1992-03-13

Mr. Bill Blaikie (Winnipeg TVanscona) moved:: That, in the opinion of this House, Canada should withdraw from the negotiations concerning a North American free trade agreement, give notice of withdrawal from the Canada-U.S. Free Hade Agreement, and pursue a global trade strategy not based on making the planet an unfettered playground for the multinational corporate elite.
He said: Madam Speaker, come the next election Canadians will have to make a choice about the future of their country. That choice will be a choice between electing a political party like the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada or the Reform Party of Canada-


An hon. member:: Same thing.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Same thing, someone says, incorrectly- that is committed to the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement and the idea of a North American free trade agreement, now being negotiated between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico; or electing a political party that believes that these two agreements, one actual and one potential, ever imminent as we understand, to be so anti-ethical to the survival of Canada that we must get out of one and avoid ever getting into the other.
This is the choice that must be put to the Canadian people at the time of the next election, and it is the New
Democratic Party of Canada, and only the New Democratic Party of Canada, that will make that choice a possibility for Canadians in 1992 or 1993, whenever the next election comes.
It will be our duty to do so, both in faithfulness to our own principles and in faithfulness to Canada. Canadians will have to choose between a future dictated by these agreements, a future which will involve one set of problems, or a future free to seek a real and qualitatively different alternative to such agreements, a future which will also have its own set of problems.
In a world that is characterized by the so-called globalization trend that the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement and the North American free trade agreement are both symptoms of and responses to, the choice is whether to resist this trend or to accommodate it or, even more accurately, when it comes to the current government, to be a promoter of it.
Accommodation or resistance, these are the choices. The accommodationist says, of globalization and its other buzzword "competitiveness", that we really have no option. The accommodationists suggest that those who run the world are increasingly designing a world in which this is the stark reality and that the sooner we get on the bandwagon and redesign ourselves to fit this new world, the better. To accommodationists this is the counsel of reality. To those who would resist, it is of course the counsel of despair.
The accommodationist either believes or wants others to believe in any case, that globalization is something like the weather, that we cannot do anything about it, that the emerging global marketplace is not a human creation answerable to some account of what it does for or to humanity, but a force unto itself to which the wise would do well to submit. To do otherwise is folly, would say the accommodationists.
The resister says of globalization and competition that a planet controlled by global market forces only is not

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only not desirable but also not inevitable. The resister says that it is one world, yes; an increasingly smaller world, yes; but the resister imagines this one world as a global community rather than a global marketplace where co-operation rather than competition is the buzzword of the earth's future.
The resister says that the globalization we have now before us, and which we are asked to embrace, is nothing other than a politically sanitized concept designed to cover up reality. The reality is that the multinational corporate elite want to turn the planet into a playground for themselves, where they can play their games with each other, unfettered by nuisance factors like democratically elected governments and well supplied with the economic equivalent of cannon fodder, i.e. anxious populations ready to accept injustices or even the dismantling of existing structures of justice in order to secure investment or jobs at the expense of other equally anxious populations less willing or less able to offer the same deal.
Globalization is another name for comprehensive, integrated and very sophisticated blackmail in which governments accept the blackmailer's demands on behalf of their people and then go on to enforce the demands on their own people, all the while muttering phrases that would have us believe that this is strong medicine but will do the trick. It is not medicine, Madam Speaker, it is poison.
In Canada, as with others, the blackmail is twofold: first, we are blackmailed into these agreements in the first place by the corporate community collectively, or seduced into them by massive advertising campaigns, as was the case in the last election. The agreement then makes corporate blackmail on a corporation by corporation basis as well as collectively that much easier and that much more acceptable in the sense that the FTA and/or NAFTA make acceptable what was previously morally suspect. It is not something that Canadians have missed either. What is okay for corporations is okay for individual Canadians and so we get the cross-border shopping phenomenon aggravated by the GST and by a high dollar that is also related to the FTA. But I digress.
In the Third World the blackmail comes in the form of what is called structural adjustment which is the euphemism for, among other things, deliberately starving children in order to save the value system of the global financial world. Structural adjustment is the name given to the demands made on Third World governments
which would otherwise want to feed their own people, grow their own food, expand public health services, export their resources for a profit and other such ridiculous things, but are forced not to because such plans do not fit the economic model favoured by the IMF or the World Bank.
In Canada we are under structural adjustment as well. The difference is that we will have to dismantle where others are being asked not to build in the first place. The other difference, to some degree, is that our government seems to actually believe this is all to the good, whereas at least some Third World countries or governments have the self-respect to think otherwise and even to resist at times.
What is at stake in all of these issues is power. Who will run the world, and for what end? It is a question of sovereignty, but not sovereignty only in the narrow 19th century national or nation state sense of the word, although that is not unimportant, it is a question of sovereignty in the big "P" political sense of who and what will be sovereign not only in Canada but in the whole world. Will the marketplace be sovereign?
The problem with the FTA and NAFTA and globalization in general is that they answer this question of sovereignty in a way that puts an end to the ideological debate that has been going on in Canada and other western countries for decades. The debate between market and state, private and public, right and left, produced a balance, albeit fluctuating, between different points of view that gave us mixed economies, an admirable measure of social justice and enough of a role for government that democracy mattered to the economy. But the key thing really is that no one view or institution was absolutely sovereign.
The accommodationists, in answer to the criticism that Canadian sovereignty is sacrificed to the FTA, argued that it was an act of sovereignty to sign the agreement. The resisters agreed that sovereignty can be delegated, but sovereignty is a political thing that can only be delegated to something which is also political. National sovereignty can be delegated two ways; in a decentralizing way toward regions or provinces, or it can be delegated upward, so to speak, to an international political entity like the UN. But to delegate sovereignty to the marketplace, to a non-political, non-democratic reality like either the continental or global marketplace is not delegation of sovereignty; it is an abdication of sovereignty, an abdication of Canada's sovereignty which
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is part of a larger subversion of legitimate political power by unaccountable global economic power.
Those on the right that have always favoured the marketplace in an uncritical way will now have their way without having to resort to politics. Their goals will eventually be realized by such trade agreements. The economic conditions and rules demanded by these agreements, or by GATT for that matter, which the powers that be wish to see similarly dominated by uncritical free market values, will eat away at supply management, at social programs, at fair labour legislation, environmental regulations and anything which gets in the way of the freedom of the powerful to do what they want.
Domestic political sovereignty becomes a cruel joke. What we are seeing here is the death of politics. Governments will be reduced to catering spectators or beggars, trading their people's values away in return for the favour of global investors.
Even those who voted for the FTA will be surprised at how the Canada they love depended on healthy debate rather than the entrenched victory of their own vision. Their victory will be tragic. Be careful what you ask for, they should be warned, you might get it.
Resisters might be willing to delegate economic sovereignty to an international political organization that was open to regular input from its constituent members, like the UN or the European Economic Community are to some degree, if that international body was dedicated to co-operation rather than competition. It would not be enough to be a timid referee of a global economic dogfight. Delegation of sovereignty will have to occur in some way or another if we are to solve the global ecological crisis.
However, instead of this kind of sovereignty erosion, we are seeing sovereignty eroded in favour of the very eco-ignorant market forces that helped create the environmental crisis in the first place.
In a world where we have just celebrated the end of bureaucratic state totalitarianism in the east, we seem poised in a fit of ideological blindness and gloating to adopt the raw capitalism we left behind years ago. Only now it will be called globalization rather than the brute
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totalitarianism of economic greed and corporate self-interest which bred the other form of totalitarianism in the first place. Both these forms of totalitarianism will be and have been severely damaging to the environment and to human dignity.
I hope what I have done today is to demonstrate just how profound our objection is to the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement and the possibility of a North American free trade agreement and after that a hemispheric free trade agreement.
It is not just that it is a bad deal that needs to be renegotiated. It certainly is a bad deal. It did not obtain what the government set out to obtain, which was immunity from American trade laws.
In return for not obtaining what we set out to obtain, we gave up our ability to control our energy policy and our investment policies. We gave up control over services and indirectly we set the conditions for the eventual disappearance of our social programs as we know them, our tax system as we know it and various other things that I do not have the time to go into.
This deal will not be renegotiated. This is Liberal illusion. It would only be reopened to make it better for the Americans. Even if in some magical way it could be opened and improved for Canadians-and here I think is the profound difference between the NDP and the Liberals-it would still be a bad deal. It would still be a bad deal because it enshrines a way of understanding a world that is morally wrong.
Canadians will have to choose. Trying to build an alternative to the world intended by these agreements will not be easy.
Maybe the devil we know is already the FTA and Canadians will prefer the devil they know, but it is a devil. Trying to live otherwise will not be the devil, but it will be difficult. It will take a commitment to do what we can by ourselves and what we can do in co-operation with others in the world who want a different world than that envisioned by these agreements.
The Americans will not like it. They want a hemispheric free trade agreement. They could get nasty. But if we do not risk these acts of self-respect and democratic recovery that are recommended in this motion, then Canada is lost in any event.

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The question is: Do we want to live on our knees or on our own two feet? The accommodationists would say that we will suffer a decline in our standard of living if we do not buckle under.
The resisters might say that our standard of living is probably bound to fall in any event, either as globalization and continentalization take place, or as American retaliation for abrogation takes place. Or indeed, which would be a positive thing, if we came to distribute the world's resources more equally in a way that provided for frugal comfort for all the people of the world.
A decline in the standard of living can either happen together in a way that preserves that which is truly valuable or randomly as some are devastated by the marketplace and others, a minority, prosper.
The Liberal Party, whose leader in 1988 fought the fight of his life and now comes to the House of Commons once in a blue moon even though he is still an MP, does not have the visceral hatred of the free trade agreement that will be needed to abrogate it. It and its corporate backers, and they are many, legion indeed, will try to sell the renegotiation angle. It might even have to pretend that it wants to abrogate it again if that becomes politically necessary.
However, the Liberal Party's early opposition to participating in the NAFTA talks which disappeared so quickly should be a sign to those who want to see reality. I say those who want to see reality, and I say that for a reason, because not all want to see reality.
There is a class of people in this country that wants to abrogate the FTA but wants to still be able to vote Liberal. This will be a fatal illusion, fatal for Canada and fatal perhaps for the NDP, though that really will not matter any more because if the FTA continues the kind of Canada that the NDP has worked for and envisions yet will be impossible in any event.
The Liberals will not do anything significant to change, let alone abrogate the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement. There are those who sometimes from the right of the NDP in the Liberal universe agree with the NDP or know in their hearts that we are the only choice on these kinds of issues but who sociologically cannot bring themselves to vote, or even worse openly support or be NDP.
It is like moving to the other side of the tracks. Self-esteem does not permit it. It is like joining the outs. It is much nicer to be progressive and still be part of the ins. There are others to the left of the NDP who are very self-righteous when it comes to judging the NDP on many issues but they have no compunction about joining with Liberals and various coalitions sometimes at election time.
Those two groups are united by their common sense of being too good or too sophisticated for the New Democratic Party. I say here today that these tendencies will have to be swallowed and eliminated if Canada is to survive. Otherwise it will be said of such people when true histories are written that what they were too good for was not the NDP, but the Canada they and a majority of other Canadians loved and wanted to defend.
Maude Barlow's book Parcel of Rogues, the book she did with Bruce Campbell Take Back the Nation, Linda McQuaig's book The Quick and the Dead, Mel Hurtig's book Betrayal of Canada, all side-step this crucial question of who can actually be trusted to get rid of the deal.
More or less, none of the books deal with the question of who can be trusted and more or less all of them, if they acknowledge the NDP at all-and some of them do not even acknowledge our existence-avoid judgments on who will actually do the deed of abrogating the agreement. It is the question that dare not speak its name, but unless it is asked and debated, the Canadian people will be served very poorly.
Parcel of Rogues is a title that takes its name from a poem by Robert Bums called The Union in which he refers to the fact that Scotland, which never submitted to English steel, was bought and sold for English gold. I used this poem in the House to make such a point on Bum's Day on January 25, 1988, long before the book was even conceived.
An even more instructive analogy in the same vein would be the highland clearances. What made the highland clearances even more despicable and disgusting was the fact that it was perpetrated by the people's own traditional leaders who sold them out to southern interests.
Some historians have explained the relative acceptance of the Scots of such atrocities compared to the Irish by noting that they made the mistake of deferring to
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their traditional leadership, of trusting them, whereas the Irish knew their landlords to be foreigners and responded accordingly. They are independent today.
Canadians must not make the same mistake by trusting their traditional leadership. The traditional leadership of this country, Liberal and Conservative, is so bought and paid for, so integrated and assimilated into the business elite who wanted these deals in the first place, that they will sell us out each in their own way. The Liberals might feel a bit more guilty about it. They might be a bit like Lord Selkirk and resettle some of us in the economic Red River of the future if they can design one, but we will be cleared all the same, along with everything else that makes us Canadian.
I think I have honestly put the reality of the choices that Canadians face. All political parties have an obligation to say exactly where they are on these choices and why. I have tried to do that today for the NDR I know where the government stands. Where do the Liberals stand?
I know the hon. member for Winnipeg South Centre is a critic of the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement. I am truly puzzled and disappointed by his apparent retreat from that position. He now talks about shaping globalization. Globalization will not be shaped. The global community will be shaped when enough of us are willing to stand outside the mindset of globalization, name it for what it really is and set about the very difficult task of building an alternative.


Mr. Don Blenkarn (Mississauga South):: Madam Speaker, I am very fond of the member who introduced the motion. This was the most eloquent new dinosaur speech I have heard for a long time, dinosaur in the sense that the New Democratic Party would want the country and the world to go back to Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days, high tariff, a world that is back where it used to be when we cleared the highland lands.
This is a world that is increasingly getting smaller and smaller. The fax machine and the satellite move news at unbelievable speed. To have a speech based on bring back the high tariffs, bring back big protection, make Canada an island of protection is unbelievable.
I, therefore, want to ask the member what he would do. Would he abolish the free trade agreement? Would he put the tariffs back where Sir John A. had them? Would we go back to 50 per cent tariffs on our manufac-
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turers coming in? Would we try to be self-sufficient in Canada? Has he got a new way to grow oranges? What kind of a Canada does he want? Does he want us all back in little tiny houses with maybe one bathroom and no car? Are we going to go back to the Depression? Would he really want us back to riding the rails? Are we going back to the days of the CCF in Regina? Would he really want that kind of Canada? Does he want to throw away companies like Northern Telecom? Does he want to throw away all of our R and D investment? Does he want to put us back where we have no world markets? What kind of Canada does the NDP see?


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Madam Speaker, as usual the member for Mississauga South completely missed the point, particularly the point about the highland clearances. It was not a point of trying to go back to any particular point in time, it was a question about the mistake that people can sometimes make in trusting their leadership. Sometimes that leadership sells them out to other interests. That is the claim I am making about Canadian corporate leadership in this country today. Whether it finds its expression in the Liberal or the Conservative Party, we are in the process, and have been for some time, of being sold out by our own leadership. That was the point I was trying to make and I am sorry if it went over the head of the hon. member for Mississauga South.
With respect to the question of tariffs, I did not even speak about tariffs. The member knows that with respect to tariffs before the beginning of the free trade agreement, 80 per cent of our trade with the United States was tariff-free in any event. The objection to the free trade agreement on the part of the NDP has a lot more to do with the other things that are involved in the agreement than simply the matter of tariffs. I think that is a complete misrepresentation and stereotyping of what I was trying to say.
It is not a question of going back; it is never a question of going back. It is a only a question of going ahead. I accept the global village. I accept that it is not around the world in 80 days anymore, but through satellite communication, around the world in 80 seconds perhaps. I made that point, if the hon. member would have listened to the speech. I said what we needed to create was a global community rather than a global marketplace. I hope that the member will take the opportunity on Monday to read Hansard so that he can see the great chunks of my speech

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that he missed while he was doing whatever he was doing.


Mr. Ronald J. Duhamel (St. Boniface):: I listened very intently, very carefully, to what my colleague had to say. While I was of open mind and wanted to be generous, I was disappointed that he would cast negative aspersions on the attendance of one particular Liberal member. In terms of attendance, I could mention a member from his party who has got a better record. The singling out of my colleague from Winnipeg South Centre was inappropriate.
He talked about the Liberal corporate backers. Well, I have got to tell you, my backing is from the people. He does not talk about the unions. He does not talk about the greatest credibility factor that the NDP has, and that is the lack of economic policy. He suggests that the Liberal statement to sit down and renegotiate is not an honest one. I am terribly disappointed that he should say that. I will tell you why.
I have an article here from the Financial Post dated October 28, 1991. It says of the leader of his party, and I quote:
She now says she would try to renegotiate it first.
It refers to the Canada-U.S. trade agreement. It goes on to say:
If elected, we will sit down with the Americans and say how can
we make this thing work? If not, we would give them six months
notice, she said.
Is that not renegotiation? If it is not, then tell me what it is. I am disappointed that my colleague would not have acknowledged this position on the part of his leader.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: You can always tell when you have hit something after you throw a stone in a pack of dogs and they start to yelp.


An hon. member:: Are we a pack of dogs?


Mr. Murphy:: On good days.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: On good days.


Ron J. Duhamel: I tried to be generous. I tried to be gentle. I tried to ask a responsible question and the member refers to tossing a stone among a pack of dogs. I resent that kind of statement and I would ask for an immediate withdrawal, please.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: This is a common parliamentary analogy. I am sorry if the member is so sensitive that he cannot even stand such an analogy. I have no intention of withdrawing it because it is not out of order at all. I was simply drawing an analogy.
The member talks about how disappointed he is. I am sorry, but it would have been out of order to have referred to the absence of a particular member on a specific day, i.e. today. I had no intention of doing that. I do find it odd. I am sorry if the hon. member finds it offensive that the former leader of the Liberal Party could be involved in the fight of his life in 1988 and continue to be a member of Parliament and hardly ever show up here to continue the fight of his life and this country against the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement and the North American free trade agreement.
I had a great deal of respect for the leader of the Liberal Party who I am talking about now, but I have to say in all honesty that I am disappointed in him, if you want to pursue the matter, the fact that he is not here to carry on that fight of his life. With respect to the member for Winnipeg South Centre, I said that with the greatest of respect. But I am trying to draw you out.


An hon. member:: Tell us where you stand.


An hon. member:: This is really bad.


Mr. Mifflin:: Madam Speaker, on a point of order. I want to say that this is the first time since I have been in this House that I have risen on a point of order. I cannot sit here and see the rules of this House that I respect very much being denigrated.


An hon. member:: Who is breaking the rules?


Fred J. Mifflin: I am not breaking the rules. If you would listen long enough, you would hear what I have to say. You people should pay attention once in a while.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. This is Friday the 13th and it is early in the morning. Let us not make it a long painful day for anyone. I know where the hon. member for Bonavista-Trinity-Conception is going.


Fred J. Mifflin: And I would like to get there, Madam Speaker.
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Madam Deputy Speaker:: I think the member is already there.
The hon. member for Winnipeg Transcona did not mention at this time that a member was or was not present in the House. He referred to something else. Therefore, I could not according to all rules really take him up on it. I did hear him and I was hoping that he would somehow go to another subject. And I think he will.


Rodney Edward Murphy: Madam Speaker, on a point of order. I suggest the members of the Liberal Party read Standing Order 15, and I quote:
Except as otherwise provided in these Standing Orders, every
Member is bound to attend the service of the House unless leave of
absence has been given him or her by the House.
I do not believe that the member for Vancouver Quadra has that leave.


An hon. member:: Oh, oh, now you have done it.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: The hon. member for Bona-vista-Trinity-Conception had the floor.


Fred J. Mifflin: I do thank you for allowing me to really make my point of order. I appreciate that you can read my mind and I think that is great. You are absolutely right. This is where I was going.
Madam Speaker, do we rely on Beauchesne for everything we want to do in this House? There are not enough books written to control and contain what we have to do to achieve what we are about here.
While the hon. member for Winnipeg Transcona may have been within the finite rules of the House, and I will take your word for this, it does absolutely nothing to the tone of the discussion for him to zero in on one member or another hon. member, to get up on a point of order and read Beauchesne's, to quote something that is totally irrelevant to the discussion.
Madam Speaker, I plead with you to watch the tone of this discussion and at least, if nothing else, I plead for relevancy in this subject.


Mr. Mills:: Madam Speaker, on a point of order. I would like to come at this from a different point. I do not know all the rules of Beauchesne's, but it seems to me that it is not appropriate for a member of Parliament to stand here and slam a former Prime Minister, a man who served this House for over 30 years, a man who, by the way, put his views on free trade quite clearly on the
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record, and they happen to concur with the member's. Therefore, I think it is a questionable experience that somebody stoop to that level to slam someone who is not in the House.


An hon. member:: Right on.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: With the permission of the House, I would like us to go on with the debate, which is the motion before the House today, and try to stay within the realms of that motion. We will do a lot more for this place and for the country than by getting into personal attacks of any kind.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I see the hon. member for Churchill rising. I have just asked the House to please let us go on with debate.


An hon. member:: Question.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Is this on another matter, or was the hon. gentleman trying to put a little more oil on the fire? The hon. member for Churchill.


Rodney Edward Murphy: Madam Speaker, I am not trying to put oil on the fire but just to correct something. I was not quoting from Beauchesne, I was quoting from the Standing Orders.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Yes, the Chair was aware that it was Standing Order 15.1 have read the Standing Orders.
There is a minute and 45 seconds remaining in the period for questions or comments. The hon. member for Broadview-Greenwood.


Dennis Joseph Mills: Madam Speaker, I listened attentively to the member for Winnipeg Transcona, and if I understood him correctly, he basically would like to abolish or rip up all of the various trading transactions that we have with the United States.
My problem with his approach has to do with the auto pact. This is a proven instrument of trade between both countries. I know his former leader was a strong proponent of this. I know many members of the Canadian auto workers union support this-


Donald Alex Blenkarn: They didn't originally, they voted against it in-


Dennis Joseph Mills: They were against, now they are for, but the main thing is now they are for it. My concern is one of

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responsibility. I acknowledge a thousand weaknesses in the free trade deal, and I do not think anyone in this House would ever question where I stood on the free trade agreement. My question to the member is this. Does he not think that there are some existing trade agreements with the Americans, i.e. the auto pact, that he would throw into jeopardy by an irresponsible tone or an irresponsible approach to this existing document?


Madam Deputy Speaker:: A very short answer, the hon. member for Winnipeg Transcona.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Madam Speaker, I did not advocate, as the member said, scrapping all agreements with the United States. I talked about the FTA and the North American free trade agreement.
The member does point out, quite rightly, that the bind that the country has been put in with respect to our relationship with the United States by this agreement, because what he is trying to do is imply that if we were to get out of these agreements, the form of American retaliation might be, for instance, the cancelling of the auto pact. I presume that is what he suggests.
This is why it was so misleading for the Prime Minister to say in 1988: "Well, it is just a commercial agreement; if we don't like it we will just get out of it".
I tried to be honest in my own remarks about the consequences of getting out of it; the consequences of it could be nasty. I said that. I tried to say that Canadians will have to make that choice. They will have to choose between the difficulty of staying in the agreement and the difficulty of being out of it. I say we choose the difficulty of being out of it. That is fair enough. I want to know what difficulty you choose.


Hon. William C. Winegard (Minister for Science):: Madam Speaker, it is a little hard to know from the tone of the conversation so far, but this is a serious debate we are undertaking here today. The continued success of our trade performance is critical to our future prosperity as a nation. I think every Canadian from coast to coast to coast has a stake in the export success of our entrepreneurs and that is why this government from the day it took office has placed international trade at the top of its agenda.
We have pursued a strategy aimed at making Canada an international competitor worthy of the tough global economy that we have today. I emphasize "global" and I emphasize "today".
We do not live in the past, nor do we intend to. We cannot lift the drawbridge and keep the world out. We have faith in the ability of Canadian companies to compete with known rules of the game. That is really what this is about. To be successful our trade strategy must reflect the realities of today's global economy and Canada's place in it. Regretfully there is no room for romantic and fanciful delusions based on past or imagined successes.
The resolution before us today gives the illusion of promoting a global strategy, but at heart it is a council of despair. It seeks a world that simply does not exist, a world that would ignore the realities of geography, a world that would not recognize the benefits of foreign investment, a world that would tear up our trade agreements, isolate us from our principal trading partners; a world that would turn its back on the achievements of the past, as emphasized by the comments from my colleague from Mississauga, and leave us naked before the challenges of tomorrow.
This government's approach to international market development, to international trade negotiations and to international trade relations has been based on the fundamental premise that Canada is a global trading nation, no more, no less. It also recognizes that we live next door to the richest and most advanced economy on earth. Other countries would give their eye teeth to be so blessed. It is not an unmixed blessing, as we know so well, but surely it is a blessing and let us not believe otherwise.
The United States is our best customer and we are theirs. Last year alone we did $256 billion worth of business between the two countries. No other countries come close to that. It is quality business. It is not just rocks and logs but it is cars and computers. It is software and engineering contracts. It is satellites and subway cars. It is flight simulators and wing assemblies. The Japanese would love to do that much business, so would the Mexicans and the Europeans and indeed, everyone else; except it seems members opposite.
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They would tear up the agreement that provides the security for trade, the agreement that furnishes the framework of rules and procedures that gives Canadians the confidence to take on tough markets, the agreement that provides the foundation for two million jobs in Canada.
Our appreciation of that agreement and the trade it represents should not be misled by focusing entirely on irritants. Such irritants are not a sign of weakness but the result of strength. They are a recognition by American interests that we are successful traders. That does not make them easier to accept. These trade disputes sting but it should at least give us some perspective on this whole issue.
Five per cent of our exports to the United States are affected by the current list of irritants. We do not like that number. We do not like the irritants but we have to reduce the number. We have to remember also that 95 per cent of the trade is flowing freely, exactly as we would like.
We are confident with respect to the irritants that right is on our side. Tearing up the agreement would place the 95 per cent at risk. How is that for a great trade strategy? Who would benefit from such a flight from reality? To compound the error of tearing up the FTA, the resolution would have Canada walk away from the NAFTA negotiations.


An hon. member:: And the GATT.


