1992-04-01

Mr. David Bjornson (Selkirk-Red River):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to voice my concern about the government's policy in which my country will no longer have a NATO presence in Europe. It is my opinion that Canada is an integral part of the NATO community. The special role of our presence as the bridge between North America and Europe is very important.
I do not want to beat around the bush. I am concerned about the creation of Fortress Europe and of Fortress U.S.A. I call upon the government to reconsider its decision to remove Canada's NATO troops from Europe.


PUBLISHING INDUSTRY
Mrs. Sheila Finestone (Mount Royal):: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Communications has declared the Canadian publishing industry is enthusiastic about his new policy. Well, the communications minister should inquire again. The Association of Canadian Publishers recently passed a motion stating that the federal government has retreated from policies aimed at achieving Canadian ownership and control of book publishing and expressing firm opposition to permitting foreign takeovers of Canadian owned firms in book publishing and distribution.
The printing industry which employs 78,000 Canadians has, since free trade, lost $160 million annually and 1,700 jobs, resulting as well in a $330 million print deficit equivalent to an increased loss of 200 per cent since
1988. Why so? Because this government has not placed strict country of origin rules on the importation of printed products from the United States such as the Americans have done. Will the government stand up for Canadian printers, put the needed rules in place, strengthen our Canadian publishing and printing industry, and establish a level playing field which will maintain Canadian jobs and their income?


TAXATION
Mr. J. W. Bud Bird (Fredericton-York-Sunbury):: Mr. Speaker, in these difficult days of economic recession and constitutional conflict, it is hard to understand why some measures of government collaboration are not seized when they are so obvious. One such area is the opportunity for harmonizing provincial sales taxes and the federal goods and services tax.
Not only would this simplify sales tax service to all citizens and make the system more consistent, but most important, it would provide a realistic means to ensure a fair and balanced sales tax application toward crossborder shopping.
There may seem to be an obvious short-term political detriment to provincial governments which might take that step, but surely the long term benefits are compelling. Just yesterday, for example, in the New Brunswick budget, a request was made for federal collection of sales taxes on alcohol and cigarettes. Why not integrate the collection process in a complete and comprehensive way?
One other reason involves real dollars that provinces presently collect twice from industry on overhead costs and other indirect inputs. Under the GST these revenues would disappear, but similarly they would reduce the costs of manufacturing and make our export products more competitive.
Harmonization of sales tax systems is a goal worth pursuing.

April 1, 1992


GREAT WHALE PROJECT
Mr. Rod Murphy (Churchill):: Mr. Speaker, Quebec cab net minister Lise Bacon's angry statements in regard to the Cree of northern Quebec have not been constructive. Her remarks, along with those of others, tend to inflame both anti-native feelings and anti-Quebec sentiments.
Many natives and other residents of Quebec and the rest of Canada are concerned about the Great Whale Project. They, like the supporters of this hydro development plan, should be expressing their opinions.
The Cree, individually and collectively, are affected directly by this project. They have an obvious right to state their case and to state it forcefully.
I understand the issue being debated because I come from the region of Manitoba where there have been massive hydro projects, some of which have not been popular among native people. I would encourage all who are involved in the public debate on these and other major projects to restrain their rhetoric and to focus their comments on the merits and demerits of the specific development.


YOUTH PARLIAMENT
Mr. Gilles Bernier (Beauce):: Mr. Speaker, once again Beauce is setting a record, this time by bringing together the largest number of people for a youth parliament in a non-metropolitan region of Quebec, since such parliaments have been held in our province.
I am very pleased to point out the massive involvement of Beauce youth in political affairs that concern them closely, such as parliamentaiy reform, privileges for native people, euthanasia, reduced defence spending and so on.
It is comforting to note that our young people are smart and seek new knowledge so that they can look at society, make a diagnosis and suggest remedies for the public good.
I would like to congratulate these young people on their interest in political affairs. To the organizers, Sylvie Poulin, Julie Bedard, Marie-Claude Poulin, Helene Roy,
and all the participants, I say the future begins now and they are the future.


POTATO INDUSTRY
Mr. Joe McGuire (Egmont):: Mr. Speaker, the P.E.I. potato industry is being held hostage by the federal Minister of Agriculture. The minister's refusal to exercise his responsibility to apply federal phyto-sanitary regulations equitably to all provinces has left the potato growers of P.E.I. disillusioned and bitter.
Since the original discovery of PVY-N in P.E.I. the province has been subjected to the most stringent testing program of any potato producing area in the world. We have now proven that we have less PVY-N than any other province; yet other provinces are being allowed to arbitrarily refuse entry of P.E.I. seed.
There is now absolutely no scientific basis for Agriculture Canada or the provinces to prohibit the sale of P.E.I. seed within Canada.
This is a case of outright discrimination against Canada's smallest province. The minister must use the authority of his office to put an end to it. This is the responsibility of the national government.
How can we expect the U.S. to open its market when the minister allows provinces to keep theirs closed without any scientific reason to do so?
Does this mean that from now on provinces are free to erect phyto-sanitary barriers against other products as well? Who is running Canada's Department of Agriculture-the minister, the provinces or the USD A?


FISHERIES
Mr. Garth Tiirner (Halton-Peel):: There are not many cod in Halton-Peel, Mr. Speaker, but there are a lot of people who support the brave efforts of the east coast fishermen who are trying to save their industry.
I, for one, was proud to see Canadian maple leaf flags floating over the nose and tail of the Grand Banks as a symbol that people in this country are standing up to foreigners who wantonly deplete our fish stocks. Losing the cod stocks would be to Newfoundland what losing the automobile industry would be to southern Ontario.
April 1, 1992

I want my colleagues in the House representing east coast constituents to know, and I want maritimers themselves to know, that they are not alone in this struggle. People in the rest of Canada are with you. Those are our cod stocks as well as yours, just as our forests and our factories belong equally to every Canadian.
Fight on, because you are fighting for all of us.


CORE AREA INITIATIVE
Mr. David Walker (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today in a moment of sadness to mark the end of the Core Area Initiative, a 10-year agreement which was very successful in reaching out to some of the most difficult problems in our society.
Yesterday, I joined a group of Winnipegers to mark its end. Instead of standing in front of the Core Area Initiative office as we could have for the last 10 years, we stood in front of a "For Rent" sign.
If you think of the objectives of this government, think of all the priorities that it speaks about such as child poverty. The highest rate of child poverty in the country is in Winnipeg in this area. The government has abandoned them.
You think of working families needing day care and child-parent centres. It has abandoned them. You think of single parents looking for assistance and jobs and training. It has abandoned them. You think of families needing housing. It has abandoned the housing repair program.
Every priority of this government was abandoned when it abandoned the Core Area Initiative. It is a tragic loss for Winnipeg. It is a warning for other cities and a national disgrace for this country.


GLENGARRY TRANSPORT
Mr. Don Boudria (Glengarry-Prescott-Russell):: Mr. Speaker, on May 10, 1991 Glengarry Transport or GTL, the flagship of Glengarry and one of Canada's
largest trucking companies, closed its doors permanently, laying off 1,800 employees.
Needless to say, with the office of GTL being in Alexandria, Ontario, many of its employees are my constituents. Older GTL workers were told by the government that they could qualify for benefits under the Program for Older Workers Adjustment, or POWA once their unemployment benefits ran out.
This business has been closed for 11 months. UI benefits have run out and now POWA benefits have not been approved. Last week I was told by Labour Canada officials that the approval for this application would not occur at least until November of this year, some 18 months after the closure in question.
I call upon the Minister of Labour, and especially on his provincial counterpart in Ontario, to proceed with this application forthwith and to take the necessary steps to give my constituents their benefits.


AGRICULTURE
Mrs. Louise Feltham (Wild Rose):: Mr. Speaker, the agriculture industry has seen numerous set-backs over the past year at the hands of its support industries. This is again the case as a strike by clerical workers at the Alberta Wheat Pool's Vancouver office continues to cause a shut down of the Alberta Wheat Pool terminal.
This strike must be resolved now, and any potential for future future strikes must be eliminated. The economic prosperity of agriculture and this country must be allowed to succeed.


STANTON YELLOWKNIFE HOSPITAL
Ms. Dawn Black (New Westminster-Burnaby):: Mr. Speaker, the barbaric practice at the Stanton Yellowknife Hospital of performing abortions with no anaesthetic is gaining national attention.
The procedure leaves women writhing in pain, increasing the possibility of error on the part of physicians. Eighty-three women have said that they underwent this torture at the hands of ill-informed doctors. Unfortunately the Northwest Territories has no College of Physicians and Surgeons to discipline the doctors who

are unnecessarily hurting women and punishing them for sexual activity.
I want to assure hospital officials and the Government of the Northwest Territories that hospitals and clinics elsewhere in Canada always use general or local anaesthetic for this procedure. No anaesthetic for this painful procedure is simply bad medical practice and will not be tolerated.


CHILD POVERTY
Mr. Allan Koury (Hochelaga-Maisonneuve):: Mr. Speaker, many Canadian families feel the recession and the number of children living in poverty remains unacceptable for the federal government.
The federal government is using the resources at its disposal to reach the most disadvantaged. Besides supporting child care services under the Canada Assistance Plan, the government has introduced a child benefit that will give children much more and that is intended to improve the situation of low income working families. Resources will be increased to address the needs of vulnerable children.


FISHERIES
Mr. Jim Fulton (Skeena):: Mr. Speaker, unless action is taken very quickly, there will be a salmon war of dangerous proportions on the west coast this fishing season.
The United States served notice at our embassy in Washington that it will now violate the Canada-U.S. salmon treaty. Last year, it overfished Fraser River bound sockeye by 510,000 and it plans to do it again this year.
This will force B.C. fishermen to target U.S. bound coho and Chinook on the west coast of Vancouver Island. This is at a time when these stocks are already at risk from overfishing by the U.S. As in any war, the original violation will be forgotten in the uproar from California, Oregon and Washington over the harvest of U.S. bound fish by Canada.
This is a basic political issue. The Americans have been allowed to rob our transboundaiy stocks despite the treaty. Now they plan to rob the Fraser. This is best stopped now while there are stocks to save on the west coast of North America and a treaty worth the paper it is written on.



Hon. William Rompkey (Labrador):: Mr. Speaker, we all applaud the actions of those fishermen and boats from Newfoundland and Labrador that made a gesture on behalf of Canada yesterday.
The Minister of Fisheries and Oceans said that he would like to take his responsibilities and take control of the nose and tail of the Grand Banks. I ask him now to do that, to take his responsibilities and exercise control over the nose and tail of the Grand Banks.
It is not enough simply to get control of the fish. Once he gets control, I ask him to allocate quotas fairly because the two co-ops on the Labrador coast have been consistently denied a quota of offshore fish, even though those fishermen live close to the resource and depend on it historically.
There must be fairness built in the system for Labrador fishermen.


BOSNIA-HERCEGOVINA
Mr. Alex Kindy (Calgary Northeast):: Mr. Speaker, the situation in Bosnia-Hercegovina is deteriorating. The Serbian-Cetniks are intimidating the ethnic minorities, particularly Ukrainians around the Pmjavor region.
Father P. Ovad from the Ukrainian Catholic Church in Bosnia-Hercegovina indicates that thousands of the minorities have had to leave their properties at gunpoint and are being subjected to physical violence including rapes, beatings, mutilations, assassinations and forced labour.
These human rights violations are being done under the auspices of the Serbian government in Belgrade and the Yugoslav army, the purpose of which is to resettle these territories with Serbians and to achieve a greater Serbia.
April 1, 1992



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Hon. Jean Chretien (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister.
We are delighted the government has finally agreed it is essential to consult Canadians on the Constitution and realize that the Constitution does not belong to politicians or to bureaucrats but to the people of this country.
I want to ask the Prime Minister whether he will confirm in the House that the Minister of National Health and Welfare was speaking on behalf of the government this morning when he announced there would soon be a referendum bill before the House.


Right Hon. Brian Mulroney (Prime Minister):: I did not
hear the minister's statement this morning, Mr. Speaker, but the government's position is the one I expressed when I said the following:

"That is what the right hon. member for Yellowhead and I and the rest are working so hard on. We hope and we expect that we will succeed in that initiative". That is the initiative that involves the provinces. "Should we not be able to, then I would want to examine with the leaders of the House other alternatives. At the appropriate time, that could be a number of things".
We are pursuing the activity with the provinces and hope to succeed, but should that not be successful. I will of course consult at an appropriate time with the leaders of the House and we will take appropriate action on behalf of Canada.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask a supplementary question of the Prime Minister.
Would it not be more appropriate at this time to make it a policy of the government that it will consult the people of Canada rather than the possibility of a referendum as a club over the head of the premiers?
If we recognize that the Constitution belongs to the people of Canada, why not come clean with the people
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of Canada and say that at last they will decide what kind of constitution we will have in Canada and every Canadian will have something to say about it?


Right Hon. Joe Clark (President of the Privy Council and Minister responsible for Constitutional Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, the government has been on the record since the throne speech with regard to consultation with the public. We intend to honour that undertaking. We will be indicating at the appropriate time how that will be done.
If I may, I want to correct what may be a misunderstanding that the Leader of the Opposition has about the agreement that was reached between myself on behalf of the federal government and the provinces and territories when we met on March 12. We are all committed to a best efforts attempt to get an agreement among the governments as to the constitutional position that we should take forward and that can resolve the several urgent issues facing Canada.
It is understood by the premiers and by the territories that if that process does not work, there will then be a requirement for the federal government to take its own action. That is understood by the premiers, understood by the territories, and no one believes that there is any threat hanging over the head of provincial or territorial governments. That is not the way we operate.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, I would like to direct a question on the same subject to the Minister responsible for Constitutional Affairs.
Last night, while I was watching television, I was glad to see-for the second time-a commercial sponsored and paid for by the government with taxpayers' money, which said that the Beaudoin-Dobbie report was a very good report. I thought that was very interesting, but how can the minister explain to Quebecers that the government is using taxpayers' money to promote the Beaudoin-Dobbie report when the day before yesterday the minister of defence said that the report was unacceptable?

April 1, 1992
Oral Questions


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I think the Leader of the Opposition guessed wrong again.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Martin Brian Mulroney: He did. If I am not mistaken, the commercial does not say the Beaudoin-Dobbie report is a good report. The text of the commercial explains the contents of the report for the benefit of Canadians and Quebecers, so that Canadians and Quebecers will be able to make up their minds.
The House leader mentioned that I said the Beaudoin-Dobbie report was excellent. I did, but that is not what the Leader of the Opposition just said.

The House leader of the Liberal Party is suggesting that we are misstating the case. I suggest that the Leader of the Opposition has inadvertently misstated the fact that there is no such publicity being put forward. What is being put forward is explanatory publicity so Canadians can make up their minds about Beaudoin-Dobbie.
My mind is made up. I think the Beaudoin-Dobbie report is very good for Canada. I think that Canada itself does not need Beaudoin-Dobbie. I think it stands on its own. But I am ready to improve it with Beaudoin-Dobbie and anything else.


Hon. Andre Ouellet (Papineau -Saint-Michel):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister. He seems to be having trouble justifying the extremely cavalier attitude taken by his minister of defence. I do not think there is any doubt in anyone's mind in Quebec that the Prime Minister and his minister of defence do not see eye to eye on this very important matter concerning the constitutional proposals being offered to Quebec.
Government sponsored advertising to announce the highlights of the Beaudoin-Dobbie report is what we in the opposition consider a very positive gesture. But we do not understand-and that was the question-why the Prime Minister continues to tolerate in his cabinet a minister who has dissociated himself completely from the government's position in this respect.


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, the Beaudoin-Dobbie report is not a government report. It is not government policy, although as a member of this House, I personally approve of the report. It is a report by a parliamentary committee that will be examined by the government-in fact, by governments. At the appropriate time, the government will present a plan that will be actively supported by all ministers, starting with the Minister of National Defence.
The hon. member for Papineau-Saint-Michel is astonished to see differences of opinion on constitutional matters, between me and the Minister of National Defence, for instance. Was he equally astonished when he was a great supporter of Meech Lake and the Leader of the Opposition was a fierce opponent of the accord?


André Ouellet: Mr. Speaker, I think the Prime Minister makes a major mistake here. I want him to tell us why he is so desperate to play politics with the future of this country.
The credibility of the government is so low that in order to clinch a constitutional deal that will be acceptable all across Canada, he and his party need the support of the Liberal Party of Canada and the New Democratic Party of Canada. He should stop playing politics the way he is playing them.
I want to ask the Minister responsible for Constitutional Affairs a very simple question. Canadian Press quoted the minister of health as saying this morning: "It is logical that a referendum is one of those options of the government, so you have to look at a bill on a referendum in June".
I want to know from the minister if the legislation is ready and whether or not this legislation should be tabled in this House as urgently as possible. Certainly, if the legislation is ready and since our party has been advocating it for a long time, we would be most co-operative to pass the legislation immediately. Why does the government not come forward immediately with such legislation?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I have already indicated to the Leader of the Opposition that the Minister responsible for Constitutional Affairs is working very hard to obtain a successful
April 1, 1992

resolution of this matter with the provincial premiers, as he is called upon to do pursuant to the application of the constitutional provisions of 1982.
I indicated yesterday that is our position. We hope and expect that these efforts will succeed. I think the best way in a federation to achieve success would be in full co-operation with the provincial governments.
I indicated that should we not be able to do so then I would want to examine with the leaders of the House other alternatives in this regard. That is of course what we would propose to do.
If the very challenging efforts of the Minister responsible for Constitutional Affairs should prove to be unsuccessful over the next five or six weeks, then at an appropriate time we would come to the House with some suggestions as to how we might be able to convey to the people of Canada the options that are there.
One thing is absolutely certain. Should we encounter a wall that would paralyze the activity, and with the clock ticking elsewhere, we will not sit idly by and allow damage to be done to Canada without allowing Canadians themselves to make determinations about their well-being, the future of this great country, and how they want to keep it together.


