget the government announced that it would be contributing some money toward making sure that newspapers did not have to pay the full postal increase in one year. Instead, the government announced that that increase would be over a two-year period. Many newspapers have drastically increased the rate they are charging people who have these newspapers mailed to them. Many newspapers are still threatened with extinction as a result of the government's policy.
Again I call upon the government to review the increases that are going to community newspapers to make sure they can afford to exist in the future and to make sure they can afford to get their information out to all Canadians.
March 17, 1992


FEDERATION DES COMMUNAUTES
Mr. Jean-Robert Gauthier (Ottawa-Vanier):: Madam Speaker, the Federation des communautes francophones et acadienne du Canada announced yesterday that it was tired of taking a back seat to everybody else in the debate on the Constitution and language issues. According to federation representatives, although they represented one million people across Canada, they were treated as though they did not exist.
Critical of the performance of the Department of the Secretary of State and the Department of Employment and Immigration, and representing minority groups in their respective provinces, the federation now demands a meeting with the Prime Minister, who never bothered to meet them since he was elected in 1984. Its very survival is threatened by budget cuts. Humiliated by this denial of its status as a full-fledged participant in the constitutional debate, the federation has the impression that linguistic duality is not a major item on the present government's agenda.
I ask the Prime Minister to remember his responsibilities and to have a meeting as soon as possible with the representatives of official-language minority groups. Time is running out.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Ms. Sheila Copps (Hamilton East):: Madam Speaker, the French and the Irish have a lot in common by association, so I know the Speaker will indulge me if I wish top o' the morning to the Prime Minister, who is an Irishman by birth as I am also, and Mr. O'Nunziata, O'Clancy and others who are Irish by birth or the best of the Irish by choice.
Oral Questions
I actually have a question for the Prime Minister. It deals with the tragedy of the 700,000 Canadian children who are getting their food at food banks every year.
Through their seven and a half years in government, the Prime Minister and his colleagues have pursued economic and social policies which have resulted in the tragic scene of two million Canadians lining up at food banks every year. Nobody, including nobody in the Conservative Party, wants to have this tragic situation.
The problem we have is in trying to understand why the Prime Minister persists in following the same economic and social policies which created this sad situation.
Can the Prime Minister explain why he continues on a course of action which has led to this national disgrace of Canadian children lining up at food banks?


Hon. Benoit Bouchard (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Madam Speaker, I explained yesterday that no one in this House is happy with the kind of situation we are facing today.
However, I believe we must deal with this situation as good managers, and in fact, the government as a whole allocates about $15 billion annually to be used, directly or indirectly, to help children.
It is also true that in the budget, we specifically targeted this group when we decided to add $2 billion, spread over a five-year period, to provide people on low incomes with some relief and help them improve their situation eventually.
I also said that very shortly I would announce a series of measures to provide help as well for a particular group of young people, reffered to as children at risk.
These measures-and here I agree with the hon. member-will not deal with all problems overnight, but this government is intent on dealing with these concerns according to its ability to pay.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Unfortunately, Madam Speaker, this is the same minister who just a few weeks ago cut all national day care programs, leaving children and their parents without any hope.

March 17, 1992
Oral Questions
The number of food banks has increased from 1 to 292 during the past decade. This is not a statistic, but the sad truth. Today in Canada, we have children who depend on food banks for their meals. Even in a period of economic growth, there is a wide gap between rich and poor in this country.
When will the Prime Minister change his economic and social policies which have been a tragedy for Canadian children?


Benoît Bouchard: Madam Speaker, I am sorely tempted to compare the present situation with the recession in 1982. However, I can inform the hon. member for Hamilton East that the Prime Minister, the cabinet and the government had the courage to make certain choices and define certain policies. If 10 years ago, her government had had the courage to make political choices that would have allowed Canadians to make certain decisions today, we would not have had this $400 billion debt we inherited from her government, which prevents us from financing all the programs we feel are necessary. Managing for tomorrow's generation means managing now.
[English)


Sheila Maureen Copps: Madam Speaker, I read in the paper yesterday that the Prime Minister spends almost $1 million a year on press clippings.
I would like to ask the Prime Minister, who has been in office seven and a half years during periods of strong economic growth world wide, why he is hiding behind the issue of the recession when in fact the unbelievable increase in the number of children eating at food banks did not just occur during the recession, it occurred during the life of this government.
Does the Prime Minister understand that his policies have created an underclass of Canadians which is growing in bad times and in good?


Right Hon. Brian Mulroney (Prime Minister):: Madam Speaker, I tell my hon. friend what I am sure she knows, that her prefatory remarks are false in regard to expenditures on my behalf.
My hon. friend says: "I read it in the paper". That does not mean it is true. It is a false statement.
With regard to the serious question my hon. friend raises, when we were sworn into office in 1984-85 the total federal government spending record on programs for children was $6.7 billion. That has now increased to $9.5 billion, an annual increase of 5.2 per cent even though the cost of all program increases was 3.9 per cent.
The government has consistently spent more, either than the average of inflation or the average increase of all programs, on children and on children's programs than on anything else, with the possible exception of the amount we have expended on natives which have increased even more substantially than the numbers I have given my hon. friend.
The Minister of National Health and Welfare has just indicated, I think properly, that we had to make some fundamental decisions in respect of lessening the burden on our children today. That means making sure we hand over to them an economy that is not burdened down even further by a mountain of debt so that they are able to make their own priorities and build their own lives.
Meanwhile the government will continue to expend greater and greater amounts of money to help children and families in need because that of course is a fundamental obligation of this House and of all governments.


Mr. David Walker (Winnipeg North Centre):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister.
Hidden away in yesterday's report on food banks is the startling fact that 450,000 Canadians are living together in total poverty in traditional two parent families. These same families are excluded from any new cash under the child benefit package. Thousands of these families run out of money each month and their children are forced to line up at food banks.
Why is it that these children want to save Canada when Canada refuses to save them?


Benoît Bouchard: Madam Speaker, I explained that to the same member yesterday. We are doing as much as we can in whatever capacity we have to do something. We have already put $15 billion into various programs.
I know that when we talk about resources it does not interest the Liberal Party, it never did. That is why today we have to put 35 per cent of our revenue on the debt payment. It is a reality.
March 17, 1992

We have addressed a package in the budget to those low income workers who do not benefit from the package of benefits given to those who are social recipients. The member knows that very well.
This program covers things like transportation, school and many other costs that are paid to social beneficiaries and not to those we are targeting.
That is the answer and he knows that very well.
I just want him to tell Canadians, as I do, that we are doing the best we can. We will continue to do that, but with the help of all Canadians maybe some day the food banks will all disappear.


David Walker: Madam Speaker, my supplementary question is for the Prime Minister.
The minister has happily defended the fact that the government is trying its best. In the meantime, hundreds of thousands of Canadians are affected each month by their inability to feed themselves. Since this government took office the number of food banks has risen from 1 to 292.
Does this government not realize that people prefer to work than to stand in line for their daily bread and butter? What are the civic measures this government is willing to present to Canadians to combat the lack of food for so many hundreds of thousands of families across this country?


Benoît Bouchard: Madam Speaker, in the package that we will be presenting soon, we will try to deal more specifically with the children at risk in many different ways.
What we are calling for today, and I am sure the member will agree with it, is that all volunteers in this country, organizations and NGOs, the provinces, the municipalities, the federal level, put all their energies and resources together to help the most Canadians we can to avoid the cruel reality the hon. member is talking about. He knows very well that we must have all levels of government involved. However, it is not possible to do something if we do not improve the economy of this country in a way that it will provide the resources that we can give to Canadians.
Oral Questions
This is the simple position that I have. Once again I am ready to work with all Canadians to do that.


NORTH AMERICAN FREE TRADE AGREEMENT
Mr. David Barrett (Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca):: Madam Speaker, I want to ask the Minister for International Trade or his substitute a question surrounding the government's secrecy and fear over the negotiations on the North American free trade agreement.
The Mexican Senate has had a lengthy briefing on the draft bracketed agreement. The U.S. Congress has had a briefing and the documents are available to them. Yet this government is suggesting that before we get a briefing, we have to sign a statement of confidentiality that would have even frozen Igor Gouzenko from opening his mouth.
I want to know why is it that this government demands confidentiality and rules on us that are far more strict than those applied to Mexico or the United States. What is it hiding?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Madam Speaker, my hon. friend is asking for a briefing on the negotiations.
He has not had the briefing but he is already opposed to it. Maybe if we give him another briefing he will be in favour. The fact of the matter is that this has been widely publicized, as my hon. friend knows. The Secretary of State for External Affairs says there is a formal briefing on Thursday.
My hon. friend spends a lot of his time on the phone to the Mexicans and the Americans. He has lots of friends down there.


Mr. Angus:: At least he gets through.


Mr. Brewin:: They answer his calls.


Martin Brian Mulroney: The three parties have matters of substance they wish to resolve. If those questions are resolved, presumably there will be an agreement in principle that my hon. friend will perhaps upon reflection want to vigorously support.


David Barrett: Madam Speaker, at least I get through on the phone.
I phoned the Mexican Senate. They were thoroughly briefed. They even sent me a report on the document. The U.S. Congress has had a briefing. They are discuss-

March 17, 1992
Oral Questions
ing it. All we get is bafflegab, delay and secrecy from this government. As a matter of fact, the Mexican press got a briefing on the draft bracketed agreement.
I want to ask this question as one Irishman to another. Why is it that we get the blarney stone and they get the facts?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Well, the Mexicans had the choice of the Blarney stone or Barrett and they took the stone.
My hon. friend says that he called the Mexican Senate and they took his call. Hell, they would do that here.
I should tell my hon. friend that the President of Mexico called me at just about two o'clock.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Some hon. members:: What did he say?


Martin Brian Mulroney: They are yelling "what did he say". He said, among other things, happy St. Patrick's Day and give my love to Barrett.


INTEREST RATES
Hon. Herb Gray (Windsor West):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance.
Today all five of Canada's major chartered banks made it official. Because of a series of increases in the Bank of Canada rate, all of them are raising their interest rates on mortgages by up to three-quarters of a point and the housing sector is just starting to get off the ground.
Does the Minister of Finance not realize that this new high interest rate policy will choke off any recovery in housing, or in the economy as a whole for that matter? Why will the minister and the Bank of Canada not backtrack on this new, unnecessary high interest rate policy?


Hon. Don Mazankowski (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance):: Madam Speaker, I think the hon. member knows that it is market forces that are having upward pressure on the interest rates.
I remind the hon. member that we are still experiencing the lowest interest rates in 20 years. For example, while the five-year mortgage rate is, I believe, at 9.5 per cent or 9.75 per cent, 10 years ago in 1982 the five-year mortgage rate was 19.5 per cent. I think that reflects a
difference in the confidence in a Conservative regime versus a Liberal regime.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Madam Speaker, the minister should recognize, as Canadians do, that interest rates have been going back up over the past several weeks.
Last month the government introduced policies to lower down payments and allow the use of RRSP funds for the purchase of homes. Now the government is putting the benefits of these measures at risk with these higher interest rates. Why does the government now want to effectively cancel these measures? Why is the government sabotaging its own policies supposedly aimed at helping this economy?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Madam Speaker, I am glad the hon. member recognized the fact that the government has initiated some very important proposals to help stimulate the housing sector. That has resulted in an increase of housing sales of about 60 per cent over last month and over 17.2 per cent on the basis of a year ago. So I think that is good news.
It is also to fair to say that the market pressures and the volatility that is in the financial markets these days is something that we are all concerned about. I think, to some extent, it casts a reflection on the political uncertainty arising from the constitutional issue.
I think all hon. members would hope that we would be able to make progress in that because that would do a lot to improve the confidence in the financial markets and the over-all economic outlook for Canada.


POVERTY
Ms. Dawn Black (New Westminster-Burnaby):: Madam Speaker, a new Statistics Canada report puts a human face to the line-ups at the food banks; 40 per cent are children-700,000 children-10 per cent are college graduates and 22 per cent are high school graduates. That is the hungry human face in the lines at the food banks.
My question is for the Minister of National Health and Welfare. There is something dreadfully wrong here. Food banks are the only growth industry in this country. I ask the minister to stop talking about incentives for people to go to work. I want him to understand that
March 17, 1992

hunger is an incentive. Will he please tell us why his government is not prepared to help these children?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I am happy to provide my hon. friend with a fact. My hon. friend refers to this as a growth industry. If that were the case, obviously that would be very, very troubling. Any increase of itself is worrying. My friend should know that there were 576,000 fewer low income Canadians in 1990 than in 1984 and 123,000 fewer low income children. The country has made some very substantial progress. The numbers are going the right way although obviously during the recession we have been knocked back again.
I point out to my hon. friend that we have made very substantial progress in these areas, particularly in respect of children, and we continue to devote the energies and the interests of the government toward that end.
Witness, for example, the decision of the minister of health to focus more and more of the government's resources on children at risk and children in poverty, as announced by the Minister of Finance in the last budget. That I think is an important contribution toward social justice and fairness in Canada.


Dawn Black: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the Prime Minister's response, but the fact of the matter is that his government has now categorized poor children into the deserving poor and the undeserving poor. That is the direction of his government. We now have 700,000 hungry children in line-ups at food banks. That is the record of his government.
I want to ask the Prime Minister this. They have a half million dollars advertising campaign in Canadian papers.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Would the hon. member put her question, please?


Dawn Black: Madam Speaker, my question for the Prime Minister is this. Why is his government advertising to the tune of half a million dollars with ads saying their new benefits are new, they are simpler, they are fairer? They sound like an advertisement for a new detergent. Why are they wasting half a million dollars on ad campaigns instead of feeding the hungry in this country?
Oral Questions


Martin Brian Mulroney: Madam Speaker, we of course have done no such thing. Nor do we take any joy at all in any disparities that emerge in our society, particularly as they impact children.
I have already indicated to my hon. friend and the statistics are there-she may want to examine them- that Canada has made very considerable progress.
I point out an analysis that one of our leading journalists did that may interest her and put it in some perspective: "The result is there is a substantial difference between the 1961 and the 1991 definitions of poverty. In 1961 StatsCan classified as low income any family of three with an annual income of less than $3,000. By our calculations $3,000 in 1961 dollars is equivalent to $14,969 in 1990. Yet the StatsCan low income cut-off for a family of three living in a big city in 1990 was $24,255. The poverty line for a three person household developed by the Canadian Council on Social Development was $25,000".


An hon. member:: Time.


An hon. member:: Order.


Martin Brian Mulroney: What I am saying to my hon. friend is that both in relative terms and in real terms the numbers of working poor and the numbers of children under the poverty line have diminished, even though the poverty line has increased and that the-


Some hon. members:: Order.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Somehow long preambles bring long answers.


NORTH AMERICAN FREE TRADE AGREEMENT
Hon. Roy MacLaren (Etobicoke North):: Madam Speaker, the Prime Minister has just referred to a confidential briefing for two opposition MPs on the North American free trade agreement. Last year the all-party committee on external affairs and international trade stated categorically: "It is critically important that the Canadian people be kept regularly and fully informed about the course and the substance of the government's trade negotiations with Mexico and the United States".

March 17, 1992
Oral Questions
How can Canadians decide if this government is furthering our national interest in these negotiations when it refuses to make clear its position? Why does the government refuse to keep Canadians informed about the course and the substance of these negotiations as was recommended by the all-party committee?


Hon. William C. Winegard (Minister for Science):: Madam Speaker, the hon. member knows very well that throughout all of these negotiations the international trade advisory committees have been operating. The SAGITs have been operating and a very substantial group of Canadian businessmen and women have been involved in these negotiations very deeply, indeed. They have been a great help to us in terms of promoting this free trade agreement.