William C. Winegard: And the GATT, as my colleague says. Not only would the resolution ensure a trade war with the United States, it would tell Canada and by implication our Latin American trading partners that we are not prepared to work with them, that we are no longer interested in creating a trading future based on a framework of stable and orderly rules. Make no mistake, that is what the NAFTA negotiations are all about and that is what we would turn our back on.
The GATT world trade talks are an integral and critical element in Canada's trade strategy. It is neither an alternative to nor unrelated to the FTA or the NAFTA. They are all a concerted effort by Canada and its trading partners to create a more ordered and more predictable global trading system. Each is an effort to strengthen the rules, to improve procedures to resolve disputes and to bind nations to a common approach to the regulation of trade and investment.
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For Canada, the success of these negotiations is critically important. It will help us gain and defend access to the markets of the world, including the United States and Mexico. In other words, we have not placed our eggs in a single basket, rather we are defending and promoting Canadian trade interests wherever there is an opportunity to do so.
I just came back from an OECD meeting of science and technology ministers having to do with the economy and growth. The whole meeting, with governments of every stripe, concentrated on how we can all be more prosperous, how we can all trade with each other, how we can all have economies of benefit if we have the rules of the game clearly spelled out. That is what this is all about.
Our trade with the United States is important, but so is our trade with the rest of the world.
In 1991, our trade with all of our trading partners totalled $381.6 billion; that is one-quarter of our Gross Domestic Product. Trade with countries other than the United States totalled $124.7 billion. You have to remember that merchandise exports of $34.1 billion translate into more than a million jobs for Canadians. Our merchandise trade with countries other than the United States is growing. Our global approach has been instrumental in a 5 per cent annual growth in that trade since we took office.
Those numbers are the result of Canada's multi-faceted, global trade strategy. Canadian entrepreneurs know that wherever they go they can count on the support of Canada's 1,060 trade commissioners. They know where to find them at 90 offices across the world, at headquarters and at international trade centres across Canada. They know they can rely on hundreds of agreements that Canada has negotiated to smooth their way: air agreements, double tax agreements, economic co-operation agreements, investment agreements, export financing agreements.
Canadian exporters know that they can draw on the support programs developed to assist their marketing efforts: the Program for Export Market Development (PEMD), trade fairs and missions, the Strategic Ventures Program, Going Global, CIDA Inc., the EDC and more.
There is probably not a member in this House who has not used one or more of those programs to promote trade in their own constituency. It is interesting that

March 13, 1992
when it comes to their home constituencies, they want Canada to be an international trading partner and they want Canada to have these kinds of programs which promote their own constituency, but when it gets to the global enterprise, somehow or another they cannot quite manage to grasp the significance of what is being done.
The programs that I have mentioned do not cater to the multinational corporate elite, as you would have believed from listening to the comments earlier. They are for Canadian companies large and small. They are for companies that are found right across Canada; Halifax, Guelph, Gravelburg, Saskatchewan. They employ your neighbours and mine. Our programs are not just for big companies, they are for all Canadian companies.
Our strategy for trade starts at home. We will not be successful traders abroad unless we are successful competitors at home.
I have travelled across this country in the last two years, talking about what we need to do to be a competitive nation, telling the people about the use of technology and how it will help us in terms of economic growth, giving facts and figures of the difficulties as I see them and there has been a response. The whole prosperity initiative is based upon these kinds of discussions with Canadians from coast to coast. They do not want us to rip up the FTA. They want us to continue our discussions with NAFTA. They understand that Canada is a trading nation and must remain so.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Unfortunately, I will have to interrupt the hon. minister. He will have a little more than eight minutes remaining when we resume debate.


STATEMENTS PURSUANT TO S. O. 31
Mr. Stan Wilbee (Delta):: Madam Speaker, yesterday there was a collision between a British Columbia ferry and a Japanese bulk coal carrier off Roberts Bank which is located in my riding of Delta.
The 17 injured passengers were taken to Delta hospital for acute emergency care. Although the hospital only has 75 acute care beds, because it is on many major transportation links and the only hospital south of the Fraser River it has developed an excellent emergency and disaster control program.
This hospital had also handled several casualties from the fatal bus crash on Highway 99 the day before and these casualties had strained the bed situation. In spite of that they handled the emergencies very well yesterday.
I would like to commend the paramedics involved in transporting the injured as well as the administrator, the nursing staff and my former medical colleagues at the Delta hospital for a job well done in bringing good care and comfort to those injury victims. Their planning, practice and expertise has once again paid off in an excellent way.


THE CONSTITUTION
Hon. Warren Allmand (Notre-Dame-de-Grace):: Madam Speaker, the Minister Responsible for Constitutional Affairs has considerably angered Quebecers by recently suggesting that they would lose their Canadian citizenship if Quebec separates.
In the first place, ministers of the government should not speculate on what might happen as a result of any sovereignty referendum.
Second, the minister is absolutely wrong with respect to the law. At present Canadian law permits dual citizenship. One can be a Canadian and at the same time an American. One can be a Canadian and an Italian.
Furthermore, one can live for a considerable period of time in another country and still retain one's Canadian citizenship.
The only way a Canadian can lose his or her citizenship is by deliberately renouncing it. Obviously, those who vote for Quebec separation would want to do that. But those who do not will have every right to retain this important heritage. Quebecers are worried enough about the situation in their province and do not need unnecessary speculation to upset them even more.
March 13, 1992


HEALTH CARE
Mr. Lee Clark (Brandon-Souris):: Madam Speaker, virtually all Canadians are understandably proud of medicare and the quality of health care which it provides on a universal basis.
Consequently, we are shocked and dismayed when American politicians, as they do on occasion, criticize medicare for what they claim to be its shortcomings.
You can imagine how surprised and angered Canadians would be, therefore, if they had had the opportunity to read the February 27, 1992 edition of The Brandon Sun and to discover that a Canadian politician speaking in Neepawa, Manitoba, in fact the leader of the Reform Party, had promised to abolish medicare as a universal program.
Perhaps the leader of the Reform Party who is the son of a Social Credit premier undoubtedly enjoyed a privileged upbringing and does not understand the importance of medicare to ordinary Canadians of all ages and particularly to seniors.
Perhaps he does not understand, therefore, that Canadians will not permit any politician or any party, including those whose roots are in the distant past to destroy medicare as we know it.


THE SENATE
Ron J. Duhamel: Madam Speaker, I was extremely disappointed that neither the Conservative Party nor the New Democratic Party members of the Special Joint Committee on a Renewed Canada, better known as the Beaudoin-Dobbie committee of which I was a member, would support the Liberal Party's request to have a strong and effective Senate by ensuring that the Senate's decisions could not be overridden or could not easily be overridden by the House of Commons. If you are going to reform the Senate, surely it must among other things, be effective.
The Liberal Party members registered their dissent on this point on page 55 of the committee report which reads:
"Liberal members-disagree with the majority recommendation concerning the powers of the Senate because of the proposed override of a Senate veto of legislation. Such an override, and it was a simple override, will undermine the effectiveness of the Senate-Therefore, the Liberal members of the committee recommend that a reformed Senate be granted an absolute veto on all bills, except for appropriation and budget bills."


STATUS OF WOMEN
Ms. Margaret Mitchell (Vancouver East):: Madam Speaker, International Women's Week is over but double discrimination continues against women of colour and immigrant women.
Domestic workers are locked into live-in jobs where they can be exploited and new policies will exclude many women of colour from coming to Canada as domestics.
Lack of professional accreditation forces many immigrant women to remain in low-paying jobs.
The Tory budget also has added another layer of hardship for these women. The $1 million cut to Canada Jobs Strategy training represents a 35 per cent cut to immigrant women who also lack child care.
Payments owing for pay equity are denied women public servants.
The Court Challenges Program which gave women of colour a chance to achieve equality rights through our courts is cancelled.
The legislated Race Relations Foundation to fight racism is indefinitely postponed.
This government has lost all respect for the rights of minorities, and especially for women of colour who are doubly jeopardized.


HALTON-PEEL SURVEY
Mr. Garth Turner (Halton-Peel):: Madam Speaker, my constituents continue to offer me some excellent advice and comment.
Ron Fotheringham of Bolton, Ontario writes: "We should enact a simple vocabulary change. We should remove the word 'government' from our vocabulary and substitute the word 'taxpayer' in some cases 'taxpayers representatives'. It changes all our headlines and makes one re-think concepts like, 'The federal government today contributed Y-million dollars to the purchase of de

Havilland'; 'Metro government calls upon the federal government for aid in covering welfare payments to refugees'; 'Your provincial government will ask the federal government for help in these tough economic times'. I have been replacing 'government' with 'taxpayer' in what I hear, read and say. The impact of this vocabulary change is truly amazing. Try it yourself for a week."
And finally, John Benitz of Belfountain, Ontario, simply sends this message: "The silent majority want a united Canada. We also want Canada to be a privilege to enter as an immigrant and not a right. We want to afford our social programs and not burden our children with our debt."
Thank you, Madam Speaker, for this opportunity to air my constituents' views.


SUSSEX, NEW BRUNSWICK
Mr. Bob Corbett (Fundy-Royal):: Madam Speaker, I would like to draw the attention of all hon. members to a recent survey by Chatelaine magazine which names Sussex, New Brunswick, which is located in my riding of Fundy-Royal, as being one of the top 10 towns to live in in Canada.
Sussex, considered by some to be the quintessential rural community, offers its residents the opportunity to ski the slopes of Poley Mountain, enjoy the splendour and magnificent sights of Fundy National Park on a year-long basis, and participate in the many festivals offered throughout the year.
If that were not enough to make one live in Sussex, it also enjoys a sound agricultural base, two potash mines and several food and dairy processors to maintain the 90 per cent regional employment rate.
I know that all members of this House will want to join with me in congratulating Sussex on being named one of the top 10 towns to live in.


GASOLINE ADDITIVES
Hon. Ralph Ferguson (Lambton-Middlesex):: Madam Speaker, Canadian consumers are being ripped off by paying for pollution controls that are being damaged by the fuel additive MMT, that may also be putting the health of this nation at risk.
The average new car purchased in Canada costs $16,790. Ford Canada says newer model cars will require an additional $800 worth of emission control devices to meet the green plan's new hydrocarbon emission standards.
Yet as the United States Environmental Protection Agency states in their final notice rejecting the use of MMT in the United States in unleaded fuel for the fourth time: "Ford concluded that the data clearly show that MMT impairs to a significant degree the performance of emission control devices."
The EPA also noted:
"Toyota also submitted data indicating that the efficiency at which the catalyst was operating for the MMT-exposed components was less than that for the non-MMT exposed components."
The green plan emission standards are fraudulent as long as MMT is allowed in Canadian fuel. I call on the government to examine the U.S. EPA decision, the Ford and Toyota evidence, and to replace MMT with the environmentally friendly alternative, ethanol.


DUTY FREE SHOPS
Mr. Ken James (Sarnia-Lambton):: Madam Speaker, the Canadian land border duty free program provides a valuable source of revenue to the federal government and the border communities. It creates employment and promotes tourism and national identity through the sale of Canadian manufactured products.
Members of the industry, however, insist that they are unintended victims of the government's plan to levy an excise tax on all exports of Canadian tobacco products.
The purpose of the tax is to combat tobacco smuggling. However, studies have failed to make any connection between our tobacco smuggling problem and duty free shops.
The land border duty free shops account for less than 11 per cent of the export market, yet tobacco sales make up over 50 per cent of their total sales. Our duty free shops rely heavily on these sales as catch lines for travellers and tourists.
March 13, 1992

The industry is prepared to discuss and suggest proposals to relieve anxieties about cross-border shopping and smuggling. I urge the government to accept this invitation and to consult with the land border duty free industry toward a mutually acceptable solution.


WILSON NEPOOSE
Mr. Robert E. Skelly (Comox-Alberni):: Wilson Ne-poose spent over five years in jail for a murder conviction based on questionable evidence.
Last year the Minister of Justice, under section 690 of the Criminal Code ordered an appeal for Wilson Ne-poose. In its recent decision, the Alberta Court of Appeal overturned his conviction and ordered a new trial.
The appeal court found that the evidence presented to Wilson Nepoose's original trial was deficient. In fact, it has been suggested that the evidence indicating Wilson Nepoose's guilt was, in some cases, fabricated or coerced and in other cases the Crown withheld evidence which supported his innocence.
I call on the Minister of Justice and the Solicitor General to strike a full formal inquiry into the Nepoose murder investigation to find out who fabricated, coerced or withheld evidence and recommend appropriate action.


SHARE GROUPS
Mr. Dave Worthy (Cariboo-Chilcotin):: It was not
enough last week that our closest ally and trading partner attacked us. Now it turns out that two members of the NDP have been systematically betraying and slandering the B.C. share groups that represent our resource-based communities.
Share groups are not anti-environment. Our share groups are integral elements of the communities throughout British Columbia. They represent and try to balance the interests of all stakeholders of our forests and our environment.
The membership does include people who work in the forest industry, but they also include others, mayors, teachers, businessmen and ranchers. This is truly a grassroots organization.
Twice stabbed in the back is too much. It is one thing to receive it from the U.S., but it is quite another to have the workers of B.C. attacked by their so-called friends. The communities of Cariboo-Chilcotin will not soon forget this betrayal by the NDP members of Skeena and Comox-Alberni.


BANK RATE
Mr. Alfonso Gagliano (Saint-Leonard):: Madam Speaker, yesterday Canadians have seen the bank rate rise for the sixth time since January just because of this government's mind-boggling desire to sustain the Canadian dollar.
With its monetary policy, it is only putting off the economic recovery even further. Unless we put an end to these repeated increases in the bank rate, there will be more bankruptcies, more lay-offs and more de-industrialization.
The Liberal Party of Canada, the Canadian pulp industry, the Conseil du Patronat du Quebec and the Canadian manufacturing industry, all denounce this government's irresponsible monetary policy.
I will tell the government that you don't need to destroy the economy to bolster the Canadian dollar. It should stop this nonsense immediately to put an end to this slump and put Canada back on track!


COAL INDUSTRY
Mr. Iain Angus (Thunder Bay-Atikokan):: For months now, members in my caucus, particularly the members for Kootenay East, Edmonton East, Winnipeg Transcona and myself have been pursuing a renewal of coal contracts between Ontario Hydro and western Canadian coal producers in order to protect Canadian jobs.
Earlier this year, Shelley Wark-Martyn, the MPP for Port Arthur and minister of revenue and I convened a meeting in Thunder Bay between Ontario's minister of energy and members of a newly formed coalition. At that meeting, the minister of energy agreed to intervene with Ontario Hydro to see if a made-in-Canada solution could be found and he did.

March 13, 1992
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As we speak, Ontario Hydro is briefing harbour officials in Thunder Bay on the results of those negotiations and later today an announcement is to be made in Calgary.
I am confident that Ontario Hydro, the coal companies, the transporters and handlers have found a way to keep people working to reduce Hydro's costs and to send a clear signal that buying Canadian is a win-win situation. My congratulations to all concerned.


CATHERINE ANNE FRASER
Mr. Jim Edwards (Edmonton Southwest):: Madam Speaker, there were five Alberta women who spearheaded the famous Persons case and the Government of Alberta was the first province to appoint a cabinet minister who was a woman in the Commonwealth. During this International Women's Week it is excellent news to receive the appointment of Madam Justice Catherine Anne Fraser as Chief Justice of Alberta and Chief Justice of the Court of Appeal for the Northwest Territories.
This appointment is not made because Madam Justice Fraser is a woman. She is a jurist of considerable merit, born of Ukrainian and Arab heritage in New Brunswick, a resident of Alberta for most of her life. She is a graduate of the University of Alberta and the University of London. She was admitted to the bar of Alberta in 1971, appointed a Queen's Counsel in 1983, appointed to the Court of Queen's Bench of Alberta in 1989 and to the Court of Appeal of Alberta in March 1991.
I am sure all members of the House join me in congratulating Madam Justice Catherine Anne Fraser, the new Chief Justice of Alberta.


COMMENTS BY MORDECAI RICHLER
Mr. Alex Kindy (Calgary Northeast):: Madam Speaker, I join the member for Laurier-Sainte-Marie who condemned yesterday the racist remarks by Mr. Mordecai Richler concerning the French Canadian people of Quebec.
As well I am shocked that the Minister of Multicultur-alism and Citizenship did not have the decency to respond to the question posed by the hon. member for Shefford-


Mr. Cooper:: Order, order.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: The hon. member for Bona-vista-Trinity-Conception.


FISHERIES
Fred J. Mifflin: Madam Speaker, yesterday in this House there was a debate on the Liberal motion that Canada should take immediate steps to extend functional jurisdiction for fishing to the nose and tail of the Grand Banks.
The purpose of the motion was to save an essential national industry and valued way of life for many rural Canadians, in particular Atlantic Canadians, from pillaging of Canada's transboundaiy fish stocks off the east coast.
There were 18 speakers from British Columbia to Newfoundland and much debate on both sides of the House. The government argued that it wanted to do more of the same, more diplomatic action. The opposition argued more of the same is not working. The motion unfortunately was defeated 90 to 51.
Also, yesterday, Canada's ambassador for fishing conservation ended yet another diplomatic shuttle across Europe without any sign whatsoever that the European Community will curb illegal overfishing off Newfoundland.
Clearly the government's gentle strategy is not working and a concerted escalation in effort is required to send a message to the world that Canada will stand by its people dependent on an industry that is being irretrievably crippled by foreigners.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Mr. John Manley (Ottawa South):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transport. The Canadian airline industry is going through some of the roughest times in its history.
In response to the minister's plans to privatize terminals 1 and 2 at Pearson airport, the president of the Air Transport Association of Canada said this, and I quote: "We want to minimize our costs to be able to compete
March 13, 1992

with U.S. airlines, but we never asked the minister to renovate the terminals and see no need for it."
Is the minister serious when he talks about making the Canadian airline industry more competitive while at the same time increasing its costs due to privatization?


Hon. Jean Corbeil (Minister of Transport):: Madam Speaker, I do not know where the hon. member got the idea that their costs will go up. We are well aware of the financial situation the airlines are in. We are working on it, through bilateral discussions with the U.S., among others things, in the hope of increasing traffic. But renovating terminals 1 and 2 is part of the plan to get ready to respond, when the time comes, to the increase in traffic expected for 1997-98.


John Paul Manley: Madam Speaker, the minister knows very well that the numbers come from the association and the airlines themselves.
Yesterday the minister agreed that the environmental assessment with respect to runway expansion at Pearson would not be available until August at the earliest. The minister also acknowledged that the problems some developers may face in responding within the 90-day time limit to the request for proposals may require him to extend the time limit if they have paid a deposit and shown that they were truly interested. This announcement reeks of unexplained, unwarranted haste.
Why does the minister not remove the foul odour of political favouritism and opportunism from the timing of the announcement of this project and do what Mr. Sinclair from the airline association suggested and simply wait until 1993 when we see how the airline industry shakes down?


Jean Corbeil: Madam Speaker, Mr. Sinclair is a past assistant deputy minister in the Department of Transport. He is no longer occupying that position and does not make decisions for Transport Canada.
We have taken notice of his objection. We understand the objection of the airline industry because it is thinking about the bottom line of the next six months. We are
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thinking about the bottom line for the airline industry in five or six years' time.


John Paul Manley: Madam Speaker, what is not clear is who is making the decisions for Transport Canada on this issue.
What is happening here is that the minister has put forward an announcement that is unjustified by the numbers that he announced yesterday. It contradicts what he has in his own estimates. He has been unable to justify the timing, given the fact that the environmental assessment is still under way.
Why is the minister prepared to sacrifice a fair and open process in order to ensure that he has a photo opportunity for the Prime Minister standing with a shovel just in time for the next election?


Jean Corbeil: Madam Speaker, I do not know if the member is referring to the same insinuation professed in this room yesterday by the Leader of the Opposition. If so, I would like to remind him that that particular gentleman is the father-in-law of one of his own colleagues from Willowdale.


Mr. Stan Keyes (Hamilton West):: Madam Speaker, the Minister of Transport predicts record growth to capacity within six years at Pearson airport. When asked how much revenue that will generate, the minister says: "I don't know". When asked how much it would cost the government to renovate terminals 1 and 2, the minister's response is: "I don't know".
Given that Pearson airport makes money, given that private developers are champing-


Madam Deputy Speaker:: There has been a long preamble. Will the hon. member come to a question?


Stan Kazmierczak Keyes: My question is, Madam Speaker: Given that private developers are champing at the bit to get a lease arrangement with this government, what do they know that we do not know? What information has the minister given them that he will not provide for this House?


Jean Corbeil: Madam Speaker, I am sure that you will not allow me the time necessary to tell the hon. member all that he does not know.

March 13, 1992
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On the other hand, we are proceeding on this because we think it is the necessary thing to do, to be able to keep Pearson airport as the main, well functioning airport in Canada. At the same time I remind the member that in a time where the economy is at a slow pace the creation of 3,200 jobs in the Toronto area is a very good gesture.


Stan Kazmierczak Keyes: Madam Speaker, the stakeholders, the airlines and other levels of government are all saying the same thing. They agree that this is the wrong move at the wrong time.
Will the minister put the brakes on his request for proposals so that the transport committee can do what is in the best interest of the travelling public in this country?


Jean Corbeil: Madam Speaker, this is very interesting because on Monday night in Toronto, at the request of the Ontario government, we had a meeting with the minister of transport of Ontario, the minister of the environment of Ontario and four or five mayors from the area.
A document was deposited with us at that time which says that three alternatives for the future ownership and operation of terminal 2 have been analysed. They are continued Transport Canada ownership, transfer to the private sector, or transfer to the SCOAA. Nowhere in this document is there any indication that the Ontario government is against the proposals.


Some hon. members:: Thble it.


Jean Corbeil: I will certainly table it with very great pleasure. The only concern of the Ontario government was that it would like to form an LAA, on the board of which would sit the federal government, the provincial government and the municipal government. When the devolution of airport policy was adopted by this government, it said very clearly that it would not transfer airports to other levels of government.


THE ECONOMY
Mr. Steven W. Langdon (Essex-Windsor):: Madam Speaker, since the budget came out last month, reports have shown our national income in decline, our interest rates rising, unemployment up yet further, and today comes more devastating news with a massive 2.4 per cent
decrease in manufacturing. This government is turning Canadian factories into ghost towns.
Will the government recognize that we are still in recession? Will it turn its budget policy in an opposite direction, start getting people back to work in this country and put the manufacturing industry ahead instead of back?


Hon. Gilles Loiselle (President of the TVeasury Board and Minister of State (Finance)):: Madam Speaker, I will recognize without difficulty that the manufacturing industry is indeed going through a very worrisome period. I think everybody agrees with that.
We all know that the national demand is very weak. Foreign demand is very weak. That is why in our last budget we came forward with very precise measures, particularly to help the manufacturing industry, and I hope the hon. member realizes that.
What this situation commands us to do is to make the right decisions, to do everything we can as a government to maintain low interest rates because manufacturers need to be able to invest. They must be able to buy the machinery they need. These are measures we have taken in our budget.
As for interest rates, the hon. member knows that we also have to manage the debt. Every Thursday we put on auction a certain number of money bills or government certificates and people either buy or do not buy them. We are living in a very open market and the interest rates have to fluctuate according to that market.
As a government we do everything we can to try to keep them as low as possible and they are at a record low over the last-


Madam Deputy Speaker:: We must go on. The hon. member for Essex-Windsor.


Steven W. Langdon: Madam Speaker, in fact to give manufacturing incentives to invest at a time when the minister admits that there is not enough demand out there for manufacturing is like pushing on a string. It does not do anything.
Therefore I say to the minister: there is nothing that could hurt our manufacturing industry more than a North American trade deal. Yet the United States now says a deal could be just weeks away. On Monday the Prime Minister attacked our party for not wanting to help a Third World country like Mexico with this deal.
March 13, 1992

How can the government justify continuing in these negotiations for a free trade deal in North America now that GATT has attacked such a free trade deal as having far-reaching, adverse effects on poorer countries throughout the world?


Gilles Loiselle: Madam Speaker, I think the hon. gentleman will recognize this government has done everything it can to help lower the cost of Canadian products in our last budget through the GST reform.
We had this very stupid situation where one of the largest exporting countries in the world was the only one penalizing its own manufacturers. We have done our share and we continue to do it by making low cost capital available.
We have interest rates that have gone down, thanks to the good management of the government. What does he suggest we do? Should we borrow more money and send out the signal that we do not intend to keep our house in order by sending interest rates flying again?
We are not going to do that, nor are we going to raise taxes in order to spend money we do not have.


Steven W. Langdon: Madam Speaker, in fact this government for the past six weeks has seen interest rates pushed up in this country. For it to claim that interest rates are declining, thanks to its policy, is sheer nonsense. It just does not meet up with the facts at all.

Madam Speaker, I have a supplementary on transborder shopping in the United States, which has now increased by 30 per cent in Quebec.
Will this government finally realize that its economic strategy is worthless and merely provides an incentive for Quebecers and other Canadians to go and invest their money in the U.S. economy instead of in Canada?


Gilles Loiselle: Mr. Speaker, the United States is also exposed to tremendous competitive pressures, which are increasing steadily. An extremely
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important point is that Canada, more than any other country in the world, depends on its external trade. Twenty-five per cent of what we build, produce or grow is exported, most of it to the United States.
Previously, our recourse, other than complying with U.S. demands, was very limited. However, thanks to the free trade agreement we now have a tribunal, and we have Canadians sitting on that tribunal, where we can bring these problems.
Two-way trade between Canada and the U.S. is worth hundreds of billions of dollars. When problems arise in certain sectors, we try to deal with them. We have expressed our views very firmly. We intend to defend our interests, and I am sure we will win our case.


Mr. Paul Martin (LaSalle-Emard):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Acting Minister of Finance. Small businesses are genuine creators of durable jobs. However, they are now burdened with real interest rates almost six times as high as those charged their competitors in the United States.
How does the minister expect our small businesses to be competitive when they have this incredible burden to deal with?


Gilles Loiselle: Madam Speaker, I agree with the hon. member's analysis when he refers to the importance of small business. It is a sector with tremendous potential, which is indispensable to our economy.
Unfortunately the hon. member talks about interest rates as if the government could raise or lower them by merely pressing a button. They are higher than in the United States, and so we should lower them? I wish he would explain how a government could do that. And how the Liberal government, when it was in power, managed to let interest rates rise 22 per cent. Couldn't it press a button?
We cannot change the market, but by managing wisely, governments can inspire confidence. Since May 1990, interest rates have gone down 625 basis points. We are doing our share, but we cannot ask people to buy our bonds at 2 per cent, because they won't. Interest rates are set by the market.