Mr. Lapierre:: Call an election.


Martin Brian Mulroney: My hon. friend says in the background, in the Bloc Quebecois: "Call an election". By the time we call an election, but that is not for now. Now they do not want a referendum because they know they are going to lose a referendum because if you ask Quebecers whether they prefer independence or a united Canada, they will say a united Canada 10 times out of 10, and the Bloc knows it.


Hon. Audrey McLaughlin (Yukon):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister.
Yesterday the Prime Minister hinted that the process in place to resolve the constitutional debate, the negotiations among the federal, provincial and territorial governments, could fail.
I would like to ask the Prime Minister why the government now thinks that failure is possible. Is there some evidence that the Prime Minister can share with
Oral Questions
this House? Will the Prime Minister tell Canadians what worries him and makes him perhaps less optimistic?


Martin Brian Mulroney: No, Mr. Speaker, We hope and expect that the minister's efforts will be successful in this regard. But we are realistic and we realize that problems can arise when you are dealing with some ten governments.
We are just saying that although we hope to succeed, should we not be able to, we would come before the House to consult with the leaders of the political parties that believe in Canada on valid ways to consult the people of Canada.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is for the Prime Minister.
The Prime Minister said earlier today that a referendum is one of the options. I think it is clear to all of us in this House that Canadians want to see leaders coming together if at all possible.
Would the Prime Minister be prepared to go to the people with a referendum without the support of the premiers and perhaps without the support of this House? What would that offer look like and who would formulate the offer that would go to the Canadian people?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, the offer would look as silly as the question of my hon. friend.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: Mr. Speaker, I thought it was a fairly logical question for the Prime Minister. It simply asked who would formulate the offer and what kind of consultation there would be with the Canadian people in a referendum.
I would like to ask a further question about the proposed referendum. The Minister responsible for Constitutional Affairs has often said that a referendum may be used at some time to confirm a national consensus. The Prime Minister is saying that he would not be dealing with the premiers because that process has failed, but that he would force a constitutional resolution through a referendum.
Whether it is before a referendum, during a referendum or after a referendum, under the Constitution of Canada the premiers must be involved. Is the Prime Minister trying to force a consensus on the premiers or is

April 1, 1992
Oral Questions
he trying to build a consensus among Canadians in this country with the premiers who will have to make a final decision?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I think the Minister responsible for Constitutional Affairs has made that very clear. He has been working non-stop. I think that all members of all parties in this House will recognize his enormous commitment to the unity and the well-being of Canada and will applaud him for his unremitting efforts to secure that ongoing unity.
My hon. friend knows that to bring this about, the minister is following the constitutional prescription of 1982 in meeting with the provincial governments and in seeking to secure their agreement for constitutional amendments. That is the way it has to be. We are going to continue to deploy every effort.
We did not indicate that we were expecting a lack of success. We indicated that we were anticipating success, not because we plan to force a consensus on the premiers, but because we expect that the premiers are sufficiently mature and intelligent themselves, which they are, to realize the enormity of the challenge facing Canada and that they will want to put water in their wine and make honourable compromises to keep Canada together.
If the position is going to be, by every government leader, me, myself and I, they may achieve their own point of view but Canada will fail. The object of the exercise is to make sure that Canada succeeds. That is the commitment of the minister, that is the commitment of this government and I am sure that is the commitment of everybody in this House of Commons with the exception of a couple in the back row.


Mr. Paul Martin (LaSalle-Emard):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister for International Trade. Since the free trade agreement was signed, the United States has not stopped violating the spirit of the agreement. Now a bill in the Massachusetts legislature would again violate it by taking direct aim at the way Quebec and Hydro Quebec manage their borrowing.
This morning, we just learned that six other states might do the same.
Besides a mere letter, what real pressure will the government apply to support Quebec in its struggle to safeguard the spirit of the free trade agreement?


Hon. Michael Wilson (Minister of Industry, Science and Technology and Minister for International TVade):: Mr. Speaker, what the hon. member has referred to is something that does concern us very much. These proposed actions, taken by state legislatures, could have the effect of boycotting Quebec Hydro bonds. That is something that could well be contrary to the free trade agreement. We have been in touch with members of the Massachusetts legislature on this. We propose to follow this matter very closely and take whatever action is necessary to put forward our rights under the free trade agreement in order that this should not happen.


Paul Edgar Philippe Martin: Mr. Speaker, this is really part of a much larger problem. In an agreement between countries, not only the letter of the law but the spirit that underlies it is equally important. This is all the more true in an agreement as sloppily negotiated as was the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement.
Canada is being hammered not only by Washington, but by individual states that are going off on tangents of their own; California in terms of the exports of natural gas from Alberta and now we see Massachusetts and six other states in terms of Quebec bonds, and through a concerted attack on Canadian owned business as a result of a flagrant misuse of buy American policies.
These issues are not going to be resolved by the dispute settlement mechanism or by simple letters to state legislators. They are destroying the very spirit the government claims was inherent in the free trade agreement.
What specific measures is the government going to undertake to protect Canadians?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend is overstating the position. We have expressed concern about this. We do not like what is happening. But for my hon. friend to cast a blanket condemnation of every action that is taken and saying that this is completely counter to the spirit and the
April 1, 1992

rules of the free trade agreement, is wrong when he says that.
We have taken actions under the free trade agreement to protect our rights. We have to respect the fact that the U.S. may want to as well.
On this particular issue we fundamentally disagree and we are going to make that point known. We will take every action possible to ensure that we protect our position on that.


FISHERIES
Hon. Roger C. Simmons (Burin-St. George's):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. Yesterday's pathetic spectacle of the minister's disembodied voice spewing some sweet assurance to the fishermen, while in the comfort of his flying machine he flitted around in circles above-


Mr. Speaker:: Just a moment. I am sure the hon. member would like to put his question.


Roger Simmons: I say that spectacle won the point better than he knows. Jobs are being lost, fish stocks are being ravaged while the chicken goes around in circles with its head cut off.
What fishermen need from this minister is more than just lip service, they need some indication, some proof from him that he is not afraid in and out of cabinet to advocate the only way out of this dilemma, the takeover of the management of those straddling stocks.


Hon. John C. Crosbie (Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and Minister for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency):: Mr. Speaker, yesterday I went 1,500 miles to show my support for our Newfoundland fishermen and for our flotilla.
A week ago last Thursday the hon. gentleman would not go 500 yards to show his support at the standing committee on fisheries when the meeting was called to deal with this very issue. The hon. gentleman and none of his colleagues were there. I will go 1,500 miles and you will not even go 1,500 yards to show your support.
Oral Questions


John Carnell Crosbie: With respect to what we were doing, I want to congratulate Atlantic Airways, the provincial airline that is supplying the service that gives us the best surveillance and enforcement system in the world in the northwest Atlantic. It is a superb service which I checked out yesterday and can verify myself.
I flew over 12 Spanish ships, two Canadian patrol vessels, one European Community patrol vessel, one Coast Guard vessel and seven Canadian vessels in the flotilla and passed on to them our best wishes and our unremitting efforts to help them in the struggle to establish a proper conservation policy.


Roger Simmons: Mr. Speaker, what he did not mention was that the plane allowed him to avoid taking the boat and his Gravol pills.
If he is talking about miles and yards, when will he go the few hundred feet from his bench to the cabinet room and sell the idea of a takeover of the management of stocks because only today the European fisheries commissioner says that only a trifling amount of fish is involved; that he doubts Canada's sincerity very much.
Is this not proof that the minister's message is not getting through to Mr. Marin or to the gentleman who looks after constitutional affairs sometimes? Is it not true that the minister is not getting his message through and that his campaign of information is a flop? Is it not time to focus on this issue so we can get on to his other disasters, his mismanagement and give-


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, I usually have to take my Gravol pills when I watch the hon. gentleman opposite ask questions. That is when.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Mr. Speaker:: Well, it is getting awfully hard to help. Perhaps the minister could answer the question.


John Carnell Crosbie: With respect to what we are doing, today, for example, we are supporting and have made preparations for Premier Wells to visit the UNCED conference in New York to help pursue our resolution on the straddling stocks. We are prepared to work with anyone who is prepared to work with us.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.

April 1, 1992
Oral Questions
What we are not prepared to do is to pretend to the people of Newfoundland and Canada that there is some quick, easy solution to this problem. There is no quick, easy solution, but we are going to pursue every avenue open to us.
Mr. Marin, the commissioner for fisheries in the European Community in his statement today certainly did not indicate that his conscience has been pricked at all or that the community is going to take any effective action. We will be looking to the international community to shame the European Community into observing their responsibilities as international citizens, to stop this overfishing and we will work with anyone, including the hon. gentleman to accomplish that objective.


James Ross Fulton: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister for International Trade, who knows that the February 21 draft North American free trade agreement text in article 1401 lists non-energy pipeline operations for unrestricted cross-border use.
Since Canada has no legislative prohibition on large scale exports of water and a number of corporations already hold rights to massive volumes of Canadian water which they would like to export to the United States, and could through article 1401, can the minister assure this House that the final NAFTA text which would override all Canadian legislation and policy on water exports will contain specific wording prohibiting large scale water exports from Canada through non-energy pipelines as can be done now under article 1404.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, let me state categorically that there has not been under negotiation nor will there be under negotiation any provision for the large scale export of water. What my friend has said and what his leader has done is to take, quite out of context, a definition of non-energy pipelines.
Non-energy pipelines can be used for coal slurry, for other non-energy related natural gas uses and those types of transportation have to be defined under the terms of the North American free trade agreement.
To take the big leap that my hon. friend and the leader of the New Democratic Party have made of saying that automatically means that there will be large scale exports of water is totally ridiculous. He knows it and she knows it because they both know that it is contrary to the policies of the Government of Canada.


James Ross Fulton: Mr. Speaker, so far as I am aware, coal is an energy, but that just, once again, reveals the level of assurance we get from the Minister for International Trade. I will put my supplementary question to the Minister of the Environment who claims to be doing an environmental assessment of NAFTA as it goes along.
I would like to ask the minister in his responsibilities for water export policy and legislation a very simple question to which he can give a very direct answer. Is it the minister's understanding of the present text of the North American free trade agreement that Canadian water could be exported through non-energy pipelines? Yes or no?


Hon. Jean J. Charest (Minister of the Environment):: Mr. Speaker, the Minister for International Trade just gave a very clear answer. The Government of Canada has a policy and we intend to respect it.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Ms. Sheila Copps (Hamilton East):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister. We are wearing yellow flowers today as a sign of solidarity for the family of a Montreal grandmother, Henriette Haddad, who has been held in Lebanon for nearly seven years. Mrs. Haddad's family is in Ottawa today and wants to ask the Prime Minister a question directly.
Given the inaction of his minister of external affairs, would the Prime Minister be prepared today to take on the case of the only Canadian hostage still held or missing in Lebanon?


Hon. Barbara McDougall (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member knows, this file has been thoroughly reviewed by me. I
April 1, 1992

would be very happy to share it with the Prime Minister but I can assure the hon. member and the Haddad family that it has been reviewed. Much of it is public, nearly all of it is public in terms of the actions that have been taken on behalf of the Haddad family and on behalf of Mrs. Haddad.
This government will continue as it has in the past to show sympathy for the family and to follow any leads that we have that will lead to a satisfactory conclusion by way of information if it is forthcoming or to find out exactly what happened.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, the Haddad family is not looking for sympathy. They are looking for action.
Yesterday in this House the Secretary of State for External Affairs continued to insist against all evidence to the contrary that Mrs. Haddad had not been a hostage.
Last night on national television we saw two ministers of the Lebanese government state categorically that she was a hostage.
The fact is that this 66-year old Montreal grandmother has been held for more than 2,000 days, possibly in Lebanon. We do not know whether she is still alive.
Given the seriousness of the situation and as he has done in other cases, will the Prime Minister personally intervene and contact the President of Lebanon? Will he let him know that the Canadian government is taking this issue to heart and that the Canadian government recognizes Mrs. Haddad is a Canadian being held hostage and deserves our support and our help?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I think my hon. friend is quite right. Mrs. Haddad does deserve our full support and our help. That is what the Government of Canada has been doing through the Secretary of State for External Affairs.
We have conveyed to the Government of Lebanon our view throughout that Canada's efforts ought to be assisted fully by all authorities to the extent that they exist in that very troubled land.
We have received the kind of assurances on which the minister of external affairs has based her previous statements.
Oral Questions


Sheila Maureen Copps: The minister is wrong.


Martin Brian Mulroney: My hon. friend says the minister is wrong. I suppose she may be. Anything is possible.
The minister has given full and complete assurance to the hon. member, to members of the House and to the Haddad family regarding everything she knows and the Government of Canada knows, and everything that we have done and would be ready to do to assist Mrs. Haddad and her family.
Maybe my hon. friend knows something we do not know because she just said we are wrong. She may be right. I would be happy to meet with my hon. friend to get this information, but I can tell her and the Haddad family that the government takes this extremely seriously. We have done what we think is just about everything that a government can do. If there is more that we can do, we will.
I want to assure the House that the minister for external affairs has personally kept me informed, has informed the cabinet on a regular basis, and has done quite a tremendous job in defending the interests of Mrs. Haddad and the Haddad family.
This is not to say that we cannot improve and if we can, the Government of Canada certainly will.


Hon. Warren Allmand (Notre-Dame-de-Grace):: Mr. Speaker, also to the Prime Minister on the same question.
Yesterday the minister for external affairs said the government had done everything possible in this particular case.
But last night we learned that the Canadian government officials never contacted the family of the man abducted with Mrs. Haddad. The government officials never spoke to other hostages who had been taken hostage and who had been with Mrs. Haddad. Canadian government officials never spoke to the last people in Lebanon who had seen Mrs. Haddad. So not everything was done.
I would like to have a commitment from the Prime Minister that he and his government officials will do everything possible, will do what other countries have

April 1, 1992
Oral Questions
done to support their citizens who have been taken hostage.


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, first of all, the Prime Minister has assured the House and the family that that is exactly what we are doing and will do.
We followed up at the time under very chaotic circumstances in Lebanon in any way that we could with the means that were available. We did not have an embassy in Lebanon for quite some considerable time as other countries have not.
I want to assure the hon. member as well that missing persons are very important to us. What is important is that when people go missing, whether they are hostages or not, they deserve the full support of their government.
It is the fact that they are missing and that they have disappeared that is of primary concern to us. We have followed up through groups in Lebanon and through the Lebanese government now that it has reformed. Those things have not lead us to any additional conclusions.
I am quite prepared to backtrack on all of those meetings that we have had and to talk to people again. If there is new information we will continue to follow new leads. I cannot do more than that.


William Warren Allmand: Mr. Speaker, now the United Nations and the special representative of the United Nations, Mr. Picco, will go to Lebanon to intervene in the case of Mrs. Haddad.
I want to ask the minister if she and her officials in the Canadian government will give Mr. Picco, the representative of the United Nations for hostage taking matters, their full support and the support of the Canadian government on this matter?


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member knows, Mr. Picco has a list of a number of individuals who are listed as missing in Lebanon.
Not only does he have our full support, but we also provided him with some considerable information. I raised the matter with him directly myself. The answer to the hon. member's question is of course, yes.


LABELLING
Mr. Jim Karpoff (Surrey North):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of National Health and Welfare.
In his announcement yesterday on the government's fight against alcohol, the minister made no mention of actions to prevent foetal alcohol syndrome, one of the leading causes of child retardation and behavioural problems in Canada.
Since both the Government of United States and the Government of Yukon already require that warning labels be prominently displayed on alcoholic beverages warning of the severe consequences of drinking during pregnancy, will the government take this positive step and require such warning labels throughout Canada?


Hon. Benoit Bouchard (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, I know that foetal alcohol syndrome is an issue particularly in British Columbia. It was raised at times when I was in the province.
What I have to say is that any alcohol consumption represents a threat, particularly for pregnant women and it has to be known as such. That is why we are working with the provinces, and particularly in his own province with community organizations to develop awareness about the consumption of alcohol.
I can say that it is working because it is well supported. We are not yet ready, however, to determine any commitment in terms of labelling because we believe that it still has to be studied. That is what we are doing in the department.


James Capsey (Jim) Karpoff: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary for the same minister.
The minister knows that the only opposition to warning labels comes from the brewers and distillers. Since the government has already said that Canadian borders will be open to beer, both interprovincially and internationally, will the government recognize the health consequences as well as the commercial consequences of its actions, and require national, uniform warning labels on all alcoholic beverages?
April 1, 1992


Benoît Bouchard: Mr. Speaker, I said that we recognize the problem of consumption of alcohol, particularly for pregnant women.
The question he raised would normally be considered by the Minister of National Health and Welfare because so far British Columbia is the only province where that issue has been raised in Canada, but discussions at the health minister level are wanted. If there is a unanimous position by the ministers of health in Canada to do something about it, we will certainly consider their recommendation.