Roy MacLaren: Madam Speaker, the minister knows perfectly well that consultations between business groups and, indeed, provincial governments is a far cry from keeping Canadians regularly and fully informed, as urged by the all-party committee.
What is this government's position on the North American free trade negotiations, on the dispute settlement mechanism, on content requirements, on a social and environmental charter? These are concrete issues that demand concrete answers from this government. Canadians have a right to know-


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I think the question has been asked.


William C. Winegard: Madam Speaker, the hon. member knows very well that in any negotiations of this kind the general Canadian position is very clear. It is exactly the same thing here as it was in the free trade agreement with the United States. We want to do things that benefit the Canadian people. That is exactly what we are trying to do.
The hon. member knows very well that you do not negotiate a trade agreement in public. That would give away the Canadian position and put us behind the barrel. We believe we are doing a good job.


FORESTRY
Mr. David Kilgour (Edmonton Southeast):: Madam Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Forestry on this St. Patrick's day.
Before the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement began there was under the GATT system free entry for a very large percentage of lumber exports going into the United States. Now under the FTA, as the minister will know, softwood products from B.C., for example, face an import tariff of about 29.48 per cent. Since the situation is a direct result of the FTA, will the minister tell us why his government does not intend to use the Employment Support Act of 1971 to support displaced workers and companies under the present situation.


Frank Oberle: Madam Speaker, my hon. friend is badly informed.
The countervail duty provision that was captured in the memorandum of understanding preceded the free trade agreement. It is actually a benefit to us to have a free trade agreement because it adds to the protection we have under GATT. Nothing has changed there. An appeal has been launched with GATT.
The problem with GATT is that any decision by a GATT panel is not binding. There is a decision of a bilateral, independent dispute mechanism and a panel associated with that will be binding. The free trade agreement will be the instrument that will be used to vindicate our position.


EMPLOYMENT SUPPORT ACT
Mr. Joe Comuzzi (Thunder Bay-Nipigon):: Madam Speaker, I may suggest to the minister who just spoke that this will be an interim measure. There were 21,944 Canadian jobs saved as a result of the Employment Support Act of 1971. The cost of saving each job was only $903.77.
Last Tuesday the minister of industry said that this act was being considered. Last Thursday the minister for small business said that the act was not going to be considered. We know that there are applications in the minister's office waiting for the hearing.
My question is to the Solicitor General. Will he please advise his colleagues that they do not have the luxury of choosing whether to use the act or not to use the act.


March 17, 1992

Oral Questions
They must use the legislation in place. How long will it take to have these applications heard and how long will it take to have the 25,000 jobs in the softwood lumber industry in Canada protected?


Frank Oberle: The question is a bit confusing. In 1971 when this act was used we did not have the same protection under GATT. Nor did we have a free trade agreement with an independent judicial tribunal made up of Canadian and American adjudicators who will be dealing with this issue.
I also want to point out to my friend that what we have is a preliminary hearing or a preliminary determination and that there are two more steps in the current round of assessing the legitimacy of the countervail duty actions, after which we will have access to article 19 of the free trade agreement. This is the best protection that we could possibly have in the situation.


BREAST IMPLANTS
Ms. Mary Clancy (Halifax):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of National Health and Welfare. Yesterday, the minister gave contradictory answers on the subject of breast implants, saying on the one hand that the documents were available but on the other that some were secret. Can the minister assure Canadian women that if the documents are available, he will make them public today?


Benoît Bouchard: Madam Speaker, I much appreciate the question raised by the hon. member for Halifax, since I am asking for permission to table in the House a letter that I sent today to the chair of the House committee on the Status of Women, in which I tell her that we will make available to the committee 10,000 pages of documents on past or present studies done by the department or other bodies that we are asking the committee to consider and to be able to use all the required information, as I said yesterday, since neither I nor the department has anything to hide. This again should reassure women about breast implants.


Mary Catherine Clancy: Madam Speaker, I thank the minister for his response.
I would ask if he would also provide to this House a compendium of all the studies on breast implants in the possession of his department so that those could be looked at as well to ensure, as he has said today, that the women of Canada who wish to have breast implants can then make an informed consent.
Hon. Benoit Bouchard (Minister of National Health
and Welfare): Madam Speaker, all those documents that I released or pointed out to the committee exist today are documents which I can produce.
Of course, we have documents which are under what we call commercial confidentiality. If the member wants through the Department of National Health and Welfare to address any kind of request to the companies and they agree to release the documents, of course it will be a pleasure to do that.


CANADA 125 CORPORATION
Ms. Margaret Mitchell (Vancouver East):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance.
Canadians will be shocked to learn that this government has found another $30 million, which makes a total of $50 million, for the Canada 125 Corporation, none of which is allocated for community groups to celebrate Canada's 125th birthday.
In view of the minister's and the government's promised fiscal restraint, will the minister explain why this inefficient private corporation is accountable to no one, received an extra $30 million, a 150 per cent increase, when the same moneys would have paid for 10 years of the Court Challenges Program or five years of co-op housing?


Hon. Robert de Cotret (Secretary of State of Canada):: Madam Speaker, it has always been agreed with the Canada 125 Corporation, a private corporation subsidized by the federal government, that it would have a budget of $50 million: $12 million this year, $18 million for the next fiscal year and the rest for the third year.

March 17, 1992
Oral Questions
The corporation works with a board of directors that well represents all of Canada. It has already approved about 30 projects showing what Canadians have done in the past 125 years. I think that it works very well and I and the government are working with the corporation.


JUDGES' SALARIES
Ian Gardiner Waddell: Madam Speaker, I have a supplementary for the Prime Minister or his Irish friend on his right, the Minister of Finance.
Will he confirm that his government will add a cost of living allowance to the salaries of Canadian judges which I calculate will cost $10 million additional next year? Will he tell the House why he is increasing the wages of judges who already make over $147,000 per year when, out of the same moneys, the government could fund a Court Challenges Program for five years? Does his government have any priorities?


Hon. Harvie Andre (Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons):: Madam Speaker, I believe that question anticipates an Order of the Day as the Judges Act is currently before the House.


NATIONAL DRUG STRATEGY
Mrs. Edna Anderson (Simcoe Centre):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of National Health and Welfare. The National Drug Strategy expires at the end of March. Will the government be renewing it and when will we know?


Benoît Bouchard: I thank the member for the very intelligent question, Madam Speaker. A very brief question and the answer will be brief.
We are working on the file on the drug strategy and I am looking forward to being able to make an announcement soon.


RAILWAYS
Mr. Alfonso Gagliano (Saint-Leonard):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister.
Because of his government's economic policies, Montreal faces losing another 250 jobs, this time at CP Rail. More than 1,000 jobs were eliminated in the railway sector since the beginning of this year, in a city where one out of every two adults is out of work.
When will the government start taking poverty in Montreal seriously and implement a genuine recovery plan to provide real jobs for people in Montreal who really need them?
Hon. Benoit Bouchard (Minister of National Health
and Welfare): Madam Speaker, the hon. member must know that recently the federal government announced a number of agreements on industrial development and tourism, especially for the Montreal area. We are now negotiating a very substantial announcement for the Montreal area with the Government of Quebec.
We have had astonishing results with our programs for east and southwest Montreal. In fact, the federal government has done a great deal for the Montreal area and intends to go on doing so in order to meet the specific needs of Montreal's community.


Alfonso Gagliano: Madam Speaker, the minister makes announcements but ignores the fact that every day we read announcements that hundreds more jobs will be lost in Montreal.

In only two years, 28 per cent of the jobs in the Montreal manufacturing sector have been lost. The real question is when are you going to introduce a policy that really creates jobs and not just gunsmoke, saying that you are announcing a program when every day we are losing jobs? When are you going to announce a real program?


Benoît Bouchard: Madam Speaker, I would appreciate if, with honesty, the member would say all the jobs which were created in Montreal. He knows very well that in the aerospace industry, the telecommunications industry,
March 17, 1992

the pharmaceutical industry and in many other sectors we have created a lot of jobs in Montreal. I know very well that it is not very interesting for the opposition to say this government works well in Montreal.


HISTORICAL SITES
Mr. Ron MacDonald (Dartmouth):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister. The Preston area of Nova Scotia dates as the oldest permanent black settlement in Canada with the East Lake section of that community being the most probable terminal for the black underground railroad. Yet, this very site has now been designated as a regional garbage dump, outraging both black and non-black Nova Scotians.
Will the Prime Minister ask officials from Parks Canada Historical Sites to immediately assess the site and have it recognized and protected as a site of national historical significance?


Walter Leland Rutherford (Lee) Clark: Madam Speaker, as you know, we have a National Historic Sites Board whose responsibility it is to advise the Minister of the Environment and through the Minister of the Environment, Parks Canada, with respect to the designation of all historic sites, regardless of where they may be located in Canada. Certainly, on behalf of the hon. member, I will draw his concern to the attention of the historic sites board.


Ronald MacDonald: My supplementary question is to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister, almost more than any other member of the front bench, is fully aware that the establishment of a garbage dump in a black community on a historically significant site will push back race relations in the province of Nova Scotia at least a decade.
What role is the Prime Minister or his ministers prepared to play to ensure that this issue does not further aggravate the already delicate state of race relations in the province of Nova Scotia?


Walter Leland Rutherford (Lee) Clark: Mr. Speaker, I understand that the site in question is located within very close proximity of the metropolitan authority which has the responsibility
Oral Questions
for municipal government in that area. There may well be a possibility that this does indeed fall into their jurisdiction.
In essence, I would repeat the answer I gave just a moment ago, that certainly the federal government through the National Historic Sites Board has a very keen interest in any area of potential national historical significance.
I have spent most of my life as an historian and I am very much aware of that. As I said before, I will ensure that the matter is brought to the attention of the National Historic Sites Board.


IMMIGRATION AND REFUGEE BOARD
Mr. Dan Heap (TVinity-Spadina):: My question is for the Minister of Employment and Immigration.
The Ottawa Citizen reports today that a former member of the Immigration and Refugee Board claims that "the Immigration and Refugee Board has become a wretched monster that is out of control".
Canada, as a signatory to the UN Convention on the Protection of Refugees, agreed that all persons with a well-founded fear of persecution have a right to protection from forced return to their country. Yet, Canada's over-all acceptance rate for refugee claimants went down from 76 per cent in 1989 to 64 per cent in 1991.
Will the minister, in view of many recent criticisms of the IRB, respond to the request of the Canadian Council for Refugees by appointing an independent, impartial investigation of its treatment of people claiming asylum in Canada?


Hon. Bernard Valcourt (Minister of Employment and Immigration):: No, Mr. Speaker, I will not. I intend rather to make sure that the IRB can continue its good work on behalf of Canadians.
No country in the world has a better record than Canada in protecting genuine refugees. If the hon. member is concerned about the percentage, I remind him that Canada welcomed and gave protection to over
38,000	people last year. No country in the world equals that record. I think that we as Canadians can be proud of that.

March 17, 1992
Oral Questions


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: My question is whether the minister is trying to discontinue that record.
I have a further supplementary. Will the minister propose, as has been much asked for publicly, amendments to the Immigration Act to provide for a review of board decisions that are challenged?


Bernard Valcourt: Board decisions can now be challenged by appeal with leave to the Federal Court of Canada. That system is working well. But I have received representations from different groups. As we speak, my department is looking at ways of trying to improve the refugee determination system. Once we have conducted that review and consulted with members, we can then seize the government of proposals and make decisions at that time.


COURT CHALLENGES PROGRAM
Jean-Robert Gauthier: Madam Speaker, in the absence of the Minister of Justice, my question is directed to the Prime Minister. Recently, the Minister of Justice received a letter from Mrs. Bertha Wilson, a retired judge of the Supreme Court of Canada, in which Mrs. Wilson expressed her consternation at the Conservative Government's decision to abolish the Court Challenges Program. She said the program was praiseworthy, imaginative and well managed.
At a time when Canadians are rethinking their Constitutional future, why should the government abolish a program that was seen as essential to making the courts accessible for women, aboriginal people, racial minorities, language and ethnic groups-all of whom know rights are an illusion unless they can go to court to defend those rights? How will the Prime Minister bring this program back?


Hon. Gerry Weiner (Minister of Multiculturalism and Citizenship):: I agree with everything the hon. member said, Madam Speaker. This program was very beneficial, but after nearly 300 cases, according to my information, we have now created a certain body of jurisprudence. That is what the program was for, and it was not necessarily meant to be in place for another 10 years.


Elizabeth  (Beth) Phinney: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Acting Minister of Justice. It also concerns the Court Challenges Program.
The minister has suggested that this kind of program could be handled by the government itself. In this case the government would find itself challenging and defending the law at the same time. This would obviously be a conflict of interest for the government.
How exactly does the minister propose to deal with this problem?


Gérard (Gerry) Weiner: Madam Speaker, as I said, the Court Challenges Program was an excellent program, a made in Canada initiative, to really examine the laws for their fairness, the equality in language laws that were in place. It has done that very fairly. But, after almost 300 cases of jurisprudence that have been established, one would imagine that we now have a significant volume of jurisprudence.
Whether a program must go on forever should be determined now either by other jurisdictions which have a responsibility, or by the private sector, if there is such an interest.


THE ENVIRONMENT
Ms. Joy Langan (Mission-Coquitlam):: The federal government is pulling out of the Fraser River debris control program at the same time it is hosting in Vancouver the Environment '92 conference and at the same time it plans to announce the Fraser River Basin Protection Program agreement between the federal, provincial and municipal governments.
My question is to the parliamentary secretary for the environment. How can the government rationalize abandoning this critical debris control program in less than two weeks in light of its anticipated Fraser River protection program announcement?


Walter Leland Rutherford (Lee) Clark: Madam Speaker, as you know, the federal government announced in one of approximately 50 initiatives under the green plan, that it would be

providing $100 million to the clean-up of the Fraser River several months ago.
I understand that there may be an additional announcement, although it does not come under the jurisdiction of the Minister of the Environment, during the course of the next few days but I think you can appreciate, Madam Speaker, that it would never be politically wise for a parliamentary secretary to upstage any minister in making such an announcement.


PRESENCE IN THE GALLERY
Madam Deputy Speaker:: I draw the attention of hon. members to the presence in the gallery of the Standing Committee on Consumer Affairs and Government Administration from Norway.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


POINT OF ORDER
Ian Gardiner Waddell: Madam Speaker, during Question Period I raised a question with reference to judges' salaries as opposed to cutting the Court Challenges Program, the increase in salaries versus the cutting.
The minister stood up and said he could not answer the question because there was a bill before the House of Commons.
I would like clarification on this matter. I draw your attention to Beauchesne's, page 132, of the fifth edition, and I quote:
(12) Questions should not anticipate a debate scheduled for the
day, but should be reserved for the debate.
Likewise, in the new edition of Beauchesne's, the sixth edition, page 121, it states:
(12) Questions should not anticipate a debate scheduled for the
day, but should be reserved for the debate.
We are not debating the judges' salary bill today. We are debating an environmental bill. Does that mean we cannot ask questions on the general environment, that we cannot ask questions on pensions because there is a pension bill somewhere in the works of the House of Commons?
Point of Order
With respect, Madam Speaker, I would like a ruling on this. I believe that the minister was wrong and that he should have answered my question. He used the wrong way of ducking a good question.


Harvie Andre: Madam Speaker, we can certainly have a debate about whether that was a good question or not.
Quite frankly, the provisions of Beauchesne's and the experience of the House is that when a bill is before the House, it will come up for debate and that is the proper time for members on all sides to express their opinion and to vote on it.
The use of Question Period to engage in debate which can merely be repetition of what will come later while the bill is under discussion is an abuse of Question Period.
Finally I would remind the hon. member that there is no requirement that any question be answered. So the point of order-


Some hon. members:: Shame, shame.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. minister.