March 13, 1992
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Paul Edgar Philippe Martin: Madam Speaker, that kind of response, talking about nominal interest rates when the question is about real interest rates, does very little to further the economic debate in this country or the credibility of this House or the minister.
Our too high dollar and our too high real interest rates have led to a weakened economy. That weakened economy has led to even higher real interest rates, almost six times higher than the real interest rates in the United States, in order to support wrongly an over-valued Canadian dollar.
The government is caught in a vicious circle of its own making and those who are suffering from it are hundreds of thousands of unemployed Canadians across the land. This vicious circle must be broken. There is only one way for that to happen and that is to bring Canadian real interest rates into line with U.S. real interest rates.
The question is why will the government not do it? [Translation]


Gilles Loiselle: Madam Speaker, I wish that someday the hon. member would explain how much leeway a government has to play around with interest rates this way.
The hon. member refers to interest rates and to our high dollar as one of the main reasons why we have this situation. In fact, I disagree with his analysis, because interest rates are much lower now, since we brought them down 625 basis points. The dollar is also going down, but we cannot intervene artificially in these areas.
The hon. member must know that the debt we inherited puts a tremendous obligation on us. We have to finance the debt year after year. People won't lend us the money we need at the rate we want but at the rate they want to charge us, because of international competition. We are not the only ones in the market. We try to get the best rate, like any good manager would. We managed to bring interest rates and the dollar down. We have done our share.


Hon. Lloyd Axworthy (Winnipeg South Centre):: Madam Speaker, I have a question for the Acting Minister for International Trade. I just finished speaking to several well established wholesale lumber dealers in the city of Winnipeg. I think they speak for the same constituency right across Canada. They are being forced out of business by the dithering of this government on the softwood lumber issue. Not only must they pay 14.5 per cent additional costs on the lumber itself, but they now must pay additional costs on transport, loading, distribution, paper work resulting in a 25 per cent increase in costs. They have no choice but to move south.
I want to ask this question. It is the same question we have been asking every day this week. Why will the government not invoke the Employment Support Act which gives this government the authority to help companies affected by unfair trade practices by foreign countries? Why will it not try to help keep Canadian jobs here? What is it afraid of this time?


Hon. Frank Oberle (Minister of Forestry):: Madam Speaker, the issue my hon. friend refers to has to do with a preliminary ruling by the commerce department in the United States resulting from the termination of the memorandum of understanding.
My friend is quite correct. It is unfair and every measure is being taken to correct the issue. He is also right in saying the value added costs are captured in this new ruling. We have protested that to the United States and, of course, we are appealing the ruling at every step. As he knows, we are very much relying on article 19 of the free trade agreement which allows us access to an independent binding dispute mechanism which is of a judicial nature and there is no doubt that we will be vindicated in all questions of this issue.


Lloyd Axworthy: Madam Speaker, the reality is that by the time the government gets around to all of this finagling under the free trade deal, all those companies will be located south of the border and we will have lost those jobs. They need help now.


Mr. Peterson:: Exactly.
March 13, 1992


Lloyd Axworthy: I want to ask the Acting Prime Minister or perhaps the acting minister of trade, whomever, about another mess that we are getting ourselves into on the trade front.
We have this morning a statement by Carla Hills, the U.S. trade negotiator, that the North American free trade deal will be signed within a matter of weeks. At the same time, a GATT study released yesterday said to enact the deal will have adverse impact on world trade. I want to ask somebody in the government how we can get into this deal without Canadians even knowing what the conditions are, what the impact will be, how it will affect us and, by signing the deal, is this really Canada saying we are giving up on the international trading system?


William C. Winegard: Madam Speaker, the hon. member knows better than that. He knows veiy well that Canada's main trading position is that we want to work with the GATT, the international trading operation. He also knows that we have benefited from the free trade agreement with the United States. He also knows that we will benefit from a free trade agreement with the whole of North America. That is exactly what the policy of this government is. We rely on trade for our economic growth. We intend to rely on trade and we intend to promote trade at every opportunity.


Mr. Brian L. Gardiner (Prince George-Bulkley Valley):: My question is for the Minister of Forestry. The news in our forest sector is just getting worse and worse by the day. Yesterday GATT issued a report denouncing U.S. trade policies. Now we have learned that the commerce department decision from last Friday on softwood lumber is also going to apply to the value added by service businesses in Canada to their United States exports. Can the minister tell this House specifically what measures the cabinet has met to discuss this week on this issue? What kind of remedies can he offer to these manufacturing businesses? Will he not agree that this attack goes beyond simply our softwood lumber exports? It is an attack on the manufacturing and semi-manufacturing industry in Canada.


Frank Oberle: Madam Speaker, we have already said that the decision is flawed in many different ways. It is peculiar in the sense that it would be the first time that a foreign jurisdiction has
Oral Questions
brought in a bonding requirement together with a preliminary decision on a countervail duty action. We have protested this measure at the highest levels. Certainly the fact that value-added products are captured with this duty is unacceptable. We have told the department of commerce that. We are appealing the decision. We have appealed the decision to GATT. A GATT panel has been established and will be ruling in June. As I said, we are very confident that at the end we will be vindicated.
Mr. Brian L. Gardiner (Prince George-Bulkley
Valley): Madam Speaker, when is the government going to realize that this is not a banana republic? We do not take orders from Washington, D.C. We run our forest policies our own way.
The Prime Minister was sabre rattling last weekend and in the last few days about how he is going to fight this decision. The cabinet was presumed to have met to review this matter. The minister did not tell the House anything new today in Question Period on this matter.
Can the minister tell this House what specific measures this government is going to take to protect our forest industry and to now protect our manufacturing industries that are suffering under this unwarranted attack from Washington, D.C.?


Frank Oberle: Madam Speaker, all is not doom and gloom. Fortunately, because of a very significant turnaround in the economy in the United States, prices for the kind of products my friend is talking about have increased by 30 per cent since the beginning of the year. That gives us small comfort, of course, in the sense that the United States has imposed a 15 per cent duty on our lumber exports.
We are not sitting by and letting this happen. Cabinet has met. We have protested the measure at the highest levels. We have appealed the measures to two tribunals. It is a preliminary hearing and one ought not to be spending the time of the House to alarm everyone.
My hon. friend comes from Prince George. He knows that a lumber company usually sets up and manufactures where the trees are. They just do not pack up tomorrow because they cannot take the trees with them. We will have to keep our cool and rely on the orders and rules

March 13, 1992
Oral Questions
that have been established under the free trade agreement and under GATT.
There is no doubt that we will be vindicated on both accounts.


SEARCH AND RESCUE
Mrs. Coline Campbell (South West Nova):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Acting Prime Minister.
There is a lot of pubic concern about the possibility of the Yarmouth search and rescue helicopter being cancelled on March 31 of this year. Premier Cameron has said it was a top priority with him. I am wondering if the Acting Prime Minister knows whether the Prime Minister and Premier Cameron have had an opportunity to talk about such an important matter as it relates to search and rescue this week while at the conference?


Frank Oberle: Madam Speaker, on behalf of the minister of fisheries who is responsible for this portfolio, as my hon. friend knows, the department had established a base at Yarmouth and built a hangar at the facility. The $2 million a year contract is near its expiry date. The matter is under review. It has, of course, safety implications and the involvement of other departments. A decision will be made shortly.


Coline M. Campbell: Madam Speaker, I would just like to say the question was whether or not the premier had brought it up with the Prime Minister.
I hope the minister is telling the House that since we are in the middle of the month, the decision will be made immediately before the March 31 deadline when we have so much concern in the area about this. I do not see why a decision cannot be given today if it is so imminent.


Frank Oberle: Madam Speaker, the concerns in the area will of course influence the decision. It will be made very soon.


FISHERIES
Mr. Lawrence MacAulay (Cardigan):: Madam Speaker, in the absence of the minister of fisheries, I direct my question to the Acting Prime Minister.
Last week the DFO Chief of Conservation and Protection said in relation to overfishing in the snow crab fishery that "the unfortunate part is we do not have the acceptable resources to monitor the fishing".
Therefore, will the minister commit the necessary resources to properly manage the fishery in Prince Edward Island?


Frank Oberle: Madam Speaker, knowing the minister of fisheries, his answer would obviously be in the affirmative. I will pass the hon. member's concern on to him.


Lawrence MacAulay: Madam Speaker, my supplementary is for the same minister.
Fishermen in my riding want access to a larger snow crab fishery. Why will the minister not eliminate the artificial zone differences in the gulf and allow more Island fishermen to participate in the snow crab fishery?


Frank Oberle: Madam Speaker, one of the reasons there are no more licences for snow crab is because there are not enough snow crab for the number of fishermen who would like to get into that particular industry.
Nevertheless I will pass on the hon. member's question to the minister of fisheries.


TRANSPORTATION
Godfrey Stanley (Stan) Wilbee: Madam Speaker, my question today is for the Minister of Transport.
Yesterday there was a collision between a B.C. ferry and a bulk coal carrier out of Roberts Bank. This is the second collision by a B.C. ferry in the last five weeks. Many people are wondering what the problem is.
Can the minister assure us that there will be a careful examination and investigation of the causes of these collisions. Will they examine the structure of the ferries themselves? Is there some problem in the navigation equipment or is it in the operation?
Can he reassure the people in British Columbia, and those who are on the ferries, that everything will be done to prevent further collisions with injuries and loss of life, which fortunately did not occur on these two occasions?
March 13, 1992


Jean Corbeil: Madam Speaker, we have been informed of these two incidents. We regret very much their occurrences. As the member just mentioned, we were very fortunate that there was no loss of life.
The Transportation Safety Board is presently investigating these two incidents. The reason and purpose for their investigation is precisely to accomplish what the member is seeking.


PORT OF CHURCHILL
Rodney Edward Murphy: Madam Speaker, my question is also for the Minister of Transport.
On March 6 of this year, Bemie Wiens, the provincial minister of transport from Saskatchewan wrote a very pro-Churchill letter to the minister. In that letter he proposed a meeting of those parties that are very essential to the operation of the port, including the Canada Wheat Board, CN, the port itself, the province of Manitoba, along with the federal government.
Would the Minister of Transport be willing to support such a meeting and make the arrangements to have it?


Jean Corbeil: Madam Speaker, as the hon. member knows, we have responded previously to a request for meetings from the various people involved in the port of Churchill. At the last meeting, we indicated that we were still examining the different components so that the port of Churchill could remain open if at all possible.
We have already indicated that next season the port will be operative. I can assure the member that as soon as we have the necessary information to move a step forward we will be happy to get this meeting organized.


Rodney Edward Murphy: Madam Speaker, the minister is correct, there have been meetings. I am very happy that he had a meeting with myself and other representatives in favour of the port of Churchill.
At that time, we asked for a moratorium on false statements coming from government officials and others with regard to the port of Churchill.
In light of the grains and oilseeds minister's remarks last week that a Brazilian ship struck an iceberg in the Hudson Bay area and welders had to be sent up there and the Brazilians were no longer going to use the port
Oral Questions
of Churchill, will the Minister of Transport inform the minister of grains and oilseeds that the Canadian Coast Guard said: "There was no such incident. The only incident of that type was in the Gulf of St. Lawrence."
Can we ask the minister of grains and oilseeds to stop making false statements on Churchill?


IMMIGRATION
Mrs. Christine Stewart (Northumberland):: Madam Speaker, notice has been given of this question and I understand the Associate Minister of Employment and Immigration will respond.
The Minister of Employment and Immigration has given an exclusion order to an Eritrean refugee claimant Mrs. Mebrahtu and her three children aged 10, 6 and 4. They are to appear at the Rainbow Bridge at 9.30 a.m. Monday, March 16, bags in hand to be escorted to God knows where. A dreadful history causes this family to be husbandless and fatherless. Now Canadian government action renders them homeless and hopeless.
Surely this government can show some compassion and on humanitarian grounds reverse its decision and grant this single mother and three small children refugee status in Canada.


Hon. Monique Vezina (Minister of State (Employment and Immigration) and Minister of State (Seniors)):: Madam Speaker, I would first like to thank the hon. member for Northumberland for giving me prior notice of the question she wanted to ask.
I am sure that she will understand that I cannot comment on a particular case here in the House of Commons. I know that our colleague is familiar with the refugee determination process, which is generous and allows Canada to protect those who need our help.
That being said, the decision on the question before us was made by independent decision-makers, who applied the Geneva Convention. Of course for every decision, humanitarian considerations and criteria are evaluated, as they were in the case referred to us in this House. But unfortunately, this request was deemed not to comply with the terms of refugee status under the Geneva Convention, I am sorry to say.

March 13, 1992
Oral Questions


Christine Susan Stewart: Madam Speaker, the Mebrahtu family has been in this country for over a year. The children have settled into school and some normalcy. Our inefficient system of refugee assessment has increased the trauma of their present flight.
If the government refuses once again to show compassion to Mrs. Mebrahtu, what advice will it give to this homeless, hopeless woman as she and her three small children walk across the Rainbow Bridge on Monday morning?


Monique Vézina: Madam Speaker, it may be necessary to recall that the political situation in Ethiopia has improved and that of course decisions are always made in accordance with the Geneva Convention.
We should also remember in this House that the refugee determination system must not be considered a shortcut to immigrate to Canada. The decisions were made by independent officials and humanitarian considerations and criteria were also assessed.


BEEF INDUSTRY
Mr. Lyle Vanclief (Prince Edward-Hastings):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Agriculture.
The minister knows that there is a new beef grading system about to be introduced, including an ungraded standard. However, there are no requirements for retailers to indicate grade standards on beef at the meat counter.
The consumer and the Canadian Cattlemen's Association want and Canadian consumers deserve to know what they are buying. Why will the government not require and enforce grading standards to be signed and product to be labelled in the meat counter?


Hon. Bill McKnight (Minister of Agriculture):: Madam Speaker, I recognize the desire of the hon. member and the groups he has mentioned. Unfortunately, he would be better to put that question to the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs who has that responsibility.


SUBSIDIES
Mr. Maurice Foster (Algoma):: Madam Speaker, press reports today indicate that the government has finally completed a study on U.S. subsidies, many of them hidden, to American agriculture producers. In only seven states they amount to $12.2 billion. It is interesting that the government has negotiated the FTA during the last six years and is now negotiating at the GATT.
I want to ask the Minister of Agriculture why the government has failed to have this critical information available on U.S. subsidies to agriculture producers for the GATT negotiations until the 11th hour. It was almost too late. Many thousands of fanners are depending on these negotiations for their very livelihood. Why has the government failed to have this information available for these critical negotiations.


William Hunter (Bill) McKnight: Madam Speaker, the hon. member is mistaken that the government or the industry was not aware of the subsidies that had been identified in the report. The government was certainly aware of the federal U.S. subsidies identified in that report. The government was aware of some of the state subsidies in those seven states. The report identified additional subsidies or programs. I think it would be unfair to call all of them subsidies, but some are programs that assist agriculture in those seven states, some of which were not known to the government at that time. Much more work would have to be done to identify whether those programs are subsidies or legitimate programs, such as we use in Canada, to support agriculture.


HOUSING
Margaret Anne Mitchell: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Acting Minister of Finance. Last December 17 the minister responsible for CMHC in a press release promised $6.1 million for the co-op housing program. His credibility certainly is ruined by the recent budget.
Is the minister aware that budget cuts which arbitrarily eliminated co-op housing mean that well over 6,000 families on waiting lists in Vancouver now have no hope of housing? What does he say to city councils and housing groups right across Canada that are outraged at this betrayal?
March 13, 1992


An hon. member:: He doesn't care.
Oral Questions EMPLOYMENT


Dave Worthy: Madam Speaker, I will give the benefit of the doubt and assume that the member's true interests are really those people in need, the people that we are targeting our housing programs for.
There are over 650,000 people in need in the country who receive housing assistance. For the next five years we have allocated $2 million a year for social housing. This totals $10 million. That is not shabby treatment, considering we are in a serious restraint mode.
If your interests are in an organization, that is one thing. Our interest is in servicing the needs of the people who have targeted needs.


Margaret Anne Mitchell: Madam Speaker, that statement is outrageous. It shows that this acting minister knows nothing about co-op housing and the needs of people who need housing. I am ashamed of him.
In Vancouver, I would like to tell this member, the homelessness, the high rents and a whole influx of newcomers creates an excessive demand for affordable housing. I would like to say that part of the former Expo lands were promised for co-op and social housing creating in a mixed community, the best way to develop housing for those in need.
Will the minister explain how this much needed affordable housing can be built on Expo lands in Vancouver now that federal assistance has been wiped out for housing?


Dave Worthy: Madam Speaker, federal assistance has not been wiped out. We continue to provide support for the 14,800 units of co-op housing now as well as the people who are currently living in 650,000 units of social housing.
We will be providing 28,000 new social housing units this year. It is our intention to help those in need, those who are targeted with a true need, not every program that wants housing.


James Scott (Jim) Peterson: Madam Speaker, I want to follow up a question asked the Acting Prime Minister by the member for Winnipeg South Centre. Softwoods are under siege right now by the Americans and we are losing jobs daily. A lot of those jobs are going south.
Will the Acting Prime Minister not act now and use the authority that he has under the Employment Support Act to protect these jobs? It is easier to keep them than to get them back after they have gone away.


Frank Oberle: Madam Speaker, as I said in a response to an earlier question, the industry of which my hon. friend speaks-he is probably not as familiar with it as I would be-usually works around the resource. You do not build a lumber mill or a manufacturing plant that depends on trees some place where there are not any trees. Therefore, the fear of everybody packing up to move to the United States is not well founded.
I told his hon. friend that we are dealing with this issue at the highest level; that we are dealing with a preliminary decision and that we are dealing with a process that will finish in July. The drastic measures that he is suggesting simply do not work in this particular situation.


James Scott (Jim) Peterson: Madam Speaker, you do not have to be an expert to know the headlines, "Jobs axed over U.S. duty", "Jobs heading south". We cannot wait for this process to begin next summer.
My supplementary question is the following. On Wednesday, when asked about the Honda dispute, the trade minister said: "Chapter 19 of the FTA is a binding dispute mechanism that is the final stage".
In the absence of the trade minister, may I ask the Acting Prime Minister to tell our trade minister two things. First of all, to read the free trade agreement and second, to ask him to recognize that chapter 19 does not deal with the Honda dispute. The minister may wish it would, but it does not under the deal that was cut with the Americans.

Point of Order


William C. Winegard: The hon. member knows very well that Canada is doing everything it possibly can with respect to this Honda dispute. Every minister, every department of government, is making its opposition known to every position in the United States. We are quite convinced that on the Honda dispute, we are in the right and we will win. The Americans may not like that language of win/lose, but we use it because we are confident we will win this dispute.


FISHERIES
Fred J. Mifflin: Madam Speaker, I appreciate your indulgence.
Yesterday we spoke in the House on the motion to extend functional jurisdiction for fishing to the nose and tail of the Grand Banks. The government's response essentially was: "We will continue to do more of the same with diplomatic action".
Madam Speaker, in response to this diplomatic action, I notice in the news this morning there was an indication that Mr. Randolph Gherson, who is Canada's ambassador for fisheries conservation, ended a diplomatic shuttle across Europe yesterday as we were in this House talking with few signs that the European Community will do anything to curb their overfishing. In particular, British and Danish officials said they needed more time. The Spanish and the Portuguese said that they were not ready to accept Canada's position.
Can I ask the Secretary of State for External Affairs what she now plans to do to stand by a people who are dependent on an industry that has been wounded and irretrievably crippled by foreigners?


Hon. Barbara McDougall (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Madam Speaker, as I pointed out yesterday in the debate in the House, one of the things that has happened as a result of this trip is that the scientific data which we have presented quite openly and with all the facts is fairly long and fairly complex.
When the Portuguese and the Spanish governments were presented with the data, even though the initial response was very unwelcoming, they were quite shaken by what they saw, but they do want time to examine it.
I consider this a positive development. I do not know how long it will take them to examine it. I will be discussing this with the European Commission again within the next two weeks. The fact that they have the data and are looking at it and taking it seriously is exactly what we want them to do right now. We want them to move on it quickly.


POINT OF ORDER
Rodney Edward Murphy: Madam Speaker, after I asked my second question in the House of the Minister of Transport, there was no answer.
I recognize that there is no requirement for the minister to answer a question, however, I would like permission of the House, if the minister is not willing to do it, to table the document from the Canadian Coast Guard which indicates that there was no Brazilian ship which encountered an iceberg in 1989, 1990, 1991. The minister of grains and oilseeds is obviously incorrect. The only Brazilian ship that had any damage as a result of icebergs was in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
I wish to have unanimous consent of the House to table this document.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: The hon. member wishes to table the document. Is there consent?


Mr. Andre:: I have no problem with the tabling of the document. I regret that he was not interrupted from that bogus debate point that he got into the record, but he can now table the document obviously.


Mr. Don Boudria (Glengarry-Prescott-Russell):: Madam Speaker, on a similar point of order, the Minister of Transport earlier today offered to table a document. Can I get his assurance that it will in fact be tabled as he has promised during Question Period and as, of course, the Standing Orders require him today anyway?
March 13, 1992


TABLING OF ESTIMATES
Madam Deputy Speaker:: I have the honour to table the spending estimates of the House of Commons for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1993.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Harvie Andre: Madam Speaker, I would like to table, in both official languages, a number of Order in Council appointments which were made by the government. Pursuant to the provisions of Standing Order 110(1), these are deemed referred to the appropriate standing committees, a list of which is attached.


PUBLIC ACCOUNTS
Mr. Jean-Robert Gauthier (Ottawa-Vanier):: Madam Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the fifth report of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts.
This report deals with the public accounts of Canada for 1990-91 and the three reservations expressed by the Auditor General on them. Pursuant to Standing Order 109, the committee asks the government to table a comprehensive response to this report. Madam Speaker, I will also give notice to have this report debated and adopted by the House.


ABORIGINAL AFFAIRS
Hon. Alan Redway (Don Valley East):: Madam Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages,
Routine Proceedings
the third report of the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs. Pursuant to Standing Order 109, the committee asks the government to table a comprehensive response within 150 days.


HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE STATUS OF DISABLED PERSONS
Albert Glen Cooper: Madam Speaker, I believe you will find unanimous consent for the following motion:
That the Standing Committee on Human Rights and the Status of Disabled Persons be empowered to have televised and radio broadcasting of its meetings of Monday, March 30, 1992, according to the principles and practices governing the broadcasting of the House of Commons.
That, notwithstanding the report of the Standing Committee on Elections, Privileges, Procedure and Private Members' Business concurred in by the House on October 20, 1989 a replay of the proceedings be permitted on Sunday, April 5, 1992 at 3 p.m.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Does the hon. the parliamentary secretary have unanimous consent of the House to present the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: The House has heard the terms of the motion. The hon. member for Churchill.


Rodney Edward Murphy: Madam Speaker, these motions have the support of the New Democratic Party.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Is it agreed?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
Mr. Albert Cooper (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House
of Commons): Madam Speaker, I believe you will find unanimous consent for the following committee travel motion that was moved the other day but we did not get consent. I think we should today.
[Stage Direction]
March 13, 1992
Routine Proceedings
That, notwithstanding the Order made on February 6, 1992, the
Subcommittee on Arms Export of the Standing Committee on
External Affairs and International Hade be authorized to travel to
Victoria, Vancouver and Winnipeg from Monday, March 30 to
Wednesday, April 1,1992 and to Halifax and Montreal from Monday,
April 6 to Tuesday, April 7, 1992.
Motion agreed to.

Mr. Mac Harb (Ottawa Centre):: Madam Speaker, I have the honour to present to the House today a petition signed by residents of my riding, Ottawa Centre, and surrounding areas in the Ottawa region.
These people ask Parliament to urge the government to correct the injustice caused by high gasoline prices in the Ottawa-Carleton region.


Mr. Bruce Halliday (Oxford):: Madam Speaker, I have the pleasure of presenting a petition signed by some 28 people from my constituency and also from London, who are in support of the parents of Nina de Villiers in deploring the apparent increase in crimes of violence, and calling for appropriate amendments to the Criminal Code of Canada, the Bail Reform Act and the Parole Act.


Maurice Brydon Foster: Madam Speaker, I have the honour to present a petition signed by over 500 constituents of mine. These were gathered by Diane Lea of Elliot Lake and concern the Nina de Villiers case.
This petition calls on the government to take action to improve the bail and the other parole laws in this country, including sentencing and possession of firearms laws to ensure that we protect our society so that needless violent crimes like the murder of Nina de Villiers last summer will cease in this country and we will have a more safe and secure society.


Godfrey Stanley (Stan) Wilbee: Madam Speaker, it is an honour to present under Standing Order 36 a petition containing over 1,000 names from many communities on the lower mainland. The petitioners are concerned about the inequality of taxation with regard to the family.
They are asking that Parliament amend the Income Ihx Act so that child related benefits and deductions for child care are fair and equitable to all family structures based on financial need and irrespective of child care choice. I think they recognize that some of this has already been done but they are looking for further changes as well.


Alfonso Gagliano: Madam Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, I have here petitions signed by many people in my riding concerning the murder of Nina de Villiers on August 9, 1991. This murder brought out serious deficiencies in the criminal justice system. For these reasons, the petitioners ask Parliament to recognize that violent crimes against persons are serious and abhorred by society and to amend the Criminal Code of Canada, the Bail Reform Act of 1972 and the Parole Act accordingly.


Mrs. Sheila Finestone (Mount Royal):: Madam Speaker, it is my privilege to stand here with a petition from residents of Canada who wish to present a grievance to this House with the hope that the government will be able to provide some remedial action. They say: "Whereas, as Canadians we are fortunate to live in a multicultural society and we are committed to traditional humanitarian principles and abhor human rights violations".
They are asking that Canadians join in commemoration this Sabbath of remembrance for our oppressed people, the Jews, particularly the 4,500 living in Syria, and who are denied all civil liberties. They have no voting rights. They cannot be candidates in elections. They are banned from government employment and, whereas Amnesty International has reported that there are Syrian Jews who have been imprisoned without
March 13, 1992

informing families and without defence or trial and that these people are beaten, tortured and sometimes murdered, Syrian Jews being denied the right to emigrate-


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I do apologize for interrupting but the hon. member knows that no matter how good the cause is, presenting a petition should not turn into a speech. Please conclude.