THE CONSTITUTION
Mr.   Garth@: My question is for the Minister responsible for Constitutional Affairs.
Last September the Government of Canada said it was in favour of entrenching property rights in the Canadian Constitution. Is that still the government's position?


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, as the House knows, the government had proposed the entrenchment of property rights. That was discussed in public hearings across the country. There was not a great deal of support evident in those public hearings, and that recommendation did not receive the unanimous support of the House in the report of the special joint committee.
The matter is still being considered by ministers in the meetings that will commence again next week. At some point in that process we are going to have to reduce the constitutional agenda to those items which can command enough support to be carried into the Constitution.
I would hope that Canadians who are interested in the question of property rights would make their views known quickly to all governments as we get into these next stages of the constitutional discussions.


PACKAGING AND LABELLING
David Bjornson: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs.
Oral Questions
As the House knows, the Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs is spending a great deal of time in forcing packaging regulations by Canadian manufacturers while ignoring the enforcement of the same regulations on imported goods.
Could the minister please tell the House if he is considering shifting the efforts of his department to the enforcement of Canadian regulations on imported goods?


Hon. Pierre Blais (Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs and Minister of State (Agriculture)):: Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question. It is a very important issue and we recognize that.
With my colleague, the Minister of National Revenue, since 1989 we have enforced a joint team at the borders to look after that issue. Mislabelling is important to us. We are doing everything we can to make sure that the regulations which apply to Canada also apply to the Americans and to people from other countries.


NATIONAL DEFENCE
Mr. George S. Rideout (Moncton):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for whoever is speaking for the Minister of National Defence.
Three weeks ago the Minister of National Defence said he was cancelling the promised $100 million supply depot in Moncton for budget reasons. On Thursday the minister announced a $10 million expansion at another site.
Three weeks ago we did not have any money and now we have the money. If it was not economically feasible three weeks ago, why is it now suddenly politically feasible? Are there two pots of money or is there a double standard?


Hon. Mary Collins (Associate Minister of National Defence and Minister Responsible for Status of Women):: Mr. Speaker, as the minister indicated in the House last week, what we have proceeded with is a consolidation of our supply operations throughout Canada. We have taken the existing five depots and consolidated them into two. That will result in an annual saving of approximately $35 million. That obviously is consistent with the requirements that our department has to help reach the deficit reduction requirements.

April 1, 1992
Points of Order
I might add that the facility in Montreal will not be built by the government. It will be built by the private sector and arranged on a lease back basis to the government. Subsequently we will still continue to have the savings of $35 million per year.


George Saunders Rideout: Jeffrey Simpson just recently said in an article on defence: "When it comes to budget cutting political requirements invariably come first".


Mr. Speaker:: I wonder, given the time, if the hon. member could put his question.


George Saunders Rideout: Mr. Speaker, it is amazing that the government would respond on the basis that the supply depot in Downsview should be consolidated with the one in Montreal, when all the internal reports indicate that it should have gone to Kingston. The same information is available for Moncton.
Why is the government playing politics with national defence and with the lives of employees at the Moncton supply depot?


Mary Collins: Mr. Speaker, I can assure my hon. colleague that I know all these decisions are difficult. Indeed many people indicate that we should do further rationalization of our infrastructure. We recognize that changes have to be made to meet the realities of today.
I would like to advise the member, though, that when we looked at the total Canadian scene, the rationalization of depots throughout the country, it made more sense to establish them and maintain them in Edmonton and to work with the existing facilities in Longue Pointe, Montreal, rather than to establish any new Greenfield operations, which I think the hon. member would agree would not have made any logical sense.


CORE AREA INITIATIVE
Mr. Rey Pagtakhan (Winnipeg North):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister. Yesterday the Core Area Initiative program in Winnipeg died. The pallbearers were the federal and provincial Tories. What a national disgrace.
Why did this government refuse to renew funding for this program which has helped some 3,000 inner city Winnipegers find jobs? Why did this government again turn its back on Winnipeg, one of the poorest cities in Canada? Why did-


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member has put his question.


Hon. Jake Epp (Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to tell the hon. member that it had been agreed to end core two, which ended yesterday, at the end of the fiscal year. There was a lot of overhead. We want to have an agreement between the city of Winnipeg and the province of Manitoba on funding that is now being used by the Government of Canada, for example, in training of especially aboriginal people in Winnipeg to give them the kind of training they need so that they can integrate into the job market.
It is better for us to spend the money for training and for those people than to maintain something that has now ended and which was agreed to end by all three levels of government.


PRESENCE IN GALLERY
Mr. Speaker:: I wish to draw to the attention of hon. members the presence in the gallery of Dr. Peter Tancig, Minister of Science and Technology of the Republic of Slovania.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


POINTS OF ORDER
Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order to clarify a point I made in response to the member for Skeena and pursuant to a matter that the leader of the NDP had raised.
Non-energy pipelines can include coking coal, other minerals, chemical feed stocks, and non-petroleum based gases as well as oil and natural gas. I wanted to make that clear so that there would be no misunderstanding whatsoever about the import of my answer.
April 1, 1992

Speaker's Ruling


James Ross Fulton: I rise on the same point of	POINT OF ORDER
order, Mr. Speaker. Did the minister say that non-energy pipelines are for gas, oil, coking coal, and chemicals?
If that is so, what are the energy pipelines for?	BILL C-63-SPEAKER'S RULING


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, coking coal is not energy. Other minerals are not energy. Non-petroleum based gases are not energy. These are the uses that non-energy pipelines can be put to.


James Ross Fulton: Mr. Speaker, my question of privilege relates to statements made by the member for Cariboo- Chilcotin. They are rooted in citation 64 on reflections on members and citation 92 on interfering with-


Mr. Speaker:: Just a moment, I wonder if the hon. member is here. I would say to the hon. member for Skeena it is customary on a question of privilege that involves another member to ensure that the other member is here when the point is being made. That is a courtesy which has been extended for many years across the Chamber.
I wonder if the hon. member could just perhaps quickly check to see whether the hon. member for Cariboo-Chilcotin is here, and I will come back to the hon. member.


STANDING COMMITTEE ON FORESTRY AND FISHERIES
Mr. Francis G. LeBlanc (Cape Breton Highlands- Canso):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Earlier this afternoon in Question Period the minister of fisheries, in response to a question by my colleague, the hon. member for Burin-St. George's, intimated in his answer that the Liberals were not in attendance at the meeting of the Standing Committee on Forestry and Fisheries on March 19 which discussed overfishing.
I wish to correct that by saying that the member for Cardigan, the member for South West Nova and myself were present at that meeting throughout those discussions. The meeting was called as a result of the efforts of the member for Burin-St. George's. Ele was unavoidably detained and made arrangements for us to represent him and his colleagues at the standing committee on fisheries.
I say this to correct the impression left by the minister of fisheries that we are not concerned with that very serious issue when indeed we are.


Mr. Speaker:: On Monday, March 30, 1992, the hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond rose on a point of order relating to the omnibus nature of Bill C-63, an act to dissolve or terminate certain corporations and other bodies. During consideration of this matter, the hon. members for Kamloops, North Island- Powell River, Ottawa-Vanier and the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader also made contributions. The Chair is grateful for their interventions. I have reviewed the matter and am now in a position to rule on the procedural arguments made against this bill.
The purpose of this bill is to wind down six government corporations or agencies: the Canada Employment and Immigration Advisory Council, the Canadian Institute for International Peace and Security, the Economic Council of Canada, the International Centre for Ocean Development, the Law Reform Commission of Canada, and the Science Council of Canada. The hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond has objected to this bill because it is asking parliamentarians to pronounce themselves on several important issues in one single question. He has argued that the bill lacks relevancy in so far as its substance is not linked to its long title, and argues further that it would be extremely difficult to debate six principles at second reading or to move amendments at report stage.
Before addressing each of the issues raised by the hon. member, it would be useful to briefly review what an omnibus bill is. As I mentioned in my ruling of June 8, 1988, there is no precise definition for omnibus bills; the most exact definition the Chair could find and agree with is that given by the hon. member for Windsor West, which is found at page 15880 of Hansard for May 30, 1988:
The essential defence of an omnibus procedure is that the bill in question, although it may seem to create or to amend many disparate statutes, in effect has one basic principle or purpose which ties together all the proposed enactments and thereby renders the bill intelligible for parliamentary purposes.

April 1, 1992
Speaker's Ruling
Clearly one of the purposes of omnibus bills is to group together multiple statutory amendments so that discussion in the House may be focused. As the government House leader in his former role as opposition critic explained on March 1, 1982 at page 15482 of Hansard in relation to the Canada post office bill:
-(Bill C-42) amended 14 other statutes to make them consistent with the new statute dealing with the post office. It is clear that grouping these is an aid, not a hindrance, to proper parliamentary discussion and decision.
[ Translation]
Although omnibus bills are sometimes welcomed by both sides of the House, several objections have arisen to their use.

The hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond identified a number of them. He argued that the long title of Bill C-63 should properly indicate the purpose of the bill-that is to say, the termination of specific agencies-by naming the affected acts, thus establishing the relevancy between the different sections of the bill. To illustrate the lack of relevance between the various sections of the bill, he quoted from citation 626 of Beauchesne's sixth edition:
Although there is no specific set of rules or guidelines governing the content of a bill, there should be a theme of relevancy amongst the contents of a bill. They must be relevant to and subject to the umbrella which is raised by the terminology of the long title of the bill.

In response, the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader argued:
The umbrella of this particular legislation was made veiy clear in the budget. It indicated very clearly that the government planned to dissolve or terminate a number of corporations and other bodies for a central theme, being the ability to cut government expenditures and, therefore, as much as possible relieve the burden on the Canadian taxpayers-.

As to the question of the long title, I wish to refer all hon. members to my ruling of June 8, 1988 on page 16257 of Hansard:
A further point raised-was the insufficiency of detail in the long title of the Bill because it did not list all of the statutes being amended therein. Hon. members might wish to consult Dreidger's The Composition of Legislation, Legislative Forms and Precedents for
information on this point-On pages 153 and 154 there is an explanation of Canadian practice as it relates to long titles, which clearly demonstrates that every Act being amended need not be mentioned in the title-If hon. members feel, however, that such a course is necessary, I suggest that they should proceed by way of amendment and not by a decision of the Speaker to reject the Bill.
The principal objections of the hon. members for Cape Breton-East Richmond, Kamloops, and Ottawa-Vani-er are that this bill espoused six principles dealing with this disparate elements such as employment and immigration, ocean development, science policy, economic issues, and so on. They contend that it would be difficult to debate the full complexities of the affected areas at second reading and to come to a single decision. To this general argument, we can turn to the reply of Speaker Lamoureux on January 23, 1969 at page 618 of the Journals:
The vote on second reading is less a vote on the principle of the bill and more a decision of the House to send the bill on for further consideration at subsequent stages of proceedings. If this interpretation is correct, it seems it should be even less difficult for honourable Members to vote either for or against the main motion, since such vote would not constitute either approval of, or opposition to, the principle of the several propositions contained in the omnibus bill.
In a lengthy ruling on May 11, 1977, Speaker Jerome brought greater explanation on pages 5522 to 5524 of Hansard:
-there can be no doubt that a motion containing two or more substantive provisions is quite distinct from a procedural motion or a motion which is generally described as having only the effect of dealing with the progress of a bill. The practice in respect of substantive motions has never been extended to those motions which relate to the progress of a bill. The use of the omnibus amending bill is well enshrined in our practices, and I really can find no reason to set aside my predecessor's very clear and sound reasoning, or the practice. Nor can I find any authority which would support an order of the Chair at this second reading stage that the bill be divided-
This still leaves, as it has in the past every time this kind of argument has been put forward, some very deep concern about whether our practices in respect of bills do in fact provide a remedy for the very legitimate complaint of the hon. member that a bill of this kind gives the government, under our practices, the right to demand one decision on a number of quite different, although related subjects -
I think an hon. Member of the House ought to have the right to compel the House to vote on each separate question-
Therefore, while I carefully guard the specific rulings on the contradiction between the principles of the bill and the motions that might be put forward until the actual stage arises, because we are speculating as to what the cases may be, it seems to me in advance that in a bill of this sort-a member ought to be able, if he wishes, to attempt through motions to delete under Standing Order 75(5) to
April 1, 1992

isolate those sections which he feels ought not to be amended or that ought to be voted upon separately, without offending the principle of the bill. I think that would give the hon. member and other hon. members an opportunity that they should enjoy, to put their position on the record, which I think ought to be known, and also to require others in the House to vote in respect of that position.
In the same vein, Speaker Sauve also expressed her opinion on June 20,1983 at page 26538 of Hansard in this manner:

Thus, although some occupants of the Chair have expressed concern about the practice of incorporating several distinct principles in a single bill, they have consistently found that such bills are procedurally in order and properly before the House.

The Speaker of the Canadian House of Commons has not been given any specific authority over the form or content of omnibus bills. From time to time, suggestions have been put forward by the Chair on how hon. members may voice their positions on various sections of omnibus bills. As Speaker Jerome indicated, for example, report stage motions to delete certain clauses may be one way of proceeding. As I stated on June 8, 1988 at page 16257 of Hansard-.
Until the House adopts specific rules relating to omnibus bills, the Chair's role is very limited and the Speaker should remain on the sidelines as debate proceeds and the House resolves the issue.
In conclusion, under the circumstances I cannot accept the objections made to this bill to divide or set aside the progress of Bill C-63, an act to dissolve or terminate certain corporations and other bodies.
I thank all hon. members for their contribution.


Mr. Dingwall:: Point of order, Mr. Speaker. Very briefly I want to thank the Chair and Table for returning back to the House so expeditiously and giving us a ruling with regard to Bill C-63.


Mr. Speaker:: I appreciate very much the comments of the hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond. Some of these questions are not easy and they require a lot of work. I think that all members who have to work on these judgments very much appreciate the thanks and appreciation extended by members.
The hon. member for Skeena. We are returning to the hon. member's question of privilege.
Privilege


PRIVILEGE
James Ross Fulton: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Cariboo-Chilcotin is present in the House. The question of privilege that I raised arose originally from his remarks of March 13 and have been carried on since then.
I would draw your attention to Beauchesne's Parliamentary Rules and Forms, sixth edition, citation 64 on "Reflections on Members", and citation 92 on "Interfering with Members" which says:
92. A valid claim of privilege in respect to interference with a
Member must relate to the Member's parliamentary duties and not to
the work the Member does in relation to that Member's constituency.
I believe that-


Mr. Speaker:: I wonder if I could just get some clarification here and then I will hear the member out. Were these comments made outside the Chamber?


James Ross Fulton: They were. The most recent remarks were made outside the Chamber and I can in fact come to them very quickly.
The issue arose on March 13 in a statement made by the member for Cariboo-Chilcotin which I and I believe the Chamber believe that he subsequently withdrew on March 25 and put an end to it. That resulted from a point of order that I raised and that you reserved on. As I said, the member rose on March 25 and apologized to the House thereby, I believe, withdrawing the remarks from the record.
On March 26 I publicly thanked the member for that apology. A letter was in fact published yesterday in the newspaper in his constituency. However, the newspaper in his constituency quotes him yesterday, March 31,1992, in the Williams Lake Tribune on the front page where it suggests that the member has now moved the attack on the Library of Parliament. It says and I quote: "Worthy is upset at the use of the parliamentary library and has sent a letter to the Speaker of the House, John Fraser, asking him to look into the matter. They used the library of the

Privilege
House in an improper manner. It's a dirty fight by Skelly and Fulton".
The member is fully aware because I have stated it in this House and I have stated it outside of this House that I did not get the parliamentary library to prepare the paper. I said so in a letter which appeared yesterday in the newspaper in his own constituency which says: "Contrary to Mr. Worthy's statement I did not commission the parliamentary library to prepare a research paper on share groups in B.C. Contrary to Mr. Worthy's suggestion that I criticized share groups in the paper, the paper was researched by a professional at the Library of Parliament and I had no input in the paper whatsoever nor am I quoted in it. One would think Mr. Worthy would have checked this out before raising it in Parliament as a personal attack, but he didn't. My respect for him is restored by his apology in Parliament". That was run in his own newspaper.
The reason that I raise this, is that this is not solely a personal attack, not only on myself but on the member for Comox-Albemi, but it is in fact an attack on part of the institution of Parliament. It in fact affects my parliamentary duties, not in relation to my constituency of Skeena, but in my capacity to be involved in issues in the entire environmental field in my home province of British Columbia where the member is suggesting that somehow I and another member of this House made an improper use of part of this House. In fact, I had no role to play whatsoever in the preparation or whatever of the paper that was prepared by the parliamentary library.
I do not think it is an appropriate kind of statement to leave on the public record, either that members were making improper use of the library or that the the Library of Parliament is somehow involved in some kind of improper activity.
I seek one more time some clarification from the member and from the Chair. Mr. Speaker, as you know, I am perfectly capable of carrying on thee kinds of things outside the House, but I do it to protect the privileges of all members in this House.