Harvie Andre: Madam Speaker, it is also out of order to shout down the person trying to address the Chair.
There is no requirement that in fact an answer be provided to any question. Therefore, it is not in order to raise as a point of order an objection to the answer to a question that he received during Question Period. He may not have liked the answer but that is the way it goes. You do not always get the answer you want.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Madam Speaker, with all due respect to the government House leader, the fact of the matter is that he did seek to hide behind procedure or, to put it more charitably, use a procedural argument in order not to answer the question of the hon. member for Port Moody-Coquitlam.
If he is able to do that without the Chair saying something to the contrary then that would set, in my judgment and I am sure the judgment of many other members, a very new precedent, a very new rule with respect to Question Period. To this point the rules are quite clear that questions cannot anticipate an Order of the Day.

March 17, 1992
Point of Order
I would ask you, Madam Speaker-


Madam Deputy Speaker:: If I may, I have listened very carefully to the hon. member for Port Moody-Coquitlam, to the hon. member for Winnipeg Transcona and to the minister.
At that point in time in Question Period when the minister answered that the subject would be coming up for debate, as you know at any time the government can change whatever is being-


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: The government can change the Order of the Day. The Speaker could not know whether this had been changed for later on this afternoon so I could not in any way judge the hon. minister's answer.
On the other hand as the minister did say, and on this point I think we will all agree, a minister is not obliged to answer a question. But I do agree with the hon. member for Winnipeg Transcona and with the hon. member for Port Moody-Coquitlam that Beauchesne's does say that when it is something that is to be debated later on in the same day, but I could not presume what would happen at the time.
I think tomorrow will be another day for Question Period. I would like us to proceed with the business before the House.


Rodney Edward Murphy: I rise on a point of order, Madam Speaker.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Is this on the same point of order?


Rodney Edward Murphy: Yes.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I think that all that can be said about it right now has been said.


Some hon. members:: Point of order.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I beg your pardon. I do not understand, even though this is St. Patrick's Day, the reason to scream at the Speaker. I will not allow this in the House. My respect for this House and for this institution is obviously higher than what some members would like it to be.
I will listen to the hon. member for Churchill, but I do hope that he will keep his voice down.


Rodney Edward Murphy: Madam Speaker, I apologize for shouting, but you had cut off debate. I think this is a very important item and I had stood quietly three times previously on it. In your last intervention you said that there was no way of knowing what was coming up today in debate.
In fact prior to the lunch break a House order was passed saying that we would be dealing with third reading of Bill C-13 on the environment. That was a House order agreed to by all the parties.
We knew that the question raised by the member from B.C. was completely in order. We know what questions we are going to ask during Question Period. We know what the issues of debate were. The member had a completely appropriate question. He made a request, which was to have the Speaker rule on whether or not an issue could be raised in the House. Just because there is a bill which may come up one month, two months or three months hence-


Mr. Althouse:: Or never.


Rodney Edward Murphy: -or never, as my colleague from Mackenzie said, does not mean that the minister can refuse to answer a question.
We have to be in a position to be able to ask questions. Just because there may be legislation or may not be legislation before this House should not prevent that from happening.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I am quite ready to listen to members all afternoon if they want. What I do not understand from the hon. member for Churchill is that I did agree with him. I did say that Beauchesne's says that we cannot anticipate something which will be debated today. I admitted not knowing what was the subject to be debated after the vote this afternoon. I do apologize. I was not in front of my television set, nor was I in the House of Commons, when the motion was passed earlier today. I had some other business to attend to.
I did agree with the hon. member. I really do not see where we are going now and what are the benefits of going on with this point of order. I would much rather the House proceed with the vote as it is expected and then we go on to debate the third reading of Bill C-13.


Mr. David Dingwall (Cape Breton-East Richmond):: Madam Speaker, I listened with great interest to your
March 17, 1992

intervention. I concur that you have agreed with my colleagues from the New Democratic Party.
From time to time all of us may make a mistake, but I do want to raise with the Chair for possible reflection at another time that the question put by the hon. member for Port Moody-Coquitlam was a supplementary question, and the supplementary question I believe was on an entirely different matter as I understood it.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: No.


David Charles Dingwall: The hon. member says no, but perhaps the Chair might want to take that under advisement to see whether or not that was the actual case.
In terms of asking questions on the subject matter which may or may not be before the House, I would hope that the Chair would always give the benefit of the doubt in circumstances such as that to the questioner in that particular case.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Madam Speaker, I would just like to say that you have done an admirable job of pointing out where you yourself were in error, and we all respect you for having done that.
What we are seeking is some statement on your part about the extent to which the government House leader was in error in wrongly citing this procedure as a reason for not answering the question.
You said that the minister is not obliged to answer the question. That is true, but the minister is obliged to either not answer the question or, if he wants to give a reason for not answering the question, to give a reason that is true to the rules of the House and not something which distorts the rules of the House. That is what we want the Chair to say.
Until the Chair says that, that particular sentence by the government House leader stands and stands as a bad precedent and a precedent which distorts the rules of the House. We want the Chair to say otherwise, Madam Speaker.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I do not see why this hon. member would raise his voice to me.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Don't take it personally.
Point of Order


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I do not see what mistake I have made apart from not knowing that a motion had been passed earlier this day. Even at that, the government could have changed its mind.


An hon. member:: But there was a mistake.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: You may not agree with the minister's answer and that is the hon. member's prerogative. I fully agree with that, but I did give the benefit of the doubt to the member, as the hon. member was suggesting, and I think that now we should proceed.
This point of order has to end at some point. There is nothing more that the Speaker can do at this time.


An hon. member:: A point of order-


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I have just said that to me this point of order has now been listened to very thoroughly and completely and there is no way that I can change anything at this time.


An hon. member:: Let's go to the question.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I think we will now go to the
question.


An hon. member:: Point of order-


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I would really ask that the hon. member find another way of wanting me to change whatever decision I have taken, which is no decision except to go to the question.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: On a point of order, Madam Speaker-


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I am listening to you.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Madam Speaker, I appreciate that you want to get on with House business and I appreciate that you heard my point of order. As you know, we are not yelling and so on. We both appreciate that the Speaker is the servant of the House.
We are concerned with some perhaps bad procedure. We think that the minister could simply have said: I am not going to answer your question or some other answer, but instead he raised a technical point that we think is against the orders of the House.
We would ask the Chair and other members of the House to reflect on that, and I will raise this again tomorrow after Question Privilege as a matter of privilege.

March 17, 1992
Government Orders


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I thank the hon. member. I do appreciate the fact that he realizes that the Speaker cannot be held responsible for answers that are being made nor for questions that are being posed in this House.
The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred divisions on the motions at report stage of Bill C-13, an act to establish a Federal Environment Assessment Process.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of Bill C-13, an act to establish a federal environmental assessment process, as reported (with amendments) from Legislative Committee C.
Madam Deputy Speaker:: Call in the members. [Translation]
Before the vote:


Madam Deputy Speaker:: The first vote is on Motion No. 11, standing in the name of Mr. Caccia.


PAIRED MEMBERS
[Stage Direction]
Nowlan	Siddon
Madam Deputy Speaker:: I declare the motion lost.


Alfonso Gagliano: On a point of order, Madam Speaker.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: The hon. member for Saint-Leonard on a point of order.


Alfonso Gagliano: Madam Speaker, I think that you will find unanimous consent to apply the result of the vote we have just taken to Motions Nos. 18,19, 29, 31, 32 and 33.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Joseph R. (Joe) Comuzzi: Madam Speaker, I apologize to the Chair for being late for the vote, but had I been here I would have voted with my colleagues on this side.


David Walker: I make the same apology, Madam Speaker. I would have voted with my party also.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: So those two votes can be added on.


Mr. Berger:: Never two without three. I join my colleagues and make the same point.


Mr. Langdon:: Madam Speaker, I missed the original vote, for which I apologize. I wonder if I could have my vote recorded with the other members of my party with respect to the remaining votes which are being applied.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: The next vote is on Motion No. 18, standing in the name of Mr. Caccia.



[Stage Direction]
Nowlan	Siddon
Madam Deputy Speaker:: I declare the motion lost.
The next vote is on Motion No. 19, standing in the name of Mr. Caccia.



[Stage Direction]
Nowlan
Siddon
Madam Deputy Speaker:: I declare the motion lost. Therefore, Motion No. 29 is negatived.
The next vote is on Motion No. 31, standing in the name of Mr. Taylor.



[Stage Direction]
Nowlan	Siddon
Madam Deputy Speaker:: I declare the motion lost.
The next vote is on Motion No. 32, standing in the name of Mr. Thylor.

March 17, 1992
Government Orders


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I declare the motion lost.
The next vote is on Motion No. 33, standing in the name of Mr. Caccia.



[Stage Direction]
Nowlan	Siddon
Madam Deputy Speaker:: I declare the motion lost.
The next vote is on Motion No. 34, standing in the name of Mr. Charest.


Hon. Jean J. Charest (Minister of the Environment) moved:: Motion No. 34.
That Bill C-13 be amended by adding immediately after line 40 at page 49 the following new clause:
"72. (1) Five years after the coming into force of this section, a comprehensive review of the provisions and operation of this Act shall be undertaken by the Minister.
(2) The Minister shall, within one year after a review is undertaken pursuant to subsection (1) or within such further time as the House of Commons may authorize, submit a report on the review to Parliament including a statement of any changes the Minister recommends."


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Would all those in favour please say yea.


Some hon. members:: Yea.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Would all those opposed please say nay.


Some hon. members:: Nay.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: In my opinion, the yeas have it.


Some hon. members:: On division.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I declare the motion carried on division.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
Harvie Andre: that the bill, as amended, be concurred in at report stage.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

March 17, 1992
Government Orders


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: On division.
Motion agreed to


Madam Deputy Speaker:: When shall the bill be read the third time? According to order made earlier today, now.


Harvie Andre: that the bill be read the third time and passed.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. members:: No.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Debate. The hon. member for Brandon-Souris.


Benoît Bouchard: Madam Speaker, point of order. This afternoon, during Oral Question Period, I referred to a list of documents that the department is making available on breast implants. With leave of the House, I would like to table these documents here in the House, as I indicated during Oral Question Period.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Debate. The Hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of the Environment.


Walter Leland Rutherford (Lee) Clark: Madam Speaker, let me express, once again, my regret for the error I made earlier during Question Period when I referred to you as Mr. Speaker. That was simply due to my failure to look at the Chair.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: That was not the most difficult part of my day, I can assure you.


Walter Leland Rutherford (Lee) Clark: It is an honour and privilege to be able to begin third reading debate on Bill C-13. Once again I would like to begin by expressing the regret of the Minister of the Environment that his previously determined schedule prevented him from being present on this very important and happy occasion. As you know he is participating at this moment in very important meetings in Vancouver with respect to the proceedings of Globe '92, a significant international environmental conference. He is also meeting with his colleagues of the Canadian Council of Ministers of the
Environment. That is certainly a very significant undertaking.
The legislation before us is very significant and has been marked by an immense amount of co-operation from all the parties concerned during the various stages which have brought us to this point today. I would like to begin by officially thanking the members of my own party who have participated in the various committee stages. There were two such stages because this bill was once known to the House as C-78. It was subsequently reincarnated in the form of C-13. Members have served very diligently over that period of time and their names are part of the Hansard proceedings.
I would also like to thank the members of the opposition parties who were equally diligent and helpful during the course of their participation.
In addition I would like to make note of the constant guidance and assistance provided by a number of FEA-RO officials as well as the Department of the Environment staff. We could not have made the progress we did without their assistance.
I would also like to note that the committee handled its responsibilities in a different and perhaps unique way. In one instance the Minister of the Environment made an unusual effort and offered to attend the committee during clause-by-clause. In fact he rearranged his schedule so he could be present for a very extensive period of time.
Unfortunately our own schedule did not permit him to be present as often as he had wished, but he was present during clause-by-clause more than is normally the case. I think all members of the committee were appreciative of that. At the suggestion of the Minister of the Environment, the committee decided to secure the assistance of two distinguished extremely able environmental lawyers, Bill Andrews of the West Coast Environmental Law Association, and Brian Pannell of the Canadian Environmental Network.
I found their guidance to be exceedingly helpful. They were present during all of our clause-by-clause negotiations which went on for several days. I think the other members of the committee would agree that they were able to bring to the table not only a level of competence, but a very thorough understanding of the bill and the law pertaining to the area of environmental protection. So I
March 17, 1992

would like to take this opportunity to thank them for the contribution they made.
What we have before us today is the result of some four years of labour, going back to when the bill in the form of C-78 was initially commenced and the consultations which literally took place from coast to coast to coast began. I think it is the result of an immense amount of labour and I am very pleased with what we have accomplished. I am very pleased with the degree of unanimity we have been able to bring to the issue at hand in this House. As we have just demonstrated, there was a division of opinion on certain amendments. I think we have made very significant progress in terms of trying to draft a bill that will have widespread support throughout this House and the country as well.
I see before us today in Bill C-13 a beginning and not an end. We have already passed amendments which provide that the minister will report back to the House on his assessment after some five years of its operation.
I am certain this will be an area of ongoing legislative activity. I believe I am speaking today at the beginning of a process that will obviously be a continuing one and will presumably go on for generations and generations.
This process we have put in place is a significant one and will have an impact on virtually every Canadian whose life and environment might be altered for better or for worse by any development project. It will give them the opportunity and the forum in which to voice their concerns with respect to such development.
In my opinion the bill will bring increased efficiency, more consistency and more cost effectiveness to the way we evaluate the environmental consequences of economic development. It will make environmental factors equal partners-and I think that is worth stressing-with social and economic concerns in the process.
Before I explain the provisions of this act I would just like to take a moment or so to talk about the terms of the historical context under which this legislation has evolved. The history of the Canadian environmental assessment process is relatively short. Just 19 years ago in 1973 environmental assessments of federal projects were formalized by a fairly loosely worded cabinet
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decision. This decision was followed and reinforced by several cabinet directives during the 1970s.
A regime under which we study the environmental effects of proposed projects today was established in 1984. The Environmental Assessment Review Process guidelines order in council or EARP, as we know it, was written as a guideline. Several court decisions however have given what was meant to be a guideline, the force of administrative law. As a result this guideline became the law of general application.
A further result of these court decisions was to breed uncertainty in the environmental assessment review process itself. As we all know, uncertainty can cause credibility to decay. For an environmental assessment process to be effective it must not only be credible, it must also be seen to be credible.
For all these reasons and indeed for more, we welcomed the Supreme Court decision on the Oldman River project. It has brought much needed clarification of federal jurisdiction over the environment. By recognizing the constitutional right and responsibility of the federal government to conduct environmental assessments when it makes decisions, this ruling has removed much of the uncertainty previously associated with such reviews.
This high court also recognized that the responsibility for the environment is shared between the federal and provincial levels of government. Its decision will help to clarify the respective role of each. The Oldman ruling will ultimately have the effect of encouraging a co-operative approach among the jurisdictions involved in environmental assessments. This is an approach which has been embraced wholeheartedly in the legislation before us. You will find there is room for increased co-operation and participation in the environmental assessment process. Indeed that is one of the key underpinnings of the act before us.
I must tell the House at this point that even before these court decisions, the federal government recognized the inadequacies of EARP, as we knew it, and had begun to take steps to reform it. The genesis of this reform was in 1987 when the then Minister of the Environment released the discussion paper entitled "Reforming the Environmental Assessment".