Sheila Finestone: Madam Speaker, I was reading what the petitioners had to say. I will terminate it there. I thank you for your guidance but these petitioners pray that on Shabbat Zachor that Parliament will call upon Syria to lift all these repressive restrictions and permit members of the Jewish community to emigrate freely in accordance with the United Nations' own human bill of rights, Article 13, to which Syria is a signatory.


Rodney Edward Murphy: Madam Speaker, I have the honour to present a petition on behalf of residents of the city of Winnipeg. This petition was collected through the work of Doug Martindale, one of the MLAs in the city. It is with regard to the Canada Post Corporation decision to close Empire Drugs at 801 Selkirk Avenue. This drugstore has provided convenient hours for residents, many of whom are of ethnic background, many of whom are seniors who do not speak English.
They have provided an excellent service to the people in that region. The petitioners humbly pray and call upon Parliament to do all within its mandate to gain reconsideration of the decision of Canada Post Corporation to discontinue postal services at this location.


Mr. Rey Pagtakhan (Winnipeg North):: Madam Speaker, I would like to present two petitions on two issues.
The first petition is on behalf of many petitioners who humbly pray and call upon Parliament to recognize housing as a shared provincial-federal responsibility, to support the federal non-profit Co-operative Housing Program and to maintain the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. They mainly live in my constituency on Burrows Avenue, Tyndall and Dickens Drive. They are concerned that the current constitutional proposals could transfer jurisdiction over housing to the provinces without compensation, including the responsibility for non-profit co-op housing which is a program that provides thousands of Canadian families with quality afford-
Routine Proceedings
able shelter, and that the provinces would be unable to wholly support this program.


Rey D. Pagtakhan: Madam Speaker, the second petition relates to the recent government immigration directive.
The petitioners call upon Parliament to rescind this new directive, acknowledge the contribution of past, present and future foreign domestic workers to Canada's social and economic well-being, restore our Canadian values of tolerance and humanitarianism and preserve Canada's international esteem.
The petitioners are concerned that the new directive is insensitive to the needs of Canadian employers, callously disregards the needs of the women of the world and contradicts a fundamental principle of Canada's longstanding, non-discriminatory immigration policy.


Ron J. Duhamel: Madam Speaker, I am honoured to be able to present a petition from the people of Manitoba, many of whom are constituents, for the people of the north and east of Sri Lanka who live in fear and apprehension without any hope of peace because of an economic blockade placed by the Government of Sri Lanka. This blockade has led to severe shortages of food, medicine and fuel and only a fraction of the relief assistance is going to the affected population. The current policy of the Government of Sri Lanka is to find a military solution.
The petitioners ask the government to intervene to stop the flagrant violations of human rights and to ensure basic essentials such as food and medicine and fuel.


Mr. Dan Heap (Trinity-Spadina):: Madam Speaker, I have two petitions. One is from a number of people in Newfoundland and Toronto. It concerns the low-level flights, mainly over Labrador. They ask this House to call upon the government to join with the Assembly of First Nations and the Inuit, Labrador and other aboriginal peoples of northern Canada in opposing the use of then-lands for NATO-NORAD attack training and to redirect Canada's NATO-NORAD funding toward enabling Canada's aboriginal peoples to regain control of their

March 13, 1992
Routine Proceedings
lands and of their livelihood and toward promoting sustainable development for all Canadians.


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: Madam Speaker, my second petition is from a number of Canadians living in British Columbia and Cooper Creek, Argenta, Kaslo, Creston, and Salsbury Creek, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, also in Ontario, Bond Head, Etobicoke, Scarborough. Eastminster, London, Watford, Willowdale, Richmond Hill, Barry and Mississauga.
The undersigned call upon Parliament to urge the minister of immigration to issue minister's permits for spouses and dependent children of refugee claimants who have been permitted to apply for landing from within Canada, including persons in the backlog and persons accepted under the new legislation, and to allow these people to be reunited in Canada for inland processing.


Mr. David Kilgour (Edmonton Southeast):: Madam Speaker, I have three petitions, all the same, from constituents in Edmonton Southeast with respect to Canada-Ukraine relations. They all petition the House to have full diplomatic relations with the government and the people of Ukraine immediately.
I appreciate, Madam Speaker, you are probably thinking that this has already happened and it has been somewhat superseded by events, but I would like to file the petitions nonetheless.


Lawrence MacAulay: Madam Speaker, I am pleased to present a petition from a number of fishermen and others from Murray River, Montague and Sturgeon who depend upon the facilities provided by small craft harbours, and whereas these facilities are deteriorating or are in a condemned state, they call upon Parliament to urge the government to ensure that all necessary maintenance and repairs be made to all small craft harbour facilities in Prince Edward Island.


Mr. Gilbert Parent (Welland -St. Catharines-Tho-rold):: Madam Speaker, it is my duty to present a petition
signed by people from my riding in the Thorold, St. Catharines and Welland area with regard to criminal justice in this country. It seems that the risk to society posed by the early release of a violent offender is of secondary consideration to the rights of the individual criminal.
I think we are putting the cart before the horse. Many of the people in my vicinity are very much taken up with this. We feel that the justice system does not adequately reflect the views of the society in which we live.


James Scott (Jim) Peterson: Madam Speaker, I have a petition signed by hundreds of residents of Ontario asking that the Syrian government amend its ways, that it allow Syrian Jewry their fundamental rights under the UN Declaration on Human Rights for a right to emigrate.


Mr. David D. Stupich (Nanaimo-Cowichan):: Madam Speaker, I have petitions signed by residents of my riding and certified correct under Standing Order 36, wherein the petitioners show that the government had promised to freeze unemployment insurance premium rates for three years and state that the recent cumulative increases to UI premiums are unfair and insensitive to small businesses during difficult economic times, that contributions to the UI fund have been increased more than 50 per cent since 1989.
The petitioners humbly pray and call upon Parliament to request that the government immediately act to freeze unemployment insurance premium rates for both employers and employees for no less than one year.


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
Albert Glen Cooper: Madam Speaker, I suggest that all questions stand.
March 13, 1992


Fred J. Mifflin: Madam Speaker, on a point of order. I would like to raise the fact that I have a question on this week's Order Paper, No. 146. It dates back to October 28. As you are aware, I had planned initially to get up under the relevant Standing Order to request that I now get an answer. I did not put the 45-day caveat to the question but I would plead with my friend, the hon. parliamentary secretary to the House leader of the government. It does concern a program in 1990-91, the Atlantic Catch Failure Program. I want some figures.
I would humbly request that since it is now three times over the normal 45-day period, if I could have some consideration and perhaps this thing could be rushed along and I could get an answer in the foreseeable future.


Albert Glen Cooper: Madam Speaker, I apologize to the hon. member. I did not hear the number of his question.


Fred J. Mifflin: It was No. 146.


Albert Glen Cooper: No. 146. I can advise him that there is work in progress on that. I should have an answer for him fairly soon. I certainly will do all in my power to speed that answer for him so that we can get the information he so rightly requests.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Shall all questions stand?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Blaikie (p. 8169).
Madam Deputy Speaker:: There are eight minutes remaining for the hon. Minister of Science.


An hon. member:: More.


William C. Winegard: Madam Speaker, I am delighted with my colleague opposite. I thought he said "more". He wants to give me more time and I would be delighted to take it.
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As we were finishing the morning, I was saying that the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, the negotiations with Mexico and the United States and the GATT negotiations in Geneva are all part of a strategy aimed at increasing our participation in global markets and making us more competitive and thus more prosperous.
This trade component of the government's program is matched by complementarity in domestic initiatives. Our efforts to reduce the deficit, to promote price stability, to lessen the regulatory burden, to privatize Crown corporations, to encourage retraining, to upgrade skills, to modernize industry and to increase value added components in the economy, all of these seek to make Canada a more rewarding place in which to invest. It is investment by private entrepreneurs, Canadian and foreign, that will create the jobs of the future; good jobs, paying jobs, jobs with a future. From the fur trade to free trade, trade has been the vocation of Canada.
Today, Canadians enjoy an unprecedented level of prosperity as a result of our historically strong trade performance. Our success in buying and selling on the world market has made us a major contributor to and beneficiary of the global economy. Exports have been one of the main engines of growth and job creation in the Canadian economy and imports have greatly enriched the quality of our lives.
Many of the products of our lakes, forests, fields and mines were developed for export to the markets of Europe, Asia and the United States. Canada's evolution from colony to nation was indelibly shaped by our experience as world traders.
The approach that worked then is not necessarily the approach that will work today. Just as industries need to adapt, so do governments. We must be informed by our past success, but not be shackled by it. The trading world of the sixties and the seventies, and it appears clear that the proposer of this resolution wants us to go back to those days, is not the trading world of today. Today we face, whether one likes it or not, a globalized trading economy.
Trade was the engine of growth. Now it is investment and technology. Canada can benefit from these new circumstances. We do not have to be afraid of them. We have many strengths. We are the seventh largest economy in the OECD. It was these changing economic circumstances which disposed us to take the road to free

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trade at the beginning of our mandate. These circumstances have, if anything, become more compelling.
In 1985 we were seeing only the early signs of the phenomenon we dub now as globalization. Today the signs are unmistakable. We, like the Americans and the Japanese and indeed all other trading nations, are a part of that global economy. We cannot lift the drawbridge and ignore it. Our standard of living now depends on joining the global economy and winning.
There are direct challenges to Canada which can be summed up in a simple phrase. By the end of the decade, we must transform ourselves from a trading nation into a nation of traders. The FTA, the GATT negotiations, the trilateral negotiations, our prosperity initiative, the February budget, the learning initiatives, are all part of reaching that objective. No one doubts that we are a trading nation, but I think that we are not yet a nation of traders and surely that is where we have to head. Our trading culture remains yet too shallow. We still export too limited a range of products to too few markets. Not enough Canadians accept that international business is the key to future growth.
It is clear again that the proposers of this resolution simply do not accept that Canada must compete on a world scale, that every Canadian must have a stake in global competition and we will not achieve that by hiding from the world. We will not achieve that by withdrawing from the NAFTA negotiations. We will not achieve that by withdrawing from the free trade agreement. We will certainly not achieve it if we do not adapt. Trade is where our domestic economy meets the international economy and a successful export performance is a pretty good indication that we are able to be competitive at home and that the domestic economy is working.
Adjusting, becoming more competitive, is where the future lies. Our past record has been reasonable, but we have to do better. We have to improve our productivity. We have to keep prices stable. We have to accept and join with enthusiastically the ability to compete at home and abroad. We have to invest in the future and provide an economic climate for both Canadian and foreign investors alike.
That is why the government negotiated free trade with the United States. That is why we are negotiating a free trade agreement with the United States and Mexico. That is why we want to conclude a successful agreement at the NTM. That is why we want to reduce the deficit. That is why we want to keep inflation low. We want to reduce the heavy hand of government in the economy unlike the members opposite and the proposers of this resolution.
We believe if we do that the result will be a growing-stronger outward-looking economy that all Canadians can share in. I want to share in such an economy and I want to be part of the fight that takes us there and I want my children to reap the benefits.


Dennis Joseph Mills: Madam Speaker, I listened attentively to the speaker and there are a lot of things he said that we agree with on this side of the House.
We have always agreed to freer trade, more liberalized trade. In fact, 80 per cent of our trade in this country was free before we had this free trade agreement.
I want to refer him specifically to chapter 16 of the free trade agreement under article 1603 under performance requirements where it says:
1. Neither Party shall impose on an investor of the other Party, as a term or condition of permitting an investment in its territory, or in connection with the regulation of the conduct or operation of a business enterprise located in its territory, a requirement to:
a)	export a given level or percentage of goods and services;
b)	substitute goods or services from the territory of such Party for imported goods or services; and
c)	purchase of goods or services used by the investor in the territoiy of such Party or from suppliers located in such territory or accord a preference to goods or services produced in such a territory; or
d)	achieve a given level or percentage of domestic content.
Would the minister not agree that American multinational corporations with branch offices in Canada that have been doing an awful lot of research and development, a lot of manufacturing, have now because of the deep recession in the United States basically taken article 1603 of the free trade agreement and used it as an instrument for retrenching, practically eliminating R and D and manufacturing? Essentially there is no investment
March 13, 1992

requirement or there is no enticement for investment requirement in this country.
Under this law we have basically said to the head offices: "You can do what you want in this country". That, in my humble opinion, has led to one of the reasons that so many American corporations have pulled back and why we have so many people out of work, especially in central Ontario.


William C. Winegard: Madam Speaker, this is somewhat typical of some of our colleagues in the House who really do not believe in free trade. They want to hedge things around because presumably they do not believe Canada competes either in terms of R and D tax credits or other matters.
It is very clear. I can give you all kinds of illustrations of companies that have not pulled back one bit and certainly not pulled back in Canada more than they have in the United States. I could talk about Pratt & Whitney, I could talk about IBM. They may be retrenching but they are not retrenching in Canada any more than they are in the United States.
People tend always when they talk about these issues to talk about the automobile industry. They focus on the automobile industry. That is an industry I know very well indeed, and that industry strangely enough is doing a little more now than it was some time ago. I think it is a disgrace in terms of the automotive industry research and development in this country. I have been saying so for 40 years and I will continue to say so. That does not mean it is doing less; in fact, it is doing a little more, infinitesimally more on an infinitesimally small base.
I think that blaming all the ills of this current recession on the free trade agreement has become a habit and not reality.


Hon. Pauline Browes (Minister of State (Environment)):: Madam Speaker, I want to compliment the Minister for Science on his comments and, indeed, on his commitment here today, because as we discuss this important issue of trade, it is indeed crucial, as the hon. minister has mentioned, that Canadians become traders.
I want to just bring up a couple of examples and ask the minister about one in particular. There are three examples I want to mention.
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Last week I visited a company in London, Ontario. The company is called Trojan Technologies. It specializes in ultraviolet disinfection, research, product development, design systems, marketing, manufacturing and service. What this company does is it actually has these ultraviolet rays that take the bacteria out of waste water.
That company has placed some 70 representatives in the United States and Canada to promote their technology. Up to 1991, it has sold or had in operation 500 municipal waste water ultraviolet disinfection systems in the United States, Canada, New Zealand and Australia.
Officials told me that the company's success has been directly related to the free trade agreement.
In Scarborough, CDA Industries has created 90 additional jobs because of the free trade agreement. This company is the largest design company in Canada designing display products. It designs in paper, wood, plastic, metal. A great success story.
The other company I would like to mention and have the minister comment on is a company that he himself visited in Scarborough, called Webcom Limited. It is of particular interest to me from the environmental point of view because it has a unique competitive edge.
That company's business is printing books, directories and catalogues, and two of the things it has done to make itself competitive is that it has used vegetable-based inks, which we certainly endorse, and it uses recycled paper. I understand it has about 200 employees in Canada right now, and because of the free trade agreement it has increased its sales and increased the number of employees.
I would like the minister to give us some indication of what he found when he visited Webcom in Scarborough.


William C. Winegard: Madam Speaker, what I found was a very aggressive company using the best of technologies. It has looked at technologies around the world in terms of binding periodicals and journals. It has used that technology, modified it some, and it is now one of the leading companies in North America in this new binding process.

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I also found that the company was very aggressive in terms of moving into the United States, and that the United States market was now making up a substantial portion of all of its production.
The company was extraordinarily pleased with the free trade agreement and the access that it gave to that market.
When talking to company officials, I said: "Obviously we have made the right move as far as your company is concerned. Is there anything else that we could do that would help you in terms of capitalizing on the technology and the sales approach that you have?"
They said that yes, they would like a little different arrangement in terms of capital cost allowance for equipment because they intended to stay number one in that business.
I have no doubt that when they saw the budget of a few weeks ago they were very pleased indeed that we had modified the capital cost allowance and the reduction in tax.
That is exactly what we have been trying to do and what I have been trying to emphasize in my speech today.
When my colleague the Minister of State for Environment took me to Webcom, she knew that I was going to see technology in action, free trade in action, listen to people in action.
That is exactly what this government is about. We believe if we do not do that, we will not be competitive. Our position is that we want to be competitive. That is why we have the free trade agreement. We are going to continue to push for freer trade anywhere in the world. We believe that Canadians can win.
Mir. Jim Peterson (Willowdale): Madam Speaker, the motion we face in this House today, put forward by the NDP is naive and simplistic at best. Its members would have us walk from the North American free trade agreement table. They would have us have no representation there, no observers, no possibility for protecting whatever best interests of Canada might lie at that table.
We all recognize that the benefits for Canada in entering into a free trade agreement with the Mexicans may not be very great, but at least we have to be there at
the table to protect our interests. Such naivety. They would ask us to immediately cancel the free trade agreement.
The member for Winnipeg Transcona who proposed this, said: "We recognize there is going to be harm to Canadians. We recognize there is going to be harm but we choose to do that. We choose to get rid of the free trade agreement immediately".
But did he lay figures before this House showing what additional jobs we might lose if we were to immediately cancel out of the free trade agreement? Did he lay a study before us of the industries that would be further
affected?
I do not stand here trying to make a brief for the government that this free trade agreement is working at all to our interests. I am going to come to some very specific details to show where it is adversely affecting certain jobs in Canada.
But to the NDP members who want to abrogate it, give us their studies to show that we will achieve greater benefits by cancelling now. That is an irresponsible approach. Until they are prepared to come forth with those studies we cannot give any credence to the blind faith without figures that they can make things better their way.
The other thing that bothers me about the approach of the socialist party members in this House is that they are tending to be totally simplistic in laying all of the blame for our economic perils today on free trade. We know that is not the case.
The Tories gave us a free trade deal which we asked them not to sign, which we opposed, not because it was free trade but because it was not giving us the level playing field we need.
Also, having given us free trade this government then instituted a multiplicity of other policies which have helped to drive jobs out of Canada.
The dollar went up about 25 per cent from when free trade was first postulated. This of course put a 25 per cent burden on our exporters which was a ball and chain and a far worse penalty than any of the American tariffs that the FTA removed.
They gave us interest rates which have been consistently significantly higher than American rates. Today Canadian rates are double those in the U.S.
March 13, 1992

There is another thing the NDP does not point out to us and is certainly part of the conclusion of our task force on deindustrialization and economic renewal. This is the testimony of businesses right across the province. Not only the high dollar, high interest and high tax policies of this Tory government but what was really throwing a cloud on the investment future of Ontario was the impending labour legislation proposed by the NDP government. Looking at the labour legislation, one witness said that none of the particular measures were particularly bad on their own but taken as a whole, business did not compete in Ontario with other Canadian jurisdictions or with the more likely aspect that they would move to the United States.
Therefore, as much as we want workers to have rights, opportunities and fairness, these things must all be looked at within the context of international competition and what we have to do as Canadians to create jobs.
Let us look at some of the other policies of this Tory government that are causing very severe difficulties. Cross-border shopping is symptomatic of giving us free trade and not having a level playing field for Canadians. Our task force discovered the biggest cause of crossborder shopping which is bleeding Canada out of anywhere from about $3 billion to $5 billion a year and is decimating border communities. From the Sarnia area and right into Montreal, cross-border shopping is just decimating many communities in Canada. Why? It is cheaper in many cases to shop in the United States because we have different fiscal regimes.
The biggest cause of cross-border shopping is the high cost in Canada of gasoline and diesel fuel. That is the single biggest draw. Did the government deal with that issue when it brought out measures three weeks ago? It did not even touch it. It did not deal with the root cause.
What did the government do instead? It said: "We will enter into a collection regime with the provinces. We will collect for them the PST, the province sales taxes, if they will buy into our scheme for the GST". In other words, if they will start taxing more things for the provincial revenue than they are presently taxing and if they will increase their taxes to the provinces then the government will collect. It is doing that in the midst of the triple dip recession in Canada. The provinces have not bit. They will not be blackmailed or cajoled into doing this.
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What is another measure the government took to try to correct this cross-border shopping? It said: "What we will do, because cigarettes are smuggled into Canada from the United States, is impose a duty on cigarettes that leave Canada for the United States", a prepayment of the GST.
It might help some of the smuggling problem, but it is really driving jobs to the United States. Now the tobacco companies are finding that they cannot compete and their jobs are going to the United States. Canadians are not going to pay for the increased cost of Canadian cigarettes. They will be buying American cigarettes which do not have this tax imposed on them.
While it might have been a good effort to deal with some of the problems, it was naive. It was not worked out. It is not going to work. It is not going to solve the problem. It is just going to drive more jobs south of the border.
What else did the government do in terms of our mail order industry which was suffering greatly and losing jobs hand over fist vis-a-vis the Americans? The Americans imposed about a $10 Canadian charge on any Canadian mail order goods going into the United States. However, Canada did not impose this on the American goods coming into Canada.
What does our government do? It says: "We will go half way. We will retaliate but we will not charge American mail order companies $10. We will charge them only $5". How stupid. Why did the government not do the same things that the Americans did to us to give our mail order industry at least a level playing field?
I do not know where this government's head is. I do not know who it is listening to. It is obviously not consulting with the industry. Any child could tell the government: "Hey, that is not a level playing field you are creating. Don't pretend you have fixed it when you have not".
Another area where we have seen a great loss of jobs, at least 1,700, is in Canada's printing industry. Maybe the concept of free trade was there and over five years we would get rid of all the duties and tariffs. The printing industry was not against this necessarily, but since free trade it has 1,700 jobs.

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Why? Because we do not have a level playing field and the government did not ensure that we did. It was not just tariffs. Now American authorities are imposing a multiplicity of specifications so that Canadian printers must put labels in various spots and big highlighting. Not only do they have a multiplicity of regulations, but they are differently enforced at different border crossings. We have an administration system which is not giving us that playing field.
Another thing that was totally naive was that the Americans know we have to put on our printed goods a big "Made in Canada" and are going to be turned away from it. Why? It is not because of the Canadian quality, but because they have had in place in the United States for many, many years a buy American program, which is a type of nationalism and chauvinism to help their own workers, which we have called for in Canada, but which this government has not brought forward.
In concept freer trade; in reality it just is not there because we do not have a level playing field. Naivety, ignorance, stupidity. The theoiy is right, but they did not do their homework. This is why we continue to lose jobs in this area.
Another area is manufacturing. In the whole manufacturing sector in Canada since the free trade came in we have lost 345,000 or 16 per cent of our manufacturing jobs.
How can we sustain a vibrant economy when we lose our best paying jobs? Is this all because of free trade? Don't get me wrong; the NDP would probably say it is but it is a multiplicity of issues. If we are given free trade, a higher dollar, higher interest, higher taxes, and impending labour legislation from a socialist government in Ontario, the jobs are not going to stay in Canada.
What did the government do to tiy to ensure that we had a level playing field before we went into it? Why did it tip the playing field against Canada with its higher interest rates? This is one of the tragedies. We have not bottomed out of this recession. The last reports showed that unemployment is going up. We went from 10.4 per cent last month to 10.6 per cent unemployment. Nowhere was this worse than in manufacturing, the key to the industrial heartland of Ontario and Canada. We lost
22,000	more manufacturing jobs in January.
Let us look at the auto industry. The Minister for Science said it was the fault of the auto industry that we are losing jobs, that it did not do enough R and D in Canada. If the government told that industry to do more R and D in Canada and made it a condition of being in Canada, it would do it. Otherwise it will do its R and D in Detroit and Tokyo. These other countries are not naive.
Let us look at our automotive industry and what has happened to it since free trade. We have lost 27,213 jobs or 21 per cent of our auto parts and assembly jobs in Canada in the three years since free trade. The government tells us that jobs are also being lost in the United States. Yes they are. The Americans have lost 9 per cent of their auto jobs in the past three years. We are losing jobs at two and one-third times the U.S. rate. Is that just because of free trade? No, it is a whole ball of wax that this government has given us in terms of its policy.
I would like to put before this House today some specific amendments to our trading relationships that I think could address the auto sector. First, under the free trade agreement we have a 50 per cent North American content rule. If we have 50 per cent North American content as defined, we will have duty free trade between Canada and the United States. I am going to propose that this is not enough. Canadian content will have to be increased, perhaps to the level of 60 or 75 per cent. In order to grant that privilege of free trade to others they will have to create a substantial number of jobs and give us significant North American content.
Second, under the free trade agreement we have wiped out the auto pact. The auto pact is very simple. It had a safeguard protection for Canadian jobs. It said: "If you want to produce a car outside Canada and bring it into Canada duty free, you have to produce one car in Canada or its equivalent". That was fair. That was from the auto pact. That was wiped out by the free trade agreement.
Under the free trade agreement, by the year 1998 when all duties are eliminated, the big three could pull every plant out of Canada. They would not have to buy
March 13, 1992

one Canadian part. They could ship their cars duty free into Canada without creating one single job here.
Is that what we want to see? We are seeing the evolution of that right now when we are losing auto jobs at two and one-third times the U.S. rate. We have to go back to some type of Canadian content.
I am advocating Canadian content of perhaps even 100 per cent. We are going to need a Canadian content that restores to us what the auto pact gave us. Any Canadian content rule that does not say: "You have to produce one car in Canada or its equivalent for every car you bring in duty free" is not giving us as Canadians our fair share of the job market.
People are going to say: "This is protectionism". Of course it is protectionism. Free trade is not what our competitors are doing. In the European Community they are debating today whether foreign producers will have 15 per cent or 17 per cent of the European Community's auto market by the year 2000. Will they let it get up that high? In Canada we are at 37 per cent foreign penetration right now. In return for that 37 per cent of our auto market those people are producing only 3 per cent of our jobs.
Is Japan a free trader? What is the percentage of its market occupied by foreign or non-Japanese producers? It is 3 per cent. It is 3 per cent in Japan, 15 to 17 per cent within eight years in the European Community, and in Canada today it is 37 per cent and rising. They are not free traders. Why should we be the only Boy Scouts on the block?
We need a dispute settlement mechanism that works. We do not have one today. Let us look at the Honda dispute. The engines are made in the United States for Honda and the United States says: "Hey, there is not enough North American content". The rules for specific determination of North American content under the FTA were not worked out at the table. They were so happy to get any deal they walked before they did the details. They did not even do the subsidies.
We are seeing what is happening now. We do not have a definition of content we can agree on. So what happens? The American customs authorities can slap a duty on us. Fine, but do we have an objective means of settling this dispute under the vaunted free trade settlement dispute mechanism? Is there a way to do it fairly and in accordance with the principles of law? No.
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The only right we have is under chapter 18 of the free trade agreement that says we must consult with them. We are consulting right now. If we cannot agree after we have consulted then we can strike a panel to arbitrate it, but that panel's decision cannot be binding on the United States unless the United States says it will be binding. How stupid. Why would the United States agree that the decision should be binding when its customs officials and its administration have already decided in favour of the United States. That is the position we are in and do not pretend that free trade agreement gives us one right we did not have before in terms of this Honda dispute. What is such a shame is that we have production in Canada to the North American market. The Honda syndrome can be applied to every other Canadian producer for the North American market and for the U.S. market. The chill that it will put on further exports from Canada and on further investment in Canada producing for the U.S. market is enormous. If you were going to make the decision as a North American corporation to establish in Canada or in the United States, why would you choose Canada, when because of the Honda type decision and the inadequacies of the free trade agreement, nine-tenths of your market, i.e., the United States, can be shut off?
I am coming quickly to a conclusion. There is so much that is wrong with this agreement, the free trade agreement, because it was not thought out. It does not give Canada a level playing field. It has not given our producers and our jobs a fair chance. I have touched on just perhaps three of the industries in which this has not been the case.
Let us renegotiate. Let us get a fair deal for Canadians.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: Madam Speaker, when the hon. member started speaking and agreed that a trade agreement, the North American free trade agreement, was a good idea, I thought that we might hear a sensible speech today. But I was wondering, when he got into the mathematics of the Canadian dollar, how he figured it. It was new math to me. In any event, the Canadian dollar was trading at about 84 cents to the American dollar in December 1988, and now it is 83.5 cents to the American dollar. I just wondered what kind of new math that was, where he said the Canadian

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dollar lost 25 per cent of its value against the American dollar.
Then he went on from there into the auto pact. You know, when he said we produce two cars for every one we consume here, as far as the Americans are concerned, he really lost me. Then when we had the General Motors matter, where they are closing plants in the United States-and, sure, they closed a plant in Canada, but they closed a lot more plants in the United States-I got confused.
Then he went on even further and got into horrible matters concerning the establishment of plants and businesses in Canada. I looked at the exports of Canadian goods into the United States, and in 1988 there was $102.6 billion and then it was $107 billion in 1991. The difference between our favourable balance continued to rise. We find now that our favourable balance is $15.1 billion, when it was only $14 billion in 1988. This is a bad year because our trade on both sides has dropped.
I wonder just where he is getting off. I mean, he must have some sort of idea that we are not capable of running a country. I think he must be reading either the new dinosaurs' material or Mr. Hurtig's material, or doing his research somewhere that has no relevance to what is in fact taking place.
We have a problem in Ontario, and he is right. It was his brother who was premier of a province that spent and increased taxes, and borrowed money in foreign markets and increased the value of the Canadian dollar until he was defeated and his province taken over by the real big spenders, the New Democrats. It was his brother's government that created a growth in the province of Ontario that was unsustainable. That is really why the province of Ontario is suffering and suffering very badly today in this recession, far worse than other places in the world. But let him know there is a world recession, and it is worse in Ontario because of the leadership offered by the government headed by his brother and by the current premier of Ontario, who seems to have no sense at all.