Mr. Speaker:: I will hear the hon. member for Cariboo-Chilcotin in a moment.
The withdrawal that the hon. member for Cariboo- Chilcotin made in the House was with reference to a comment he had made concerning the hon. member for
Skeena, but that comment was made in the House. The hon. member is signifying agreement to that.


Mr. Dave Worthy (Cariboo-Chilcotin):: Mr. Speaker, I am glad the hon. member brought this up as a question of privilege because it gives me a chance to get this on the House record, which I was having difficulty doing.
My apology the other day was because I misused statement period to make a statement that could be construed as an attack on the hon. member. That was a misuse of the statement period, and for this I apologized.
My primary concern is for the people I am trying to defend, the people who are under attack. It is the grassroots people, the workers, cattlemen, mayors, aldermen, people who belong to the share groups of British Columbia who have been subject to what they consider to be a severe and unfair attack by two members of this House.
I did write a letter to the Speaker and I hope there will be some action. I do not accuse the Library of Parliament of being in the wrong. I am questioning what I consider to be the misuse of the Library of Parliament by two members .
The document produced by the library, sent out with an accompanying letter by these members, implies things about this document that I do not think are there. They are misusing a document produced by this House.
I also have some concerns abut how this researcher in the library was able to arrive at the conclusions, but that is a subject matter I have asked the Speaker to enter into. I have not seen the article in the paper. The member did not advise he was raising this point of privilege, so I had no chance to prepare for it.
The same day I stood in this House to indicate my mistake in using the statement period, I was telephoned by a newspaper because it had already received the letter from the member. I was asked what the situation was and I stated it.
If you look at the documentation I have, it indicates that the two members are, in what appears to be a fairly methodical manner, trying to impugn grassroots people belonging to the share groups throughout British Columbia. I think it is a terrible thing for members to do. I will continue to do the best I can to defend the share groups from what I consider to be an improper attack and improper use of the facilities of this House.
April 1, 1992


SPEAKER'S RULING
Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Skeena has raised a matter which he agrees took place outside of this Chamber and the hon. member for Cariboo-Chilcotin has responded.
There are two aspects of this. The first is whether or not the comments made outside the House affect the privileges of the hon. member who is complaining. On any careful analysis of what privilege is, one will note that the act or comment complained about must either in fact diminish the rights and the ability of the member of Parliament to carry on his or her duties or potentially do that.
The hon. member for Skeena has indicated to the Chair and to the House that he is more than capable of handling debate outside the House, and that is so. If I was to allow privilege in this case, I would have to be saying that this debate which is taking place between himself and the hon. member for Cariboo-Chilcotin outside the House is somehow impinging on his privileges and his ability to carry out his duties as a member of Parliament. I do not think we can go that far. As a consequence, I will have to reject the hon. member on the question of privilege.
There is another point here. That point has been alluded to by the hon. member for Caribou-Chilcotin. It apparently concerns the content of a paper written by an official in the Library of Parliament. The hon. member has brought that to the attention of the Chair by separate letter, not through this particular application this afternoon, and I am considering that matter.
I want to point out, first of all, that the librarian is not an officer of this House; the library is an administrative service of the House of Commons. The research papers are produced by the Library of Parliament. I think all hon. members would agree that it is a very extensive service indeed to which a great many members refer. Certainly I would think it is probably the view of members here that over many years the service that has been given to us by the Library of Parliament has been absolutely splendid and given us a great deal of assis-
Routine Proceedings
tance in doing those things which we must do as members of Parliament in the public interest.
However, I will look at this particular matter and I will respond to the hon. member for Caribou-Chilcotin. In the meantime, for any of those who have been listening or watching this, this really is an argument that is taking place outside the Chamber. The withdrawal that took place the other day was a withdrawal, as the hon. member for Caribou-Chilcotin has again stated, of improper words relating to the hon. member for Skeena made in this Chamber. At that time, of course, I thanked the hon. member for his courtesy in doing that. In fairness, the hon. member for Skeena has publicly commended the hon. member for that withdrawal. The rest of the debate they have to do the best they can with.
As I say, on the question of the paper, I will try to see if there is some resolution and some assistance that can be given in this matter by the Chair.
I thank both hon. members for their courtesy in the interventions today.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Hon. Thomas Siddon (Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development):: Mr. Speaker, under the provisions of Standing Order 32(2), I have the honour to table, in both official languages, copies of the 1990-91 Annual Review of the Western Arctic Inuvialuit Claim Implementation.


GOVERNMENT RESPONSE TO PETITIONS
Mr. Michel Champagne (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Forestry):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8), I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government's response to nine petitions.

April 1, 1992
Routine Proceedings
[Editor's Note: See today's Votes and Proceedings.]


[Stage Direction]
29TH REPORT OF STANDING COMMITTEE
Mr. Charles A. Langlois (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Industry, Science and Technology):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present the 29th report of the Standing Committee on House Management concerning votable items arising from Private Members' Business.
Pursuant to Standing Order 92(2), this report is deemed to be adopted when laid upon the Table.
[Editor's Note: See today's Votes and Proceedings.]


PETITIONS
George Saunders Rideout: Mr. Speaker, it is my duty to present a petition, pursuant to Standing Order 36, in which people from the Moncton area are petitioning this Chamber, asking that a referendum be held on all constitutional matters.


Ms. Beth Phinney (Hamilton Mountain):: Mr. Speaker, I have here over 150 petitions and several thousand signatures from people in my riding of Hamilton Mountain, from all over Ontario, from Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and other parts of Canada.
I would like to add these to the over 350,000 signatures I have already personally presented from citizens who feel that there are serious deficiencies in the criminal justice system.
They are calling upon this government to recognize that crimes of violence against the person are very serious and abhorrent to society. They ask this government to further amend the Criminal Code of Canada, the Bail Reform Act of 1972 and the Parole Act accordingly.


Mr. Ray Skelly (North Island-Powell River):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present a petition in the
House today that relates to the conflict between the United States and Iraq.
The petition relates to recent statements by the President of the United States that he is considering bombing Iraq if it does not follow United Nations' policies.
The petitioners would have the House of Commons and the government condemn the statements of the President of the United States and urge the government to work toward diplomatic solutions to the problem.


Mr. Ray Funk (Prince Albert-Churchill River):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour and the privilege to present a petition signed by about 150 residents of the city of Hamilton who are expressing their dismay at the fact that the government caved in to the Reformers in their caucus who demanded an end to the co-op housing program.
These people are calling on Parliament to recognize housing as a shared provincial-federal responsibility, to support the federal non-profit co-operative housing program and to maintain Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Svend J. Robinson (Burnaby-Kingsway):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present a petition which is signed by hundreds of residents of Burnaby, Rosewood, Langley and a number of other communities in British Columbia, as well as Sackville, New Brunswick and other New Brunswick communities, which points out that two Canadians, Christine Lamont and David Spencer, who have been sentenced to 28 years each in a Brazilian prison have suffered miscarriages of justice, cruel and unusual treatment in Brazilian prisons, and discrimination in sentencing and parole. They point out that the only relief which is available from this harsh punishment is for Canada to request expulsion in accordance with Brazilian law.
It therefore calls upon Parliament to urge the Secretary of State for External Affairs to request the Government of Brazil to expel Christine Lamont and David Spencer and return them to their homes in Canada.
April 1, 1992


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
Michel Champagne: Mr. Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: Nos. 234, 238 and 264.


Mrs. Campbell (South West Nova): Have our negotiators at the GATT indicated specific areas which may adversely affect Canadians after the GATT is signed and, if so, what is the list of specific adversities?


Mr. Andre Plourde (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister for International Trade):: No. It is not possible to pinpoint specific areas or sectors within the Canadian economy which may be adversely affected by the Uruguay round trade negotiations because the level of
Routine Proceedings
tariff/non-tariff barrier reduction has not yet been agreed on a product or sectoral basis.
The expectation of our negotiators is that whatever depth of barrier reduction is agreed in specific areas- and indeed Canada is pressing for barrier elimination in a number of resource and advanced technology sectors of export interest to it-every effort will be made to ensure that the changes will be introduced gradually so as to permit Canadians to take advantage of and to adjust to the new market conditions.


Mr. Mifflin: What is the per capita defence spending by province for each of the years 1970 to 1991?


Hon. Marcel Masse (Minister of National Defence):: It should be noted that figures are unavailable for 1970-71 (the methodology for capturing Department of National Defence spending by province was changed in 1971) and for 1991-92 (the current fiscal year is not yet complete).


[Stage Direction]
PROVINCE 70/71*	71/72	72/73	73/74	74/75	75/76	76/77	77/78	78/79	79/80	80/81	81/82Newfoundland	24.65	31.14	34.87	39.04	41.86	48.13	53.58	54.30	56.21	64.22	74.01Prince Edward Island	148.54	181.55	213.86	235.11	280.08	308.21	291.06	291.67	301.54	321.80	338.32Nova Scotia	299.36	357.29	385.33	413.83	469.21	512.52	539.14	590.60	599.03	705.55	736.32New Brunswick	129.72	152.79	168.61	165.31	200.85	211.91	218.60	237.11	230.25	263.41	262.34Quebec	62.50	55.10	57.96	64.44	78.82	82.69	90.38	100.78	100.81	117.98	146.84Ontario	79.67	82.80	94.29	102.50	124.92	141.92	140.18	145.17	160.88	177.16	218.35Manitoba	91.67	96.48	107.96	119.52	139.90	148.32	160.02	167.49	182.26	206.39	255.23Saskatchewan	30.11	33.76	38.52	44.02	54.67	57.35	60.99	64.51	68.39	75.31	75.51Alberta	83.52	101.41	114.37	123.59	145.80	151.67	135.22	138.96	149.03	150.99	162.29British Columbia	73.56	87.69	96.31	108.11	123.09	128.81	131.39	141.38	142.20	150.99	172.15Yukon	.76	.65	8.27	7.29	2.50	29.64	17.45	9.94	10.67	15.43	24.10Northwest Territories	108.71	122.25	183.70	193.50	179.36	379.32	334.84	322.54	336.55	424.47	386.07
Not available.
[Stage Direction]
Supply
[Stage Direction]
PROVINCE	82/83	83/84	84/85	85/86	86/87	87/88	88/89	89/90	90/91 91/92*Newfoundland	81.88	92.14	113.10	131.17	216.90	182.35	217.00	165.00	260.00Prince Edward Island	354.17	734.44	549.91	547.18	692.24	484.33	469.00	406.00	356.00Nova Scotia	840.59	898.04	1082.33	1110.05	1423.11	1111.30	1082.00	1082.00	1217.00New Brunswick	306.02	506.78	532.14	467.48	573.50	1347.68	1270.00	1006.00	1050.00Quebec	168.88	166.40	179.31	181.59	180.92	285.70	263.00	284.00	316.00Ontario	226.24	269.74	297.01	303.01	321.99	374.06	388.00	417.00	420.00Manitoba	258.96	282.31	328.55	334.36	397.07	369.51	418.00	462.00	471.00Saskatchewan	82.77	119.55	128.73	130.25	151.96	96.32	92.00	107.00	121.00Alberta	178.26	235.11	271.19	266.88	318.50	255.78	285.00	273.00	304.00British Columbia	199.73	222.80	254.07	265.91	305.12	260.07	260.00	291.00	287.00Yukon	46.26	62.15	69.39	66.80	43.87	92.16	67.46	78.43	114.94Northwest Territories	527.97	691.52	697.45	438.53	559.10	132.42	258.62	321.36	464.68
* Not available.
Mr. Mifflin: In consideration of all national defence expenditures in Canada, what is the per capita expenditure by province and territory for each of the years 1980 to 1992?


Marcel Masse: Information requested has been provided in response to Question No. 238 answered this day.
Figures are unavailable for 1991-92 as the fiscal year is not yet complete.


Michel Champagne: Mr. Speaker, I ask that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.


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


Some hon. members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


Mr. Jean-Robert Gauthier (Ottawa-Vanier) moved:: That this House call upon the government to restore the Court
Challenges Program.
He said: Mr. Speaker, the motion is simple and straightforward and, I believe, makes it incumbent on the House to consider this matter.
Since 1978, the Court Challenges Program has made it possible for a number of private citizens and minority groups to have their constitutional rights clarified before the courts. Supported over the years by all political parties, the program has been an essential factor in the constitutional development of language rights. I am thinking of section 133 of the Constitution Act, 1867, section 23 of the Manitoba Act, 1870; and since 1982 the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and sections 16 to 23 on matters that are vital to this country, section 15 on equality rights, section 27 on multicultural heritage, and, finally, the equality of men and women, as guaranteed under section 28.
April 1, 1992

In its report tabled in the House in 1989, the Standing Committee on Human Rights and the Status of Disabled Persons, consisting of members of all three political parties in the House, was unanimous in recognizing the fact that this program was important, effective and indispensable, and recommended that the government extend the program until the year 2000.
Initially the program was funded by the Department of the Secretary of State, in co-operation with the Department of Justice. I was here in 1977 when the program started, as a result of the Forest case in Manitoba. The program's administration was later transferred in 1985 to the Canadian Council for Social Development, under an agreement with the federal government. This agreement expired in July 1990.
At the time, the Secretary of State announced that the program would be administered by the Human Rights Research and Education Centre of the University of Ottawa, for a period of five years until 1995. When it announced the termination of this program in the budget, the government broke its contract with the centre and the program's staff.

From 1985 to February 27, 1992 the program financed about 250 cases, 77 of which were about linguistic rights. The program is at the origin of the most significant rulings in the interpretation of our Constitution on linguistic rights and equality rights.
Speaking of equality rights, I want to pay special tribute to our critic, the member for Saint-Laurent- Cartierville, who cannot be here today. She is in hospital. We would like to send Shirley our best wishes.
Looking at the rulings of the Supreme Court of Canada, one could mention the Manitoba appeal on legislative bilingualism in Manitoba, the Mahe ruling on school administration in Alberta, the Swain ruling on the rights of mentally handicapped people, the Tetreault-Gaboury ruling on the rights of people 65 years and older and the Canadian Newspapers Company regarding the confidentiality of victims of sexual abuse.
This program helped Canadians clarify their rights. I know that the majority does not like sometimes to be told by the courts that it is not as generous, as open, as caring as it should be or as the Constitution of this country accords Canadians.

As official languages critic for the Liberal Party, Mr. Supply
Speaker, I could give you a list of all the cases funded by this program and heard by the courts. I must say the program was extremely helpful in clarifying these issues.
There have been a number of letters and other forms of communication from private citizens and organizations across the country, protesting the termination of this program. One expression of concern came from the Association culturelle franco-canadienne de la Saskatchewan, in a letter to the Prime Minister dated March 4, 1992. and I quote:
Universal access to the courts to defend our basic rights-one of the pillars of Canadian democracy-has vanished, which is a matter of utmost concern.
Another quote from the Federation of Francophone and Acadian Communities of Canada to the Prime Minister dated March 16, 1992 said:
We have had to take almost all provincial governments to court for them to stop humiliating us and depriving us of our schools.
Another one is an editorial in Le Droit dated February 3, 1992:
The Court Challenges Program was the best way that minorities and a whole range of disadvantaged groups had to protect themselves from the continual abuse of various levels of government.
Another quote is from the Association of French School Boards of Ontario, dated March 31, 1992, yesterday:
If the Court Challenges Program is not reinstated, the government will have sealed the fate of minority language rights and it will be possible to violate them with impunity, and the official-language minorities will be unable to challenge such action in court.
On March 9, 1992, the Canadian Bar Association wrote:
It seems ironical that this program was cancelled on the day before the Beaudoin-Dobbie Report was published, since this report deals with challenges to equality rights and the rights of linguistic minorities.

The press release of the Canadian Rehabilitation Council for the Disabled of March 2, 1992 stated:
Cancelling the Court Challenges Program and cutting Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation's co-operative housing program will make it more difficult for people with disabilities to achieve equality within the existing system.

April 1, 1992
Supply
The Hon. Bertha Wilson, former judge of the Supreme Court of Canada in her letter to the Minister of Justice on March 4, 1992 stated:
I have on numerous occasions publicly expressed the view that it is totally illusory to confer rights on people who do not have the means to enforce them and I assumed that the expansion of the Court Challenges Program following the advent of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms was an effort to address this problem.
An editorial in The Ottawa Citizen of March 3, 1992 stated:
If the program dies, it will be for the very reason it was bom-the disadvantaged who need help aren't a powerful lobby.
We can only openly lament, given the support, the statements of the people I have quoted and the recommendations of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Human Rights and the Status of Disabled Persons, that the decision by this government is unfortunate and the reasons given to date have been totally unsatisfactory to say at least in my view not at all plausible.
Can it really be said that the program was too expensive for the taxpayers when we consider that between 1985 and 1992 an average of $625,000 per fiscal year was spent to support these cases? This represents a very reasonable sum given the size of the federal government's over-all spending.
Furthermore, have we really come to the point where we are putting a dollar value on the preservation of the fundamental rights of people to get their linguistic rights clarified? Have we come to the stage in this country where disadvantaged groups, be they socially or economically unable to go to the courts because they cannot afford it, then I say we have a serious case of collective examination of our own consciences to do.
The facts clearly show that every province without exception, Mr. Speaker-and I could quote a series of cases in every single province of this country but time being of the essence I cannot do that-has been taken to court, either because they were hostile to giving linguistic minorities their rights or indifferent.
It is unacceptable in this country today that we give for a reason to the people of Canada for abolishing this program that we say we cannot afford it. It is not a costly program. Thanks to this program these rights have been clarified and affirmed. Some of them still need to be
clarified and affirmed, notably by the courts and possibly by the Supreme Court of Canada.
There is still much to be done to complete this interpretation of our laws, of section 23 for example. The Right. Hon. Brian Dickson, someone for whom I have great respect, said in the Mahe ruling that this is only the beginning and the courts have a lot of work to do.
As well, the relevant sections of the Canadian Constitution are far from being clarified by the courts. I do not remember it exactly but I think the Americans say: "A constitution is a living tree".
The consequences of abolishing this program would be harmful to Canadians. Even if individuals and groups of individuals finance their own cases in front of the courts the judicial method remains very slow and very expensive. Further, even if the rulings of the Supreme Court of Canada are not followed up in many cases the groups or the individuals must return to the courts and sometimes restart the process. This would result in a heavy burden on them.
They are not rich, but they are proud Canadians. This program addressed their individual rights as Canadians.