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I note for the hon. members of this Chamber that the release of the minister's green paper was coincidental with the release of the report of the World Commission on Environment and Development which, among other things, called for a strengthening of environmental assessment procedures at all levels of government.
Over the following year, a series of regional meetings and a national consultation workshop afforded opportunities for the public to scrutinize and comment on the proposals. The public input so gained was incorporated into the first draft of the proposed Canadian Environmental Assessment Act which was first tabled in this House in the spring of 1990.
Subsequently during 1991, individuals and organizations from across Canada made submissions to the all-party legislative committee reviewing the proposed legislation.
I would note by the way that the chairman of that committee is in the House, as indeed is the chairman of that committee's successor.
This past fall, the Minister of the Environment tabled a revised bill based on the public input before the committee. That brings us to the present.
What we have before us today in Bill C-13 is the result of four years of very significant labour by Canadians who care for the environment. It has been subject to and benefited from three separate rounds of public consultations.
Together, the opposition parties proposed a total of 135 amendments. After consulting with Canadians, the government itself proposed 60 changes to the legislation, some of which I shall make specific reference to in just a moment.
Even beyond these three opportunities for public comment, in a most unusual step before being tabled in the House today, the final version was poured over by lawyers from the Canadian Environmental Network during clause by clause. I have already referred to the efforts of Mr. Pannell and Mr. Andrews earlier in my remarks.
Consequently, the bill that is before us now is a synthesis of the knowledge, expertise and opinion of as broad a spectrum of environmentally knowledgeable and sensitive Canadians as one could hope to find.
That, however, does not suggest that Bill C-13 is the ultimate environmental assessment legislation. It is not and indeed it could not be at this particular point in time. I would suggest that Bill C-13 is literally miles ahead, if I may still use the term miles, of what we would normally regard as the status quo.
If the current environmental assessment procedures can be characterized as uncertain and unclear then the proposed reforms must be described as definite and precise. What is before us today is modem legislation intended for a modem world.
We have before us legislation which provides a strong foundation for environmental assessment procedures for the 1990s and indeed for beyond. As I have said before in this chamber, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act will give us assessment procedures that are more efficient, more consistent and more cost-effective than what we have now.
It will do this by ensuring that the adverse environmental effects of a project under study are identified, evaluated and addressed early in the planning stages before decisions are irrevocably cast. All of us would applaud that. It will do so by strengthening public participation in the assessment process and by providing the opportunity to and encouraging those who may be affected by a proposal to influence federal government decisions about it.
Where there is disagreement over the value of potential environmental changes wrought by a project, these new and improved review procedures are designed to facilitate a consensus agreement among the stakeholders.
When implemented, the new Canadian Environmental Assessment Act will give substance to the principles of sustainable development. It will ensure that environmental factors are studied as diligently as economic and social considerations.
The new environmental assessment procedures will encourage the federal government to make decisions that integrate environmental and economic considerations and move us closer to our stated goal of achieving sustainable development.
All proposals with the potential to change the environment that require a federal initiative undertaking or activity will be studied for environment effect.
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I will conclude by telling this House that after some of the most extensive consultations between Canadians and the federal government, my colleague, the Minister of the Environment, incorporated several key amendments to the bill which is before us today.
These amendments, in my opinion, strengthen the assessment process. They increase the clarity and the effectiveness of the process and they respond to the very specific and expressed needs of Canadians.
First of all, I am pleased to be able to tell the House that this bill no longer talks in terms of "balancing" environmental and economic goals. Instead, this outmoded concept has been succeeded by the more realistic philosophy of integrating these complementary objectives.
We feel that using this more positive definition of sustainable development will result in assessments that are based on more modern environmental principles.
We have also proposed the term "comprehensive study" to replace "mandatory study" in order to lay to rest the misconception that if a project were not on the mandatory list it would not be assessed.
It is important for Canadians to realize that those projects likely to have significant adverse environmental effects will be subject to broader and more in depth studies. This amendment and the wider definition of project the government has proposed will allow the assessment process to focus on those activities and those undertakings which warrant closer scrutiny while avoiding unnecessary or frivolous examination.
Under these amendments native concerns will be better accommodated as well. We are proposing that both "traditional aboriginal uses of the land" and "heritage resources" be included under the definition of "environmental effect" in assessing projects.
Some Canadians expressed wariness at the use of discretionary language in the act and suggested that it was an attempt by the government to court-proof this legislation. Nothing could have been further from the truth.
Nevertheless, in response to this concern we have removed as much of the discretionary language as we possibly could.
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We also removed the double standard, or potential double standard which was suggested by the terms "significant" and "serious." Significant environmental effect is a term now used throughout the bill. Significant is a sole threshold level in the United Nations Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a transboundary context to which Canada is a party and which we would hope to ratify in the near future.
Another issue which was raised in the course of our consultations was the absence in this legislation of the need for and alternatives to projects. The amendments which we have proposed give the Minister of the Environment power to include these and any other appropriate factors in an assessment.
Just prior to closing I would also like to refer to one additional amendment if I am permitted to do so.
The government has proposed amending that section of the bill which deals with mediators and review panels so as to include guidelines for their selection and appointment. This amendment responds directly to those environmental and industry groups and associations which had underlined the need for stated criteria to ensure high standards for mediation and panel review.
As a result of these amendments and others to which I think some of my colleagues will be speaking during the course of third reading debate, we have before us today legislation which will give this country an environmental assessment process which speaks to the express needs of Canadians, individuals, business, industry, and governments alike. It is legislation in which we can all take pride.
In closing, because this is indeed for me the closing moments in what has been a very long and on occasion somewhat protracted process, I would like to say I am very pleased to have been able to participate in this process.
I echo the words of many of my colleagues as expressed earlier that indeed when we are talking in terms of protection of the environment we are today speaking to the concerns of Canadians which perhaps are more significant and certainly more clearly expressed than they have ever been before.

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Some colleagues opposite in the course of speaking to specific amendments made reference to the fact that young people have a very strong and genuine concern for the protection of the environment.
I would agree with that. I would echo those words because I think younger Canadians today are very conscious of the fact that it is to them that our generation is leaving a great deal. In some of it we can take pride in terms of what we pass on to other generations.
In other instances we might wish we had done a better job than we have done to date. I would say that without in any way laying blame to other administrations that have been before us because that is an inadequate explanation for what has transpired.
All of us in this House and all of us who have been here for some time have had a responsibility to ensure that this type of legislation indeed is law. Perhaps what we could say is that at long last we are on the verge of making it law.
I personally would express a desire that we could have been able to move more quickly than we have.
Our deliberations at the time were time-consuming. At times they were particularly frustrating for the two chairmen who are sitting here near me, the chairman of the committee studying Bill C-78 and the chairman of the committee studying Bill C-13. Although the deliberations were perhaps a bit more time-consuming than they anticipated or indeed, on occasion would have wished, the legislation which is before us now is better as a result.
It is better as a result of the witnesses who gave us testimony. It is better as a result of the co-operation which was most marked and very commendable within the committee. Again, I reiterate my thanks to all who were party to that process. It is better legislation as a result of departmental officials who gave us the advantage of their advice.
I present Bill C-13 for third reading. I am pleased by what we have achieved. I recognize that the task is far from completed. Other members will be standing in this place in years to come. They will be ensuring that this legislation improves with the passage of time.
I feel that what we have before us is a good piece of work. I ask members of the House to not only give it their serious consideration but also reasonably speedy consideration.


Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Davenport: Madam Speaker, I listened with a great deal of interest to what was said by the parliamentary secretary, and I think he is to be commended for his very balanced and very honest speech.

We have now come out of a long tunnel which, measured in terms of time, has been almost two years. What is before us here today represents a small step in the right direction. The parliamentary secretary has quite effectively managed to describe it as a great step and that goes to his credit.
He went out of his way in committee to accommodate and to facilitate the interventions and the ideas that were put forward both by colleagues of my party and of the NDP, wherever possible, so that the process became meaningful in a manner that I can recall very rarely happened in the history of other legislation.
When and where these suggestions that came from the opposition side were not accepted, it was certainly not because of lack of trying on his part. It was because of lack of political will upstairs. One has to recognize, and I gladly do, the phenomenal effort on the part of the parliamentary secretary in facilitating the process and in making it meaningful in a manner that is unique in the history of parliamentary committees.
In that sense, I want not only to recognize it but also to thank him and congratulate him on his very fine, thoughtful, perceptive role laced with frequent humourous interventions which at times were an enormous help in diffusing tension.
Having said that, one must conclude that unfortunately the government did not seize on this unique opportunity of practising sustainable development.
The bill, although it attempts in its introductory, theoretical portions to set out the framework that is reminiscent of sustainable development, particularly in the clause dealing with purposes, when it comes to the
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nitty-gritty and the substance it does not manage to do that.
This is probably one of the reasons the Canadian Environmental Law Association, in a statement issued today concludes: "CELA, Canadian Environmental Law Association, cannot support Bill C-13 as amended and we recommend that even at this late stage, the bill should be substantially amended to address the major deficiencies identified therein".
One has to put this in a broader international context. Canada is making very strong commitments abroad to the concept of sustainable development. The Prime Minister of Canada at the United Nations in 1987 or 1988 committed himself and the nation to the implementation of sustainable development in the Brundtland report. In 1989 in The Hague, the Prime Minister again made a very clear strong commitment to sustainable development. Yet when it comes to the test of introducing such an important measure, we do not see the political will that corroborates the theory and puts it into practice.
The Government of Canada appears to be strong on promotion and exhortation of sustainable development but non-operational when it comes to the practical, the implementation of that concept and reinforcing the theoretical framework within which sustainable development finds its expression. Let me be more precise and explain what I am trying to say.
In the Brundtland report of 1987 there were several priority areas which were outlined as areas where institutional and legal reforms were identified. They went from the concept of moving downstream to going to the sources of environmental damage. They dealt with the effects of environmental damage. They saw the need for reform in the assessment of global risks and the need to change institutions to make informed choices in the area of providing the legal means. That is where we are right now with Bill C-13. Finally they saw the need for measures that would invest in our future.
The Brundtland commission recognized environmental assessment as the key mechanism, as the instrument to initiate some of these very important reforms. Therefore this exercise on Bill C-13 at third reading becomes
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so important because it will be at the root of so many important decisions.
In Canada we have had a process of environmental assessment since 1974. It was an administrative process. Then in 1984, under the Liberal administration, cabinet modified this process and set up certain guidelines under the name of the environmental assessment and review process. They were issued by means of an order in council which became publicly known. Under the Conservative administration, the guidelines were interpreted as being discretionary. In April 1989, a Federal Court ruling on the Rafferty-Alameda dam case interpreted these guidelines not as discretionary but as mandatory and treated them as federal law. It was that decision by Judge Cullen which understandably triggered the production first of Bill C-78 and then of Bill C-13. The government had to take certain legal initiatives.
Let me take you back to 1987 because it is important. At that time there was a national task force on the environment and the economy. To its credit the government of Canada was one of the first to move on the Brundtland report to produce an analysis of our modus operandi in its recommendation in the September 1987 report. I am quoting now from section 24 of that report of the national task force where it reads: "All ministers must become directly responsible"-I repeat, "all ministers" because this is important in the analysis of the over-all bill. "All ministers must become directly responsible and accountable for the environmental and economic consequences of the policies, legislations and programs".
The task force also recognized the cost effectiveness of assessing the sustainability of policies and so on and went on to say: "Sustainable economic development would minimize environmental input and future cleanup costs by advanced and integrated planning. In the phrase the remedial reactive approach would be replaced by anticipate and prevent as the dominant concept underlying environmental economy integration.
The political and economic structures of Canada and the world are awakening to the need to make economic development sustainable. Decision-making has not yet adapted to fulfil this need. Change is necessary and it must occur now". This is what the task force wrote in

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1987 and that is where we were at that time. Please remember the stress on ministers in the plural.
We then went through an experience with Bill C-78 which at this stage belongs to history. It was a very weak bill and that was repeatedly stressed by environmental organizations, witnesses and the opposition. The government listened to these interventions because it then produced Bill C-13.
In presenting this new rewritten Bill C-13, it became clear that there were still many problems and many changes had been made. The parliamentary secretary is quite right in dwelling on and stressing the positive aspects and changes that were made which one must recognize. There is no doubt about that.
I must recognize, as the parliamentary secretary did, the presence in this House of two chairpersons who very ably conducted the hearings on both Bill C-78 and C-13. We were helped by Brian Pannell and Bill Andrews, two young and very competent environmental lawyers, who served as expert advisers to the committee during the clause-by-clause study of the bill. That was a first. Credit for that initiative goes to the parliamentary secretary who allowed everybody in committee, on both the government and opposition side to call for an opinion on a moment's notice from the two experts. They were then able to tell us how to treat a certain amendment, how to word it, or how to improve the existing language.
Having said all that I must now take you through a very important conceptual flaw that exists in this bill. It will be followed by some points of disagreement that we have.
The conceptual flaw with Bill C-13 is that the bill is designed on the basis that everything is out unless it is defined as being in. In other words the legislation does not require the application of the environmental assessment process to any project that requires federal government approval unless the act of approval, licence or permit is specified in the regulations as triggering the review process.
Many environmental groups, experts and witnesses recommended instead environmental assessment legislation that would be based on a concept which is the opposite side of that one, namely that everything is in unless it is defined as being out. You can appreciate that
if you adopt one principle, everything is out unless it is in or everything is in unless it is out, you draft completely different legislation, of course.
The legislation that would have been written under the principle, all is in unless it is out, would require the application of the assessment process to all projects that require federal approval unless they were exempted by regulation. We believe the procedure adopted by the government will be complicated to administer and has the potential for projects to slip through the cracks if the list of triggering mechanisms is not thoroughly compiled. We had some good debate yesterday particularly when it came to section 37, I believe.
Now this is the conceptual flaw. Putting that aside, I would move now to points of disagreement. First of all that has to do with who has the power to be the final decision-maker. It is true that in Bill C-13, unlike C-78, the Minister of the Environment has a significant role in the environmental assessment process. However the final decision-making responsibility for the fate of a project remains in the hands of the minister who is responsible for the project. It would be the Minister of Transport if it is an airport, the Minister of Fisheries if it is a wharf or the Minister of Transport if it is double tracking in British Columbia along a river which has high salmon resources and so on.
This approach is not a desirable one because the minister responsible for the project is also a proponent or at least a strong supporter of the project itself. It then becomes all too easy to use the escape hatch provided in section 37, about which we had a long discussion yesterday, whereby a project can "be justified in the circumstances" even if it will cause, and I quote again from the bill, "significant adverse environmental impact". I described that yesterday as an immense loophole and it still remains as such.
In his rebuttal yesterday, the parliamentary secretary waxed very eloquently about self-assessment. No one could do better than he does on that. Self-assessment does not necessarily mean self-regulation. There is a big difference between the two and he appreciated that. I doubt very much the minister will practise self-assessment and self-regulation at the same time at this stage. I will have something to say about that later.
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We on this side proposed an amendment that would have changed this section 37 so that the final decisionmaking responsibility would have been given to cabinet as a whole. A collective responsibility would be better than leaving the responsibility to the proposing minister who has a mandate to do that, including the Prime Minister, of course. We tried, of course, and we did not succeed. We did so because we felt that by giving the collective responsibility for the decision to cabinet and the Prime Minister, the purposes as spelled out in clause 4 would not be compromised but would be carried out in a good way.
Another point of disagreement has to do with the role of the Environmental Assessment Agency. This is a very important area of disagreement. The proposed federal environmental assessment and review office, which we had in the past, is now being turned into the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, which will promote uniformity and harmony, conduct research, environmental assessment consistent with the act, and ensure opportunity for public consultation.
We in the Liberal Party support a different approach for this agency. We want and are committed to an independent agency that has a legislative mandate not only to administer but to enforce the federal environmental assessment process. This agency would report directly to cabinet in the same way that the National Research Board does, or the CRTC, the Canadian Radio and Television Commission.
The proponents would prepare the initial environmental assessment of the proposal and submit the report to the agency for a review. After being satisfied with the scope and content of the assessment report and so on, the agency would have the authority to approve the initiative or refer it to mediation or a panel for public hearings or deny the approval.
I will spare you, Madam Speaker, the various steps that we have envisioned for this agency because of time limitation. It seems to us that this agency should have the same status and the same powers as is given to the National Energy Board and the CRTC so that it can fulfil its mandate fully. When necessary, when cabinet approval is required, the agency would review the proposal, express its opinion to cabinet which then has of course
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the final and ultimate responsibility to approve or reject the proposal or, if it wishes, to constitute an independent panel to hold public hearings. Should the cabinet in the end approve the proposal, the opinion of the agency or the panel would be made public with the announcement of the cabinet and the public would know. The whole process would be out there in the open with the ultimate responsibility, of course, on the political masters who are the elected representatives and who should be responsible in the end.
That would be the Liberal alternative.
Finally, on the point of disagreement, we on the Liberal side believe very strongly in the creation of a commissioner for the environment, or a federal ombudsman if you like, modelled on the very successful New Zealand experience. This commissioner would be given the power to review the implementation of the environmental assessment process, report directly to Parliament, and therefore through Parliament to the public, to Canadians. It would have powers of investigation similar to those that are invested in the Auditor General, or expand the mandate of the Auditor General to include this kind of responsibility. You can see that here there is a convergence of responsibilities which would well serve the public interest, I submit to you.
Moving on, I would then try to pull together some of these thoughts by saying that we all know, at least in theory, although not in practice, that the integration of the environment into the economic decision-making process is of enormous importance. The failure of having done so this far has created the mess that we now face. I will not elaborate on the various aspects: acid rain, toxic contamination, ozone depletion and climate change.
We want to protect future generations from the staggering cost of clean-up of pollution in comparison to the relatively modest cost of examining and changing proposals a priori to ensure the prevention of environmental harm. In order to do that, we have to apply a comprehensive and effective environmental assessment. We cannot escape it.
In that sense Bill C-13 begins to realize that necessity and makes a small step in that direction. This has to be done at an early stage.
There is enormous evidence through various polls that Canadians expect a sound and good process, one that will