James Scott (Jim) Peterson: Mr. Speaker, I have never had to defend my brother because he has always been superbly capable of doing it himself.
One has to wonder where the Prime Minister finds his judgment on so many matters that are of such vital importance to the future of Canada. Needless to say, I am very proud of my brother and I think his record will stand up very well.
Now let me respond veiy directly to the three points raised by my friend. I do not think he knows what he is talking about because when he reads Hansard he will find out, as he said, that the Canadian dollar had not lost 25 per cent during his period. Rather the dollar went up 25 per cent vis-a-vis the Americans.
What I said in my speech is as follows. In 1986, when this deal was first announced and being worked out, the dollar was at about 75 to 76 cents U.S. It went as high as 90 cents. In other words, it had appreciated over 25 per cent during the period that this deindustrialization started and had put that anchor around the necks of Canadians. That is all I said. Well, thank God the dollar is coming down. They finally started to listen to us.
The interest rates are coming down and the dollar is coming down, and why they have increased the interest rates five out of the last six weeks in Canada is beyond me. Do we not want a lower dollar to create jobs here? Members from the other side of the House are calling for it, and that member over there has too. So when he said the dollar has lost 25 per cent, he is wrong. The dollar went up more than 25 per cent. I hope he gets his mathematics straight.
Then he said General Motors shut down some plants in Canada but they also shut them down in the United States, why should we worry? Look at the figures in the last three years. Canadian auto jobs in parts and assembly have been lost at two and one-third times the rate in the U.S. We know there has been a recession. We know there is rationalization going on, but why should Canada lose jobs more quickly than the United States. That is not what we are about.
Then he talked about the vaunted trade figures. When this government across the way took office in 1984, Canada had a current account surplus of some $20 billion. Today we are in deficit. In the last quarter of last year we had an $8.1 billion current account deficit, which is a record in the history of Canada, and it surpassed even the previous record of $7.5 billion in the quarter preceding that.
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If this is the vaunted economic performance of this government on the international playing field, then my goodness they are wearing blinders and blinkers. Canadians just do not believe you, sirs, on the other side when you tell us you are doing well and that you have been good stewards of Canada's future.
Unemployment in Canada went up to 10.6 per cent. Unemployment in the United States is at 7.1 per cent. That is who we are competing with, and what are you doing to help us get those jobs back? You are naive and you have not given us a level playing field. Please start looking at individual industries. How can you work with them to make sure they have equal opportunities that our American counterparts do to get jobs? Do not give us another of these pigs in a poke like you gave us, that it was not properly negotiated. They cannot even give us binding dispute of the Honda issue. We need binding settlement of that but we cannot get it.
I wish one of those people across there would show us how we can get any resolution of the Honda dispute without the ministers going to Washington on bended knee and prostrating themselves, asking for a favour of the United States government. That is the only way they are going to get it.


An hon. member:: That is a great negotiating position.


James Scott (Jim) Peterson: That has put us in a position here in Canada that I as a Canadian am not proud to be in, and this is why changes have to be made.


Gilbert Parent: Mr. Speaker I do, indeed, thank you.
I have heard the saying that the sins of the father are sometimes visited upon the son. But we have an extension here today from the hon. member for Mississauga South who wants to visit whatever sins there might be, either real or perceived, from one brother to another. I do not know how long they are going to go on on this particular tack.
The member for Mississauga South says: "Some people would think we are not capable of running a countiy." Well, I would like to have on record now that I am one of those who believes that this government has not been capable, is not capable, and will not be capable
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of running Canada. All you have to do is look at their track record.
The hon. member for Mississauga South said that he was a little bit confused at what the member from Willowdale was saying. Contrary to that, I am not confused at all, but I would like the hon. member from Willowdale to make one further comment.
The member mentioned the auto industry. [Translation]


Mr. Plourde:: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. I think that the time for questions and comments is over and we must now move on to debate.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Koury):: Two seconds.


Gilbert Parent: I will take up the 42 seconds, if you do not mind, and the 42 seconds will be in the form of a question, which is specifically this. If we indeed were sold down the river with this free trade deal, I would like your comments, Mr. Member, through you, Mr. Speaker-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Koury):: Your time is over, thank you.


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to have the opportunity to speak in support of the motion that we are debating today, the motion from the hon. member for Winnipeg Transcona:
Thai, in the opinion of this House, Canada should withdraw from the negotiations concerning a North American free trade agreement, give notice of withdrawal from the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, and pursue a global trade strategy not based on making the planet an unfettered playground for the multinational corporate elite.


Don Boudria: What does that mean precisely?


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: Well, if the hon. member would allow me to proceed I will explain.
There have been plenty of reports, including even the speech of the last speaker from the Liberal Party, that have pointed out the failures of the free trade agreement and the likely failures of the North American free trade agreement. There have been plenty of reports that have shown that the only beneficiaries of it, the only reliable beneficiaries, are the multinational corporations.

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I do not intend to rehearse all those arguments because there are some other points that should be made in this debate concerning the alternative possibilities. I will come to them a little bit farther along, but I want to give simply one of the major reasons for not renegotiating but abrogating the free trade agreement.
The free trade agreement places Canadian law subordinate to American law. That is to say, according to the free trade agreement in title I, section 102, Relationship of the Agreement to United States Law, page 1853 states:
(a) United States Laws to Prevail In Conflict-No provision of the Agreement, nor the application of any such provision to any person or circumstances, which is in conflict with any law of the United States shall have effect.
Fair enough, if that is going to be a two-way street, but it is not. The agreement elsewhere in volume 2, schedule part A, article 103, Extent of Obligation on page 2 states:
The Parties to this Agreement shall ensure that all necessary measures are taken in order to give effect to its provisions including their observance, except as otherwise provided in this Agreement by state, provincial and local governments.
In other words, American laws are totally protected from being reduced or set aside or hindered by the agreement. Canadian laws have no such protection in the agreement. It is a monstrous trick to subordinate Canada to the White House and to the American corporations. That is the reason why our party, at its convention last year, adopted the necessity of abrogating the free trade agreement and why that is the position that our party leader has consistently upheld.
That is the position of our party, as restated before then and since then many times by our leader, by our spokesman on international trade and by other members of this party. Since the government is hard-hearted on it and the Liberal Party waffles on it, I want to look at two of the reasons given for entering and maintaining the free trade agreement in order to dispose of them.
One of the reasons given is that it will help the poor Mexican workers. The Prime Minister loves to get up with flippant sarcasm and and say "Why are Canadians objecting to losing jobs? Don't you want to help the poor Mexicans?". It is well known that the Prime Minister does not give two hoots for the situation of jobless Canadians, therefore there is no reason to suppose that he has the slightest interest in helping jobless Americans or under-employed Americans or jobless Mexicans either or the under-employed ones.
The fact is that there is plenty of evidence to show that the total policies of the American and Canadian banks, the American and Canadian corporations and the American and Canadian governments are not increasing the employment opportunities and the pay opportunities for Mexicans, they are decreasing them. I quote from a paper done last year by Jorge Calderone Salazar on "Free Trade Agreement: Democracy and National Sovereignty in Mexico". This is what he says is needed. I will not cover the whole paper.
Serious negotiations on foreign debt should begin immediately, particularly with regard to the debt to the U.S. and Canadian banks in accordance with a proposal to reduce substantially the interest rate and the principle.
Since a well-known supporter of the free trade agreement, Diane Francis, purported to report Audrey McLaughlin otherwise, she has written a letter to the Financial Post on December 3 as follows:
Dear Editor:
In your October 26th edition, you published extracts from a lengthy and wide-ranging interview between myself and Diane Francis. On page 1 of the same issue, Ms. Francis draws some conclusions, among them that the New Democrats have softened their position on the free trade agreement. This conclusion is not accurate. Our party continues to oppose the deal and maintains the position that it ought to be abrogated. A New Democratic Party government would use the six-month provisions contained in the agreement to notify the United States of our intention to cancel the deal.
His position is that none of this trade deal will benefit Mexico so long as it has to pay out more than it takes in on the debt. He goes on to say:
Recent experience shows that it is perfectly feasible for Mexico to negotiate a framework agreement with the United States and Canada, similar to the one signed by Mexico with the European Economic Community on April 26, 1991. This is a road that needs to be explored in order to arrive at within a few years the formulation of a policy that is beneficial to the people of Mexico.
We have heard the judgment of Senator Calderone and many others, as well as ours, that the free trade agreement is not intended to help Mexican workers or campesina. It will not and in fact it cannot.

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The second argument, of course, which is more popularly used is that Canada is too weak to stand alone against the United States. We have a population of only 26 million or so and they have 10 times as many. They have 100 times as much money and so people like the hon. minister who led off this morning for the government side are saying in effect that whatever the United States wants will inevitably happen, so if we cannot lick them, we had better join them.
That is the attitude of the banks, the large corporations of Canada and the government which they control through the Business Council on National Issues. They decided to join the American corporations in exploiting all the peoples of Canada, the United States and Mexico and, of course, intending to go beyond that. It is the Mexican workers and campesinos who are making known that they want allies against the kind of thing that the North American free trade agreement represents.
My point is that Canadians, who now in the majority oppose the free trade agreement according to the polls, are not alone in this matter. We are no longer isolated up in the frozen north. As has been acknowledged across the way, we have fax machines, we have jet planes, we communicate with the 380 million strong nationals south of American border and in the Caribbean.
A year ago when I went to the state of Morelos to observe their strange election practice of not allowing secret voting, I also met with some trade unionists in Mexico. The burden of their remarks to me was that we need an international bill of rights for labour.
Mr. Speaker, I see you are signalling to me a time limit. Can you tell me how much more time I have?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Koury):: One minute.


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: I thought we had 20 minutes to speak.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Koury):: Yes, you have 20 minutes.


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: As I was saying, they are asking for the kind of international labour rights that have been written into the agreement in the European Community but are absolutely rejected by the President of the United States, the President of Mexico and Prime Minister Mulroney of
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Canada as part of the agreement. We are told: "You will come along and get those later, maybe".
In October the New Democratic Party sent me to Zacatecus to a meeting that was concurrent with the meeting of the trade ministers. It was a meeting of the Action Canada network, the counterpart networks from the United States, from Mexico, and a number of other political, academic and labour figures from Mexico.
At that meeting we adopted guidelines for a three nation movement for a citizens' alternative development program. I will mention a few of the points on which we agreed; that we should cancel or reduce Mexico's $100 billion debt to foreign banks; that we should cancel the free trade agreement between Canada and the United States; that we should equalize people's conditions across the three countries in work: wages, safety and democratic unions; in the community living conditions; health and education for migrant workers, equal rights with other workers. We should establish equality of women with men across the three countries. Each country should control its own culture, education, communication system and so on.
I will not take the time to list all of the matters on which we agreed. My point is that they are looking for allies among Canadians and they are finding them.
Two weeks ago I attended a meeting in Peru, sent by the NDP, a meeting of the Sao Paolo Forum, a group of Latin American and Caribbean parties that oppose U.S trade domination. They invited the NDP and the NDP sent me. I do not know whether they invited the Liberals. The Liberals were invited to the meeting I attended in Zacatecus but they did not send anyone. I did not see any Liberals at the meeting in Lima but I cannot say whether they were invited.
The people who invited me asked me to describe the deceptions used by the Prime Minister and this government to hoodwink the Canadian people into returning the government of the free trade agreement in the last election. They asked me to outline the damage done by the free trade agreement in the last three years which I did.
They want Canadians as allies in their struggles with the United States. They want our experience of free

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trade, our knowledge of the United States. They want our trade and they want our voice in international affairs.
My point is that we are not alone. Not only the Latin Americans, including the Mexicans, but in the United States a growing group is advocating opposition to the free trade agreement. The AFL-CIO has registered its view. Many specific unions and locals have, church groups have, academic figures have. There is also a mounting campaign there to have a publicly administered and a publicly funded health insurance scheme like the Canadian one, which the free trade advocates would like to destroy by giving American corporations the right to manage Canadian hospitals and other institutions.
Besides that we have allies in Canada. The position of the Canadian Labour Congress is quite clear in opposition to the free trade agreement. We have research groups such as the Latin American Working Group and the Ecumenical Coalition for Economic Justice, which used to be called GATT-fly, which for many years have been exploring relationships with the Mexicans in preparation for the kind of bad deal that has been foisted upon us.
We have the churches, many of whose Canadian leaders, especially Roman Catholic ones, have spoken against the trade deal. I want to quote John Paul II, not on the trade deal of course, on which he has not spoken to my knowledge, but on a basic principle that was appealed to by the member for Winnipeg Transcona. The Pope said: "What is the origin of all the evils to which Rerum Novarum wished to respond, if not a kind of freedom, which in the economic and social activity cuts itself off from the truth about man". In other words, what the Pope has been teaching, as his predecessors did, is that unbridled market relationships without any regard for the need of people as individual persons is contrary to his teaching.
As one who does not regard the Pope as infallible, I would say that this and many other things that he has said are well worth listening to, including his encyclical Centesimal Anno.
I want to point out that there are proposals circulating in Canada, some of them endorsed by the NDP already and others under study, for an alternative version, an alternative policy, for example, on investment which would mean that the rights of people are to assert sovereignty over their economies, to choose their own
development priorities, reject the principle of national treatment for foreign investors and instead assert the right of sovereign states to enforce regulations governing the activities of transnational corporations. It goes on to detail them further.
It has an alternative policy on services, for developing service industries which would rule out national treatment and the right of establishment for foreign investors. Instead it will allow sovereign peoples to set rules governing which services could be provided by TNCs and which services would be allocated to domestic firms. This has been circulated for a year by the Ecumenical Coalition for Economic Justice and is being studied widely.
It continues:
An alternative policy for intellectual property such as drug patents.
An alternative view of intellectual property rights treats patents and copyrights as privileges rather than absolute rights. A development centred policy on intellectual property rights would recognize the sovereign right of countries to establish their own patent and copyright systems to enforce generic drug laws, to adapt technology to uses as appropriate to their stage of development, to exclude inappropriate technology from their borders and to resist pressures for global harmonization of patent laws in TNC interests.
Finally I want to mention their comments on agriculture.
An alternative approach to agriculture would begin with a recognition of people's right to basic food self-reliance. Countries have the right to protect themselves from the dumping of food commodities on to world markets at prices that are below the cost of production.
It is crucial to distinguish between subsidies that systematically encourage over-production and export dumping and subsidies designed to encourage food self-reliance, ecologically sound agricultural practices and other legitimate development objectives.
In conclusion, I want to say that there are alternative programs and policies being worked out not only by the NDP but by many groups across Canada who oppose the free trade agreement and the North American free trade agreement.
If we had been given fuller information by the government during the negotiations of both those agreements, if we had been given the information reports that the government swore to give to us, year by year, about the progress, we would be better able to mount those studies now. But because of the secrecy in which this government conducts its policies, refusing even to let Parliament know what is being resolved in our names, the work
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has been slow, but it is progressing and it is getting wider and wider circulation.
I also wish to refer to a document that is being worked on by a group within my own constituency in which they want to mount a public statement around five points:
1.	Cancel the free trade deal-and they give detail on that.
2.	Let us put Canadians to work now.
3.	Fair taxes will give us the money we need.
4.	Strengthen our social services.
5.	Canadians need a say in developing our economy nationally and locally.
So in reiteration I want to quote again the motion of the hon. member for Winnipeg Transcona:
That, in the opinion of this House, Canada should withdraw from the negotiations concerning a North American free trade agreement, give notice of withdrawal from the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, and pursue a global strategy not based on making the planet an unfettered playground for the multinational corporate elite.
In short, Mr. Speaker, dump the deal.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: Mr. Speaker, I am quite interested in the member's speech. I am pleased that he was down in Mexico while negotiations were taking place on the free trade agreement.
Bearing in mind that the Government of Mexico is pressing this agreement with the United States and is prepared to negotiate with the United States alone, is it his view that Canada should not be at the table, that Canada should let the Americans and the Mexicans negotiate their own free trade agreement, and that we should not be anywhere close to the Mexicans? Should we not be there advising the Mexicans as to what they might want to look out for if they are making a deal with the Americans? Would he not think that we ought to extend our good offices and our assistance to the Mexicans?
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Is it his policy and the policy of his party that we should just walk away from the table on the North American free trade agreement that is presently being negotiated with the Mexicans and not do anything?
That is my first question. My second question is, bearing in mind that we are quite proud of our medicare system, does he not think that by being in a trade agreement with the Americans and doing a great deal of business with them, increasing trade every year, a very substantial increased volume since 1988, that we influence American politics to some extent? As he pointed out, even some of the American unions are trying to stop our free trade agreement with the United States, that that agreement is not persuading Americans to perhaps have public medicare themselves? Does he not think that trade is an influential way that we can extend the good offices of Canada to the rest of the world?


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member as usual misrepresents what I am saying by suggesting that I am against trade. What the NDP opposes is not trade but we oppose putting all our eggs in one basket and giving the key to it to the President of the United States.
We can offer advice to the Mexicans. I have been doing it and the Prime Minister has been doing it. Some of my advice was more truthful than his, when he went down there and told them that the free trade agreement created 250,000 new jobs in the first year in Canada.
We can continue to offer advice, but I do not want Canada to cede some more of our sovereignty, especially to a government that is as illegitimate as the government of President Salinas. He only gained the presidency by corrupting the last election in such an extraordinary way that even the Organization of American States objected to it. They simply stopped the counting when they found that the opposition party was ahead, and a week later they produced figures to show that Salinas was ahead. I do not want Canada subordinate to an agreement with that kind of dictatorial ruler, who sends the police out to smash trade unions and to assassinate academics or church people who oppose him.
I do not want Canada sitting in those meetings, because our Prime Minister has shown that he has a great weakness for giving the Americans anything they

March 13, 1992
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ask for. American Express wanted greater banking rights in Canada than the banks have; he gave it to them. What he got for it in return, I do not know. What he got for Canada, he has never told us. So I do not want that kind of weak-kneed giveaway being carried on in the free trade negotiations with the U.S. and Mexico.
As to increasing trade with the U.S., no. We have too many eggs in that basket already. I want us to increase trade with the Latin American countries, with the Caribbean. According to today's report, the GATT authority has said that the North American free trade agreement will hinder trade to the disadvantage of Caribbean and Latin American countries. They will be losers as a result of the North American free trade agreement. Though we have not had a chance to read the full report, I think they might well be right in that perception. It certainly is the perception of the people that I met in Lima two weeks ago. I would say we have to do our best to make GATT a more democratic organization than it is and the United Nations a more democratic organization than it is, rather than being so cowardly as just to throw our lot in with the guy who used to be the head of the CIA, President Bush.


Dennis Joseph Mills: I listened carefully to the member from Spadina speak, and he started off by saying he would cancel the free trade agreement, but then he went on to put forward a list of alternative approaches to the United States, which would presumably be much more beneficial to Canada's agenda.
Some of the proposals he is putting forward sound quite reasonable, and with a strong negotiator, I think a lot of those proposals would be attainable. Does he not think it would be a much more constructive or a less disruptive process to first try to advance his amendments, his constructive alternatives, and see if he can sell them? What if he did? What if he could make those amendments that he just cited today to the free trade agreement? What if, through a proper explanation and a strong leadership, a future president accepted those conditions?
I, for example, have never felt comfortable with the area of the free trade agreement related to water. I have always wanted a one page special protocol letter saying water is exempt from this deal. Make no mistake about it, it should be a separate negotiation.
We have never tried because we have a Prime Minister, basically, who has gone along with most of what the Americans want. But we may be blessed with a leader eventually that will say: "Hey, if you want to keep this in place, here is what we need." Would that not be a more constructive way to go?


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: I thank the hon. member for a very relevant question. He did, however, miss part of what I said. The President of the United States and the President of Mexico and the present Prime Minister of Canada have already publicly refused, a year ago, to consider any labour or environmental matters in the free trade agreement. They have rejected the very concept of having any such things in. They have gone so far along with the agreement that the only way we can preserve the possibility of what the member has suggested is by withdrawing from the agreement now.
Second, and again I made this point clear in my speech, what I want is that we should negotiate these things with all countries, not trying, as the Prime Minister once rightly perceived, as a mouse to negotiate with the elephant. Before he was converted to free trade he said it would be like the mouse sleeping with the elephant. He was right then and wrong ever since.
We should be negotiating with all the countries of this hemisphere, and we have the possibility of doing that. They want us to. They have asked us to. We should be negotiating with the whole hemisphere, and that would give us the clout necessary to get the United States to come to reason or else to elect a president who would come to reason.