Litigation in Canada, especially if it goes as far as the Supreme Court, is extremely expensive. Without the Court Challenges Program, what will parents and parents' groups and official language minorities do if they want to have their constitutional rights recognized? Will they have to hold bazaars, bingos and bean suppers to raise the necessary funds? How many fundraisers will they have to hold to collect the $35,000 needed to start a case or the $5,000 it takes just to have lawyers look into the possibilities? Canadians must be able to say that in Canada, recognition of basic rights is everyone's business and not just the affair of the rich. In many cases, no money means no rights. We know that saying.
However, the Conservative government promised Canadians many times that it would keep this program and we believed it. I would like to quote the Minister of Multiculturalism and Citizenship, who said on May 10, 1990: "We believe that this program has an important role to play in helping to clarify some provisions of the charter. Therefore extending the program reaffirms the government's commitment to advancing human rights in Canada."
April 1, 1992



In August 1984 the Prime Minister said before the Coalition of Provincial Organizations of the Handicapped: "A Progressive Conservative government will financially assist under the charter of rights all cases deemed to be of national importance. Cases involving the rights of the handicapped and disabled would certainly fall in this category".

I would like to quote the Prime Minister again. This quotation will be longer, but I think that it will be useful. "We will keep the present Court Challenges Program, which helps individuals and groups seeking to obtain a court decision on contentious points relating to language rights under the Constitution Act, 1867 and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We will consult members of minority groups and other interested persons to ensure that the Court Challenges Program is both well designed and effective". This is from a letter that the Prime Minister wrote to the Federation of Francophones outside Quebec on August 14, 1984, when he was Leader of the Opposition.
I have as many quotes and letters we could want. I know that time is pressing and I cannot read them all. Government members have told Canadians time and time again that they would maintain this program. They said they would. We believed them, but they did not keep their word.
Some of us feel the government has borrowed the agenda of the Reform Party. I can hear members saying: "Come on, Jean-Robert". Now listen to me. The Reform Party has never had time for minorities. It does not believe in multiculturalism. It does not believe in bilingualism. Anyone who abolishes the programs and mechanisms that enable multicultural groups and minority language groups to defend their rights before the courts are wrong. This is not the way Canada was built, and it is not the way we want this country to go on.
Supply
I say that by taking a leaf from the Reform Party's program they are out of line with the social and economic realities of our country. We will not let the rights of Canadians be violated. That is why I have asked the government to reinstate the Court Challenges Program immediately.
In the current constitutional context, we are talking about creating collective rights as well as individual rights. We are on the verge of creating a new concept that is neither well known nor easy to interpret: collective rights. What are collective rights? When I talk about self-government for aboriginal people, that is a collective right. When we talk about education rights for minority communities, which may be English in Quebec or French outside Quebec, that is a collective right. Section 23 of the Charter concerns collective rights. It is a difficult concept. Distinct society, whether we like it or not, more or less defines a collective right.
By terminating a program whose purpose was to clarify these new individual rights and possibly clarify these collective rights, the Conservative government is not acting sensibly. I intend to do everything I can, together with my leader, who originated the program. I say this because he was there. He was Minister of Justice when the program was established.
A Liberal government will respect the rights of women, aboriginal people, the disabled, language minorities and other minority groups. As I said, I will work very hard to reinstate a program that will reflect our respect for the many facets of Canadian society. I am making a personal commitment, and I believe I have the support of my entire caucus. I even have a letter I sent yesterday to the Prime Minister, signed by practically all members I was able to contact. I could not get in touch with the member for Saint-Laurent-Cartierville, because she is in hospital, and a few other members are outside the country, but everyone I approached in my caucus, including the chairman of a standing committee of the House, the member for Oxford, and the NDP critic, signed this letter which quite simply asks the government to extend the Court Challenges Program.

Supply
In conclusion, I urge the government to do its job, to make good on its many promises and to reinstate as soon as possible a program that we truly need here in Canada, one that makes Canada a wonderful country, one of the only countries in the world where these constitutional rights can be defended before the courts. We cannot stop now.


Hon. Gerry Weiner (Minister of Multiculturalism and Citizenship):: Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by joining the hon. member for Ottawa-Vanier in wishing good health and speedy recovery to the member for Saint-Laurent- Cartierville. She is indeed a good friend of mine and a good friend of all those who fight for equality and minority rights across this country.
I would like to thank the member for the manner in which he clearly laid out the issue and the comprehensive understanding which he has brought to it. Certainly his defence of the rights of official language communities and minorities from coast to coast has been vigorous and effective throughout. During the time I had the privilege and pleasure to work the official language file with the hon. member as my critic I always knew I could count on his full participation. Certainly he was very helpful in rendering the program fully accountable.
I hope that whatever progress we made was a result of the strength of the partnership we had.
I would like to spend a few minutes responding to the motion of the hon. member for Ottawa-Vanier. I think it is fair to say at the outset that my hon. colleague and I, and indeed all of us in this House, recognize the contribution that the Court Challenges Program has made to this country.
It is also fair to say that by any measure the Court Challenges Program has been a successful program.

We must also admit that this program is absolutely incomparable. Nowhere else in the world, be it in the United Kingdom, the United States, Europe or elsewhere, does a government give its citizens the financial resources to challenge its own laws, practices and regulations and to ensure that they are applied fairly and equitably.

This is a singularly Canadian enterprise, a made-in-Canada program. Canada alone conceived this policy. Canada alone drafted the terms of the program. Canada alone implemented those terms with results that had and will continue to contribute to the development of social policy over the last decade and a half and into the future.
On this point we do not differ. However it should also be acknowledged that it is this government that has spent more than any other government in supporting this type of program. Our contribution has been unprecedented. This is a legacy of which all of us can be justifiably proud, more so than any other party in this House.
Perhaps it would be useful at this point to briefly review the genesis and evolution of the Court Challenges Program. Established in 1978, its initial purpose was to provide financial aid for the preparation and defence of test cases intended to clarify language rights under the Constitution Act of 1867.
After the adoption and proclamation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982 the government of the day expanded and updated the program so that litigants would be provided with sufficient funds to challenge federal and provincial legislation pertaining to the equal status of official languages and minority language education rights.
That essentially applied to sections 16 to 23 of the charter.
Some three years later, in April 1985, section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms came into effect. Shortly thereafter, in September of that same year, this government again broadened the application of the challenges program.
These reforms provided funding for cases to test federal laws, policies, and practices based on the equality clauses of section 15, the equality of sexes clauses of section 28, and the multiculturalism clauses of section 27 when used in conjunction with arguments based on section 15.
At the same time the government decided to give the administration of this program, which until then had been the responsibility of the Department of Secretary of State, to the Canadian Council on Social Development, an independent agency.
April 1, 1992



We thus ensured that decisions on funding-what cases to choose as precedents, what groups or individuals to finance, what amounts to pay-would be made as they should always have been made, completely independently, without government interference. The evaluation of applications for financial assistance was entrusted to independent boards established by the council.
When the program was renewed for another five years in 1990 administration was transferred to the Human Rights Research and Education Centre located at the University of Ottawa. During these years funds were committed not only to bring test challenges to court but also to conduct research and impact studies, to launch interventions and to monitor case developments.
In fact, in the years since 1985, some $8.5 million was allocated to groups or individuals seeking to clarify the language and equality provisions of the charter.
Since its inception in 1978, some 264 have been granted funding by the program, 99 involving language rights and 165 involving equality rights. Many of these were landmark cases.
Consider for example Bilodeau v. The Attorney General of Manitoba in which the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the Government of Manitoba should be required to translate into French all of the laws it has passed in the English language only. All of us understand the importance of this case in the defence of francophone rights.
Or consider the Canadian Disability Rights Council v. Canada in which the trial division of the Federal Court declared unconstitutional and without force or effect and in violation of section 3 of the charter, a provision in the Canada Elections Act that for many years had deprived Canadians with a mental disability of the right to vote.
Consider too the case of Canada Employment and Immigration Commission v. Tetreault-Gaboury in which the Supreme Court ruled section 31 of the Unemploy-
Supply
ment Insurance Act inconsistent with section 15 of the charter.
The effect of section 31 was to remove applicants age 65 or older from the normal benefit plan and to provide them with a single lump sum retirement benefit amounting to three times the weekly rate to which they would otherwise be entitled.

And the list goes on. I am thinking, for example, of the Ford case in Quebec, the Mercure case in Saskatchewan and the Mahe case in Alberta. All these important decisions were made as a result of challenges financed by the program.

These, of course, are only a few of the 68 significant and historic decisions rendered by the courts between 1978 and March 1991 as a direct result of the funding provided by the Court Challenges Program.
During those years this program enabled the legal system to adjudicate an extremely broad range of human rights issues, including the rights of prisoners, aboriginal Canadians and the disabled, and discrimination based on age, gender, sexual orientation, citizenship, race, ethnic origin, marital and economic status.
In giving voice to this motion, my hon. colleague from Ottawa-Vanier is essentially recognizing the importance the Court Challenges Program has made in the fight for equality, equality of race, equality of gender, equality of language and equality of access.
These values lie at the very core of the department it is my privilege to administer. Let me say frankly that one must always guard against the impulse of complacency and acknowledge that there is more to be done.
Nevertheless, let me say that I am proud of the progress we have made on any number of fronts to bring Canadians of all cultures and origins into the very centre of life in Canada. It opens up the country to their talent and energy, their ingenuity and creativity. It helps to break down the barriers that have been constructed, to assist persons with disabilities to have full and equal access to mainstream society, to wage war on our most implacable enemies, racism, bigotry, discrimination and illiteracy.

April 1, 1992
Supply
It is citizens, human beings, who build nations and civilizations, not governments. However my department, the Department of Multiculturalism and Citizenship will continue through all of its programs to support this crucial human endeavour.
Times are what they are. There is no escaping current realities. This government cannot simply evade or blindly shirk its fiscal responsibilities.
The economic climate in Canada today is very tough. It is tough everywhere and it requires equally tough responses, decisions that will not and cannot always be popular or welcomed.
Our resources are finite. Our resources are stretched. Everyone knows that. With the resources that are available, we must prioritize. We must make hard choices. Across Canada today everyone is being forced to make hard choices.
Now it is true that the Court Challenges Program was never intended to provide perpetual access to minority and equality groups seeking to challenge federal legislation in the courts or to underwrite their efforts.
It is true that the role and activities of such groups is often already supported by existing government programming including the women's program, the disabled participation program and by a host of other initiatives, not only in the Department of Secretary of State, but also in the other departments.
There are initiatives designed to combat racism and discrimination and to promote official languages and equality rights. That is the centrality and the importance of why we established a full Department of Multiculturalism and Citizenship to make certain that equality was there in fact and not only in law, the equal opportunity to participate fully for all of our citizens.
It is true that these other programs will continue to be funded by this government and encouraged and actively promoted. Some elements of the Court Challenges Program, some research and public education may still be eligible for federal funding.
All commitments of court cases made before the budget's main estimates which were handed down on February 27 will be honoured and processed at the level of court at which they were approved.
It is equally true that not all remedies to all wrongs need to be addressed or resolved in the halls of justice.

It is true that after taking nearly 300 cases to court, some of which will continue to be heard while the program is phased out, we now have a body of precedents in the field of official languages and equality rights.

All of those propositions are undoubtedly true. So where exactly does that leave us? It leaves us with a proposal by my hon. colleague that however well-intentioned, it is simply not realistic. I salute his purpose but I cannot endorse his motion.
Perhaps now is the time for the provinces to begin to play a role. Perhaps it is time for the Canadian Bar Association or for other legal organizations and social agencies, non-governmental bodies and institutions to step forward.
With the letters of support the member has been able to receive, I have no doubt that there may be a body or group of people very well prepared and interested in continuing to carry on the work in a shared or some other relationship.
What a wonderful opportunity we have today. I thank the member again for placing this important question before the House. We have the opportunity today to actually do some brainstorming and some thinking as members of Parliament, to examine what possible method can be found.
We certainly all recognize the benefit and the excellence of the program that had been in place. It is clear we cannot go backward. We cannot undo what has been done.
We have decided that this program has made its contribution. On this decision, there is no turning back. But surely we have it in our collective powers of creativity and imagination to find another way, one not necessarily funded by the federal government.
In this spirit, I invite hon. members of this House to devote a significant portion of this debate to exploring some of those possibilities today.
I look forward to being able to listen with great anticipation to all of the innovative and creative ideas that members have been hearing from their constituents. I hope in that spirit we can begin to construct something
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that could be of benefit to the very issues that my hon. friend wants continued to be addressed.
Again, I thank the member for his concern and the dedicated manner in which he brought the issue forward today.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the minister a question. He said that the time had come to move this Court Challenges Program to other levels, and he mentioned the provinces. In every case, the province was the accused, and to say that the provinces could take over is like putting the fox in charge of the henhouse. It makes no sense. This program costs each Canadian 10 cents a year.

Ten cents per year per Canadian and the minister cries economic tough times. We know that Tory times are tough times, but it is ten cents a year per Canadian for a program that helps Canadians to get their rights clarified before a court.
I say to the minister in all honesty that his argument does not convince me. I do not think he has convinced Canadians the reason he has given that it is economic tough times that have forced this program to be cut is appropriate.
I ask him very sincerely, is he not telling us that indeed this was done for ideological reasons rather than for economic reasons?


Gérard (Gerry) Weiner: Almost all my efforts in this past eight-year period as a federal member of Parliament and minister have been to help Canadians understand the benefit of having one level of citizenship, first class citizenship, the equality that we all believe to be in the law, which is not there in practice.
What I have done is I have tried in a very open and honourable manner in the creation of this department to make the centrality of our effort bringing forth partnerships, partnerships with Canadians from coast to coast in every one of the institutions they represent. In that way those institutions, once and for all, will get it through their heads that what we need is significant change. What we need is a change of attitude. What we need is an opportunity to participate.
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How can you feel good about your citizenship if you are not included? How can you feel good if you do not have the same access to jobs, to housing, to the same income, if your young, dedicated, intelligent, young people, have no job offers?
What we have done very practically is we have taken almost all the resources of the new department and we have placed them to fight racism, racial discrimination. We have brought forward a program on integration and equality.
Now there is a consensus of people from coast to coast who are really recognizing the benefit of having this kind of program. Maybe it has been some of the public education and awareness. Maybe it has been the work of members from coast to coast. Because we have a consensus of opinion in this House which is very supportive of what we are doing.
In a survey, a very in-depth analysis last year by Angus Reid, almost 90 per cent of Canadians when faced with the most in-depth type of questioning of their attitudes recognized the need for that kind of programming and wanted it to continue to go on unabated.
So the accusation that there is something ideologically wrong, I can tell you that for me this is the opportunity to make the Canadian dream a reality, to give every one of our citizens that opportunity to participate fully, the human opportunity.
There are a lot of program areas beginning with literacy and going through to voluntary action, human rights, the racism and integration programs that we manage. With this particular program we have nothing to be ashamed of, nothing at all to be ashamed of. It has been an enormous success. It is at the backbone of promoting what we all wanted to do. The program has fulfilled its objectives.
It does not mean that it could go on forever. It does not mean that we had to have this kind of a program to the year 2000.1 have said in this House in answer to the hon. member's questions that yes, we do have a significant body of jurisprudence. Whether we have enough or not is debatable. Whether others should perhaps want to participate in a new kind of creative programming, that I think is the excitement of Canada.

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That is the kind of role I think Canadians may want to play from coast to coast, not necessarily to wait for the federal government to put everything on the table in a manner that it might not be able to afford in these particularly difficult times when far too many are hurting and are out of work.


Mr. Ian Waddell (Port Moody-Coquitlam):: Mr. Speaker, may I say right off that I admire the hon. minister. I think he has done good work for Canada's department. He is honest and straightforward but today is a very shabby performance. I almost would feel sorry for him, defending the indefensible if I did not know that there are other people I should feel sorry for, namely the people who are not going to be able to take advantage of this program.
He said the program is good, it is working. So why is he killing it?
I want to ask him this question because he said money is involved. The Court Challenges Program cost $2.7 million a year, is that not correct? The minister is nodding, $2.7 million. The government spends $870,000 on daily press clippings for the Prime Minister. Why does the government not cut that and put the money in the Court Challenges Program?