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indicate and prove that we have the well-being and the health of present and future generations at heart.
In Prince Rupert in May 1990 the leader of our party put it rather well when he said: "We must set national standards and vigorously enforce federal laws. We must also pay attention to the urgent necessity of integrating the environment into economic decision making. We must examine development projects before they are undertaken". The Leader of the Official Opposition went on to say: "I want the Department of the Environment to play the same watchdog role with respect to the environmental impact of decisions as the Treasury Board does in regard to spending impacts. A Liberal government will apply the federal environmental assessment process the way it is meant to be applied, the way Canadians want it to be applied, with full public participation".
These are important conclusions on the part of our leader. They are in contrast to the expectations that were raised and the failure to implement such expectations by the former Minister of the Environment. In June 1990 the then Minister of the Environment made an announcement. We were all pleasantly surprised by that announcement regarding policy proposals to cabinet, not just projects, policy proposals. This is quite a wide ranging statement and not just the construction of an interprovincial bridge or the widening of railway tracks or the construction of an airport. The then Minister of the Environment of the present government in 1990 went public and said that policy proposals to cabinet would be assessed for their environmental impact.
We were all cheering. We were enthusiastic. We thought this was the beginning of a new era. This was almost the environmental millennium we had been hoping for. We cannot find the evidence of that statement in Bill C-13. When we pressed the present minister on the implementation of this commitment, the present minister said that he did not have the methodology to assess policy and environmentally sustainable development.
He went on to assure us that somehow the North American free trade agreement is or will be assessed for its environmental impact. Nobody is quite clear on that aspect.
Here, as you can see Madam Speaker, we have moved from a general commitment to have proposals, government policies, assessed from an environmental point of view to a much narrower field, namely projects, what the Minister of Public Works may propose or the Minister of Transport, you name it, but certainly not the totality of governmental decisions. Of course, the difference between the two is enormous.
Today, in response to a question on the Order Paper, the Minister Responsible for Constitutional Affairs informed me and the House that despite the fact that the constitutional document was a cabinet approved policy document and the proposals to entrench property rights is part of that document, the minister said: "It is premature to consider the question of an assessment of the environmental impact". What is premature about that? Is it premature to make a policy statement and then to have the policy statement assessed environmentally once it has been approved? It is a very peculiar way of thinking.
It makes me conclude that conceptually this government has not yet come to grips with the implications of sustainable development. It has the capacity to theorize about it, to exhort and to promote it in theory, but when it comes to practice it falls flat.
This is why one can understand the comments made by the member for Western Arctic which were pretty incisive when she said on March 10: "The fact is that Canada's own environmental regulations have proved so far to be totally ineffective in stopping environmentally damaging projects despite court orders for federal review". The Oldman River project in Alberta and the Rafferty-Alameda project in Saskatchewan, and one might also add Kemano II, were recently built without prior environmental impact assessment by the Government of Canada.
The member went on to say: "The people of Canada want strong and independent environmental legislation which must bind government." She went on to say: "My party is committed to the concept of an Auditor General of the Environment which would provide a buffer against the crass, political manipulation which presently occurs in Canadian environmental review processes". She is dead on and I congratulate her for having made that very
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strong and courageous statement. That assessment, unfortunately, is accurate. It is true.
I submit to you that if in this Bill C-13, not the proposing minister, but the entire cabinet were to be made responsible for that decision then these incidents to which my colleague from Western Arctic refers would not likely happen or would be much less likely to take place in Canada. This is the relevance of her statement in the context of the debate here today. I really applaud her statement because it is dead on.
Yesterday, we talked about the enormous loophole in clause 37.1 must say that reality is with us now. It is not good to have a bill in which the minister can proceed even in the knowledge that significant adverse environmental effects could be the consequences. Therefore, the project can be justified in the circumstances. This obviously gives a strong political stamp of approval which should not have been allowed to be given. It is not good legislation from that point of view and it is unfortunate because it weakens the credibility of the bill.
I refer also to the review of the legislation after five years. As you know, we debated that point earlier. We had three different approaches to it. They all focused on how, five years from now, we should examine the good and bad features of the bill and make recommendations.
The compromise solution of the government that emerged is silent on the fact whether or not the public will be a participant in it. Let us hope that the minister of the day will include public participation in the process very early, rather than leaving it to the discretion of the minister.
I would like to make a reference to the collective responsibility but I would be repetitive on that because I think I stressed the point, too much perhaps. As to the delegation of responsibility, giving authority to an agency or an individual or a body to carry out an assessment, the bill is silent as to whether the minister can revoke such authority. But on that I must say the parliamentary secretary yesterday gave a very thorough and convincing reply.
In conclusion, and making sure that one does not become repetitive, I would say that we have here a measure that does establish a federal environmental assessment process. It claims to be within the intellectual
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framework of sustainable development. Unfortunately I cannot see it that way.
I hope that despite the weaknesses of the bill, the purposes set out in clause 4 will be implemented not only in the letter but also in the spirit. I hope that the loopholes will not turn out to be as large as they seem to us to be at this stage.
It will be good to have this legislation proclaimed as soon as possible so that we will be able, in 1997, to review it and draw from the lessons of the five years the conclusions that are necessary to make it a truly sustainable development measure.


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 Scarborough- Rouge River-Human Rights; the hon. member for Don Valley East- Shipbuilding; the hon. member for Bona-vista-Trinity-Conception-Fisheries; the hon. member for Drummond-Cross-border shopping; and the hon. member for Prince George-Bulkley Valley-Lumber industry.


Leonard William (Len) Taylor: Madam Speaker, as has been said at report stage, the environmental assessment bill before us today is the single most important piece of environmental legislation ever to face this country.
The bill represents a significant step forward from the existing environmental assessment legislation under EARP. It reflects a great number of changes presented not only by myself and my New Democratic colleagues but also members of the environmental community as well.
The bill is not perfect. We said that at report stage. It is not the bill that we would write if we were on the other side of the House. It is not the bill that I would write if I were the Minister of the Environment, and it is not the bill that I would expect if my colleague from Skeena were the Minister of the Environment in a New Democratic Party government.
Some of the problems with it are not known and will only be discovered through years of working with the new law.

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The government's acceptance of my suggestion for a five-year review or at least the pieces of the proposal that I put together for a five-year review go a long way to ensuring that in the future some of the unforeseen problems can be addressed. Some of the problems are obvious even now, and I hope to have the time today to mention some of them.
My New Democratic Party colleagues and I are committed to improving this act and the process it outlines for environmental assessment.
The bill still tends to reinforce the primacy of development over the environment, and thus reinforces the old trade-off between development and the environment, a trade-off under which the level of environmental destruction demands that we do away with it.
Environmental legislation in Canada should be far-reaching and ensure that environmental considerations are accorded the importance they deserve. Bill C-13, even with all its improvements, still comes up short in this regard.
Let us outline the elements of the legislation dealing with environmental assessment as to what they should include. What are the ingredients to developing an environmental assessment process that will truly aim at preserving and enhancing the environment for our children?
It must be reviewed by an independent agency, resulting in a final and binding decision. It must contain a broad definition of environment and must apply universally to a variety of initiatives, including government policy making.
Discretionary decision-making within the assessment process must be minimized and the accountability of those decision makers must be ensured. Proponents of undertakings must demonstrate that the purpose of the project is justified and that there is an environmentally acceptable need for the undertaking.
Proponents should prove that their undertaking is better than alternatives to their proposal in terms of environmental protection. There should be a significant public role early and often in the planning process and thus must contain provisions relating to public notice and comments, access to information and participant funding.
The final decision must be implementable, enforceable and subject to terms and conditions where necessary. Future monitoring of the environmental impact of projects, especially when combined with other projects and activities, must be accounted for.
The government, in response to pressure I believe from our side of the House and many representatives in the environmental movement, did respond to amendments which moved us closer to environmental assessment legislation which incorporates many of these needs. Others were fudged and some were ignored completely.
Yesterday and earlier today during report stage discussion, the government had the opportunity to respond to the right of Canadians to a safe and healthy environment. It could have accepted amendments which would have allowed for regulations to be reviewed by this House. It could have adopted an amendment which would have insured that this piece of environmental assessment legislation was thoroughly reviewed every five years and not just once five years hence.
In fact, during committee discussion, the minister and other government members said time and time again how important the regulations are to this bill. Yet when it came time for public scrutiny, it decided that it could not happen.
The government often mentions that this bill deals with a very new process and we will not know many of its weaknesses until it is put into practice. The acceptance by this government of an amendment calling for a five-year review does go a long way to putting a mechanism in place to address many of the weaknesses.
While environmental assessment needs to be enshrined in federal legislation, there remains a weakness right at the beginning of the bill. The government refused to include wording in the preamble of the bill which would have reflected the constitutional authority of the act. Including a peace, order and good government clause would have given the bill the stature it is due, providing certainty as to the constitutional basis of the act.
Unfortunately, this omission may open the door for more and more court challenges on behalf of provinces trying to attract industry and sacrifice the environment in the process. The Canadian Environmental Law Association states: "The failure to do so causes us to question the government's profane commitment to achieving a
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new and meaningful environmental assessment program for Canada."
The New Democratic proposal to include an environmental auditor was also not included in this bill. The government should move on this matter independently as quickly as possible. An environmental auditor can be established in independent legislation and would go a long way to protecting the environment, allowing for a proper monitoring of the policies and projects of the federal government and putting Canada in the lead internationally on issues relating to environmental assessment.
As Mr. Ian Motherwell, assistant general counsel to Ontario Hydro said during committee hearings: "Doing an environmental audit of anything in the environmental area is a beneficial concept".
The government also had the opportunity to protect the environment by ensuring that mitigating measures to deal with ways in which the environment is harmed by some undertaking were strong and effective. However, this bill still may allovy for environmental harm to occur and let be dealt with by a pay-off. By leaving compensation as one of the options for mitigating environmental damage, the government is allowing megaprojects like James Bay to proceed as long as money is paid out to compensate for the damage. Cash does not compensate for environmental destruction.
Under the purpose of this act, the government also refused to require that the responsible authorities take action to promote sustainable development. By leaving it as encouraging responsible authority, the government once again caved in to business pressure to put forward a weaker bill than they could have. The preamble should have focused on environmental quality and not played the developmental environmental trade-off.
As Mr. Gertler, chair of the national environmental law section of the Canadian Bar Association said to the committee concerning the preamble: "It should say something like whereas, the government of Canada seeks to protect and enhance environmental quality. After all this should be the primary goal and focus of an environmental assessment regime".
Government Orders
The government also missed an opportunity to be crystal clear that this bill sets out to protect Canada's environment. I submitted an amendment which would have spelled out in the purpose of the act, a requirement to ensure that no project is allowed or assisted by any federal authority unless and until the proponent has demonstrated the project will cause no significant adverse environmental effects or will promote sustainable development.
The government had the opportunity to ensure that when screening is done the purpose of and need for the project were considered. The government also refused to ensure that alternatives to the project were included at the screening stage of the process.
On the other hand, they went a long way in accepting our amendments to ensure that alternatives to a project and the need for a project are explored at other levels of the assessment process.
There is still a lot more work to be done. The government knows full well the damage done to our earth, the communities in which we live and the air which we breathe has already been damaged irreparably to some extent. The government knows that no policy or undertaking or megaproject should be given the green light if it is going to harm the environment.
Professor Robert Gibson from the Faculty of Environmental Studies at the University of Waterloo has stated: "Environmental assessment requirements must impose a test well beyond the usual regulatory demand that proposed undertakings meet specified standards for environmental acceptability. The expected results should not be merely acceptable undertakings, but undertakings that are the most appropriate and positive means of responding to a recognized problem or opportunity. They should be, of all the practical options, the ones most in accord with the principles of sustainability and broad public interest".
The federal government also refused to move on the New Democratic Party recommendation that policy itself should undergo environmental assessment. Specific projects and undertakings are usually done in the context of federal government policy. If this policy itself flies in the face of environmental protection, then there can be no question that time after time, projects and undertakings

Private Members' Business
will be proposed that would harm the environment, sometimes in minor ways, sometimes significantly.
For example, the government's lemming-like drive to hurl itself off the cliff of international free trade agreements speaks to the need for federal policy itself to undergo environmental assessments. Free trade with Mexico is part and parcel of the industrial world's ongoing move to develop an international division of labour and production. This ongoing form of so-called development treats the Third World as not only a pool of cheap, easily exploited labour, but as a pollution haven encompassing most of the globe.
I see you signalling, Madam Speaker. I hope to continue when the bill is called again.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Of course the hon. member
will be able to continue.

It being 5 p.m, pursuant to Standing Order 30(6), the House will now proceed to consideration of Private Members' Business as listed on today's Order Paper.



PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS


Mr. John Manley (Ottawa South) moved: that Bill C-322, an act to amend the Parliament of Canada Act and the Canada Elections Act (change of political affiliation) be read the second time and referred to Legislative Committee G.
He said: This private member's bill, Bill C-322, presents to the House a very simple proposition for consideration. That is that members of Parliament who choose to leave the party affiliation under which they were elected to this place or who choose after having been elected as independents to take on a party affiliation, should be required to put that important decision to what essentially is a ratification vote by their electors through contesting a by-election to be held within 90 days of the date on which they change party affiliation.
Now this is something that has arisen really in my case as a result of many interventions made to me on the part of constituents who expressed great concern of the fact that members of Parliament, once they arrive in this place, seem to feel that they are not accountable to their electors for their party affiliation and that they can, at will, choose to sit on either side of the House, either with other parties or as independents, without consulting their electors.
I have done a little bit of research on this. I have discovered that in recent years there have been not an insignificant number of occasions on which members of Parliament have changed party affiliation.
According to the research that has been compiled for me by the Library of Parliament since 1940 to date, we have had 56 members change party affiliation. Some of them have crossed the floor, some of them have sat as independents, some have indicated very privately what their intention is through telephone calls and so on.
Many of them have perhaps disappeared into history with no other footnote beside their names than the fact that they did change parties. Others are quite well known, I am sure, to most Canadians. Some have distinguished themselves in their new parties; others have not. I suppose of all of the British tradition of parliamentarians who have changed parties and have done so on a matter of conscience to great distinction, none is less notable than Sir Winston Churchill who, I understand, changed party affiliation on two occasions.
In raising this matter before the House, I am in no way suggesting that a change of party affiliation is a wrong thing to do or that it should never under any circumstances be countenanced or that members of Parliament should be obliged to ignore their conscience and the will of their electors and simply toe the line offered to them by party leadership.
On the contrary, I am recognizing by proposing this bill that indeed the conscience of a member of Parliament is a very important thing.
There are circumstances in which a change of party affiliation subjected to as I call it, a ratification vote by the electors of that member of Parliament, rather than playing as some have suggested into the hands of the party leadership by acting as a deterrent to changes of party affiliation, may in fact provide an independent-minded member of Parliament with a tool to encourage greater responsiveness on the part of party leadership by
March 17, 1992

virtue of the fact that the member believes that his or her electors will undoubtedly uphold the decision of changing party affiliation.
The essential issue is that in modern Canadian politics the choice of who to vote for is one which Canadians make on the basis of a variety of considerations. When they enter the polling station and put a mark on the ballot, they bring into play a number of considerations, certainly the issues that have been debated both nationally and locally in the context of the campaign.
Of course, they consider the individual candidates who present themselves in that constituency for election. They may consider a variety of other factors that come into play. But a very important one for each elector in Canada is the party affiliation that the candidates on the ballot bring with them.
The political scientists have told us and sometimes as individual members of Parliament we do not like to hear this, that in fact, as individuals we may sway as little as 10 per cent of the vote in any given election campaign. Some have said less, some have said a little bit more.
I know we all like to think we have been elected on our own merits. But it seems that most Canadians probably consider very heavily the issue of party affiliation and perhaps the leader of a party in coming to decide who to vote for.
The proposition I am putting to the House in this bill is very simply this. If an individual member of Parliament decides on his or her own account for whatever reason, be it conscience, disagreement with the leader, disagreement on a point of principle, that that member of Parliament must change party affiliation, renounce the affiliation under which he or she was elected, then that decision should be approved or disapproved by the electors of the district from which that member has come.
It should not be left entirely open-ended. As we know under the Elections Act, there can be a very long delay between the time of a vacancy in the House of Commons and the calling of a by-election. I have therefore suggested in this bill that in these circumstances, and I happen to believe in others as well, the by-election should be held within 90 days of the vacancy.
Private Members' Business
That deals with a couple of things. First of all, it relieves some of the uncertainty that would otherwise be upon a member making this very important personal decision to change party affiliation. There is at least an understanding that within a finite period of time, a reasonably short period of time given the difficulties of holding by-elections, that that vote will be held. The member will either be returned with his or her new or perhaps no party affiliation or at least a verdict will be delivered.
Second, it imposes on the party leadership an obligation to consider very carefully the views of a member of Parliament who has come to this very important decision in that member's political career, namely of changing party affiliation.
Surely if that member can be returned with no or with a different political affiliation, that in itself is an embarrassment to the party leadership. It suggests that before letting a member leave, to go out on an adventure such as this, the party leadership should make every effort to take into account the point of view of that individual and also take into account the views of the constituents that person was sent here to represent.
In the final analysis, we are here fulfilling a number of very important functions as members of Parliament.
I am not one who believes that we are simply here as delegates, sent by our electors to vote without regard to our own point of view, opinion or conscience. On the contrary, I believe that when we act in the House of Commons, in committees, in our caucuses, we must bring to bear not only our own points of view but also our understanding and judgment based upon the work that we invest in understanding important public policy issues, as well as the views of our electors.
I believe that our first obligation as members of Parliament is to try to influence our own party caucuses on policy issues.
That being said, there may well come a point in time where our conscience dictates that we disagree in a very fundamental way. Frankly, there has been much written-and this is not the point of this bill-that we in Canada have gone too far in promoting a view of party discipline which is extremely rigid. That is another issue and I think that there can be many reforms brought about along those lines that will create fewer situations

March 17, 1992
Private Members' Business
in which people feel compelled to leave the existing party.
Some may disagree with this but I believe that the measures I have proposed will further the cause of greater independence of members of Parliament as individuals. It does provide a means clearly sanctioned in the law for them to withstand the pressure and have the support of their electors on important issues of conscience or public policy.
The proposition is very simple. We are here to represent the people who sent us here. They have chosen us, perhaps in some cases because of wit, intelligence, or other reasons. Somebody across suggested good looks. I do not think it was directed at me; I think it was directed at the member for Western Arctic, from what I could gather. But whatever the reason, in most of our cases, I am afraid, the party affiliation and the positions that our parties have taken on issues in general elections have been key to the decisions that our electors make when they go into the polling station.
That consideration being so important, it is very simply my view that if our democracy is truly to work well then on this all-important crucial matter of party affiliation the change between elections should receive the ratification upon consultation of the electors of a member's own district.


Mr. Michel Champagne (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Forestry):: Madam Speaker, I listened very carefully to the hon. member for Ottawa South and what he had to say about his Private Members' Bill, Bill C-322. I welcome this opportunity to speak in this debate, and this is not to say that the hon. member's concept is a negative one. In fact, I think it is very interesting, but I wonder to what extent the philosophy of this bill is in line with our parliamentary tradition, with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the criteria that are already provided by law when a Canadian decides to stand for election at the federal level. These are points we must consider when we analyse this bill.
I agree with the hon. member that when one takes the trouble to run for a given political party, to a certain extent one has to support the party's campaign platform as well as the party's leader and policies, because of the British parliamentary system. And according to the rules of this particular game, the more elected members one has, the better one's chances of forming the government, and vice versa. In our parliamentary system, our political affiliation does limit our independence.
But this hardly means that once a member has been elected under a party's banner, he can no longer think for himself, no longer disagree with his party or with a government policy and that otherwise the House of Commons will force a member to resign his seat so a new election can be called. I think that is going a bit too far.
First of all, this goes against the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. What about freedom of association and freedom of expression? Do we want to further restrict the freedom of expression of parliamentarians? I think debate is healthy, and if for some reason a member, whatever his convictions, wishes to cross the floor of the House, the only possible sanction should come from his constituents when an election is called and they let him know whether the parliamentarian made the right choice.
I do not think this kind of legislation would make it any easier for members to work effectively. We are elected to this House to work to the best of our ability and serve certain principles we believe to be right and also to serve the interests of our constituents. When we are elected in an electoral district, we do not necessarily need an absolute majority. Often we can win with 2, 3, 4 or 5 per cent. There are always plenty of people who do not share our views. If people do not have to agree with the member they elected, why shouldn't the member be allowed to have opinions that go against the principles of his party and his government? Why, in a democratic system like ours, should we prevent a member from changing his mind or changing his seat, because he wants to work with a new political party or even create his own? Why should we prevent him, just because he was elected under a given political banner, from taking this kind of action, when freedom of expression is one of the foundations of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms?
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Freedom of association is one of the cornerstones of our charter. We must never forget that. I think that the hon. member, well-intentioned though he may be, should realize that this is not just an amendment to the Parliament of Canada Act or the Canada Elections Act. It would be a constitutional amendment. We could not exclude a group from the charter just because they are parliamentarians, because they were elected under a political banner, and we can not do that because we cannot predict what will happen in the future.
Who knows? In two or three weeks maybe a new political party will be formed, and maybe I will not like its philosophy. I do not know what will happen, any more than the hon. member, which is why we have freedom of expression, the basic right of every Canadian.
We fought to maintain this principle and include it in the Constitution. Are we going to jettison it today? I don't think so. We cannot do that, because if we start telling members of Parliament they do not have the right to cross the floor once they are elected, we are taking away their freedom of expression and freedom of association. First, members of Parliament-and where will it all end? That is the problem I see in the hon. member's arguments, and that is why I object to this kind of legislation. The political implications go far beyond a member's affiliation to a party, and, in fact, they go against the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
That is why, as the member for Champlain, as an elected representative who believes in the value of freedom of expression, I must inform the hon. member that I am not in favour of this bill, and if there were a vote, I would vote against it.


Brian L. Gardiner: Madam Speaker, I appreciate this opportunity to rise, albeit for a short time, to discuss Bill C-322. The member has basically pointed out that if an elected member of Parliament crosses the floor and joins another party there should be a vacancy and he or she should run for office.
I rise to support the spirit of the bill and the idea behind it. I actually want to congratulate the member for his candour in this regard. Certainly one could see it as a vicious attack on one of his colleagues, the member for
Private Members' Business
Edmonton Southeast. Whatever is going on in the Liberal caucus, the dissent there or whatever, this may be part of a drive to run one of its members out of its own caucus. I am not sure if that is the intent of the member, but it may be indicative of-


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I must interrupt the hon. member. He is imputing motives, and I do not think that this has its place, especially in private members' hour. It is not allowed during Question Period and I cannot see how it can be at this time.
I would ask the hon. member to withdraw and continue in another line, please.


Brian L. Gardiner: Madam Speaker, I think the member's bill is pretty clear. I am really citing from my experience in British Columbia. We have had a tremendous amount of experience with this particular situation. I will withdraw if the member thinks I am suggesting something negative about an attack on his own colleague. But I can say very clearly that we from British Columbia have had a lot of experience with Liberals on this kind of deal where they have crossed the floor from different parties and the appalling approach they have taken to representing their electors and the views of voters in their ridings on it.
We have had some experience with this and it is not good. That is why I am so concerned about this issue. I think the member certainly did a bit of research on this, but he could have taken a look at the track record of his own party in this regard.
When we are elected to our Parliament and to our legislatures, it is important that we indicate as fully as we can to our constituents where we stand on our views. Members belong to different parties for different reasons. They get elected on a platform and they get elected on their ideas. We now have a proposal which I said I support in spirit, but I am expressing some concerns because of the experience we have had in this regard. I had hoped that we would take a look at how this might have applied historically.
Let us take a look at the experience we had in British Columbia. At one time a dramatic change in policy and direction was taken when in fact three Liberal members of the provincial legislature-Mr. Garde Gardom, Allan Williams and Pat McGeer-joined the Social Credit Party and really changed the course of political history in British Columbia. It is perhaps a big example of what the member is getting at. In that case those three Liberals

March 17, 1992
Private Members' Business
really changed the face of politics in British Columbia at that time.
We have had other members in this House who have crossed the floor, some to sit as independents, some to maintain their party label but to be considered independent. We have had a group that has left other parties in this House to pursue the whole question and notion of an independent Quebec.
I think the member may have thought this was an innocuous idea and a wonderful pious idea, but I think he has touched a raw nerve because of the experience that many of us have had with this view. I can tell the House how people feel in their constituencies when the person they elected on a certain set of values says: "To heck with you, I don't believe that any more. I am crossing the floor and sitting with a different party".
I think the member is right. I think this bill should be allowed to pass so that those people who have done that can go back to their constituents and put their case. They may get re-elected in that new position. As the member said-he is quite right-we can do that, but I think those elected persons, those politician, owe it to their constituents to go back and say why they crossed the floor and why they changed their party affiliation, and to account to their constituents for that.
If I tallied it up we probably would have had seven to ten by-elections by now in this House if this bill had been passed. It might have been okay for Canadians to see the exact intent of this bill and how strongly those members felt about their views on different issues. It might have been okay for them to be required to go back to their constituents to account for the change. I think the member has raised that important issue with this bill. If we take a look at the political history of British Columbia, what the Liberals did there in joining with the Socreds, we see that it changed the face of politics in British Columbia. I wished at the time that those Liberals had resigned their seats and had said: "I am not a Liberal any more. I am really a Soared". Socred, Liberal, Tory are all the same anyway. However, it changed the face of political history just as we might have in this House with the number of members from the Liberal and Conservative parties who have left their parties and continued to sit in the House.
I think they owe it to their constituents and to Canada, if they are going to do that, to resign their seats, run in a by-election, be accountable to their constituents and recognize their views. If they can win the day again in a by-election, so be it; back into the House they come.


Dennis Joseph Mills: Madam Speaker, I want to start by saying that I have the deepest respect for my colleague from Ottawa South.
One of the most amazing things within the Liberal Party is that we can openly debate and have differing points of view. That should not generate a situation in my view where because we disagree we necessarily would have to take an independent course.
Even though I agree with the spirit of where my colleague is coming from in the sense that he is trying to generate much more accountability to his constituents, I personally do not think that this bill will serve that purpose. I agree with my colleague from Ottawa South that when we are running under a party banner and are really aggressive in our campaign we might be responsible for probably not more than 5 per cent of the vote. I agree with my colleague on that particular point. Therefore, if we are running under a party banner we should realize, if elected, that 95 per cent of the reason is probably because of our leader and the party.
When we come to the House of Commons there are moments within our party caucuses when we are debating issues on policy. It could be anything from constitutional debate to tax reform. I believe there are times when we may have profound disagreement. Some of these disagreements develop after we have been elected because polity is an evolving situation.
I would be a little concerned that if this bill were to pass it might cause too much timidity. There might be an apprehension on the part of members to really go to the wall in their own caucuses.
Listen, it is is no secret. In every caucus in the country there are Whips. Sometimes when you do not fall into line they change your seating or you are not put on Question Period or they try to send you a signal that you are not necessarily following the party line. You might agree with 75 per cent of the other party policy, and because you have a particular disagreement on that one issue you should not be put into a position where you are basically an independent. If this bill were to pass, it could
March 17, 1992

make life almost unbearable for honest debate from within a party. If the party basically decided that you were on the right track, it would say: "Never mind your conscience. This is the party line. If you don't agree with it you are gone; you are an independent".
Then you have to go back to your electorate 90 days later. Sometimes when members of Parliament make a decision to disagree with their leadership and even if they take the route of being independent, the judgment of their decision or the realization of what they are trying to achieve might not register to the electorate for a year or two down the line.
The full meaning of some of the differences that we have in here are not realized. Let us just take, for example, the government's position on the GST. The government has taken a position which obviously we on this side of the House disagree with. We believe that this is a regressive policy measure. I am sure there are Conservative members over there who are saying: "Gosh, I would like to be an independent. I would like to cross the floor because my constituents do not necessarily agree with the leadership of my party in this tax thrust that it has taken us into".
They are basically telling their constituents: "Let us wait and see, because we believe that over 18 months or in two years it will be a good thing for Canada".
With all the deep respect and feeling that I have for my colleague from Ottawa South, and I tend from time to time to have differing points of view, I think that I would be a prime candidate for someone who might be a little bit independent. The next thing you know, I would have to go out and face a by-election and in 90 days, taking on all of my colleagues, I do not think I could ever make my point.
If we follow the logic of the member's point that you are only responsible for 5 per cent of the vote, it would seem to me that if we followed this course to its natural conclusion, if I became an independent or if I was kicked out of my party and I had to go to the people 90 days later by this law, I probably would not be back here.
Private Members' Business
Again, I repeat that in the Liberal Party we can have these open debates in the national boardroom here of the House of Commons. I know that he will not take this personally, but on this particular bill, I cannot support my colleague.