André Plourde: Mr. Speaker, the opposition motion seems to be an overreaction to the problems that Canada is having in its trade relations with the United States. Unfortunately, it takes no account of all the positive aspects in Canada-U.S. relations.
Mr. Speaker, it is true that last week was not easy. We would be lying if we did not admit that we were
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disappointed by Washington's decision on Honda and softwood lumber. We are very disappointed, in fact. We do not believe that these decisions are justified, but we are convinced that we will win in the end, as we did with pork. The stakes were considerable then. It took time, but the facts proved us right. That is why the government is convinced that the policy adopted seven years ago was right and that it remains just as valid today.
For those of you who might have forgotten, let me remind you of the reasons. From the outset, we had three objectives in our negotiations with the United States.
First, we wanted to improve access to the American market for our products and services. We wanted to encourage Canadian producers to break out of the straitjacket imposed by the small domestic market, to retool and to take on the world market. The American market was not an end in itself but a starting point for a greater presence on world markets. We accepted the fact that increased American competition on our own market would encourage Canadians to discipline themselves and to restructure in order to face world competition.
Second, we wanted secure access to the U.S. market. We wanted to be able to give as much assurance as possible to Canadian entrepreneurs who decided to enter the American market that they would not be the victims of arbitrary, ill-considered decisions. We wanted our economic and trade relations with the United States to be protected by rules agreed upon by both parties and uniformly applied.
Finally, we wanted to entrench this improved secure access in a legal framework, with institutional provisions and dispute settlement mechanisms that would go a long way to making us equal partners, governed by rules and procedures accepted by both parties.
Noble words, grandiose objectives. Have they been achieved, Mr. Speaker? On the whole, yes. That is the conclusion which the government came to in 1987 and which it maintains today.
It is not naive but realistic. The international agreements have to do with improvements and compromises that were carefully negotiated. Only one criterion applied: Would the agreement be a tangible improvement over the previous status quo? Based on this criterion, the government concluded in 1987 that the
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agreement negotiated was a marked improvement over
the status quo.
Furthermore, the Canadian people agreed with us in the 1988 election. None of the events in the last three and a half years have changed this assessment-not the verification of Honda cars nor softwood lumber, beer or magnesium. Are we indifferent to the difficulties experienced by Canada's auto workers, forestiy workers, miners and brewers? Certainly not, Mr. Speaker. Each of these instances is very disturbing, and we have always used all available resources and taken every opportunity to defend our interests and to help people in difficult situations. We will continue our efforts in this respect, and we will do so, with all the energy we have and all the recourse at our disposal.
The Prime Minister said this quite clearly to President Bush. The external affairs minister sent the same message to James Baker, as the trade minister did to Carla Hills and Barbara Franklin.
However, these disputes should be put into context, Mr. Speaker. Bilateral trade between Canada and the United States is now estimated at $256 billion. This represents three-quarters of our exports and two-thirds of our imports. About two million Canadians are directly dependent on this trade for their living, and millions more enjoy indirect benefits.
During the past 10 years, trade between Canada and the United States has gradually increased. In 1985, when Canadians started giving serious consideration to free trade, goods and services worth approximately $200 billion crossed the border. Since then, this type of trade has increased at an Baverage annual rate of 4 per cent. The rate may have been lower last year, Mr. Speaker, when the recession struck both economies, but trade should pick up as we come out of this recession. How do we know? It is what the statistics on investment in recent years tell us.
In fact, trade agreements are not only about current trade but about future investment. The purpose is to stimulate investment that will provide for sustained growth. In this respect, the free trade agreement remains a resounding success.
From 1986 to 1989, in other words, between the time the business community first acknowledged that Canadian-American economic relations were about to enter a new era, and the actual implementation of the agree-

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ment, capital spending by businesses increased by an annual average of nearly 12 per cent. The recession put a brake on capital spending, which nevertheless totalled $80.2 billion in 1990 and $75.2 billion in 1991, and is expected to be around $74.1 billion in 1992. This kind of investment paves the way for a period of dynamic two-way trade and production activity that will be characteristic of the remainder of the 90s.
However, even today, as we gradually come out of the recession, there are encouraging signals. In 1991, there was a 3 per cent increase in the use of marketing services, an area of international trade that is experiencing very rapid growth.
Recession or not, trade between Canada and the United States is proceeding without incident. Every day, thousands of goods cross the border quickly and efficiently, on board trucks, trains and aircraft. Not more than 5 per cent of our two-way trade is affected by the various trade disputes. Without minimizing the importance of this 5 per cent, Mr. Speaker, it must be put into context.
Let me ask the real question, let us get to the bottom line. Setting aside the rhetoric, would we really be better off without the free trade agreement? The answer, Mr. Speaker, is no. The Americans are in a bad mood. They are in a recession and 1992 is an election year. For those of us who depend on trade, this is a particularly difficult combination. The United States are taking measures against several of their trade partners. Canada is not the only target, not even the main one. Japan remains their number one target, although Europe, Brazil and other countries are also affected. We are not thrilled about the situation, Mr. Speaker. Neither are the Japanese, the Europeans or the Brazilians. That is why global trade standards must be established to provide a clearer and stricter set of rules and prevent excessive protectionism on the part of the United States and also Europe and Japan. While Canada is generally hit first and the hardest by the American strain of this virus called "unfair trade practices", protectionism is not exclusive to the United States.
The United States has a peculiar way of defining fair trade practices and the strength of their economy is such
that it can force its vision of things on others, even when inaccurate.
The fair trading system advocated by the United States rests on the premise that any producer for whom foreign competition creates hardship can plead his case before the authorities. He must show that the foreign competitor has somehow taken an unfair advantage of the United States. Over the years, the American Congress has developed numerous procedures through which American producers can vent their frustrations. In some cases, that is all it takes, but in others, the system provides for temporary or permanent penalties.
Whatever the outcome of these procedures, they are harmful, Mr. Speaker. They have a cooling effect on trade and investment and they erode investors' confidence. The big losers are the American economy and consumers, but we are also hurt.
The American system has gradually become uncontrollable. Once out, it is hard to get the genie back into the bottle. U.S. trade policy is marked by a lack of vision and leadership. The gap between the rhetoric and U.S. action is widening constantly. The U.S. is overly fond of preaching free trade while giving its own subjective and changeable definition of fair trade.
The answer is not to give tit for tat, because, as I said earlier, we often end up harming our own interests. The answer lies in negotiating international trade rules. We know that, and so does the U.S. In fact, U.S. representatives freely admit they need proper regulations more than any other country because their own system is too vulnerable to special interests.
That is why we have the free trade agreement and why we must keep demanding better and clearer regulations. It is also why we must have global trading standards and a three-way agreement between the United States, Mexico and Canada. We must seize every opportunity to obtain agreement on a set of regulations and on better mechanisms for dispute settlement. It is not a matter of one or the other. We need both to achieve one and the same objective: a more open, more predictable and more stable trading system.
However, the best cure for the current protectionist trend will be tangible proof that the recession is coming to an end, especially in the United States. We have reason to be optimistic. U.S. company reports are improving. Mortgages are being refinanced at lower rates.
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Consumers have more money to spend, and the private sector is eager to supply the demand.
Any recovery in the U.S. economy will improve our prospects and strengthen confidence in the economy. Once again, Canada has realized that its well-being depends on that of its neighbour. However, once American consumers start spending again, we will be there to benefit, and we will be in a better position to take advantage of these opportunities. The past five years of adjustment and restructuring will have been worthwhile. Canadian entrepreneurs, now stronger and more competitive, will be able to take advantage of our improved access under the free trade agreement.
There are people who maintain that the agreement has made us a favourite target of U.S. protectionists and that it has removed our defences. Now who is being naive?
Anyone who is successful becomes a target, Mr. Speaker. U.S. interests will always take an aggressive stand against imports. Americans are no different from anyone else in this respect. Obviously exports are more readily acceptable than imports. Any country would prefer one-way free trade. However, trade with other countries is a source of wealth, and both exports and imports are a way to stimulate growth.
It is a fact that Canada still shows a substantial surplus in its trade with the United States. Our annual exports to the United States have increased by $5 billion since 1988, the year before the implementation of free trade. In comparison, we have a general trade deficit of $7.7 billion with the rest of the world. This tells us that the free trade agreement is working well and that it helps preserve Canadian jobs. According to the agreement, customs duties will not be fully phased out until 1998, but exporters in both countries have already applied for accelerated elimination of certain customs tariffs between our two countries. So far, Canadian companies have requested and obtained two series of accelerated tariff reductions which have made it possible to eliminate customs duty on nearly 1,000 tariff items worth a total of $8 billion in bilateral trade. A third series is now under way.
Critics are confusing Canadians by blaming the free trade agreement for lay-offs in our manufacturing sector. One fact worth mentioning is that the current decline in employment in the manufacturing sector is
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more or less on a par with the number of jobs lost during the 1982 recession, when there was no free trade.
The loss of jobs in the manufacturing sector is not a recent phenomenon. In 1972, about 22 per cent of Canadians worked in the manufacturing sector. By 1990, this percentage had dropped to 15.9 per cent. The displacement of jobs from the manufacturing sector to the service sector is a phenomenon that we share with most developed countries, including Japan. It reflects the impact of the broad restructuring of our global economy.
Furthermore, increased employment in the service sector has more than compensated for the decline in jobs in the manufacturing sector. Administrative, professional and technical positions accounted for one-third of the growth in employment between 1971 and 1981, compared to 77 per cent between 1981 and 1986. According to Statistics Canada, these job categories will account for more than half of the new jobs created in the 1990s. Our manufacturing sector is neither dead nor seriously threatened. It is misleading to mention only jobs losses as proof that our secondary sector is declining. The total value of production in constant dollars and the manufacturing share of the total economy are more accurate indicators. According to these indicators, our manufacturing sector is maintaining itself.
In fact, employment increased in telecommunications and transportation equipment, aerospace and computer software. Since 1988, exports of Canadian finished products in such things as aerospace, industrial machinery, transportation equipment and chemicals have risen by about $4 billion.
Let me add, Mr. Speaker, that the free trade agreement is attracting foreign investment to Canada, investments that go to Canadian manufacturing and create jobs in Canada. Net direct foreign investment is positive for the first time in 16 years. The free trade agreement has encouraged Canadian companies to reduce their investments in the United States and to invest more in Canada.
Inevitably, the largest bilateral trade relationship in the world has tensions and problems, especially in a recession. Because of the present recession, the two governments have difficulty managing the bilateral trade relationship, and this is an election year in the United States. But the free trade agreement has protected Canadian companies from the arbitrary and unfair application of trade remedies provided in American law.

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Final decisions on anti-dumping and countervailing duties can now be examined by a special binational panel.
We also have the right to request a binational review of any change to existing laws and regulations on countervailing and anti-dumping duties.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, the United States cannot apply new trade laws to Canada unless these laws comply with GATT and the spirit and letter of the free trade agreement. No other country has such protection from unfair trade action.
Ask our pork producers. The special panels under the free trade agreement saved them $20 million last year by eliminating U.S. countervailing duties.
We are determined to protect Canadian interests and to have the spirit and letter of the free trade agreement respected, because it remains the best guarantee for our trade relations.


Dennis Joseph Mills: Mr. Speaker, I listened to the member's speech and, quite frankly, I have to question him on a couple of things.
First of all, he talked about increased foreign investment. Foreign investment in this country in the last couple of years, especially in the area of manufacturing, has shrunk dramatically. That is one of the reasons why our smaller and medium sized businesses are having difficulties, there is such a shortage of capital in the market. So I do not really think that free trade did anything to enhance foreign investment in this country.


An hon. member:: Not true.


Dennis Joseph Mills: It really has not.


Mr. O'Kurley:: In my riding $800 million in Dow Chemical.


Dennis Joseph Mills: I take the hon. member's point, Dow Chemical, $800 million, and I give him full recognition. But there are 1,700,000 businesses in this country and he cites to me Dow Chemical. I will give him Dow Chemical, but the bottom line is that because there is so little foreign capital coming into this country and because we have such a deficit and debt to service, that has reduced the availability of capital within our banking system.
I will bet you dollar to doughnuts that nine out of ten entrepreneurs who you approach on the street today will tell you that they are finding it very difficult to get additional lines of credit for more capital. That is just the simple truth of it.
Regarding the issue at hand, this free trade agreement, the more I listen to the government side of this House, the more I am happy to be on the record that I campaigned against the free trade agreement, especially chapters 14 and 16. The minister responsible for the environment will know well that most of her constituents, if they had a chance today, would not support her position on this free trade agreement. They would reverse it.
The point that I wanted to ask the member specifically about, and I am reading here and I do not want to cite exclusively from Mel Hurtig's book The Betrayal of Canada because there are some things in it that I do not go along with-


Mr. Soetens:: What an authority.


Dennis Joseph Mills: No, I qualified my remarks.


Pauline Browes: Not true.


Dennis Joseph Mills: But I do. This is not a quote from Mel Hurtig, this is a quote from an American research magazine. It says that the majority of branch plants in Canada are not permitted by their U.S. parent to export into the U.S. market and compete with them there. Among the long list of "not free to export" companies are Avon, Revlon, Gillette, Mennen, Noxema, Max Factor, Jergens and Lever Brothers.
Does the hon. member not think that there could be or should be some kind of an instant audit and review or a midway review about how this free trade agreement is really affecting the day to day life of the manufacturing industry in this country.
Cannot the government see that there is a global recession and there are some difficulties in the world that we are naturally being affected by. Does the member not think that it would be a good idea to strike a committee to do an audit and a review to see what negative impacts, and maybe positive in certain areas, we
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can find so that we know exactly what is going on with this free trade agreement and then we can go from there?


André Plourde: Mr. Speaker, as a parliamentarian with eight years experience, I think that I can give an answer to my hon. colleague from the Liberal Party. Before taking up politics, I was an industrialist and over the course of 28 years, I have worked to set up three businesses. By 1988, they had the capacity to export to the U.S. I extend an invitation to my hon. colleague from the Liberal Party to come and visit my riding of Kamou-raska-Riviere-du-Loup. He will see that employment has doubled in these businesses established in a city with a population of only 13,500. I am not talking about big cities like Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver, but Riviere-du-Loup. The free trade agreement has enabled small business to seek new markets in the U.S.
The hon. member quoted a book. Let me quote in turn Mrs. Elisabetta Bigsby, vice-president of the Royal Bank International Trade Centre. I have learned a few things in politics. The politicians in this House are all bright people, but there are others outside these walls and we must listen to them. In a speech she gave in Quebec city earlier this week, Mrs. Bigsby, vice-president of the Royal Bank International Trade Centre said that Quebec has done the right thing in supporting free trade. That is not a politician talking, or a reporter or an author. I think we should believe Mrs. Bigsby.
She was the keynote speaker at a conference lunch organized by the association of Quebec business women. They carry some weight, as you know, Mr. Speaker. She said, and I quote:
When you depend on a single market with relatively few products, as we do in Canada-
She did not say Quebec, she said Canada.
-you are in for a bad time when the economy of this buyer country slows down. That is why diversification must be emphasized, be it geographic diversification or product diversification.
Here in Canada, we often blame high labour costs for our international trade failures. In Germany, labour costs are even higher than here and Germany is still a world power.
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We can give two good examples of Quebec companies-SR Telecom and Vetements Louis Gareau. SR Telecom exports 90 per cent of the communication satellites it produces.
Vetements Louis Gareau makes high quality sportswear and exports all over the world. Those are perfect examples of companies which, even with the high cost of labour, have found free market niches and have penetrated the export markets.
Mrs. Bigsby mentions that 50 years ago international trade represented 20 per cent of all commercial transactions while it represents more than 50 per cent today.
She concludes by saying:
Since international trade is now done between blocs like the EEC, Asia, South America or the members of the free trade agreement, Quebec was right in approving this Agreement which can only be good for the province.
If I may, Mr. Speaker, I would like to answer another question. The member mentioned that I did not talk about investments in my statement. I'll have him know that Pratt & Whitney, for example, made investments of approximately $130 million in Halifax and that Louisiana Pacific Panel Products Limited invested $65 million in Point Tupper, Nova Scotia.
Pratt & Whitney Canada also invested $1.8 billion in Longueuil, Halifax and Mississauga, Ontario. Papeterie Daishowa invested $130 million in Quebec city and another company invested $120 million in Riviere-Beau-dette, Quebec.
Now for the investments in Ontario; there is Dupont-$600 million in Kingston, Trenton, Ajax, Whitby and Sarnia; Bois Cascades Canada-$90 million in Keno-ra, and I am only talking about investments made in Ontario, not in Quebec. Kimberly-Clark-$60 million in Terrace Bay, Ontario; Goodyear Canada-$370 million in Napanee.
I could go on and on but I will stop here and say this: it is easy to forget. We never take the past enough into account; is the past not a taken of things to come?


Ralph Ferguson: Mr. Speaker, I want to say at the outset that I am going to share my time with the hon. member for Winnipeg South Centre.

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I should comment at the outset that this is an opposition motion by the New Democratic Party, moved by the member for Winnipeg Transcona. Earlier in the day he made reference to the member for Vancouver Quadra not carrying on the fight of his life. That member was the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada during the last election. It was a fight, a tremendous fight.
But I want to point out that if the leader of the New Democratic Party had attacked the government with the persistence that we did, then the government would have been turfed out of office. But rather than attack the government that is responsible for the free trade debacle, members of the NDP attacked the Liberals because they were determined that they would be the official opposition. But had they attacked the government and the government was turfed out, they could very well have ended up as the official opposition. The Liberals would have been in power and we would have scrapped the free trade agreement at that time and we would not be in the mess we are in today.
I thought I would get some applause from the New Democratic benches but, Madam Speaker, there is not one here to take part in their own debate.
I take part in this debate today as a Canadian who has witnessed first hand the systematic dismantling of this nation by a government whose loyalties are to the rich and the powerful, loyalties that should be toward this nation and her people, but loyalties that have been redirected toward interests outside of Canada, corporate interests whose objective is power and financial domination.
Canadians are now paying a terribly high price; high unemployment, factories closing and moving to the United States and Mexico, our social systems being dismantled and medicare eroded. The free trade agreement has stripped Canada of the power to intervene and protect our cultural, economic and social programs. In fact I have to wonder just how long it will be until medicare is hit with a countervail action by the United States.
This could be the scenario. A United States firm raises the issue that its company is paying its employees' health benefits and a competing firm in Canada is taking its
markets. Because Canadians have a current health plan that covers everyone, then I suggest that such a countervail will take place.
This free trade agreement is an unmitigated disaster, even worse than we had forecast. The U.S. trade remedy laws are intact and indeed supersede the agreement, but here in Canada we made many changes to our laws; changes to the unemployment insurance premiums, crop insurance, interest free loans on farm stored grain, the At and East, and the list goes on, all to accommodate the FTA. These are items that are brought about by various sectors of our economy due to the needs of our people, but items that could be misconstrued to be subsidies and subject to countervail by the U.S.
When we look at some of the actions by the U.S. since free trade came in, the countervail on our lumber, the fish issue on the west coast, the continuation of the export enhancement programs, in clear violation of the free trade agreement, our government does nothing. On March 18, 1991,1 laid out the procedures in an adjournment debate in this House, as reported at page 18640 of Hansard, to call for consultations on compensation under the free trade agreement but the Tories have done nothing. They have done nothing to protect Canadian grain farmers from the huge export subsidies in the U.S. These grain subsidies are driving our producers out of business and causing very low prices in the total grain sector.
In the softwood lumber case we had unrestricted access to the United States market for our lumber, for everything except prefabricated housing and plywood. Unrestricted access was negotiated under the GATT in the Tokyo round and given away under the free trade agreement. Now we have a government trying to throw up a smoke screen and speaking of retaliation. This is sheer hypocrisy.
I have said from the beginning of the FTA negotiations that it totally ignores the reality of the climatic zones and agricultural geography of North America.
As a life-long agriculturalist I contend that the FTA is clearly detrimental to the economic well-being of the Canadian agriculture sector. Mother nature alone dictates that there is no level playing field. Our physical loss
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in Canadian agriculture, our climatic area, our soils and abundance of moisture have been completely ignored.
In 1987 the United States government identified Canadian marketing agencies and systems as a trade distorting structure. Yet our negotiators and the government have done nothing to protect our industry against continuing attacks from both inside and outside Canada. Not only have they recognized the differences in our physical base but they have now admitted the fact that input costs in Canada are 25 per cent higher in comparison to those in the United States. They have not admitted that either.
More than 80 food processing firms have closed in Canada since January 1989, 46 of those in Ontario alone. Over 80 food processing plants have closed since free trade came into Canada. By contrast, we see huge new hyper-plants becoming the norm in the United States. If one U.S. company can supply a particular type of ice-cream with only two huge plants in the whole country then we have to realize it could easily supply the smaller Canadian market also without much addition.
Consequently, by ignoring these differences and entering into a free trade agreement that did not specifically exclude the essential elements of our industry, Canada has been placed in an impossible situation by this government. The Canada-U.S.-Mexico free trade agreement would make this situation even worse, particularly in the area of food production and processing.
It is imperative Canadian people know what is going on in these negotiations. We currently see the Canadian dairy and poultry sectors under siege at the GATT due to the free trade agreement and the fall-out.
Time after time we have seen time honoured Canadian institutions established under statute of this House being traded away in secret, behind closed doors at the GATT, in the free trade agreement, and now in the Canada-U.S.-Mexico trade negotiations.
I am deeply concerned that on May 1, 1991 our trade minister threw his support behind the U.S. position that environmental concerns be excluded from the negotiations in the North American free trade agreement. They are ignoring global warming and the thinning of the ozone.
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In June 1991 the same minister said that he wanted to see Canadian firms get the same access to the inexpensive Mexican labour pool as U.S. firms. Again they are ignoring the 1.5 million unemployed Canadians.
Just to give some indication of the differences in the wage rates, I have a chart here showing Mexican total compensation and minimum wage data. In 1980 the manufacturing sector in Mexico was paying $2.85 an hour. Now it is down to $2 an hour. In 1980 it was a $1.36 an hour in the Maquiladora manufacturing area. It is down to 99 cents an hour now. The minimum wage in 1980 was $1.21. It is now down to 59 cents. Is this what the minister had in mind when he is going to tap those huge labour pools?
I have to ask the government: If that is the case, what is it going to do to the standard of living in Canada and what opportunity does that present to 1.5 million unemployed Canadians?
On the other hand, we intend to show the people of Canada what is happening here. Because of that reason we have to know what is going on because the government is not going to tell us. Will we continue to allow foreign investors to siphon off huge dividends from our economy, from areas which exercise near monopoly positions in the market and have profits three times higher than those of their own United States operations? As we examine such instances do our competition laws apply, and what about the anti-trust legislation in the U.S.? Is it being enforced? I suggest not.
We are seeing a massive concentration of power in the hands of fewer and fewer trans-national corporations and the direction of this government is giving them the agenda to carry out their ambitions.
I am deeply concerned about the future of this nation, the people of this nation and their standard of living. In Mexico, as I pointed out earlier, the wages are far, far less. Yet the government keeps telling us we have to be more competitive with a nation whose wages are far below ours and are still going down.
Finally, what can I tell my grandchildren? I can only recall to them the era when I was their age, an era which put the needs of the people, the needs and welfare of the population, above the greed and the ambitions of huge corporate structures.

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As a Canadian, I am very alarmed about what is happening in Canadian society today and what is happening to our structures, to our institutions. It is time the Government of Canada listened to the will of the people and stopped taking direction from the multinational corporations whose bottom line is profit and greed.


Kenneth Albert James: Madam Speaker, I would like to put a question to my colleague across the way. Certainly I do this with no malice because he is a friend of mine and a colleague in Lambton county. Maybe we would want to talk about our home turf as far as the free trade agreement is concerned and about the multinationals in our area that he seemed to be berating a bit. Many people who live in his riding work for either Dupont, Shell, Cabot Carbon, Dow Chemical, Esso, ICI or Ethyl. All of them are multinationals that have contributed a great deal to our community. To my mind they are companies that we all respect. They helped to build our county and our city and provide the sound, economic situation we have there.
I would hope that he was not referring to them when he was talking about the multinationals that he seemed to be indicating were raping and pillaging Canada.
On a more specific note, the free trade agreement enacted a five-year countdown on petrochemicals and tariffs. In two more years after this one there could be no tariff on petrochemicals because there is a possibility in the free trade agreement, if we have mutual agreement on both sides, to have them removed completely.
I hear his party berating the situation, talking about the dollar and the dollar needing to be lowered to have this competitive advantage. Yet I say to my colleague and friend that the free trade agreement allowed the tariffs consistently, five years or less, to be removed. This definitely makes a much more competitive position for exporting that product to the United States. All the companies in our areas supported the free trade agreement. They thought it was good because it made them more competitive. What that means is stability of jobs for the people who work in his area. Many of them supplement their farming operations by working for these companies either on an hourly or on a salaried basis.
He might want to reply to that for those back home to understand exactly, not so much those where my friend comes from but maybe where his party comes from.


Ralph Ferguson: Madam Speaker, I am delighted to respond to my colleague from Sarnia-Lambton on this very issue. I should point out to him that the Esso Corporation, Imperial Oil Limited, first started out in the town of Petrolia which is in my riding. Oil was first discovered in North America in Lambton county. It was really the birthplace of the oil industry.
However, I see the difficulties it is going through. I think of those employees at Imperial Oil who walked out the door a couple of weeks ago with no prior notice whatsoever, having been given their pink slips. I see what is happening to the petrochemical industry in that area, as well as in western Canada. It is under pressure and in direct competition with the petrochemical industry on the Texas gulf coast. I just have to wonder what is going to happen here in the long term when it comes to the free trade agreement.
We have to recognize that when those companies came into Canada, under the automotive agreement they had to operate as responsible corporate citizens. The decisions had to be made in Canada for the benefit of the majority of Canadians. That is not happening today. It is one thing that has to happen. If companies based outside Canada are going to operate in Canada, they have to be brought to task, adhere to the principles that will meet the needs of this country whether it is the environment, the welfare of our people, or for the good of the country in general.
I should point out that I have documentation on one large firm that had sales of $4.3 billion in 1990. It sent $538,700,000 in dividends back to the parent company in the U.S. It borrowed $474 million to do that. It was a tax dodge. The Canadian consumers are going to pay back that loan and pay for the interest on it. We have to get back to basics here and make sure these corporations, these transnational corporations, act as responsible corporate citizens in this nation.