Gérard (Gerry) Weiner: I am not in the very important job of budget making. What I am in the process of doing is carrying forward in a most appropriate fashion a new department, with increased resources, new personnel from coast to coast, with a lot of ideas and excitement and a partnership of people who hope and pray that this will be their opportunity so that indeed when I set up a partnership with an institution, that that institution will once and for all recognize the diversity of Canadian society and allow them to participate.
We all have our priorities. We all would like to do exactly those things that we would want to do in life. This is a team effort. Budget making is a very difficult proposition.
I am thrilled that the former Minister of Finance is in the House with us today. This is not an easy job. This minister who is with us today took on a job that had to be addressed for some 65 years in this country. For 65 years we had a tax loaded on the backs of the manufacturing sector. We were constantly advised to make improvements, broaden the base, allow all Canadians to participate. He did that.
The current finance minister brought forward a budget at the end of February which did a lot of very effective trimming, a lot of belt tightening. Frankly it left my ministry in very healthy shape. I am very pleased that the word multiculturalism was not mentioned in a very prominent way on February 27.


Rey D. Pagtakhan: Mr. Speaker, on February 27, the minister in reply to a question said: "There is now a solid base of jurisprudence for future years". A day later in reply to another question he said: "We have built up a certain amount of jurisprudence". Today he said: "It is debatable and perhaps much more needs to be done". I would like a clarification on that point.
Last, of the 264 cases, 165 on equality and 99 on language, could the minister inform the House how many of these cases were challenges to the government's position and how many of these cases were challenged by the government?


Gérard (Gerry) Weiner: I thank the hon. member for his attempt at clarification. Throughout I have used the words "a significant volume of jurisprudence". The hon. member can read my response in Hansard.
I will quote a response to an answer I gave the member for Hamilton Mountain: "Madam Speaker, as I said, the Court Challenges Program was an excellent program, a made-in-Canada initiative, to really examine the laws for their fairness, the equality in language laws that were in place. It has done that very fairly, but after almost 300 cases of jurisprudence have been established, one would imagine that we now have a significant volume of jurisprudence". This is the question: Is it significant or not? Did we not set into place something of great importance for this nation?
I would humbly request that with the strength of support from coast to coast, from the provinces, from the Canadian Bar Association, from jurists wherever they are and from community groups, I am expecting that at the end of this day there might be some very new and exciting creativity brought to this very important area.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Mr. Speaker, I rise on behalf of the New Democratic Party to speak on this important motion.
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1 want in the course of my speech to deal with some of the issues that the minister raised. Why has the government cut this $2.7 million program, that in the minister's own words, the government's contribution was unprecedented and this was a most successful program. He said that it did its job. Well let us examine that. He said that the government cannot afford that. We will examine that as well.
Before I begin, I would like to quote to the minister from an article by Arthur Drache in The Financial Post, not a socialist newspaper. I leave this for the minister and for the former minister of finance, who is in the House, to listen to because it comes from a paper that normally supports his party. The article reads:
While I felt the budget presented by Finance Minister Don Mazankowski was as good as could have been expected, there are aspects which I find troubling. In particular, I'd like to voice dissent for the decision to eliminate the Economic Council of Canada, the Law Reform Commission, the Science Council of Canada and, most strenuously, the Court Challenges Program.
Removing these institutions from the Canadian landscape is a method of decreasing dissent and criticism of government policies. The net result will be that those who challenge policy have been deprived of quasi-official platforms and will be marginalized.
That is a serious charge. I say to the minister that he and the government have a serious problem on their hands. There is always one item, or maybe more, that stands out as being unreasonable.
How can the government say to the Canadian public that it has cut a successful program which a large number of prominent people, including a former judge of the Supreme Court of Canada says is absolutely needed, because it does not have enough money and then turns around and spends $870,000 a year for daily press clippings for the Prime Minister. It just will not wash.
I would ask the minister, if I could, what percentage the $2.7 million is in the budget of his department. I bet it is a pretty small percentage.
I happen to know, since I am justice critic for my party, the estimates of the Department of Justice and here they are: for professional and other services last year,
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1991-92, $74 million. That is for hiring lawyers to go up against people in the courts for the Department of Justice. Next year it is going up to $89 million. The government could find $15 million for the rich lawyers but it could not find $2.7 million for the poor and the handicapped, the marginalized groups in this program. I say shame on the minister on this. This is a defeat for the minister. He should resign over this.
Look at what is happening to the judges in this country. How do you explain this to the people? The government has allowed the judges, who make $147,000 a year, to get a cost of living increase of 5 per cent so they will go up to about $155,000. At the same time, the government froze the salaries of the lower level civil servant. You take a woman, as a secretary and single parent, working in the-
Do not leave the House, Mr. Minister. Sit down and listen to the speech.


Gérard (Gerry) Weiner: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member has no business saying I was about to leave the House. If I want to stretch my legs in the lobby this is an opportunity. I do not have to ask his permission to get up for one moment. But I take it as an insult that he would even think I would leave the House while he was giving some very constructive suggestions.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: I would just repeat the old parliamentary rule that the presence or absence of a fellow member in this House should not be mentioned.
The hon. member for Port Moody-Coquitlam again has the floor.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Mr. Speaker, I thought the minister was leaving. I am not speaking for myself, this is not personal, this is speaking for a lot of people who want the minister to hear this.
Let's look at the program. As the minister said, it started in 1978 as a program to fund language cases and

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it was under the Secretary of State. The program continued in 1985 and was expanded to cover federal equality rights cases. It was under the same department. Then in 1990 the government put it under an independent organization, the Ottawa Human Rights Centre, which is at the University of Ottawa.
This was a good program. This has been a good minister, Mr. Speaker. This is the minister who brought in redress to Japanese Canadians. He will go down in Canadian history for that but he will also go down in Canadian history for ending the Court Challenges Program, which I ask the minister to have another look at. I am going to make some suggestions in a few minutes as to why.
The program has been declared a good program. The House of Commons Standing Committee on Human Rights and the Status of Disabled Persons conducted an examination in 1990 of the program and unanimously recommended not only its continuance, but its expansion. The most surprised person on budget night was the Conservative chair of that committee.
I have a letter before me from Bertha Wilson, the former Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada. She says: "I saw for myself when I was a member of the Supreme Court how invaluable this program had been to minority groups and to the disadvantaged. It has clearly been well and efficiently administered. The public has unquestionably received full value for its money".
How many government programs could you say that about? Could you say it about the Prime Minister's clipping service or sending his limo down to Costa Rica? Come on, this program is working. Three hundred cases have been funded through this program. The program has made a crucial difference in the most important equality and language rights cases to come before the courts. A maximum of $35,000 can be provided for a case at each level of court.
I have been a trial lawyer. That amount is peanuts. You should see the money that the government is spending, for example in the aboriginal rights cases in British Columbia, to fund their lawyers. They would take the whole program in a year.
Mr. Speaker, $2.7 million is not a large amount of money in terms of government expenses or legal expenses.
There is strong support from academics, from the Canadian Bar Association, from the media, all over the place, for this program. The question is this. Is there an alternative available? Well, we could have volunteer lawyers, but that is a hit and miss program, it is charity.
We could have the Canadian Human Rights Commission, but the human rights commission is responsible for the human rights act, not for the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
We could have ad hoc funding, which the minister appears to suggest in different cases. But many deserving cases would be excluded. There would be duplication of cases, and it would cost the government more in the long run. That would mean the government would choose which cases to fund. That is the key it seems to me.
I would like to talk about some of the cases that the program has dealt with. In Andrews v. the Law Society of British Columbia, the program funded the Women's Legal Education and Action Committee to intervene, and the result was to present to the court a new approach to equality rights that had a major impact on the result.
In the Swain case, Regina v. Swain, the case concerned the question of evidence in insanity cases. The result was that we in Parliament had to totally amend the Criminal Code on insanity. I was a member of that committee, as was the hon. member for Cape Breton-The Sydneys, and we participated in that. That case, in fact, forced the government to update the law and we now have a modem law as a result, sponsored and supported by all the parties in this House. Shacter against the Queen is another case on sexual discrimination at UI. CEIC against Tetreault-Gaboury, against UI. Also seniors, discriminating against people over the age of 65, Egan and Nesbit against the Queen.
Let me just quote what Ms. Cote, director of the program, said to the standing committee a few days ago: "The program provided funding to Jim Egan and John Nesbit to challenge the definition of spouse in the Old Age Security Act under which same sex spouses are eligible for the spousal allowance available to eligible heterosexual, common law and married spouses".
Egan and Nesbit have lived together for 40 years and they lost the case in the trial division. Now they want to appeal. The trial judge erred by using the "formal
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equality" test rejected by the Supreme Court. But there will not be an appeal if this program is cut off.
Why is that important? It is important because what happens in our law is that often you lose at trial division and then you go to the Supreme Court of Canada and you win, and that changes the law.
The best example is the Nisga Indian case where Tom Berger, acting as a lawyer for the Nisga Indians back in the early seventies, appealed the case all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada after losing at the trial court. The Supreme Court was split, and as a result of that decision we have the modem law of aboriginal rights today in Canada. That is why it is so important to fund these cases. That is why it is so important to go to appeal.
I could quote more cases, but the minister knows that these cases have been successful. The question is: Is it finished? I quote Ms. Cote again: "Furthermore, issues involving discrimination based on ethnic origin and colour, as well as issues affecting low income people, have barely been touched on by the courts. Very few court challenges to systemic discrimination have come before the courts. The program just recently funded three case development projects concerning some aspects of the discrimination suffered by Afro-Canadians in the prison system. Without financial support to undertake their legal proceedings, it is quite possible that the agency that received funding to complete this research will not have the means to take the subsequent court action".
There is work to be done. We have just begun to test it.
In the language area, as the hon. member for Vanier pointed out, we just had the Dobbie-Beaudoin report Constitutional Suggestions for French Language Rights Outside Quebec, the concept of duality and promotion of those rights. Who is going to take the cases? Charity? Is that what we are going to say to francophones outside Quebec?
I have before me a letter that was sent by La Federation des Franco-Colombiens to the Prime Minister. It says: "Without the Court Challenges Program the charter's scope is seriously curtailed. From now on it will be virtually impossible for ordinary Canadians to force governments to respect their constitutional obligations, especially with respect to the language rights of the minority French speaking communities across Canada".
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It provides evidence-and I will send it to the minister and table it in the House-of a case right now on French Canadians using French in the criminal courts of British Columbia.
What do you want to do? Do you want to turn it over to the provinces? Do you want Albertans to say to Mr. Getty: "Give us some money so we can finance something on bilingualism"? That is absurd. It is absurd and it does not do justice to this minister.


An hon. member:: Or to the country.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: "Or to the country". The minister has asked if there is another way. What about the provinces?
I would be prepared to concede that the provinces would have some role. We are a federation. Let us expand this program and get the provinces playing a role. The minister cannot do that overnight. He cannot just end this program and then expect the provinces to come in. I urge him to find some additional funds from that big department of his so that he can continue this program in a temporary way.
I see the minister talking to one of his friends. I hope he is listening because a lot of people want the minister to hear this. He is a fair minister. Therefore, I say to the minister: take some money from the department, keep the program going, work with the provinces. He wanted suggestions. I am prepared to work with my colleagues in Ontario, Saskatchewan and British Columbia or their NDP governments. I know my friends in the other part of the House would do likewise and say: "Come on, maybe we can find some money to provide for challenges for provincial laws and for federal laws as well".
I would like to conclude with a couple of quotes. Again the government has to explain. John Tait, the Deputy Minister of Justice, when asked about the program the other day said: "I would say as deputy attorney general that we have gained a tremendous amount of good jurisprudence from this program and that is all-not go on to say that the jurisprudence is now sufficiently developed. It is not".
There is still somewhere to go, according to the Deputy Minister of Justice.
Perhaps money is the problem. However, as I pointed out, the government found money for the PM's clipping service, for judges' increases, and for all kinds of other matters.

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I then ask the minister what is it? Why is he cutting this program? Is it because of a bunker mentality? Is it some notion that this government cannot cope anymore with things and has to hit back? Is the government somehow afraid of criticism, as Grace says.
This idea is appearing all over the place. In Stevie Cameron's column she talks about cutbacks to freedom of information, and the combination with the Privacy Act and freedom of information. She says: "The Tory government is doing everything it can to kill freedom of information and to kill access to information". You can see it in the attempt of the Minister for International Trade to try to restrict freedom of information on trade issues. It is all over the place.
I say to the minister: "He can find some money. This program is not finished, there are aspects of it that can continue. There are things to be done. The provinces cannot fill the gap, but they can help. I am prepared to help him find ways to do that".
I ask the minister to look at it because there is something else that we should consider. These are our courts. These courts belong to the people of Canada. Everybody should be in the courts, not just the rich. They are funded by our money. We pay the judges and the court staff and so on. Can we not pay some people to take some difficult cases to the courts?
The government did that and the government was a good government for doing so.
Why is the government fighting against our people in this way? I do not understand it. This is the unkindest cut of them all. This is a cut that directly affects people who are dispossessed, people of colour-


An hon. member:: That's what you said when VIA Rail was cut.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: The hon. member said that is what I said when VIA Rail was cut. When VIA Rail was cut I said that it was a cutback of the institutions of Canada. I said that it was going to hurt this country if this government keeps cutting VIA Rail, the post office, the CBC, and so on.
I am as aware as he is that we have problems with money. However it seems to me that this is the wrong place to cut the money. These people are not able to find alternate sources of money. These people are the poor
and marginalized in our society and for once the government gives them a break. Why, then, take it away?
This is why I am angry with the minister, whom I normally respect very much.
I ask him to find a way to continue this program, to find a way to tell these people that the government has not given up on language rights across this country. That is not easy for a westerner to say.
I ask the minister to find a way to tell the franco-Co-lumbian group in British Columbia: "We are with you, keep going". I ask him to find a way to continue to finance these cases so we can make our courts open to all. This was the unkindest cut of them all.
I ask the minister to find a way to reinstate this program with or without the co-operation of the provinces or other people, to keep it alive, as he has in the past, until we can come up with some alternative.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the member for his speech.
I listened to his speech attentively and I must say that he understands, like many of us here, the seriousness of the debate. I want to thank him from the bottom of my heart for his support.
Today we are on supply proceedings. For those of us who are familiar with the House rules, we are indeed debating supply. That means money for the government. Under those rules the opposition is given 20 days a year to call subject matter which is debated.
Today, the opposition, I moved the motion and my friend from Cape Breton-The Sydneys seconded it, moved a motion to reinstate a program under the minister's department. It is a program which I think is essential.
I want to ask the member who just spoke if he has had a chance to look at the spending authorities for the Department of Multiculturalism and Citizenship. If he examines those expenditures he will find that the bureaucratic expenses have gone up by some substantial amount but that the grants and contributions have decreased by about $24 million.
The minister says that he is trying very hard to create better race relations, that he is trying to fight racism and that his priority this year has been on that subject. However he did not tell us that he deferred the Cana-
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dian Race Relations Foundation and that his department has cut $24 million in grants and contributions, the total dropped from $78,722 million last year to $50,731 million this year.
I would like to ask the member if he has had a chance to look at these estimates. If not, maybe he can give me a comment on the credibility one must give to a system which increases its operating expenditures-in other words, the bureaucratic expenditures-and reduces grants and contributions and then comes into this House and tells us: "Times are tough. We have to cut expenditures".
For God's sake cut expenditures, but cut them in a way that people will understand. I ask the member if he has had a chance to look at these estimates? It sounds to me like the minister and his department, and the government in general, are not seriously attacking the problem of cutting the expenditures of the department. They are cutting the expenditures of grants and contributions which this program benefited from.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Mr. Speaker, to answer the member's question, because I am not the critic of that department I have not had a chance to look at the individual expenditures of that department.
I did say in my speech that I looked at the Department of Justice where there is a similar pattern, there is a pattern of increase in the estimates of that department, an increase both bureaucratically and for outside counsel.
I put that to the minister and he said that he is not the Minister of Finance, he is not responsible for that. He has a point. I asked him about the $870,000 paid for the Prime Minister's daily press clippings and he said that it is not his responsibility, and he is right.
$2.7 million that this program is presenting and then compare what we got out of the program with some of the stuff we got out of the departments.
We are getting pretty good value for our money. It is total economic irresponsibility to pad those figures and to cut this program.