Mr. Patrick Boyer (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of National Defence):: Madam Speaker, I find this a very curious bill to be sponsored in private members' hour by a private member of the House of Commons.
If it had come from one of the party whips, I could better understand its intent. When the hon. member for Ottawa South says as he did 15 minutes ago or so that party discipline is another and separate issue, I entirely disagree.
This bill has everything to do with one of the serious problems that is strangling this place, and has been for several decades. I am referring to the rise of partyism in Parliament. This bill which goes straight to the very norms of our political behaviour in the House of Commons would require that a member resign his or her seat, that it be declared vacant upon sitting as an independent or crossing the floor to another party and that there be a by-election within 90 days.
When I heard that and heard the member for Ottawa South saying that this would then be a ratification vote by the electors of that MP's decision, it took me back to the days of Sir John A. Macdonald. Whenever a cabinet minister was appointed, they had to get re-elected because they had assumed an office of profit under the Crown. They had to go to the people to get that kind of ratification.
That was such an encumbrance on this place in those days that they found all kinds of inventive ways to get around it, including one famous time, the double shuffle when everybody was moved from one portfolio to another to avoid going out to these by-elections.
It reminds me in another way of what Sir John A. was all about when he was trying to round up what he called the "loose fish" who swam around here in the House of Commons. The "loose fish" were the people who were not necessarily aligned with any one of the political parties. He wanted, as he was then building a national party, to bring everyone inside the comfortable ambit of that party. That was fine in the late 19th century when we needed to create national political parties. In the late 20th century the role of the political parties here in the

March 17, 1992
Private Members' Business
House of Commons has gone so far, it has gone too far, that this bill is the ultimate statement and indeed the ultimate denial of our role as intrinsic and authentic members of Parliament. This is the quintessential statement of partyism in Parliament.
At this time we are trying to get a debate going in Canada between two different concepts of what an MP might be, perhaps the Burkean model when we come here and give only to our constituents the benefit of our best thinking and our conscience or on the other hand the Jeffersonian model where we come here as delegates from our constituents to do their bidding here in our national Parliament. When we are trying to sort out between those two schools and perhaps come up in fact with a synthesis or a blending that is appropriate to Canada at the end of the 20th century, what do we get here in Private Members' hour? We get a bill that says that the minute that I would decide to sit as an independent, or anyone else here, or to cross the floor, we would have to go and have a by-election and the country would be put to that expense.
Being the bookish kind of guy I am, I looked in the book by John McMenemy, The Language of Canadian Politics where he defines what crossing the floor means. The author has a rather stark description of this event. He says: "It is an act by which a legislator leaves his or her party and sits across the floor from former colleagues as an independent member or as a member of another party. This action results from an irreconcilable difference between the member and his or her former party leadership and it is usually preceded by obvious signs of disaffection. It is a rare event for a member to become an independent because elections and House procedure, including recognition by the Speaker to address the House, are based on party affiliation. It is uncommon for an independent candidate to win against party-affiliated candidates. It is also rare for a member to change parties because though the person may be welcomed to another party, he or she might not be re-elected as a candidate of the new party".
It is evident that what we are discussing here is a very serious matter for the member who crosses the floor.
The member for the New Democratic caucus a few moments ago was referring to the member for Edmonton Southeast. I would like to pick up on that point from a different context. The member who is sponsoring this bill said he had done a little bit of research on this subject. So have I, Madam Speaker.
When I was first elected here, the member for Edmonton Southeast had been elected as a Progressive Conservative and then he sat as an independent. Under this bill that would institute a by-election. Then he came back to the Progressive Conservative caucus, a second change and a second by-election. Then we went through the general election of 1988 and then for the third time he left and sat as an independent, a third by-election. Then he left being an independent and joined the Liberal caucus, a fourth by-election.
I can almost see where he is sitting there, two seats to the left and two rows in front of the hon. member for Ottawa South. This is what the cost of his general election in 1988 was, costs incurred by Elections Canada for Edmonton Southeast, $276,602.67. That includes the printing, the preparation of lists, the rental of polling stations, the printing of the ballots, all the notices, the fees of the returning officers, the assistant returning officers and staff.
I have heard the member for Ottawa South speak eloquently in this House about fiscal restraint and national finances. I have been impressed by his message. I suspect that on this bill he has not taken the effort to look into the financial consequences of what he is proposing. In the case of the member for Edmonton Southeast alone, the taxpayers of Canada would have had to spend over $1 million to fulfil the obligations under this bill as this member for Edmonton Southeast was earning his place in the Guinness Book of Records of taking the most circumlocutious route to ever cross the floor of the Canadian House of Commons. That figure of over $1 million for the necessary four by-elections that would be required by this bill is only the cost of Elections Canada. It has nothing to do with the party costs that would have been incurred in those four votes.
It seems to me that this bill is an attempt to penalize a member for what is probably one of the most difficult decisions of his or her political life. A private member does not leave the party fold lightly nor join a new one
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without being fully aware of both the personal and the political consequences.
We all know that there are occasions, however, in the life of a politician when the dictates of conscience must be followed and difficult decisions made. That is the issue here. That is what the member for Broadview- Greenwood was referring to when he spoke about the conscience.
Many times when I have had differences with the government, people have asked how I could continue to be a supporter of the government. I said: "It is very simple. I put my country first, my constituents second and my party third, in that order". This bill is a total denial of that order of priority I have established and I will live with and fight for the right to continue to live with.
In conclusion, just consider a further implication of this member's bill that would require a member who sits as an independent to be involved in a by-election instead of being here.
Last November I found that I was in an irreconcilable position with the position being taken by the Minister responsible for Constitutional Affairs because last May the government which I seek to support had announced in the Speech from the Throne its decision to bring enabling legislation before this House to permit the men and women of Canada to participate directly in the process of constitutional change, in short a bill for a national referendum or plebiscite on the Constitution.
I was delighted by that because since July 21, 1988, I have had such a bill before the House of Commons and I believe that is yet going to be done. It has to be done for the future of our country. Therefore, I sought to support the government and the minister.
By November when I saw his delays and change on that policy, an attempt indeed to reverse the policy of the government, it put me in a position where I had to ask:. "For what conceivable reason do I still sit here and support the government on that issue?" I gave very careful thought to sitting as an independent Progressive Conservative member of this House. In thinking about it and taking advice I then realized that the important thing to do was remain within the caucus and join the issue
Private Members' Business
with those who were opposing the full and necessary role for the Canadian people in ratifying the process of constitutional change. For that reason I decided to stay in the caucus for the time being to deal with this issue.
I conclude with this point. If the bill of the member for Ottawa South had been in place at that time and I had chosen to sit as an independent member and deal with the issue that way, I would not have been able to be here on the floor of the House of Commons where I have been sent by the electorate of Etobicoke-Lakeshore to deal with that very issue which is of great and transcending concern to our country.
Where would I be? Because of the bill of the member for Ottawa South, I would have been out on the hustings in Etobicoke-Lakeshore fighting a by-election when that issue was going here without the representation in caucus and elsewhere where I felt it needed to be.
I think this is a strait-jacket on the role and the conscience of independent members of the Canadian Parliament and, therefore, deserves to be defeated.


Mr. Don Boudria (Glengarry-Prescott-Russell):: Madam Speaker we may agree or disagree with with the bill but this is one of those few occasions when we actually have a real private members' bill in this House. I see members from various political parties speaking profoundly on this bill, sometimes disagreeing with members within their own caucus and, in fact, speaking very profoundly on how they feel about the issue.
To Canadians watching this debate today, I think there is some comfort to be had from what is going on right now. This is how private members should work every single day in the House of Commons. Members of Parliament should look in good conscience to what is proposed by a colleague and say whether he or she likes it or not and give the reasons, instead of rising as they do from time to time during private members' hour, and reading a text which sure looks like it was prepared by a government department, or minions inside some government department. Today we have not seen that. We have seen members participate. Obviously they have done their own research and have had few notes. We have seen them reading from library books and so on and speaking, all around, very eloquently about the issue at hand.

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Private Members' Business
I don't think there is any doubt what is intended here. It is trying to make members of Parliament more responsible and responsive to their constituents who sent them here. That is indeed very laudable.
I do have grave concerns though about the proposal myself. My concerns are as follows:

When they elected us to the House, our constituents expected us to speak on their behalf, to inform this House of their grievances, their needs. They elected us because they wanted us, as individuals, to sit in the House of Commons. Because of our political affiliation? Yes, partly, but to what extent? It is impossible to know. Because of our personal experience? Some of us had been elected to some other office previously. This is my case, I was an MPP, I sat on municipal council for a number of years. Others have different personal experience. Finally, we are elected for our stand on some issues. Is the candidate for or against a major project within a given riding? Is the member, or rather the Liberal candidate, for Glengarry

Prescott-Russell in favour of a new bridge in the riding? What is he advocating on a given subject?
It is based on all these considerations that constituents choose to elect or to reject a given candidate.

Having said that, we parliamentarians in the House of Commons are faced with the situation where a member may cross the floor. It is not something that happens very often, considering the number of people in this great chamber, but it does happen from time to time. If a member crosses the floor under this bill, then that member would have to go back to the electors and ask for their consent for having crossed the floor.
I have some concerns about that proposition. First of all, we have what is known as responsible government in this country. That is not an adjective to describe certain qualities of the Prime Minister. Responsible government means a very specific thing in the kind of parliamentary system that we have, as we all know. It means a government that stays in power so long as it enjoys the confidence of the majority of members of this House. I believe it is important that Parliament be structured this way.
Let us remember what happened in the United States, for instance, in the 1970s when a certain president finally resigned from office and virtually had to be taken out of the place kicking and screaming. Under our parliamentary system, if a particular Prime Minister was no longer wanted by members of his own party to such a degree that they would be willing to risk their own seats on it, then they could collectively vote non-confidence in the government.
That of course would get rid of that particular government if members felt the government was that bad. It is possible under the system we have now.
This bill does the exact opposite. It structures political parties in an even tighter knit than they are already. Someone asked a while ago in a speech what happens if a political party expels a member. That is certainly a possibility. It has been known to have happened in the past. There are other concerns. What happens if a member's views cannot be reconciled with the political party? Then, some say, he or she should go back to the electors and ask permission to sit in a different caucus.
Let us extend that a couple of notches further. What happens if the particular political party has changed its views but the member has kept the same views that he or she had before? He may not have made any change at all. Why should that particular member have to resign his seat and ask the consent of the electors to continue to do what he or she was doing already?
It is a difficult situation and a very fascinating one to be discussing. I am pleased we are having this non-partisan debate. It is not a structured one in any way and is a very healthy one. Perhaps we should use this day as a model for future debates, real private members' debates.
I am concerned about anything that changes or upsets the delicate balance we have in Parliament. We as members can, by a simple majority vote at virtually any time, defeat a government in this country if that is our wish. I am not going to describe what my particular wish would be at the moment. You could probably guess that and so could most Canadians. That is not the point in this debate. We are describing the balance we have in terms of what can or cannot be done with supporting or not supporting the government.
March 17, 1992

It is a balance that has evolved over 700 years for parliamentary democracy here and in Britain. It started from the Magna Carta and has developed to what it is today. I fear that this bill, although it is a minor piece of legislation for certain people, could upset that balance. To that extent it does concern me.
In closing, let me reiterate my respect for those who bring bills like this to the attention of the House of Commons. It permits all of us to have a very frank exchange of views as we have had this afternoon and which we do not have often enough in the House of Commons. It also gives Canadians a good opportunity to see and listen to this important exchange of views.
Finally it shows as well that members such as the member for Ottawa South deserve to be congratulated. They are not fearful of bringing the heartfelt controversial issues to the House of Commons as we all should. We were sent here to take those views we think are good ideas, expose them to the judgement of our colleagues in this Parliament, and then adopt or reject them once they have been so exposed and debated.
That is exactly what we have done this afternoon. That is why I want to offer my sincere congratulations to the member for Ottawa South.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: It is the first time I have seen someone who wanted to speak on a second occasion on a bill.
If the hon. member is going on article 44, I think he has read himself what it is, he cannot bring any new aspect and he is closing the debate.
There are five minutes left. The hon. member for Ottawa South.


John Paul Manley: Madam Speaker, I certainly appreciate the right of reply afforded under the rules. I would indeed want to use it in order to reply to some of the points that have been raised.
Perhaps in doing so I will address those I consider less serious first. I think of all of the points raised, surely the least serious has to be that of the member for Etobicoke-Lakeshore who cites fiscal responsibility as a reason for defeating this bill.
If he thinks we should have an eye to fiscalism as part of our parliamentary system then I suggest he propose a bill that would extend the life of a Parliament beyond
Private Members' Business
five years. Perhaps if we did not have elections more than once a decade we could save a lot more money. If we did not have elections at all think of the money we could save.
I think his suggestion that we ought to take the cost of democracy into account is so typical of a Tory attitude, that you understand the cost of everything but the value of nothing is indicative of how spurious that point is.
With respect to the charter of rights I certainly beg to differ with the interpretation suggested that somehow this bill would interfere with freedom of expression or association. In no way does it do so. It simply recognizes the fact that electors vote. In fact on our ballots in modem times the party affiliation is indicated.
I suggest to the member who raised that point that if those who choose a party affiliation come here under that affiliation without considering the gravity of putting that affiliation beside their name on a ballot, they falsely represent themselves to the people of their electorate.
By far the most substantive concern raised with the bill is that it impedes the ability of members of Parliament to express their points of view. It would limit their willingness to express points of difference freely with the leadership of their parties.
The member for Etobicoke-Lakeshore said quintessential statement of partyism in reference to the bill. That may be going a little bit far but I would be very concerned if that view were commonly held.
The member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell raised the same point with less rhetorical flourish I think and I would be concerned if indeed that were the interpretation.
I look at it this way. First of all it is in no way a repression of the right of disagreement. Disagreements can and will occur. In the context of a relaxation of strict party discipline on votes which are not matters of confidence, I am sure no one would disagree that a measure such as the one I am proposing would become a restriction on people voting against their parties.
In the current context and with the experience of the present Parliament, it has been seen that on certain matters some parties have expelled members for voting against the party on certain issues. I do not think this bill

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Adjournment Debate
would be triggered in any way by those who merely disagree with their party even on some important issues.
If it did result in a rupturing of the party relationship for that member, the people of that member's district would have a right to pass judgment. They can pass judgment in favour or against the member.
I think that is a contribution to the accountability of members of Parliament against the arrogance that assumes we only know what is best for our electors in this place.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: The time provided for the consideration of Private Members' Business has now expired.

Pursuant to Standing Order 96(1), this item is dropped from the Order Paper.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

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

Mr. Derek Lee (Scarborough-Rouge River):: Madam Speaker, on February 21 of this year, following a working visit to India's Punjab state, I asked a question in relation to Canada's position on human rights issues there.
That visit to India by three parliamentarians of this House, one of whom was myself, had three purposes. One of those purposes was a review of human rights issues in the context of the political conflict in the Punjab. The full report of that visit will be made public tomorrow, but the principal findings of that visit are that the political conflict there has generated extreme violence. For example, in the last year over 4,500 people have been killed and over the last 10 years, over 15,000 people have been killed. There is also evidence of torture of detainees by the police in that area.
In the context of that violence, there is a failure by the government of India to assure to all of its citizens the human rights set out in the international conventions to
which both Canada and India are signatories. I note that the government of India specifically excludes Amnesty International and other human rights monitoring organizations from India and consequently, we do not have internationally an objective standard of review of precisely what is happening there in veiy difficult circumstances.
I also would acknowledge that in that working visit the Government of India was most co-operative and helpful and did not impede our review of any of the circumstances.
My question for the Prime Minister at that time was answered by the minister for external relations. Asked whether or not Canada had made human rights part of its bilateral relations agenda with India, the minister replied that it does take human rights into consideration, both in terms of foreign aid and in terms of general policy. She did not answer specifically for the India situation or provide particulars.
The problem of convention human rights abuses in the political conflict in Punjab state bears relevance to Canadians in three ways. The first is Canada's foreign aid decisions. The second is whether or not the political circumstances there can generate large or larger numbers of political convention refugees. Third, is the right of Canadians to engage in political advocacy and dissent here without fear of unwarranted surveillance under section 2 of the CSIS act.
I asked whether the minister would agree to submit this issue of human rights accordance in India to the external affairs subcommittee on development and human rights. She did not provide an answer to that; I believe she should have. I believe that is precisely where this issue can and should be dealt with and I commend that to this House.