Lloyd Axworthy: Madam Speaker, let me preface my comments with an opening remark. I suppose we could say with some certainty that the eyes of the nation are not exactly centred on the House of Commons, on this Friday afternoon debate. I say that with great regret because we are today dealing with what in my view is perhaps one of
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the most important issues facing Canadians now and in the future, that is a trade policy that makes sense for Canadians.
The reason it is important is that the trade policy, if we would call it that, of the present government, is in shambles. It has come apart. The wheels have fallen off. The sides have collapsed and it is going nowhere except downhill.
Do you remember those bright days of 1988 and jobs, jobs, jobs? The Prime Minister was accurate in one sense. The jobs, jobs, jobs have all gone south. Some
400,000	of them have left this country in the past two years: manufacturing jobs in southern Ontario, the petrochemical industry in Alberta and fish processing plants on the west and east coasts, furniture factories in Manitoba, clothing and textile factories in Montreal. Name it. It is happening. The jobs have disappeared, not been added to.
We also saw clearly this week the great touchstone. I looked back at the record where the Prime Minister said on March 16, 1987 that our highest priority was to have an agreement that ended the threat to Canadian industry from U.S. protectionists who harassed and restricted our exports.
What have we been debating all this week? Harassment of the United States against some of our most critical industries: hydro power in Quebec, softwood lumber which affects every province across Canada, automobile industries in Ontario. If this were the highest priority then I think any honest judgment would indicate that it has been an abject failure. The reason is that it started out with a fundamentally flawed premise that we could tie our trade strategy to a continental approach. We can lock it into North America. We can put all our eggs in that basket. We can have a dispute settlement mechanism confined simply to North American trade and Canada would become the land of milk and honey. At the time we said it would not work that way. It has not worked that way. It defied the fundamental historic experience of Canada over the past 40 years in international trade that we have to work inside an international, multilateral framework to make it work. [DOT]
The unfortunate part of signing the free trade agreement is that we abandoned that approach. We sort of
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turned it over to this North American cocoon. The real tragedy is that as the world changes, as we become more interdependent, the opportunity for trade development around the world is increasing and the Canadian opportunity to begin opening trade niches in eastern Europe, in the Russian republics, in parts of east Asia, in central and Latin America are expanding but we are not in a position to take advantage of them. Canadian trade in those areas is falling drastically behind.
One of the reasons is because of the free trade deal. We are putting handcuffs on ourselves. Limiting our ability to process our materials, limiting our ability to invest and give the kind of support to specialized Canadian industry to attract those markets is a direct result of the free trade agreement. We lost control over our own ability to have an industrial trade strategy to enable Canada to expand its markets around the world.
That was our contention during the debate of 1988. We were not arguing about lowering some tariffs because as Liberals we have been in favour of bringing down trade barriers around the world. What we were against was the price we had to pay under the free trade agreement to get that, a price on limiting investment, energy, industrial strategy, regional development. All those things that Canadians have used over the years to provide for a targeted, managed trade strategy we surrendered, we abandoned. We put a strait-jacket around ourselves and as a result our ability to respond to the burgeoning international trade opportunities is thereby limited.
We have seen in the debate this past week where time after time ministers of the Crown have got up to try to defend first the indefensible, which was the signing of a memorandum of understanding on softwood lumber in 1986, really one of the classic disasters. It makes the Battle of Dunkirk look like a victory by comparison.
I will never forget being in this House-some members were not here then-when the then minister of trade, the Hon. Pat Carney, arrived back from her vacation in Hawaii and declared to the House of Commons: "We have won a great victory" to the great applause of the Tory back benches. We had put a 15 per cent tax on ourselves, one of the great sort of ingenious solutions to a problem and in doing that, gave up the right to challenge the U.S. law at the GATT where we would have won the case and forced Americans to recognize that their trade law is wrong. We gave up an

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opportunity to use the international forum to challenge U.S. law.
I have heard the minister of trade, the Prime Minister and all the other acolytes get up and say: "We have a dispute settlement mechanism under free trade. That will work for us". They do not complete the sentence. They do not complete the equation. The dispute settlement mechanism under the free trade agreement does not allow us to challenge U.S. trade law. We can only look at whether that trade law was properly administered or not. It is not a question of being able to say to the Americans: "You are introducing protectionist trade laws that can harass us". All we can say to them is: "Did you adjudicate it properly?"
It is not a trade dispute settlement mechanism when you cannot challenge a bad law that is killing our industry. When they get up and say: "Let's use trade dispute mechanisms", they are using it as a smokescreen.
We are saying that it is not a question of taking the free trade deal and saying: "Let's get rid of it", as our friends here are saying. What we have to do is look at that free trade agreement, see how it is affecting Canadian industry and sit down with the Americans and properly negotiate those parts which are doing damage to Canada. That is the practical response.
I am surprised, and perhaps some member of the New Democratic Party will explain to me that when we took that stand, it did not mean to say that. As members well know, our own critique of the free trade agreement, which I have just outlined, is there for all to see. It is a question of what do you do about it. We have stated our option-negotiate. If there is not enough negotiation, we will exercise the right to abrogate. It was a clear statement by our leader and by our party in convention three weeks ago.
I listened to the member from Winnipeg Transcona today who seemed to be saying that that is the wrong approach. I went back and read the statement by his leader, the hon. member for Yukon, in the Financial Post, who said and I quote, and the quote is right:
If elected, we will sit down with the Americans and say how can
we make this thing work. If not, we will give them six months notice
she said.
That is a very reasonable approach and I applaud the hon. leader of the New Democratic Party for taking it, but what I am wondering is why the member for Winnipeg Transcona jumps up and down, gnashes his teeth, spits pure venom against a policy that his own leader seems to be endorsing. Mind you, he is strange, Madam Speaker.
I want to come to one final point, if I may. I realize that we only have a short time of 10 minutes. The question is, where do you go from here? Clearly we are in a position where we have to look at alternatives. I simply want to return to the trade document that we put out during the 1988 election in terms of a Liberal trade policy. We said two fundamental things. A trade strategy for Canada must be an international trade strategy. It must work through the multinational forums. It must seek to diversify our markets and we must plan domestically the kinds of programs to support Canadian industry developing those markets.
That means working to ensure that fish processing plants can process fish in Canada so we can sell to the international markets. We will do it and that is one reason why free trade is not working for us. That means investing and giving special procurement rights to Canadian industry when they buy things from a government department in order to specialize and enhance their industrial research capacity. That is what we think has to be done so we can sell our manufactured products to Third World countries or to Russia, whether it is agricultural technology or environmental technology.
We believe in an international trade strategy. We believe that even in the case of the negotiations with Mexico and the United States, we are making a big mistake in limiting ourselves to that. The opportunity, for example, of developing a hemispheric trade policy, of incorporating the countries of the Caribbean, Latin and Central America in a broad-based trade arrangement, makes some sense because we balance out the interest. We do not fall into the hub and spoke philosophy of the Americans which is all roads lead to Washington.
We are trying, once again, to have a balanced forum in which various countries can apply equal leverage to make sure that the trade law in those areas applies equally to all countries and does not have a preferred
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advantage for one strong economic power. I think this resolution would have been much better if we had a positive trade strategy, a constructive approach, not simply tearing up, throwing back, isolating ourselves, but one that looks to the future, one that looks at how this country can once again regain its capacity to be a leader in international trade and not a follower of continental trade policy.


Dennis Joseph Mills: Madam Speaker, I listened to my colleague and I want to ask him a very specific question. One of the concerns that I have always had about this free trade agreement has to do with the area related to our water resources. I have always had that concern because the chief negotiator for the United States, Clayton Yeutter, did his Ph.D. thesis in North American water management.
We have heard repeatedly from the government side of the House that water has nothing to do with this free trade agreement, yet we know that many Americans have a different view and there are also many lawyers in Canada who have a different view.
I was wondering if he could comment for a minute or two on what his views would be about water in the free trade agreement.


Lloyd Axworthy: Madam Speaker, the issue of water was one that really became an important debate when this House was considering the free trade bill and the hearings that went on about it. What we basically pointed out was articles 408 and 409 where the United States acquired the right to perpetual access to Canadian resources. Under that we went back to the annex of what those included. It included water as part of the annex. We said that when and if the time came the Americans felt that water was a crucial resource that they were running out of-and, by the way, the time is drawing nigh, it is becoming increasingly a matter of more concern-that they could use the free trade agreement to make claim upon those water resources and that our ability to manage those resources and have our own policy would be hindered and restricted by the free trade agreement.
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Furthermore, as we pointed out, we eliminated entirely under the free trade agreement the right of Canada to impose export taxes which would be one way again of ensuring that we would have the right, in terms of our natural resources, to require it to be used in Canada and if it was to be exported that we could put a tax on it to at least get a proper benefit from it. That right, of course, was again surrendered. It is one of the reasons why it is essential that the free trade agreement be renegotiated, that we expunge those articles from any kind of trade agreement because, once again, it puts Canada in a position of subservience and it puts Canada in a position of losing control over its valuable resource.
We think of the importance of water to every region of this country; to our cities, to our agricultural areas, to our sports and tourism. It will become one of the great Canadian resources in the future if we can retain control. Under the free trade agreement that is a doubtful proposition which goes back to the fundamental position of our party: the need to renegotiate the agreement.


Kenneth Albert James: Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to take part in this debate today to talk about a motion put forward by a member of the NDP asking for immediate withdrawal from the FTA. I am pleased to see that even the Official Opposition now, after they had a meeting in Hull where the business people came in and seemed to have a little chat with them, are supportive of the free trade agreement, maybe have it altered and changed, but certainly they are not talking the rhetoric they did in the last election of the immediate abrogation of the free trade agreement. Certainly we are on the same side as far as maintaining the free trade agreement. It is amazing how times have changed and we are pleased about that.
I think though the most important thing to understand about the motion before us today is that it represents a prescription that would lead to the isolation of Canada from its international trading partner. It springs this motion from a policy that is very shortsighted, and shortsighted in the extreme, in that it represents really a lack of understanding of economic and international trade realities.
Instead, rather than dwelling on the motion and the aspects of it, I would like to dwell upon and devote my time today to an explanation of how I feel Canada's vital interests are served by the government's decision to participate in a North American free trade negotiation. I

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would also like, for the benefit of my hon. colleagues across the way, to outline some of the anticipated benefits that would flow from a successful conclusion of a NAFTA agreement.
I also want to show, with respect to this last point in particular, how a successful conclusion of the NAFTA will result in a positive contribution to the ability of Mexico and its brave peoples to fully launch itself on the road to economic prosperity and the democratic development that they so much desire.
In the last 40 years, international trade and economic environment has evolved to the point where the isolationist and mercantilist policies of old have been discredited, as we all know. We are in a global economy. Governments, and indeed entire political systems, have come to the realization that it makes no more sense to throw up barriers between countries than it is to throw up barriers between parts of a single city or a county. We have seen what gifts history has brought to those countries that have put up barriers around them, and we all know too well what has happened to their economies.
Global interdependence makes each of us dependent upon each other now. It is a structure that most fully rewards the competitive advantages of nations. We have seen in decades past what happens in a world where economic security will lead to political and military insecurity.
The North American free trade negotiation is but one element of the government's over-all trade and competitiveness strategy, which is designed to ensure the future prosperity for Canada and all Canadians. That strategy also includes action plans designed to deal with the complex issues being discussed in the Uruguay round of the multilateral trade negotiations of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. Both were preceded by the successful negotiation of the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement, which has given Canada increased access, as I especially noted earlier, to the companies in my constituency. It has given them more access and lower tariffs and more competitive advantage in the U.S. marketplace.
The proposition that Canada is part of the global economic reality seems to be one that is denied by certain members from across the aisle, and it certainly is
denied by the motion we have before us today. We on this side of the aisle understand that Canada has succeeded in building a modem post-industrial society, where fully a third of our economic prosperity depends on international trade.
My hon. colleagues would be surprised, undoubtedly, to learn that Canadian exports account for over three million jobs in Canada today. With so many jobs on the line, it is certainly sad, indeed, that we are debating a motion that would, if enacted, result in Canada giving up our preferred access to the U.S. market and to turn away from negotiations with one of the most dynamic economies to emerge in all of Latin America.
However, simply being in the game is clearly not enough. The government and the private sector, including the labour movement, must all work together to ensure that Canadian workers are given the tools necessary to win in this competitive situation we are in. For that we must equip ourselves so that we can play and beat the best in the global arena we are all in.
The government understands that to win, Canada must improve the competitive position of individual business enterprises as much as we must improve our competitive position as a nation. My colleague, the Minister for International Trade and the Minister of Industry, Science and Technology, has launched a competitive investigation, a competitive consultation across the country so that we can look at the five main areas of concentration of competitiveness.
The government understands that learning and education must be a lifelong commitment that serves not only to enrich our lives individually, but also a commodity that ensures the ability of Canadians to respond to future economic challenges and secure long-term, high wage jobs.
Canadian companies need to be given the flexibility so they can successfully adapt to changing market signals. On the production side they must become adept at translating international scientific research and technology into products that can be sold in markets secured by trade agreements.
We need to ensure that innovative Canadian companies have access to equally innovative financial and investment tools and strategies that are needed to
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support an outward-looking growth-oriented economy able to successfully compete in the global marketplace.
On the home front, our international efforts must be complemented by a more active dismantling of those domestic barriers that inhibit a more competitive and integrated Canadian market.
The fifth major element of the competitive study and competitive rebirth must be that of ensuring that Canada retains its ability to participate in a meaningful way in the foreign markets. This can only be ensured by a strategic approach to international trade negotiations such as that followed by the government in its successful negotiations with the FTA, the Uruguay round and NAFTA.
The presenter of the motion before us today does not seem to understand that trade within North America is already at a level of some $250 billion annually in American dollars. Negotiation of a North American free trade agreement is a vote of confidence by the three countries in the anticipated future of that trade.
Seldom have trade negotiations proceeded on such a solid foundation as that provided by Canada, the U.S. and Mexico. I have already noted that the three-way trade is approximately $250 billion American in trade. To that fact I may note that the combined gross domestic product of the three parties is in excess of $6 trillion U.S. If you are looking for a market in which to develop, produce and sell your goods, you would certainly have a difficult time finding a better one and a more expansive one in the world than the North American market.
The North American market will afford Canadian companies greater opportunities to forge additional economies of scale and production efficiency. On a foundation of enhanced competitiveness, they will be able to increase the capacity of their production as the barriers to trade are gradually phased out.
When considering the need for Canada to be an active participant in NAFTA negotiations, I would ask members to reflect on the fact that Mexico, after the United States, is our largest trading partner in the western hemisphere. As I said, a successful NAFTA negotiation will open up the Mexican market, which itself is poised for expansion. While trade between Canada and Mexico is relatively small now, accounting for some $2.2 billion
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in two-way trade, a NAFTA will provide an opportunity for us to expand upon that lucrative market for Canadian companies.
In the first instance, Canada seeks to negotiate the gradual removal of Mexican tariffs and other import barriers that currently block Canadian exporters of goods and services from reaching their full potential. The Mexican market is currently 85 million strong and is growing with each passing year. As the economy of Mexico grows, so will the purchasing power of its citizens. Mexico is an economy in transition and a successful NAFTA will help to position Canada to take advantage of the growing commercial opportunities that are presenting themselves in that country.
Also of great importance is the need for Canada to preserve its place as a preferred location for investment, both foreign and domestic. By offering investors access to not only the Canadian market, but also to those markets in the U.S. and Mexico, Canada will help to maintain our inherent attractiveness as a place to do business. A North American free trade agreement will guarantee that no matter where a company chooses to build its plants, it will have access to all three countries, and artificial trade barriers will not be a determining factor as they make those decisions.
I have also heard the minister say that Canada has a chance to build upon the achievements of the FTA where such improvements are of benefit to Canada. This was noted before, but now the Liberal Party seems to be saying yes, we are against the motion today; we want the FTA to remain but we want to improve upon it. Well, we have that opportunity in the NAFTA negotiations to explore the possibility of mutually beneficial improvements to the FTA. For example, maritime shipping could be one area that we certainly would look at. Also, content of cars in the agreement could be looked at.
A successful NAFTA would provide Canadian firms with greater access to the lower-cost production inputs that are necessary if we are to remain competitive with the dynamic economies of Europe and the Pacific Rim that we are competing with. The ability under the agreement to source high-quality products, high-quality components from, say, Mexico by our Canadian component assemblers could be a definite advantage to the competitiveness of our companies.

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Following on the lead established by the FTA and carried forth in the MTN, Canada seeks, in the NAFTA, a trade dispute settlement procedure that is rapid, that follows clear and fair rules, and that is cost effective and accessible to the Canadian business sector. Trade disagreements, while they only involve a small percentage of the total trade between nations, can develop into major irritants if countries do not have at their disposal a fair and impartial method of settlement. As we know, before the FTA, we did not have one.
As was noted earlier by my colleague opposite from Winnipeg, who said, "Well, the dispute settlement mechanism is not any good", we did not have anything before. Yes, maybe we can end up with an even better one. Certainly we have taken it out of the political realm. As you know, the U.S. political scene is special interest driven, and it was special interest politically driven in the decisions that we were getting through the U.S. commerce department, and there was no other place to go. Now we have an impartial tribunal dispute settlement mechanism that certainly has proven already, in a couple of instances, to be beneficial to Canada.
Before closing, I would like to lend my support to one of the themes raised by the Prime Minister in Question Period some few days ago. In answer to a question, the Prime Minister noted that the government felt strongly that the NAFTA afforded Mexico the opportunity to further its development goals. Mexico's President Salinas has said, on more than one occasion, that Mexico would prefer to reach its development goals through trade rather than through foreign aid.
Again, I am surprised at the NDP putting together such a motion. It is for helping the down-trodden and for people who need help and helping them. Here is an opportunity to help many people in the country of Mexico to raise themselves up economically through a free trade agreement on a North American basis. I am very surprised that it would not be supportive of that, to help them raise themselves economically.
In ending, I would like to say that I have, in this debate, attempted to explain some of the benefits that will come to Canada as a consequence of our participation in the North American free trade negotiations. I would hope that all members of the House would come to an understanding that Canada's future lies in securing a prosperous place on the stage of international trade.


William C. Winegard: Madam Speaker, I just want to congratulate my colleague for the rather sound and principled speech that he has put forward on this important question that was placed before the House.
I also want to congratulate him on his reluctance to move too deeply into some of the comments that we heard from the previous two speakers. It shows great control on his part, control that I am not at all sure that I have available.
I have heard the comment again about water. My goodness, how many times must we go around that issue? They tried it in the election of 1988 and it did not work, and it is not going to work now.
Then we had the old chestnut again raised about medical costs being somehow challengeable under the FTA. Everybody knows that is not so. You cannot challenge a universal program available to all under that. Even if you could, Madam Speaker, the costs rung up by our American colleagues in most of their major industries for health insurance is far, far more expensive and therefore challengeable than costs to Canadian corporations.
The member opposite should know that and get off this business of once again trying to frighten those people in Canada who need that kind of protection, particularly the seniors. I find it almost despicable that we are into this again.
I congratulate my colleague for not being quite as vigorous on this matter as I am.


Kenneth Albert James: Madam Speaker, I do not know if there was a question there from my colleague, but there certainly was a comment. I would like to comment on his comment.
I was reluctant to even respond to this business of water. I am a little surprised because I have the feeling that the members of the Official Opposition have altered their position because of a conference they had over in Hull some time ago. Perhaps some people told them they were a little off base. The free trade agreement is important and it should be maintained. Now they are
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saying: "Yes, but we want to improve upon it". That is well enough said.
But to go back and start talking about water or including the old fear-mongering they tried in the last election, I would suggest that they not continue with that at all. I do not think it goes over well with the Canadian public today. I would suggest that they should stay way from that.
We certainly welcome their support of the free trade agreement. There should be a free trade agreement. Also the member from Winnipeg mentioned with some positiveness the NAFTA. Wow, I guess the numbers must not have been in his favour at the meeting in Hull. It looks like they are coming of age and understanding. When one is the government one gets to understand it to a greater extent. They must have had a few people bring them on side at their little session in Hull. This is pleasing and we are pleased to have their support.
They have some great ideas and suggestions on how to improve the North American free trade agreement. That is great but do not use fear-mongering. I do not think it is fair that Canadians be subjected to that kind of thing. Water never has been and never will be part of a free trade agreement between Canada and the United States. That is known by practically everybody, other than those who want to use fear-mongering.
I appreciate the opportunity to respond.


Alex Kindy: Madam Speaker, I was just listening at the tail end of the speech of the hon. member. I would just like to comment on the free trade agreement as such.
I believe when we were discussing the free trade agreement and Mr. Reisman was our negotiator, he was assuring us that there would be a period where there would be adjustments, otherwise we would be losing jobs.
The most important thing he forgot when he was negotiating was that our cost of production is much higher than in the United States. The cost of money is much higher because our interest rates are much higher and the rate of taxation is much higher than across the border. Therefore, how can we compete and have a free trade agreement on the same level if the cost of production is much higher here than in the United States?
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Naturally we are seeing that industry is moving south because we are unable to compete. It is much more expensive to produce north of the border than south of the border.


An hon. member:: Why did you support the agreement?


Alex Kindy: Somebody is asking: "Why did I support the agreement"? I did it because I was fooled. They fooled me. It is simple.


Dennis Joseph Mills: The whole country was fooled.


Alex Kindy: Another member just said the whole country was fooled. This is why I believe that we should have a second look at that agreement and take steps to correct those elements I just cited. It is impossible for a country to be competitive with another country where the cost of production is much higher. The cost of production is much higher in Canada than it is in the United States.
Now we are talking about a free trade agreement with Mexico. Imagine! What is going to happen to Canada? We will lose most of the industry and become suppliers of the raw materials for the United States and Mexico. I believe this is a deal that was negotiated in bad faith.
I saw the negotiator, Mr. Reisman, at noon in the parliamentary restaurant. I do not know what he is doing, but he should be called before the bar of this Parliament and asked questions. How did he make the deal? The Prime Minister should be called because he really sold out Canada to the United States.
We have to negotiate; we know that. We have to trade; we know that, but to do so, we should be protecting the interests of Canadians and we have not been doing that.


Kenneth Albert James: Madam Speaker, hon. members should note countries like Japan and Germany. They probably have the highest wage rates in the world yet they compete with automobiles and they compete throughout the world. They have relative differences than other countries. It is one of a total balance sheet production efficiency side.
What are we going to do? Close all the borders up? Stay within ourselves, throw millions of people out of work? We have to be competitive. We have to compete in the world. We have to open up our borders and we have to learn to compete with our productivity and efficiency.

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I was thinking earlier of the members opposite, rattling about the free trade agreement. As a government, they overspent for years and years and drove us into a debt situation that has made for increased taxation. That is one of the big reasons we have a problem with competitiveness that must be turned around. We have to get rid of this massive deficit, this situation that they put us in. They are rattling about a free trade agreement, about being competitive. They put this country in a position of indebtedness and it will take us years to get out of it. I am appalled at them coming forward with such arguments.
Members say we have to compete, that our industries have to be competitive, but they have to have somebody to compete against or otherwise we, as consumers, just keep on paying ever higher costs for things. We have done this for many, many years and we are fed up with that sort of stuff. We are not going to do that any more. Our companies have to be competitive. We have to compete and we can compete.
We do billions and billions of dollars of trade with the United States and we compete every day. Seventy per cent of the product from major corporations in my area goes to the United States. We can compete. We are looking at building a new major world scale ethylene plant in Sarnia. It can compete operationally with the gulf coast. It has an after tax problem that we have addressed in the budget and now hopefully Ontario will help us with it, but it is operational. We can compete so do not say we cannot. Dupont can compete, ICI can compete, Esso can compete, Cabot Carbon can compete, Ethyl can compete. They will all ship product into the U.S., our biggest market so do not tell me they cannot compete.
We are going to compete more and better and better as we look at how to help them in a competitive situation in our country.


Lawrence MacAulay: Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to speak for the second time in two days on the subject of trade and free trade.
On Wednesday night, the House had an emergency debate on the disastrous effect the Canada-U.S. trade deal has on the softwood lumber industry. We heard members talk about job losses the Americans will force
on us. Members opposite tried to convince Canadians that we will receive a favourable decision from the binational panel.
However, the result is clear. The trade deal has not benefited Canada and has done serious damage to some very important industries.
As I said the other night, this government tried to convince Canadians that with the trade deal the Americans would become our partners in trade. There would be a glorious and prosperous future. The country would be more competitive and we would have guaranteed access to the United States market. Canada and the United States would work together. Sadly this is not the case.
Practically every trade action taken against Canada in the last number of years has been launched by the Americans. B.C. salmon and herring processing was challenged by the Americans. The U.S. challenged us over ice cream and yogurt. Our problems at the GATT over supply management are caused by Americans who wish to destroy our supply management system.
The subsidy war between the U.S. and Europe is killing our western grain farmers, as does the decision to put a duty on Canadian built Hondas and the softwood lumber tariff. With friends like that we do not need many enemies. The Americans will not look after our interests that is very clear. What we need is a government here in Ottawa that will protect Canadians. Three years after the deal let us look at the results.
There are over 1.4 million people in Canada looking for work. Today there are more food banks in Canada than there are McDonald's restaurants. Every day we hear about another plant closing, jobs moving south to the U.S., all this from a deal that was supposed to make us competitive.
A large reason for the failure of the trade deal was this government did not provide the adjustment programs it promised during the election campaign. It said it would not be possible to determine what job losses were caused by the deal. I say it would be easy to find which jobs were lost by the deal. Just count the Canadian companies that have moved to places like Buffalo, Seattle, Florida and Louisiana. Companies do not move because of the
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weather, they move because they can make higher profits, because the cost of business is lower.
The federal government did not help the situation because it allowed Canadian interest rates to soar and the value of the dollar to climb, making exports less profitable. The Canadian food processing industry has been particularly hard hit by this trade deal. In order to have a prosperous food industry you need two things, protection for your producer and protection for your processor.
Before this deal Canada had both. Supply management allowed farmers in the dairy, egg and poultry sectors to earn a decent return on their investment while ensuring a secure a supply to customers and industry at a reasonable price. As well with some import duties our food processors were able to make a fair return on their investment while providing jobs for Canadians.
Now, with the deal, the protection for our food processors has been removed and what do we see? Something like 80 Canadian food processors have closed up shop and moved to the U.S., throwing thousands of Canadians out of work.
What the Americans could not get through the trade deal they are trying to get from the GATT by challenging our supply management. It is a small miracle that there is any food industry left in Canada at all.
The Liberal Party has always believed in a competitive and prosperous Canada. With co-operation between business and labour and the right policies from government, Canada can provide a prosperous future for our children.
New Democrats refuse to recognize the reality that the U.S. is our largest trading partner and that we should work toward a favourable trading arrangement with the Americans.
The government should seek to improve the trade deal with the U.S. Sadly we know this government is unwilling or unable to stand up fqr Canadian interests. That is why after the next election a Liberal government will stand up for Canada in renegotiating the deal and if we cannot reach a favourable agreement then we will invoke the six month withdrawal clause.
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It would be foolish to slam the door shut on our largest trading partner without first seeking to solve our problems. Heavy dependence on one partner is never wise, but it will take time before we can develop markets to move into.
The government wants Canada locked into a deal with the American giant without looking at the consequences. The New Democrats want us to abandon $200 billion in trade. That is not possible.
What is possible is the Liberal position of negotiating a better deal with the United States and through multilateral agreements expand our trade options.
We cannot go blindly into the future. We must develop a balanced approach that favours Canadian interests and Canadian jobs.


René John Soetens: Madam Speaker, I appreciate the comments that the hon. member made-


Don Boudria: Yes, they were excellent.


René John Soetens: In fact they were excellent from his perspective. They were very well delivered and I compliment him on it.
The question I would really have is that he talked about a better deal, that the Liberal Party would negotiate improvements to the deal. But as I listened to his speech, I did not hear him comment about what those improvements were.
Rather than leave it up to the electorate to elect the hon. member's party and after the fact say: "There, now we are elected and we have dotted that i which was not dotted before, that makes it a better deal," I would be curious if the member could give me three or four examples of very clear things that he thinks ought to be improved upon.


Lawrence MacAulay: Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from across the way. There are a number of things. We certainly have to find out exactly what is going on. Here we are involved in a trade deal with a nation that is ten times our size and we have not established yet what a subsidy is.
There are many things that we have to do just to find out exactly where we are.

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I also think we have to look at things that happened for example in the fishing industry, in the herring and salmon industry on the west coast.
The Americans were always striving to have a certain percentage of the fish to process, but through the trade deal we did not permit this. The ink was hardly dry on the deal when the Americans applied through GATT. I would be very surprised if the government was not aware that they would be able to obtain this through GATT. They were able to obtain the fish through GATT and because we have the trade deal we were not able to put an export tax on the fish.
Unfortunately, now the Americans have the right to a certain percentage of our salmon and herring on the west coast. It is very unfortunate because we lose a lot of jobs, jobs that are badly needed on the west coast.
On the east coast in the lobster industry, it was in 1990 when the American government decided that they were going to increase the size of the lobster. We can always go to this great dispute settlement mechanism, but from what I understand it only decides whether the law of the importing nation was properly applied.
For an exporting nation where, in the name of God, does that leave us? We are an exporting nation and the Americans decide we are not going to ship the fish in. They decide possibly we are not going to ship potatoes in.
The problem I see with the trade deal is that the Americans do all the deciding and we, as an exporting nation, need to have some say in the process. As far as I can see, we have very little say.