Gérard (Gerry) Weiner: Mr. Speaker, for the benefit of the hon. member, who I know would want to have it clear in his mind, we did create a new department in this particular year with available resources from the Secretary of State. There was a division of the existing resources. Some additional resources were given to us so that we could have a new, effective department right across the country.
The first thing the member should do is examine the administrative situation of the Secretary of State and the new department and realize that we have made use of the collective resources or the administrative resources of the two. Wherever possible we attempted to do within the existing resource base in order to establish new centres right across the country for the delivery of the services one would anticipate. We tried to to do this as carefully as possible.
The $24 million that the member is referring to was the specific amount that partly came about as a result of the settlement with Canadians of Japanese origin. That is the deferral of the Race Relations Foundation.
Deferral. We have a commitment in law to proclaim the Race Relations Foundation in the future. However, frankly, there is still some work that has to take place. In the meantime, the activity of the department, in accentuated fashion, in heightened fashion, with increased resources, is directed more and more toward fighting racism.
As the member points out, his responsibility is for his The member for Halifax is here. She might want to get own budget. It is very interesting, as the member has to her feet and talk about some of the activity I have pointed out, that his budget has increased for the been privileged to participate in with members of Parlia-bureaucracy and decreased for grants and expenses. The ment and with the community in Halifax. I hope that she minister seems to be sucking and blowing at the same will find it helpful. She may want to interject at some time with those figures, does he not? No doubt, he will point in this debate as well, explain why.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Mr. Speaker, excluding the deferral for I suppose there is always a pressure in the bureaucracy the money for the Race Relations Foundation and the for more money and more expenses, and it costs a lot. Japanese Canadians it seems to me that it is the most Compare those kind of figures, both in the Department expensive new letterhead and new phone number in of Justice and in the minister's own department, with the Canadian history.

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Mr. Russell MacLellan (Cape Breton-The Sydneys):: Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to be participating in this debate this afternoon. I would like to say at the outset that our party, the Liberal Party, will be dividing our 20 minute segments so that we will get twice as many speakers. Therefore, I will be speaking for 10 minutes and the member for Halifax will follow for a subsequent 10 minutes.
I want to say to the Secretary of State how disappointed I am in the government at the cancellation of the Court Challenges Program. This is a tragic decision for this country because a lot of what Canada stands for is embodied in the Court Challenges Program. Over the last few years it has been our court system that has really been holding this country together. It certainly has not been the federal government.
The minister said that this government spent more than any other government on this type of program. However he also said, and truthfully so, that this is the only Court Challenges Program in the world. It has been in existence for 15 years and this government has been in power for more than half of that 15 years.
Sure, this government has spent more on this type of program. It is the only one and the Conservatives have been the only party in power for more than half of that period. That does not make them in any way sensitive to the needs of the disadvantaged, the minorities and the women in this country who are being abused by society and who no longer have the ability to challenge this abuse in our court system.
This is an absolutely detestable decision. In this country we have an excellent Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It is something that we can be very proud of, but this charter is not going to work if we prevent a large segment of our population from being able to utilize it to protect themselves and the rights which they have every reason to believe in and take for granted in this country of Canada.
We have now, as a result of the decision of this government to cancel the Court Challenges Program, a rich man's charter. The disadvantaged, the minorities and the women in this country cannot enforce their rights in a court of law unless they are very wealthy indeed. In 1989 the standing committee on human rights issued a report which said: "The virtually unanimous verdict of witnesses who appeared before the committee
is that the reasons for continuation are not merely sufficient but compelling".
The member of Parliament for Oxford, who is now chairman of that committee, upon hearing that this Court Challenges Program had been cancelled wrote to the Prime Minister asking him to reconsider his decision.
I want to say under no circumstances is it a sound argument to say that there is now a sufficient body of jurisprudence based on charter decisions and the Court Challenges Program is no longer needed. That is what the Solicitor General told me when I posed a question in Question Period on this subject. He says it is no longer necessary.
Any legal academic will tell you that it takes at least another 10 years from now to be able to get a proper body of jurisprudence on the Charter of Rights and Freedoms we have at the present time.
The government is sponsoring through its constitutional dialogue changes to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms which means there are going to be changes that will have to be interpreted in our courts. How can the government possibly say that we have sufficient jurisprudence not only on what we already have in our charter but the changes that are going to be made to our charter? I want to say as well, now 200 years later, the Americans are still interpreting their charter of rights and freedoms.
Even if there was a substantial body of legal decisions on which we could base the future rights of Canadians, that does not take away from the fact that we as a Canadian people have to protect the disadvantaged people in our society.
The minister talks about the fact that he is interested in abolishing racism, in promoting unity. We need court decisions if we are going to have that kind of battle against these dreaded spectres that all people confront. We have to have court decisions. We have to know where the courts stand.
It is ironic that the government would cancel this program immediately after the Butler decision on pornography. It was an excellent decision which was decided nine to zero by the Supreme Court of Canada and which challenge was financed by the Court Challenges Program.
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We do not have to just look at the writings. We look at the actual words of our justices of the Supreme Court. Former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Brian Dickson, and former Justice of the Supreme Court, Bertha Wilson, have decried the loss of this program. During their tenure these judges were particularly interested and sensitive to the need of the charter and to the needs of disadvantaged Canadians.
My friend from Port Moody-Coquitlam and my colleague who has sponsored this motion, the member for Ottawa-Vanier mentioned the words of Bertha Wilson. I want to mention another segment of her presentation and her petition to the Government of Canada. She said: "I have difficulty with a policy that places the burden of that restraint on those who can least afford it". That is exactly what we are doing when we are cancelling the Court Challenges Program.
This is just another means. We have to be truthful. We have to come right down and say what this is. This is a move by this government to silence critics. It is no more than that. It is a complete abuse of the Canadian system. It is an abuse of what this country stands for. Worst of all, it is an unmitigated move to silence the critics of this government, a government that has abandoned the Law Reform Commission, the Science Council of Canada, the Economic Council of Canada.
The demand for this Court Challenges Program is growing every year. In 1986 there were 120 applications. By 1989 that figure had doubled and it has continued to grow since then.
That does not mean that everyone who applies is going to be approved. There is a non-partisan board which approves who will be able to benefit from this program.
My heavens, this country has benefited from that program. We have such good jurisprudence as a result of the cases which have been brought before the courts as a result of this program.
It is incredible. It is absolutely incredible that this government would cancel this program. This government has money to allow escort services as a tax deduction but it cannot find money for the Court Challenges Program.
This government increased the litigation budget of the Minister of Justice by $16 million. That is not the program, that is just the increase for this year. Yet it
cancelled the Court Challenges Program, which was $2.75 million. That is an absolutely diabolical move against the disadvantaged people in this country.
As Canadians we have to continue to petition this government. We cannot let this matter rest. We have to continue to petition this government to reinstate this program. We cannot possibly let this subject go. It goes right to the fibre of what Canada is all about.
If we for a minute turn away from this decision of the government and ignore what this government has done, then we as members of Parliament and politicians in this country are losing a piece of ourselves and a piece of what we are here to do.
When the minister talks about this program he says: "Times are what they are". The minister said that the government must make hard choices. Well, there are more and more people going hungry in Canada. There are more and more people sleeping in our streets. Now there are more people who will not get justice before our court system. Those kinds of problems cannot be answered by saying that times are what they are and hard decisions have to be taken.
I know the minister is not responsible for this decision. I know the minister to be a good person. But I want to say to the minister that he is a member of a government that has callously jettisoned the disadvantaged people in our society. The Liberal Party is not going to stand for that. We are not going to let this matter go.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my colleague and fellow critic on his speech.
The minister must detect that while my colleague is normally level-headed, more level-headed than I am, we are both rather disturbed today. It showed in both our speeches.
We are both lawyers. We have been trial lawyers and we know what it is like in the courts as to who gets to go to court. Here was a program that helped poor people get to court. People that you do not normally see in court.
I want to ask the member to comment on that particularly, on who does go to court if you cannot get any help. He mentioned the moneys that the government could find. Was it $16 million for the litigation budget? I wonder if he would agree with me that it was

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$10 million for the increase in the judges salaries. But it cannot find $2.7 million for the disadvantaged program.
I also want to ask him about this idea of another motive. What is the real reason? I wonder if the member noticed as I did that months after the Law Reform Commission brought in a report for an aboriginal justice system, it is gone. After the Economic Council of Canada had a different view from the government on Quebec independence, it is gone. The Court Challenges Program was constantly challenging the government, it is gone. Am I being paranoid or does the member see a pattern to this kind of cutback? Is this a government that has a bunker mentality?


Russell Gregoire MacLellan: Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Port Moody-Coquitlam for his intervention. I agree completely with what he has said.
What we have is a move by the government to silence its critics. The Law Reform Commission came out with a report on aboriginal justice which I thought was excellent, along with some of the other good work that it has done. The member also mentioned the Science Council of Canada and the Economic Council of Canada.
Those matters have obviously met their own demise because the better they are at the work they are doing the more ready the government is to pull the carpet out from under them and cancel their work because it does not want critics.
Look at the changes in the House of Commons. We are sitting less and less. The rules are more stringent. Closure is invoked more than it ever has been before. It is absolutely incredible. The whole matter of opposition in this country is being thrown to the wolves.
As the member for Port Moody-Coquitlam says, there is money for anything the government wants. The travel budget of the Minister of National Defence would pay for 25 court challenge programs.


Ms. Clancy:: I'll say.


Russell Gregoire MacLellan: It is absolutely incredible that this is chosen to be cut. Sure there has to be fiscal responsibility, but not through the people who need the help of
their government and through a program that has meant so much to our jurisprudence and to the fabric of Canada.
Decisions have come from this program that we never would have had. Had these decisions not come, we would have continued to perpetuate the injustice that was going on evidently before the decisions were reached.


Mary Catherine Clancy: Mr. Speaker, this is the second time in two days that I have spoken on the matter of the cancellation of the Court Challenges Program.
I am glad that my hon. colleague from Quebec over there finds it so amusing. I think a number of his constituents would find the cancellation of the program less than amusing, particularly those members of linguistic groups in this country who might have wanted to use it.
In any case, I too, like my hon. colleague from Cape Breton-The Sydneys, am disappointed that twice in two days I have to talk about the disgraceful activity of this government.
I listened to my other hon. colleague, the Minister of Multiculturalism and Citizenship, talk about his fight to end racism and I know he means it. Indeed, both of us have been involved in certain measures and activities in my riding. I know he means it. But the point is, what he clearly does not understand and what this government does not understand is that without access to the courts in this country disadvantaged groups are not going to enforce their rights.
We have a magnificent Charter of Rights and Freedoms and it is not worth the paper it is written on if the people who need it cannot get into the courts. My colleague from Cape Breton-The Sydneys has said that, my colleague from Ottawa-Vanier has said that and my colleague from Port Moody-Coquitlam has said that. How many times does it have to be said?
We understand this and you do not have to be lawyer to understand this. You have to be a person in the street, a woman or a disabled Canadian or a black Canadian or a member of another visible minority or an aboriginal Canadian to know what it is not to be able to enforce your rights. Perhaps you have to be a member of a
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linguistic minority in any one of our 10 provinces to know what it is not to be able to enforce your rights.
What good is our charter? I ask the minister rhetorically at this point, what good is our charter if the people who need it the most cannot enforce it? It is a disgrace and a national disgrace. It is something that we as Canadian parliamentarians should collectively hang our heads about.
I agree further with my colleague from Cape Breton- The Sydneys, we are not going to let it stay here, we are not going to let it rest here. This will be the ghost of Christmas past, Christmas present and Christmas to come for this government. People will remember it.
It will be a disgrace along with the GST, along with all kinds of other policies of this government. But this one will lead the pack because this is one that attacks the weakest and those least able to defend themselves. As a Canadian I am ashamed.
If my colleague, the hon. minister, wants to defeat racism then put the Court Challenges Program back in place. We know what racism is in Nova Scotia. We are ashamed of it. We want to see it obliterated. But unfortunately it is not going to be done by government departments. It has to be done through the courts. That is what the court system is for.
The law is a sword and a shield. In the area of racism and in the area of discrimination generally we need the sword as well as the shield. And it is the courts that provide the sword. In this case the government has removed both sword and shield. Again, I am ashamed.
What was the Court Challenges Program? It was the hallmark of a government that was committed to the advancement and the defence of human rights. We as Canadians can get a little smug compared to our fellow countries in western civilization. We tell ourselves that we are a kinder, gentler country, as has been spoken about, than our neighbour to the south.
Tike away this program and we take away a great deal of the kindness and the gentleness and we take away the major reason for Canadians to hold up their heads and say: "We have a record in human rights to be proud of". We will no longer have that record. There will be no way that records of that kind can be made. If the minister thinks differently, I can only say one thing to him: "Prove it, show us, and don't talk to us about government departments because they are empty words". There are many things government departments can accomplish.
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There are many things government programs outside this particular sphere can accomplish, but the enforcement of rights not backed up by accessibility to the courts is hollow. He knows it, as does every member in this House.
Thlk about hard decisions in hard times and cutting a program that was approximately $2.7 million per year. It was not a huge amount of money for the great amount of good that it did.
We have heard and seen from my other colleagues here today of the other expenditures of dollars that are still there, that are still thrown around by government members. But who do they take the money from? They take it from the voiceless. They take it from the defenceless. I hope they are proud of themselves.
Without this funding, this small amount of funding, equality for women and other minority groups, linguistic, ethnocultural or whatever, is a hollow concept. The charter is only a mechanism for striking down discriminatory laws. It does not-and this bears repeating over and over again-guarantee the absolutely necessary access to the courts.
Alliance Quebec said it very eloquently: "The issue quite simply is whether the rights and freedoms provided in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms have any real meaning or whether they are rights in theory only. Are they living manifestations of fundamental values, or are they merely paper tigers, sound and fury signifying nothing? Under this government they will become sound and fury signifying nothing". I might even extend that quotation to its beginning, which is: "a tale told by an idiot".
The purpose of the Court Challenges Program was not to give minorities, women, special privileges and rights but to guarantee them what was rightfully theirs. We are not talking about giving something extra. We are talking about bringing disadvantaged groups up to the level of the rich man's charter, as my colleague from Cape Breton-The Sydneys so eloquently put it. That is what it will become. That is what it has become in the wake of this policy.
A number of my colleagues here today have cited cases of great importance that have been handed down, decisions that have been handed down because of the Court Challenges Program. Let me cite some, although I know I may be being repetitive. This horror that is being visited upon us needs us to repeat over and over again what the government is doing to us by this cancellation.

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In Keegstra, Andrews and Smith the Supreme Court upheld the hate propaganda provisions.
The Vesey case established that discrimination based on sexual orientation was prohibited by section 15 of the charter, even though sexual orientation was not a named ground of discrimination.
The Andrews case marked the beginning of the process of defining equality. The Supreme Court ruled that the main purpose of the equality rights section of the charter is to benefit those who have been historically disadvantaged. I think every one of us in this Chamber knows who have been historically disadvantaged. Every one of us knows what will happen if those who have been historically and are continuing to be disadvantaged in this country have no access.
Turning to the Butler case, the day before the government takes away the Court Challenges Program the Butler case is decided. The Supreme Court of Canada upheld the obscenity provisions in the Criminal Code, arguing that while there may be a contravention of the freedom of expression provisions they nonetheless constitute a reasonable limit. It was recognized that the violent and degrading acts and pornographic material are harmful to the equality and dignity of women.
Let me state again how important this is in the search for equality. I listened yesterday to the debate about women in Canada. I listened to members on the opposite side of the House very eloquently talk about their abhorrence of violence against women. The Butler case will go a long way in the eradication of violence against women in this country, and without the Court Challenges Program there would have been no Butler case.

Abolishing the Court Challenges Program is an inestimable loss for our society, because without it minority language communities and disadvantaged groups will be deprived of an essential tool.
Without the Court Challenges Program, who will protect the poorest and most underprivileged from the continual abuse of governments? Abolishing it is shameful. I ask the government to reinstate it immediately.

I demand it. We all demand it. Give us back this program.


William Warren Allmand: Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the hon. member on her excellent speech but I too have to ask this question: What good is it to have a Charter of Rights and Freedoms if those whose rights are denied cannot be enforced in the courts and they cannot claim protection of those rights, especially when we realize that the great majority of those whose rights are denied under the charter are in lower income groups?
Sometimes they may be in middle income groups. The disabled, visible minorities, the aged, these are not people with a lot of money. They cannot afford to enforce their rights in the courts with their own means. Women, immigrants, aboriginal people, linguistic minorities, in nearly all these cases the opponents of these people whose rights are denied are governments that are financing their litigation with the taxpayers' money.
With these great sums of money these governments, provincial governments and federal governments, can spin the case on forever. They use dilatory motions. They appeal the case up and down the system and the poor litigant on the other side is expected to keep up with that. He or she cannot keep up with that, and the result is that there just is not any justice.
I have a question for the hon. member. The justice [DOT]critic for the Liberal Party pointed out that while the government cut the Court Challenges Program with a total budget of $2.7 million, it increased its own litigation budget by $16 million. In other words, this government has taken taxpayers' money to strengthen and increase its own ability to go to court and to fight in many cases against the citizens of this country. Yet it has done away
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altogether with a very small budget which would allow Canadian citizens to do battle with the government in cases where their rights are involved, not only with it but with provincial governments and corporations as well.
I want to ask the hon. member who is very familiar with the justice system and has experience as a lawyer: Am I missing something here? I always thought a Department of Justice was to provide justice for Canadian people and to use taxpayers' money to provide justice, not to support a government in preventing justice. Would she, with her experience, try to straighten me out on that one?