Mrs. Suzanne Duplessis (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister for External Relations and Minister of State (Indian Affairs and Northern Development):: Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague has raised a question of universal concern. As we all know, the Prime Minister has shown bold leadership, putting the sensitive issue of human rights on the agenda in such forums as the Commonwealth and La Francophonie. Progress has been made, and we can hope to see much more in the future.
March 17, 1992

Of course, each case is specific and involves a different set of circumstances. In this case, we are talking about human rights conditions in India and Canada's relationship with that country. We must recognize that, serious as they are, human rights violations do not appear to be part of a deliberate policy. Rather, they are the product of a society that has neither the funds nor the expertise to train and discipline the very large number of security personnel required to maintain law and order in a country as poor and vast as India.
We must give full credit, as well, to India's freely elected government for moving strongly in the direction of economic liberalization and fundamental policy reforms.
Since coming to power, Prime Minister Rao has consistently tried to de-escalate the situation, to cool passions, to reduce confrontation and build consensus. The prospects for human rights improvements thus seem reasonably good.
Canada does not support projects in Punjab or in Kashmir-Jammu. We regularly encourage the Government of India to find solutions to the difficult problems in these states.
Much of our current assistance to India tackles such human rights problems as poverty, health and women's rights.
Our over-all program with India is shifting further to strengthen our support to good governance via economic and social policy reform and greater focus on human rights.
The government's policy is to review the human rights situation on a continuing basis concerning each country receiving Canadian assistance and to take constructive action where we can. That applies to India, as to other countries, and we will certainly continue to review each case carefully.


SHIPBUILDING
Alan Redway: Madam Speaker, you will recall, as I do, the furore that arose in Canada in 1985 when an American ship, the Polar Sea sailed through Canada's Northwest Passage.
Adjournment Debate
Canadians at that time reacted with outrage at what we considered an attack on our national sovereignty. You will recall as well that the government reacted to that situation with three initiatives.
First of all, the government introduced legislation to clarify our claims to the Arctic, to extend our base lines as is said. Second, it reacted to remove the self-imposed ban that had been put in place by the former government against taking matters of sovereignty to the World Court.
Third, it reacted with a decision to build one of the largest, if not the largest, ice-breakers in the world, the Class 8 ice-breaker, Polar 8 in order to reinforce Canada's sovereignty in the north.
That Class 8 ice-breaker, as you recall, the Polar 8 was to be built at a cost of some $650 million. Unfortunately, the project had to be cancelled because of budget and deficit problems, but not before we had already spent some $30 million on designing that particular ice-breaker.
Almost simultaneously, at the time all of this was happening, Canadian naval architects in Calgary designed and then subsequently directed the construction in Sweden of a Class 7 ice-breaker known as the Oden.
Then last year on September 7, members will recall that the Oden reached the North Pole. In fact, it was the first non-Soviet ice-breaker and the first non-nuclear vehicle of any nationality to reach the North Pole.
That Oden, a Class 7 ice-breaker and just one class down from the Class 8 that was going to cost Canadians some $650 million was designed and built for a mere $55 million.
Canada, on the other hand, had to cancel the Class 8 ice-breaker after spending $30 million. We are proceeding now with the refitting of a 21-year old Class 4 ice-breaker at a cost of $140 million, all of this while rejecting the Canadian design Class 7 Oden which has proved that it can do something that no other Canadian designed ship has ever done, it reached the North Pole.
I have to admit to a little soft spot in my heart for Canadian naval architects. My own great grandfather came here as one of the first naval architects in Canada after training in the Royal Naval College at Greenwich, England. He came here with his family in 1884 and designed and built ships on the Great Lakes in Canada and actually in British Columbia for a while. But those are not the issues here. There are really two issues involved in this matter; one is Canadian sovereignty and

March 17, 1992
Adjournment Debate
the second is the effective spending of Canadian taxpayers' dollars.
Why, in heaven's name, did we choose, as a nation, to spend $140 million to refit a 21-year old Class 4 icebreaker when we could have built a brand new, more powerful Class 7 ice-breaker designed by Canadians for only $55 million at a saving of some $85 million? Frankly, it is embarrassing. Can anyone out there explain it to me? I cannot.


Mr. Ross Belsher (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and Minister for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency):: Madam Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for Don Valley East for his question and for the way he has elaborated on the decisions that have been made.
While he talks about the Oden, yes much of that work was financed by the Canadian government, particularly to the oil industry doing work in the Beaufort Sea. It was with the assistance of the government programs that the offshore exploration at Canmor was able to design and build during the late 1970s and early 1980s.
In looking at the over-all questions, our largest icebreaker, the Louis Saint-Laurent, was in need of a refitting.


Alan Redway: Class 4, 21 years old.


Ross Belsher: As the hon. member says, it was a Class 4 and 21 years of age, but by refitting you can also get a good many more years out of it.
The proposal that was submitted to the government by HDIL to complete an extensive refit of the Louis Saint-Laurent was priced at $71 million and was scheduled for completion within 28 months. Had we replaced the Louis Saint-Laurent with a new one, the figure we were given at the time would have cost us $240 million.
Had the Louis Saint-Laurent contract been completed by HDIL on time and within budget, there would be little to second guess. However, the shipyard experienced difficulties in removing all the asbestos from the ship during the early phase of the project and a second
significant delay occurred when unforeseen deteriorated steel work had to be renewed and replaced.
Members will recall that this government had examined the feasibility of constructing the Polar 8 for year-round operation in Canada's high Arctic and then, as the hon. member has alluded, for budget constraints we had to back away from that.
The Coast Guard have decommissioned the Terry Fox, a ship designed and built by Canadians for operations in the Beaufort Sea, and to have been chartered by the Coast Guard. There have been 10 major vessels which have been decommissioned. The remaining vessels will be asked to do a lot more work than they now do. This all has to be done within the framework of the budget constraints that each department has to work under.


FISHERIES
Mr. Fred J. Mifflin (Bonavista-Trinity-Conception):: Madam Speaker, I rise on a question that I put to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans on February 24. It had to do with compensation.
I just want to review what it is we are faced with and the reason I wanted to zero in on it this evening. I think everybody in the House by now is aware of the fact that the recent announcement in the reduced northern cod quotas means a reduction in jobs, lay-offs, and reduced plant operations. For many people, it means no income at all. In the face of this, at various times, even really dating back from last year when the fishery was pretty dismal as well largely because of ice but for other reasons as well, there were promises made and commitments that were interpreted by the bureaucracy differently than I think the intention that was put forward by the politicians.
The end result was confusion, anxiety, and I am not over-stretching or dramatizing, downright fear in some cases. When you have no income that is a pretty reasonable thing to be afraid of.
Let me give an example of a plant worker. I was in the riding on the weekend and I discussed this. It is wrong to get into people's salaries, but I had to for reasons of the point that I want to make here. These people do not make a lot of money, to begin with.
March 17, 1992

Let me take a plant worker, a cutter, who probably makes maximum around $11 an hour. With the number of weeks they have, their salary probably would get to about $21,500. If there are bonuses in a good year, it may get to $25,000. That in itself is a pathetic income.
Let me take it a little further. If they have to go on unemployment insurance, that income reduces to around $17,000 or $18,000 a year, which is well below the poverty line. I would suggest that it is not even subsistence allowance. But even that is not the problem. The problem is those people who do not even qualify for that $18,000 a year. This is the crux of my argument here this evening.
The Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and the Minister of Employment and Immigration, and I think well-intentioned, have said that anybody who has a reasonable attachment to the fishery will be looked after. But last year, Madam Speaker, that was over 10,000 people-10,300 people. There was $25 million allotted to that. That worked out to $2,500 per person. The catch here is that the criteria that was used last year and the year before, and the year before that, is the same, despite the promises of the minister that there will be a lot of flexibility used. Essentially what we are looking at is this. To qualify for 10 weeks, if that is the qualification, you must have either had 10 weeks or three weeks with last year all your stamps in the fishery alone.
If you cascade that effect, essentially it means that there will never be any qualification at all.
What the minister in fact has promised in his answer is the real reason I am here this evening. I want to just restate what he said. I want confirmation from the hon. parliamentary secretary, my friend who is working overtime this evening, that this is the case. The minister said: "If there is need for any additional assurance programs, assistance programs, they will be forthcoming".
The other thing he said was: "When we know later in the year exactly what the effects are, other programs if necessary will be put into place."
That, to me, is a very firm commitment. It does not talk about flexibility, it does not talk about interpretation by the bureaucracy. It says to me essentially, and I would like confirmation from my friend, the member from
Adjournment Debate
Fraser Valley East, that those who need it will be looked after.
If I can get that assurance, I will go home happier tonight and I think a lot of my constituents will be as well.


Ross Belsher: Madam Speaker, to the hon. member opposite from Bonavista-Trinity-Conception, the announcement the minister made on February 24 concerning the northern cod catch was indeed a very significant announcement and something that no minister ever wants to have to make, particularly as it is dealing with people's livelihoods.
The minister's response was very comprehensive with the primary goal that of the sustainability of the northern cod.
The member opposite is talking about whether or not the government will be there to assist the people who fall between the cracks. I can tell him that this government has taken significant initiatives during the last several months to assist the Atlantic region of Canada, and this government will continue to be responsive to the needs of the people of Atlantic Canada whose livelihoods depend on the northern cod.
With the shutting down of the directed fisheries for cod by offshore vessels until the fall and the limiting of the catches by the inshore mobile fleet to the average of recent years, the traditional fixed gear inshore fishery will continue to operate without quotas or other limits on its catches.
The trawlermen and the offshore plant workers who are immediately affected by these measures are almost all eligible for unemployment insurance. Beyond that, assistance is available pursuant to the $584 million of the Atlantic Fisheries Adjustment Program. As well, the minister has made it clear that those affected by the lowering of the total catch this year will be assisted.
I can tell you, Madam Speaker, that our own conservation matters can only go so far in trying to get this problem corrected, and it is going to take us several months to get around it as far as getting the fishery back up to the levels that we have enjoyed in times past.

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Adjournment Debate
I also want to thank the hon. member for his continued and persistent questioning on these things on behalf of his constituents and other constituents who are in like circumstances from the province of Newfoundland.


CROSS-BORDER SHOPPING
Mr. Jean-Guy Guilbault (Drummond):: Madam Speaker, I am glad to rise tonight to follow up on a question I put recently to the minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs regarding cross-border shopping.
Cross-border shopping is increasing constantly and is becoming a real problem. The question I am asking, and that we have the right to ask ourselves as Canadians, is: Have we seen enough stores closing and employees losing their jobs to do something to correct the situation?
Daniel Forgues, in an article in La Tribune de Sherbrooke, says and I quote:
The number of travellers entering the country and declaring goods purchased in the United States has increased tremendously at all border-crossing points in Eastern Townships during the last 10 months, that is from April 1, 1991 to January 31, 1992. The increase is 151.3 per cent for the custom offices of the Stanhope area and 103.1 per cent for those of the Rock Island area.
People from Quebec alone have spent hundreds of millions of dollars creating jobs and wealth south of the border while slowing down our economic recovery; Montrealers, for example, patronize in large numbers American stores. One Montrealer out of five has spent $640 in the United States this fall. The store owners in Windsor, Ontario, also suffer at lot from this. But what shall we do to curb this financial drain? Are we proud enough to take a stand?
Recently, the Minister of Finance and the Minister of National Revenue have announced measures in response to concerns about the impact of cross-border shopping and of the smuggling of tobacco products in many Canadian communities. This announcement contained five major points, including the elimination of tariffs on consumer goods not produced in Canada and the levy at the border of provincial taxes on alcohol and tobacco, on imports shipped by mail or courier into Canada as well as on smuggled tobacco products. This government initiative is most commendable. More needs to be done, however. We must change Canadians'
perception, their attitude. We have to foster a sense of belonging such that Canadians will buy products made in Canada over anything else.
Canada had put forward such a strategy a dozen of years ago, but only as a promotional feature similar to a campaign to promote tourism. Never has such a program been entrenched in a piece of legislation like the "buy American" policy has in the United States. The Americans have that sense of belonging and the feeling of pride that goes with it. It is obvious, judging from all the signs on their cars and the slogans on their bumper stickers. We are facing structural problems. That much is true. Store owners remind us regularly that taxes of all kinds are preventing them from lowering their prices to match those of their competitors in the United States. Americans enjoy important comparative advantages such as cheaper manpower, economies of scale, more flexible hours, and lower fixed cost.
Can our government do anything to make our products more attractive? A lower dollar, lower taxes, changes in social costs. If our citizens shared a feeling of belonging to their country as strong as that of the Americans, we would have made progress. The lack of such a feeling, the lack of solidarity among Canadians have caused us economic as well as political problems. The constitutional issue could have been settled by now if we had developed some feelings of belonging to Canada.
So, I want to know if the minister intends to implement a strategy for a promotion campaign or to encourage us to develop a feeling of pride and belonging so that Canadians buy domestic products. Will there be a similar promotion campaign of high quality for our domestic products? For example, will our groceries which represent-


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I am sorry, but I must interrupt the hon. member. I think he was able to put his question, and his time has expired. The hon. parliamentary secretary.


Ross Belsher: Madam Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for Drummond for his pertinent question and one that affects my riding as well, being along the border.
March 17, 1992

He has suggested that the government launch a promotional campaign to encourage Canadians to buy Canadian. I would ask him if he would consider the view to the question from a slightly different perspective. That is, we know that Canadians shop in the United States for a very simple reason. They believe that they will get better value for their money.
It seems to me, therefore, that to effectively alter Canadians' opinions in this regard we have to convince them that there is equal value for their money in Canada.
Canadians must be reminded not by government but by the private sector that many goods and services in Canada are equal in price and often less expensive than those in the United States and that the quality of goods and services in Canada in every way equal that available that in the United States.
This message must be repeated again and again, not just in advertising but in every contact between the buyers and the sellers in this country.
We need to see the message of competitive prices and competitive quality in flyers, posters, store window displays and paid advertising of every kind. We must also hear the message at the point of sale in every transaction between the buyer and the seller.
This is the only kind of buy Canadian campaign that would be of real value, not an advertising campaign based on some government certification of Canadian content in consumer products and services which would pose difficult problems and result in increased costs to be passed on to our consumers.


LUMBER INDUSTRY
Brian L. Gardiner: On November 22, 1991,1 asked a question of the Minister of Forestry about a very important issue regarding our lumber exports from Canada, in particular the maritimes and Quebec to Europe and the effect then that the potential ban on green lumber imports from Canada might have on our lumber exports from the country.
Adjournment Debate
I know that we have made some progress in that area. Without going on a great deal more I would be interested and look forward to hearing the comments from the parliamentary secretary to outline just where we are with this issue. I think we are all hopeful for some progress in this regard on really what is another trade dispute that we have. I look forward to the parliamentary secretary's comments.


Michel Champagne: Madam Speaker, let me assure the House that the Government of Canada has made the strongest representations possible to our European counterparts on the Pinewood Nematode issue. We are well aware of the stakes involved, almost $1 billion of our trade in unseasoned softwood lumber.
We have obtained a one year extension to the European Community directive which would require the drying of our current lumber exports to eradicate the Pinewood Nematode. The Canadian softwood lumber industry can continue to ship green lumber to Europe until December 31, 1992.
We have looked at various ways of eradicating this pest in a joint research program with the European Community. We have still to work out a joint report with the Europeans on these research results. It is expected that this phase will be completed by march, 1992. The European Community should then draft its new plant health regulations which are scheduled to be ready in june 1992. Due to the production adjustments that might be required, the industry might need additional time to implement the new control regime.
A month ago, the Minister for International Trade, wrote to commissioner Macshariy to urge the commission to accelerate the timing of its decision in order to give our industry the most lead time as possible.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: The motion that the House now adjourns is deemed adopted. Consequently, the House stands adjourned until tomorrow 2 p.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 6.29 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Wednesday, March 18,1992