Don Boudria: Madam Speaker, it is a great pleasure today to debate this supply motion.
I must tell you that I do not agree with the New Democrats' motion, and I challenge them to rise right away and contradict me when I say that this motion is definitely not in Canadians' interest. You will note, Madam Speaker, that they did not even reply. But I want to tell you that I would not want the government opposite to start thinking that I am about to praise it either, because that will not happen.
Now that we have established that, let us read carefully what those fine people to the far left want us to do.
They want us to say that in the opinion of this House, Canada should withdraw from the negotiations concerning the North American free trade agreement. Withdraw. Don't want to talk about it; don't want to even see what the Americans are going to do to us when we are not there. They prefer that we not be there.
Okay, maybe by not being there we will not know how bad things are, and therefore what we do not know will not hurt us, according to the NDP.
We should also give notice of withdrawal from the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement and pursue a global strategy not based on making the planet an unfettered playground for the multinational corporate elite.
Now that last sentence is a little catchy. But I would like to remind the House what it is that happens when New Democrats propose motions that are not thought of very seriously.
I will give you an example to make my point. You will remember that some weeks ago we had a New Democratic motion on GATT. Well, someone sat behind the word processor at the great NDP nirvana someplace in this building and wrote a press release.
They announced that the NDP were proposing a motion that the government refuse to sign the GATT. I have a copy of it right here, it is dated February 7 and it was supposed to be in regard to the February 12 opposition day.
The NDP released a few copies of this around and some people did not like it. Actually, many of their supporters did not like it, particularly in western Canada. So they had to run around pulling back the copies of the press release already issued because they had embarrassed themselves, that Canada should not be part of the GATT.
Maybe we should move Canada to another planet, according to the NDP. They live on the moon anyway, most of them are Looney Tunes, so they want us to move someplace else.
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When the motion did appear in the House, it said "that this party calls on the government to support unequivocally a GATT accord that would-" and then it gives all those fine things that a GATT accord would do. It is not exactly the same. You see what happens? A press release, some people talked to the NDP, they smarten up, and then the final draft.
Do you know what happened today? No one proofread the motion. That is what happened. And, because no one proof-read the motion, we have a motion here that calls on Canada to run away from the North American negotiations. For all I know, the deal might be a bad deal, but how will we know unless we are there?
Then also, that we should pull out of the free trade agreement.

Madam Speaker, we know that in my riding, we lost many factories because the free trade agreement was badly negotiated. But I ask the New Democrats this: What factory in my riding will reopen if the free trade agreement is cancelled? That is a good question! I know of none, not one. Of course the few industries that may have gained would also lose with that. So we would have lost those that we had already lost and we would lose the small gains made since then. We would be losers all around. That is the New Democrats' position.
Now we have the position of the government opposite, which signs anything that the President of the United States shows them. That is the other side of the story. So here we have a free trade agreement that was signed late in 1988, if I recall. This free trade agreement was signed in a building in Washington, apparently over a meal of Kentucky fried chicken, at three o'clock in the morning by the then Minister of Finance, who had come to Simon Reisman's rescue. Despite all his finesse, Mr. Reisman had managed to bungle the whole deal.
So we have this badly negotiated agreement which contains no definition of subsidies and includes a regulatory mechanism that of course binds Canada but not the United States, a partner ten times as big as the other, with nothing to offset this disadvantage. Finally, it contains nothing to set the value of the respective
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currencies, which means that as our dollar rises, we can lose as much as if a previously existing tariff was reduced.
Everything I mentioned, Madam Speaker, is what the government opposite gave us. The members on the left, the far left, want to undo what has been done without going back to what existed before, because that is impossible, and want to withdraw from the negotiations as well.

It could very well be that when the so-called NAFTA agreement is finished, we will not like it either. It could very well be that the government will not even like it, for all I know, although the Americans like it. Anyway, I will give them the benefit of the doubt for the moment. Not much of it, but some.
The point is, how do we know all that unless we are there at the table negotiating? How do we know that the Americans will not give away what we have when we are not there? How do we know that they will not establish policies between each other that will be a nuisance to us, unless we are there? We do not know that. That is why this motion should have been proof-read. That is why someone at the headquarters of whoever wrote this thing on the back of an envelope last night should have reread it before they put it on the word processor. That is why this is wrong.
That does not mean that we should be congratulating the government.

As I said earlier, this government has not protected the Canadian economy as it could have.

If I have a few minutes left, I would like to read an excerpt from a letter by a constituent, Mr. William Howieson, who sent a letter to The Ottawa Citizen responding to an editorial they had written on farming. Because of the very limited time, here is what he said, in part. He was comparing Canadian farmers to U.S. farmers. He said: "The 1990 New York business summary of 395 farms reveals that the total cost to produce 100 pounds of milk in the U.S. was $15.27. The comparable figure in the 1990 Ontario Farm Accounting Project of

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204 farms was $15.32." In other words, there is a 5 cent difference out of $15.
Some members across the way who do not support supply management-not all; by and large the government does-and some so-called consumer advocacy groups are not aware that our farmers here in Canada are every bit as efficient as those on the American side. What is different is the subsidy afforded to both groups.

The hon. member for Algoma raised the point this morning in Oral Question Period in the House of Commons when he told us about a study done in the United States which reported the thousands and thousands of dollars in subsidies to American producers at the same time as those people claim to want to compete with us on an equal footing or "level playing field".
There is nothing equal, Madam Speaker, when Canadian farmers compete with the U.S. treasury. There is nothing equal about that.

In conclusion, I want to tell Canadians that what we need is neither the folks across the way nor the extremists, who are left with their ridiculous concoctions that they brought to the House today. What we need is something more reasonable, like a Liberal government.


René John Soetens: Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise and participate in this veiy important resolution.
There are, I guess, three points of view being expressed in general. One is from that group that the previous speaker describes as, if I can quote him correctly, Looney Tunes, or something on that basis. I am not sure I necessarily share the name, but I think it adequately reflects a view. The second is from those across the way. The third, of course, is from those on the government side.
Before I give some comments on that, I have a slight quiz for you. I do not know if you would like to answer this, but let me give you a few quotes and we will see if you can answer. If you cannot, I will be glad to provide the answer for you.
Who do you think said: "We need lower, not higher trade barriers here and around the word if we are to
build efficient manufacturing industries and increase our productivity?" Who do you think said: "Not only could Canada benefit considerably from freer international trade, it is incorrect to claim that trade liberalization would destroy certain Canadian industries." Finally, who do you think said: "He isn't moved by the insecurity these issues raise for affected workers. I want these people to be afraid of losing their jobs. It's the best motivation in the world."
I realize it is going to take some considerable thought as to who said all those great words. It would be hard to identify him with anything he is saying today, but it is the actual Leader of the Opposition today who made those comments. In fact, they are quoted in Le Soleil, July 15, 1978 and in Hansard on October 20. The questions are there. They are very clear. They are his.
I do not think I heard any of that comment today from members opposite, but I thought I would share them with you, because they obviously have some influence. Should they ever form a government, heaven forbid, they will come back and say: "Yes, but you know what I've been saying all along. What I said during the election campaign is not really what we were going to implement. Just look at my speeches prior to the election." I think it had something to do with that back in the mid-seventies when they campaigned against wage and price controls, and after the election, they said: "Look what we said before. Don't count that." They campaigned on 18 cents a gallon and then afterwards said: "Forget what we said during the election. Look at what we said other times."
I thought I would share that with you. I am sure it is of benefit.
Let me give you more recent information. I think there are some interesting articles. In yesterday's Globe and Mail, in an article written by Peter Cook, there are a couple of paragraphs I would like to relate to you. Peter Cook said:
The anti-free traders are wrong. But, in the absence of an alternative and in their willingness to misapply every fact and statistic, they have a great capacity to deceive. It is now routinely stated that all the jobs lost in a cyclical recession have been lost "under" or "since" free trade.
I carry on. It says:
A new study by WEFA Canada of Toronto entitled "Why has Canada's economy performed so poorly?" sets the argument in its right context, explodes the free-trade myth, properly takes Ottawa and the provinces to task for very fundamental policy mistakes and
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deserves to be better circulated and read than the betrayal-of-Canada
drivel put out by the anti-free traders.
I thought I would share that with you. There are some people out there in the world who say, particularly here in Canada, yes, we've got some problems and yes, governments have made some mistakes, both federally and provincially. I would have loved to see the dollar stay at 84 or 85 cents rather than go all the way to 89 cents, and yes, that would have been much easier if we had not had the deficit remain in the $30 billion range during the last six or seven years. I understand that, but the fact of the matter is we are there and we have to deal with those issues.
But to then listen to colleagues opposite talk about the devastation that has been racked on the industry of Canada and our exports, I should point out some other useful numbers, and I am sure you are writing these down with great anticipation because they are going to be useful in any speeches you might give as well.
Our exports to the United States in 1988 were $102 billion. In 1989 they were $105 billion. I realize that is about a 3 per cent increase and that is the first year of the free trade agreement. Certainly that does not sound like any disaster to anything. It does not sound like boom times either if you only increase exports 3 per cent, but it is certainly very positive.
In 1990 we went from $105 billion to $110 billion in exports. Again, that is about a 5 per cent increase, but no great boom times. Again, it is a positive number. Unfortunately the numbers are not fully finalized for 1991, but I acknowledge that it looks like they are going to come in at about $107 billion, which is down some $3 billion from the year before. That is not great, but that is certainly no disaster. That is still well in excess of what it was in 1988 prior to the free trade agreement.
When you look at where we saw the improvements, I think that is the more interesting number, because between 1988 and 1990, our sales went up in things that were technology, in things that were manufacturing. Things like nuclear reactors, boilers, machinery, and mechanical appliances were up 6.7 per cent. Electrical machinery, equipment parts thereof, sound recorders and reproducers, television image and sound recorders and reproducers, and parts and accessories of such articles were up 63 per cent. It is certainly a nice number. Plastics and articles thereof were up 16.5 per cent; furniture, bedding, mattresses, mattress support, cush-
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ions and similar stuff, furnishings, lamps and lighting fixtures, not elsewhere specified, a 14.5 per cent increase; aircraft, spacecraft and parts thereof, a 53 per cent increase; rubber and articles thereof, a 16.8 per cent increase.
Those are all good things. What are we hiding our heads for? I am rather proud of those statistics, and that is why I shared them with you. I think when you look at some of these items that are being mentioned across the way, they talk about how bad things are and they seem to want to ignore that.
Let me give you some examples, because those are general numbers. You hear stories about all these major companies that are doing poorly. Well, maybe they are, but let me give you an example of some that may give you a different perspective.
These are all located in my riding, and I thought I would bring it down to that perspective because it is easy to take the companies in the headlines, the ones that announce their $100 million expansion or announce their closing; they are easy to identify. Here is one, a company called All Temp. It is a small business, privately owned. It employs 35 people, and it really has not changed since 1988, so they indicate. Sales volume is up. It is up considerably. It distributes motors, refrigeration parts, things of that nature. Its prices are in fact lower, and some of that is because of the actual reductions that took place in duty.
More importantly, it found that there has been a reduction in the competition from the Far East, the Orient, because it is now able to source more of their products, either in Canada or the United States, and having eliminated the duty, it is in fact more competitive against those companies who use far eastern parts. That is why its business has gone up.
It has also found that some of its suppliers have been able to source some of their production now in Mexico, further reducing their cost of the parts, which in fact has made North America benefit because of the reduced over-all cost to the whole system versus that of the Far East.
So there is a company that has clearly benefited by the free trade agreement, and it says so very clearly.
Another company in my riding is Sollas Canada from Pickering. It was recently purchased by Canadian investors from its Dutch parent. It is a small company. It is a

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distributor and manufacturer of various plastic banding and packaging equipment. Since free trade was implemented, the company has expanded from three employees to 15 employees. It has moved into a new facility four times as large as what it had before. Its U.S. customer base has grown considerably. Prior to 1989, it had absolutely no U.S. customers. Today, approximately 50 per cent of its customer base is U.S. oriented. What was its forecast for 1992? A great year, the best year it has ever had.
Another company is Timbrem Industries, a company in Ajax, privately owned. It manufactures heavy duty rubber-assisted suspension for trucks, a very unique product made in Ajax. It exports 75 per cent of its output to the United States; 100 per cent of its raw material is Canadian. It supports the deal with the United States, and in fact its sales volume has increased significantly over the three-year period, on an average of about 20 per cent, and it has similar forecasts for 1992. In fact, if it is convinced into the year that the year is progressing as it thought it would, it will in fact proceed with an expansion that it has on its drawing board. Now, it is not employing a lot more people, only three, but it did employ 15 to start; it now has 18. That is positive.
There are others. We talk about how Canadian food processors cannot compete. Is it not interesting that in fact the supplier of the fresh meat and so on to the House of Commons is a constituent of mine. It was recently a new company. It was established in 1989. The sales volume in 1991 was up 50 per cent over 1989.
A larger company this time, GE Canada opened a plant in my riding. GE Silicones opened a plant 70,000 square feet in size. It was talking about 1991 being the biggest year in the history of the company. It has the world mandate on behalf of GE to supply silicones to all of their operations world-wide. Its major customer is of course the United States. It is that volume that it gets out of the United States and in fact Canada that enables it to be competitive world-wide.
As I say, GE Canada just opened this new plant, but not only did it open the new plant, it had so many orders that it could not shut down the old plant when planned because the capacity of both plants was needed to fill the order backlog. That company is very supportive of the free trade agreement and it is forecasting a banner year in 1992.
Those are some examples of companies that are doing well and there are others, but what I get from the motion is that members of the NDP would walk away from all of that, would walk away from the success stories, from the whole international trade relationship that we have with the United States, the possible relationship that we have with Mexico. They criticize the international companies that create a lot of employment.
Well, what would we fall back on? I guess I can go back to my experience prior to my election. I was involved in the steel business and we exported extensively to the United States.


That company is a supporter of the free trade agreement. It talks about the benefits in that industry which have really been benefits to the consumer. It has been able to comment that because of the competition that exists in the marketplace on processed food, and it is a meat processor, in fact the price has been much more stable.
I know that on this side of the House we would not too often, but on the other side, since those members do not usually have a lot to do in the summer, they would have their barbecues where they serve a lot of steaks. They would know that in the summertime the price of steak used to go up because it was barbecue season. Well no more. There has been real price stability in that product line.
What did we have in the United States? We had government agencies working with the President and working with the Congress of the United States putting controls through such artificial trade barriers as a thing called a trigger price mechanism. That is, if steel was shipped below a certain price, all of a sudden it was subject to countervail action and duties and the matter would be dragged through the courts.
All of those actions were taken in the United States, not to get Canada, but were taken to get other countries in the world that were dumping their steel into the U.S. market holus-bolus. But the fact of the matter was that Canada was included.
We were innocent of all of that nonsense, but we were included because there was no mechanism in the U.S. system to prevent Canada from being included. It was

March 13, 1992

simply that when the U.S. announced a duty package all countries in the world were affected.
Prior to the trigger price mechanism, the U.S. implemented various artificial quotas on the countries that were accepted, that they were going to have 3 per cent of their market and they could ship all they want at whatever price they wanted, as long as they did not exceed 3 per cent.
Canada got caught on that. Yet we were not the problem. At least the free trade agreement prevents that from happening.
The NDP would love us to go back to that old kind of system where we get swept in on all these trade disputes, whether we are a party, whether we are guilty or whether we are innocent.
We are dragged in simply because members of the NDP would love us to chuck the free trade agreement. Not only would they have us chuck it, what amazes me is that they even have the gall to bring forward this resolution.
When I look at who the NDP members of Parliament purport to represent, in my neighbouring constituency, the constituency of Oshawa, there is a company called General Motors. I will bet it fits the description of the very international companies that they are criticizing for their investments in Canada.
I will bet you the member for Oshawa has not had the guts to go back to Oshawa and say: "GM get out of Oshawa. Go away. We do not want your investment. We do not want your jobs." I wonder if the various members from Windsor have gone back and said: "You know, these international corporations that have the freedom to simply move from this area to that area of the world, care less"-they have not chased them out of Windsor. They have not said: "We don't want them in Windsor." Of course they do not say that because these people are good employers.
Simply being a large international corporation does not make it a bandit. It does not make it an irresponsible citizen of the world. There are some tremendously large corporations that in fact are very responsible.
In my riding there is Du Pont Canada that has lots of international affiliations. Du Pont is a very responsible
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company and before it was mandated by governments it was dealing with the whole issue of ozone within its environmental package.
I can comfortably say that as it relates to the environment, Du Pont was in fact providing leadership on the issue. Was it going fast enough? We can always debate whether it was or was not. But the fact of the matter is it started before governments started, not just the Government of Canada, I would say governments around the world.
Du Pont was on its way to trying to rectify some of the environmental problems that it knew its products were causing. But it was fine to simply criticize Du Pont. It is we Canadians, Americans and others in other parts of the world who wanted Du Pont's products, and it was happy to provide them. Once it was aware of the problem, of course it tried to rectify it.
So the NDP say: "Walk away from these trade agreements. Walk away from the FTA, and don't get involved in the North American free trade agreement".
I will acknowledge that the agreement is a very ambitious undertaking. And the agreement is being negotiated, I would say at a timely moment.
The nations of the world are struggling to compete, and we hear this all the time through multilateral negotiations aimed at creating a more level playing field for exporters. That is part of this whole GATT negotiation process that is under way in the world.
As a country, Canada is certainly trade dependent. I do not think there would be anyone on any side of this House who would debate the importance of trade to Canada. If trade is important to us, then open markets on a global basis can only benefit us.
While Canada ranks eighth in the world in exports of goods and twelfth in the exports of services, there is no doubt that our future prosperity is highly dependent upon a successful track record.
What I would say to you is that it is not playgrounds that we are talking about, which is part of the NDP resolution; it is three million jobs in Canada which are dependent upon exports. Three million jobs are on the line if we simply abandon any attempt to get involved in very successful trading negotiations.

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The North American free trade agreement negotiations constitute one step in that direction. To be competitive in the world our industry must successfully compete in North America.
A North American agreement would benefit the wide range of export-oriented Canadian goods and services producers provide. The NDP motion basically says that if we get out of the FTA, if we get out of the North American free trade agreement, presuming they would want to stay in GATT, we would be left as one country negotiating with 108 others to have everybody lower their barriers. At least history has those barriers coming down.
But what members of the NDP do not really comment on is that while those barriers are coming down, there are some countries in the world where the barriers are coming down even quicker. One needs only look at Europe where in a sense, a free trade agreement has been set up among the 12 European nations, basically eliminating all barriers to trade.
We have the same happening in the Pacific Rim where countries are very quickly dropping their barriers to trade. We have the same thing happening in discussions in South America among some of the countries.
Why would we as a country want to stand on our own and try to get into all those islands of trade liberalization and have to jump hurdles, when in fact we have the potential through the North American free trade agreement of dealing with a market of some 380 million people? It would be the largest market in the world covered under an agreement. That can only benefit Canada.
I talked about the company that has imports from Mexico, and is working with the U.S. and Canadian suppliers. It is successful.
So I suggest that there is no doubt in my mind that there are some clear benefits to being involved in the North American free trade agreement. Of course, until the agreement is really finalized it is hard to say if it is a good deal or a bad deal.
I am not going to stand up and say it is a great deal. I do not know what the deal is. But I think the intent is that we should be there, we should be negotiating, we should be protecting Canada and that is why I am happy to speak today in favour of Canada being exactly where we are right now.


Brian L. Gardiner: Madam Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to make a brief comment and then put two questions to the member.
I want to say what an important debate this has been today. It is probably a forerunner of the election to come. The only party in the country that is fighting for Canadians is in this House. New Democrats are fighting for Canadians who are losing their jobs because of Canada-U.S. free trade. They will likely in the future suffer even greater job losses because of North American free trade.
Clearly the debate today showed that those people in the New Democratic Party stand up for the working people of Canada and the Conservatives on the other side support free trade all the way. We are not sure what the position of the Liberals is. That is nothing unusual either. We will all have to deal with that in the election to come.
I have some questions for the member. First, we would know with regard to the North American free trade agreement that elected officials from all sides in both the Mexico and United States have had an opportunity, I understand, under security to go in and to look at the current draft agreement between Canada, the United States and Mexico, the North American free trade agreement. I would be interested in knowing if he has seen such an agreement from his minister, the Minister for International Trade?
Second, is he aware if any members of cabinet or on his side have seen that agreement?
Third, would he agree that sharing the information in the North American free trade agreement might go some distance to quelling some of the concerns of a lot of people about that agreement? Would he support that kind of openness that is apparently allowed in Mexico and the United States?
If we are to accept his argument that every single job loss could not be attributed to the Canada-U.S. free trade deal-of course many things happen in an economy-at the same time I am sure the member would agree that every single job created in the country since the Canada-U.S. free trade could not be attributed to the Canada-U.S. free trade.
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Fourth, can he tell the House if he is aware if the government maintains any kind of list that on the one side he can attribute job gain to the Canada-U.S. free trade agreement and where he can rightfully attribute job loss due to businesses moving perhaps to the United States under the Canada-U.S. free trade? If he is aware of that, can he tell this House and does he think that information should be made available to Parliament? If it is not available, is that not something this government should be doing if it is so proud of the Canada-U.S. free trade so that it can try to prove its point?


René John Soetens: Madam Speaker, first I will talk about the North American free trade agreement. No, I have not seen the draft that he has asked for. I do not know which of the cabinet has seen it. To be fair, I have not gone and asked each one of them. Nor have I seen a press release that has indicated who has seen it. However I have every confidence that all of those involved in the North American free trade agreement have seen it, whether it be the Secretary of State for External Affairs or the Minister for International Trade. I think that is certainly appropriate.
Does the member believe we should release it to the House and to the public? He has indicated that it is available in Mexico. If he thinks it is important that he see it, I suppose he should call his friends in Mexico which the member from Spadina indicated he had down there. I am sure they would be happy to share it with him. I do not think at this point in the negotiating stage that we need to necessarily release those documents in public. It is not standard practice.
The second item relates to job loss. The member is absolutely right. There are businesses closing. There are businesses opening. Those are functions of the economy. Those are functions of all kinds of factors within the economy, whether they be poor management, whether they be international trade competition, or whether it be simply a drying up of a market. For example, there is not a great demand any more for wringer washers out there. People want automatic washers. Those things are natural in the market.
I have seen a list of extensive new investment decisions in Canada. I do not know if they are simply related to the free trade agreement directly or whether it is because those people have decided Canada is an absolutely great place in which to invest because we have a good Conservative government and good economic policies.
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Part of those policies are in fact the free trade agreement with the United States.


Dennis Joseph Mills: Madam Speaker, I want to put this on the record. I would like to correct the member from the New Democratic Party.
Most Canadians know where the Liberal Party has stood on the free trade agreement. People will never forget that during the last campaign that the member of Parliament, our then leader, the hon. member for Vancouver Quadra debated clearly and won the confidence of Canadians on his debating skills when it came to free trade.
Regretfully the Business Council on National Issues and other associations bought full page ads in most of the major dailies saying that some of the things that our then leader said about free trade were not accurate. Those full page ads probably had more to do with this government regaining power than anything else I know of.
However that is history. We are here today and we are about to face another election campaign. The people of Canada should in no way, shape or form think that we are running away from this flawed document.
This free trade agreement is a flawed document. The records show that unfettered, unreviewed foreign investment in this country is not working. Statistics Canada and all the government agencies will show that beyond a shadow of a doubt.
The member for Ontario, for whom I have a lot of respect, said that we on this side of the House have a great capacity to deceive. Well, I want to let the member know that he is right when he cites that there are some winners in this free trade agreement. We have never run away from the fact that there are some winners. But there are a lot more losers and those losers tend to be the smaller and medium-sized manufacturers in this country. I too, like him, was a businessman. I worked for one of the most successful organizations in this country, Magna International. Eighty percent of our business was exports to the United States in auto parts.
We had a very productive labour force and they still have a very productive labour force and they are doing very well. Large companies like Magna, Dow and Dupont-I give them respect for this-only represent about 25 per cent of the employment in this country. A majority of the employment in this country is with the smaller and medium-sized businessman.

March 13, 1992
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Right now this free trade agreement is not serving that sector of our economy. It is not serving it well at all. We have a situation right now where we have a crisis of confidence in this country because not only do we have 1.5 million unemployed and another two million on welfare, but those with jobs are afraid they are about to lose them.
Therefore, when the member talks about the benefits of free trade, he would be wise, in my opinion, to admit yes, there are some winners. He was the one who said there was a capacity to deceive. He should also admit that under this agreement there are losers. There have been lots and lots of American branch plants in Canada that through rationalization have been given direction from head office in the states to say: "Listen, we are no longer manufacturing in Canada. We are no longer going to do R and D in Canada. We are going to shut you down and all you will be is a distribution centre and a sales office". The members know that well.
Therefore to try and whitewash this, when even Simon Reisman in the last two weeks has said that the Americans are really taking advantage of this free trade deal, even he is beginning to have his conscience twinged-


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I think the hon. member would allow 30 seconds for the hon. member to reply after a long intervention.


René John Soetens: Madam Speaker, I will try to be brief. Simply put I listed six companies which are all small, except for GE, in the size of the corporate entity. The other five were all small, privately owned, independently
owned Canadian companies manufacturing in Canada that were successful.
I will leave it up to them to talk about the negatives. I am on the positives. Positives, BCNI, all successful people supported the free trade. Mel Hurtig, Maude Barlow, the Council of Canadians all failures. Mel Hurtig has just filed for bankruptcy. He had to sell his company before it failed. Whose advice do you want? Those who cannot make it or those who can? I take those who can.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: It being 4 p.m., it is my duty to inform the House that pursuant to Standing Order 81(17), proceedings on the motion have expired.
The House will now proceed to the consideration of Private Members' Business as listed on today's Order Paper.

The hon. member for Moose Jaw-Lake Centre is not present to move the order as announced in today's Notice Paper. Accordingly that order will be dropped to the bottom of the order of precedence for Private Members' Business, pursuant to Standing Order 42(2).

It being 4.01 p.m., the House stands adjourned until Monday next at 11 a.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 4.01 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Monday, March 16,1992