Mary Catherine Clancy: Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from Notre-Dame-de-Grace who is a well-known champion of human rights and of those people who have been disenfranchised by the removal of the Court Challenges Program. Of course he is absolutely right.
Any of us on either side of this Chamber who have practised law know the horrendous cost involved in litigation, even at the provincial level. To talk about taking a case all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada is beyond the realm not just of lower income or poverty level Canadians. It is beyond the realm of possibility for middle class Canadians. It is a heck of a big expense even for those with the kind of money it costs to push these cases forward.
As was so eloquently put forward by all of my learned colleagues, governments on the other hand have the money. They have their in-house departments such as the Department of Justice. The absolute scandal of this is that while this government has removed the sword and the shield from the disadvantaged groups, it has sharpened its sword and toughened up its shield against those very people. Talk about overkill. It has knocked down fortifications that disadvantaged groups had to enforce their rights. At the same time it has given itself a bigger stick with which to beat those disadvantaged groups.
It is a scandal and it is something that we as Canadians should really be ashamed about.


Mr. Fernand Jourdenais (La Prairie):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in this debate. I have been in the
House since about two o'clock and I have heard the whole debate. I have some questions because I realized that the House had to decide whether to stop funding the Court Challenges Program. On that, I must congratulate all hon. members who ask questions because they show their interest in Canada's linguistic minorities. I want to assure you, Mr. Speaker, that our commitment to our country's linguistic duality remains just as firm.
The Court Challenges Program was created in 1978. At that time it was an answer to the federal government's concern about the possible erosion of some minority rights guaranteed by the Constitution of Canada.
In March 1978 the Department of the Secretary of State and the Department of Justice together announced that the Canadian government would help those who sought court rulings to clarify language rights based on sections 93 and 133 of the Constitution Act, 1867. Section 23 of the 1870 Manitoba Act was not mentioned because at that time it was not known to be a constitutional provision.
From the beginning the Court Challenges Program focused on language rights. It dealt only with them. The program continued as such until 1982. When the famous Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms took effect, the federal government decided to update the program. In December of that year it announced the expansion of the program. Cases eligible for financial aid could be based not only on the Constitution Act, 1867 but also on section 23 of the 1870 Manitoba Act and sections 16 to 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Until 1985 the program was administered by the Department of the Secretary of State. In September 1985 it signed an agreement with the Canadian Council on Social Development under which the council undertook to administer the program for a five-year period. The administration of the program was entrusted to an independent body so that it would be at arm's length from the government. The council was then required to set up independent committees to review applications for assistance and distribute funds with no intervention from the federal government or the council.
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In July 1990, further to the recommendations of the Standing Committee on Human Rights and the Status of Disabled Persons, the program was extended for a* five-year period. The administration of the program was then transferred to the Centre for Research and Education on Human Rights at the University of Ottawa.
The program was extended to cases involving language rights based not only on the previously mentioned provisions but also on similar constitutional provisions. This agreement includes a part on equality rights. The program also seeks to clarify equality rights guaranteed by sections 15 and 28 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms or section 27 presented in support of arguments based on section 15.
The program was not created as a protest tool. Historically, the program was perceived as a way to promote Canada's two official languages and it remains that. In this regard, it seeks to provide financial assistance in developing test cases to clarify the language provisions of the Constitution.
The trail-blazing cases in the field of language rights deal first with education rights, second with bilingualism in the judicial system, third with language of service, and fourth with fundamental rights.
Let us remember that section 23 of the Charter gives qualified parents the right to have their children educated in the minority official language of their province of residence. This right was established to correct past injustices in education and deficiencies in the present school systems by applying a uniform remedy.
I would like to be able to trace the historical development of cases subsidized by the Court Challenges Program, but time is passing. Allow me, however, to emphasize that the court challenges dealing with section 23 helped clarify these provisions.
For example, the Supreme Court decision in the Mahe case clarifies the procedure for real enforcement of education rights. We are glad to be able to point out the important role that the Court Challenges Program has played in clarifying section 23 of the charter.
Language is an important aspect of judicial proceedings. In this area, we can say that language rights concern mainly the choice of the language of the proceedings and the right to address the court in the language of one's choice. Again, I cannot elaborate on the development of the constitutional provisions concerning language rights as they apply to the judicial system, but please believe me that it is an interesting story, especially since the Court Challenges Program is responsible for the gains made in this area. The Supreme Court decisions in the Blaikie, Mercure and Bilodeau cases have led the courts and the Supreme Court of Canada to identify the sections of the charter that apply to judicial bilingualism and to define language rights as they apply to the courts.
Section 20 of the charter grants two distinct rights. The first is the right to communicate with any office of the institutions of Parliament and the Government of Canada or the legislature and Government of New Brunswick in the language of one's choice. The second is the right to receive services from these offices in the chosen official language. The right to use one's language, the language of one's choice, implies the right to be heard and understood in that language and also to receive replies in it. That is what Judge Beetz says in the SANB Acadian Society of New Brunswick decision. These rights are not limited in cases involving an office of the institutions of the legislature and Government of New Brunswick or the head office of a federal department.
We know that some fundamental rights or legal guarantees in the Canadian charter can have a linguistic connotation. That is the case for the freedom of expression which every individual in Canada enjoys under section 2 of the charter. The Court Challenges Program has supported some precedent setting cases.
The Court Challenges Program has thus helped to clarify several constitutional provisions concerning language rights. It must be noted that the legal clarification of a language provision does not always result in net gains for the official language minorities. We may be astonished at how long it takes education or language rights to develop in many provinces. We should ask ourselves about the limits of judicial recourse. The courts are not the only place to assert our rights. Language minorities have other tools at their disposal to help them claim their rights.
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This brings me to talk about the Official Languages Commission, the new Official Languages Act, and the programs of the Secretary of State and the Department of Multiculturalism and Citizenship, whose objectives are the promotion of official languages and the full participation of all to the life of our Canadian society.
The new Official Languages Act includes all the measures taken in the fields of education rights, bilingualism, the courts, and service language. As early as 1985 we were hoping to revise the Official Languages Act. The basic principle was clear: to give Canadians a tool to replace the conflicting approach of the Court Challenges Program.
On September 15, 1988 the new Official Languages Act that had been ratified by the government during the summer came into effect. This legislative framework reflects the philosophy of this government, which was stated in the House of Commons by the Prime Minister on February 15, 1990.
The linguistic duality and the protection of the linguistic rights of minorities are not abstract notions. These principles are embodied in statutes such as the Official Languages Act, and they will be confirmed and protected because they are enshrined in the Constitution. Those principles take on a real meaning thanks to the will of a generous and tolerant nation.
The Official Languages Act has two main objectives. First, to ensure the respect of French and English as official languages in Canada, their equal status, as well as equal rights and privileges regarding their use in federal institutions. Second, to support the development of francophone and anglophone minorities and, generally, to promote within the Canadian society and in cooperation with numerous others, the full recognition and use of French and English.
The new legislative approach is much more centered on the notion of partnership with other interested parties in the field of official languages that on a conflicting approach. This innovative approach shows a new spirit of co-operation in the promotion and teaching of official languages, as well as a greater will to actively participate to the promotion of minority linguistic communities. Indeed, this is confirmed by numerous recent achievements.
The federal-provincial co-operation regarding the teaching of official languages is based on a tradition that
spans two decades. The commitment shown by the two levels of government regarding the teaching of French and English as the language of the minority and as a second language gives Canadians the possibility of receiving an education in their own language if they are part of a minority group, to have access to the same quality of teaching as that of the predominant linguistic group, as well as to learn the other official language and at the same time to familiarize themselves with a different culture.
I am pleased to point out that this co-operation is more and more prevalent in the field of education. It can be seen, for example, in the innovative efforts made by provinces, with the encouragement and financial support of the Secretary of State, regarding services in such fields as justice, social services and health.
It is true that our country is going through a difficult period as regards official languages and national unity. We are all aware of actions such as the passing of resolutions on unilingualism by some Ontario municipalities in early 1990, not to mention the failure of the Meech Lake Accord. In fact, we can still feel the effects of those events. What is often difficult to perceive is the fact that behind this turbulence some changes more positive for our future were slowly taking place.
The decision made by the Supreme Court of Canada in the Mahe case was a breakthrough regarding education in the language of the minority. It provides that minorities have the right to actively participate to the management and control of their children's education and educational institutions. Even the guidelines set by the court regarding the implementation of this right should be beneficial to minorities in every province and territories.
We will continue to support communities that give themselves tools to create a healthy and dynamic social environment. The existence of Francophone and Anglophone communities across the country is not only a fundamental characteristic of the Canadian federation, but also an essentiel element for national unity. This duality gives us our uniqueness and has shaped our Canadian identity, just like the precious contribution made by aboriginal people and Canadians from other cultures to our pluralistic society. I remain convinced that this respect for our identity is strongly supported by a great majority of us. As a matter of fact, this fact was verified over and over by nation-wide surveys.

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To make our institutions a vibrant reflection of this wide diversity in a spirit of fairness while acknowledging the differences, that is the challenge the federal government takes up day after day. But we realize that we cannot do it alone. We must work in concert with all the stakeholders. Together, we will build the necessary infrastructures while giving our continuing support day after day to the development of our communities and making sure that the English and French languages are fully recognized throughout the country. It is true that much still needs to be done, but we have come a long way.
A significant renewal of the Secretary of State Official Languages Program and Official Languages in Education Program was announced at the very time the provisions of the new Official Languages Act came into force, on September 15, 1988. These programs are designed to give concrete expression, in our everyday life, to the government's commitment to official language minority communities as well as promotion of linguistic duality.
Several initiatives were undertaken besides the Secretary of State programs to encourage other stakeholders in the official languages issue to work together and implement as widely as possible the federal government commitment. Co-operation was sought between the various federal departments and agencies, voluntary organizations and official language minority communities as well as provincial and territorial governments. I should point out here that the federal government is not working alone in the area of official languages and that the contribution of the provincial and territorial governments is increasingly significant. They are major partners in achieving our goals of linguistic duality.
Under the Official Languages Act, the federal government is committed to co-operate with the provincial and territorial governments, to foster the growth of the English-speaking and French-speaking minorities and to promote linguistic duality. Through the Secretary of State Official Languages in Education Program, government supports initiatives to teach these minorities in
their own language and encourage government to give every one the opportunity to learn English and French.
The federal government, also wants to co-operate with the provincial and territorial governments to foster the delivery of services in the language of the official language communities in areas such as social services, health services, legal services, cultural and recreational services, and to promote both official languages among all Canadians.
This co-operation, which started in the early 1980s as a one-time initiative, has considerably expanded since 1987. Master agreements signed with the provinces and territories have enabled the federal government to join forces with several of them to provide services in the language of the minority and to promote linguistic duality in other areas beside education.
Mr. Speaker, you need only look at the Secretary of State annual report on its mandate regarding official languages to realize how diversified this government's achievements are in promoting and protecting the official languages of Canada. The Secretary of State thus administers a support program for official language minorities' organizations and institutions. Through this program, financial assistance is provided to community organizations in each province and territory to enable them to participate fully to all aspects of society.
The program is aimed at five main areas. In terms of delivery of services, assistance is offered to provide some services in the language of the minority where such services do not exist. For instance, the government has supported the development and maintenance of community centers, the publication of newspapers in the language of the minority, commemorative days of all kinds, the creation of an outdoor activities center accessible to youngsters and adults, French schools and immersion schools, organizations, businesses and the entire francophone community in Alberta, as well as the establishment of day-care services.
Second, assistance is provided to preserve existing community institutions and encourage the involvement of the community in their operation. New institutions will be established if need be to meet the needs of the community and help the people. In Vancouver, for example, with the support of the federal government, the "Maison de la Francophonie" was established to group together under the same roof all the francophone
April 1, 1992

organizations in Vancouver and to create a francophone forum providing cultural, artistic and recreational activities as well as to promote the revitalization of the French fact on the Pacific coast.
In Manitoba, an organization received help from government to develop a strategy for the creation of a shelter for francophone women victims of violence.
Third, representation refers to what is being done by agencies to obtain statutory, political or social recognition of the rights of the community and to receive services in their own language.
In recent years many groups have obtained government support to promote their cause. For instance, the Association provinciate des parents fransaskois obtained a grant so that it could represent Fransaskois parents before the provincial government, on the issue of school boards for the Fransaskois community. With the money, the association was able to hire a researcher in order to clarify entitlement and develop a recovery, refrancisa-tion and upgrading program as part of the school board issue.
Fourth, in the area of community awareness, assistance was provided to enhance community identity.
Fifth, human resources development focused on activities that would help an individual or agency to acquire certain skills that would help them take specific steps and promote community well-being as well as build on those skills.
These education, training, community development and consultation activities are supported by the government.
I see I am running out of time, and I want to say to the hon. member for Ottawa-Vanier, for whom I have had the greatest respect, ever since I first came here in 1984, that it is time to stop. It is too bad the government happened to select a program that was so special to him, but we must stop spending. We have to stop. You could say it is not enough or it is too much or you could at least spend a little. I remember that in 1984, when I gave my
Business of the House
first speech, the subject was waste. It is high time we stopped spending, because we can not give to everyone. The government has departments and certain agencies that provide help from within. I have been talking about them for the past seven minutes at least. I am sorry but I cannot support the motion presented by the hon. member for Ottawa-Vanier.


BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Mr. Cooper:: Madam Speaker, on a point of order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member and I hope you will not take this time away from the hon. member's questions and comments.
I think you will find consent for the following motion. Given the importance of Bill C-60 to the seven equalization receiving provinces, there should be unanimous consent for the following motion.
That notwithstanding any Standing Order of this House, when the hon. member for Saint-Jean rises on a point of order, this House will revert to presenting of committee reports to permit the tabling of the tenth report of the Standing Committee on Finance.
That at the time for Government Orders on Thursday, April 2, 1992, this House shall proceed to report stage and third reading of Bill C-60, an act to amend the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements and Federal Post-Secondary Education and Health Contributions Act, notwithstanding Standing Order 76(1) and;
That all necessary questions to dispose of the report stage and third reading of Bill C-60 be put no later than 4.45 p.m., on Thursday, April 2, 1992.
That any recorded division be deferred until Monday, April 6, 1992, at 6 p.m.


Mr. Gagliano:: Madam Speaker, in a spirit of co-operation, we support the motion.


Mr. Harvey (Edmonton East):: Madam Speaker, I regret to inform the House that our caucus will not give consent.

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Gérard (Gerry) Weiner: Madam Speaker, on a point of order. I would like to designate tomorrow, Thursday, April 2, 1992 as an allotted day.


ALLOTTED DAY (S. 0.81)-C0URT CHALLENGES PROGRAM
[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Gauthier (p. 9154).
Jean-Robert Gauthier: One
must have some experience in the House of Commons to see and appreciate the government's play in this, Madam Speaker.
In any case, I for one found the speech of the member for La Prairie interesting and timely until the last minute. However, when he concluded by saying that we must stop squandering-that is the word he used-when he insinuated that the Court Challenges Program would possibly cause squandering, I protest and say to him: "With all due respect, my friend, I think you are profoundly mistaken''.
For the better part of his speech, the member for La Prairie gave us the views of someone who knows very well the issue of minorities and of access to minority language schools. I thank him, because what he said will be useful and, I imagine, will help various communities to take stock of the situation.
I would like to tell the member about something that is happening not far from here and ask him what he would do as a Quebecer, as a Canadian, as a member of this House and as a responsible person. Francophone parents living in a riding not far from Ottawa have children, five to nine years old, who must spend four hours each day on a bus in order to attend a French language primary school. I will not give any names. The member can read yesterday's Le Droit and the editorials in the papers. He will realize what a scandal this is causing in Ottawa.
Just think, these children must ride four hours by bus daily to get to school simply because the board will not create a francophone sector in its jurisdiction. This is a case in point which we as members of a minority thought
we could fight, thanks to a very useful tool called the Court Challenges Program.
Sometimes that program simply gave us a means of saying to the officials, the provincial authorities: "Thanks to the federal government, we can go to court to make sure you honour our rights". Here is an example of injustice. I am not talking about something that happened last year or somewhere else; this is a serious situation prevailing right here in Ontario where nearly 40 children have to be bused four hours a day to get their education in the official language of their choice.
The Court Challenges Program could have been useful in such an instance. It could have helped in justice being done. I ask the member what kind of an answer he would give to those parents? What kind of an answer would he give to my brothers, sisters, cousins in Ontario who are victims of such injustice? What does he say to those people? I ask the question most sincerely.


Fernand Jourdenais: Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Ottawa-Vanier. I understand his concern about what he just mentioned, because I have the same problem in my riding.
Restraint is nowadays the watchword of all governments, either provincial, municipal or federal, but if we can set up this thing closer to where the kids are so that they would not have to travel. I am not totally aware of this matter, but I will tell about the situation in my riding. It just happens that they want to transfer members of a minority group who would have to travel six or seven miles. I would really like the hon. member to listen to me. I want to give him an answer, because I have the same problem.
There are community agencies which are dealing with that and are getting funds from the Secretary of State for that purpose. There is currently an organization which will get funds to take care of that group. In my province, it is approximately 120 people who will have to travel also about 30 miles. This is not in your province, but in mine. We have exactly the same problem, and I would do the same on the English or the French side. But there comes a time where restraint and cutbacks are becoming absolutely necessary. Otherwise one day these kids will be crushed under the debt we will have left them. That is exactly what is going on. I understand the problem and we must solve it.
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During my 1984 electoral campaign, I had an ad showing a big bag from which came out the word "solutions". I found the problems, but I am still looking for the solutions. I wish the member would do the same.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: If the hon. member for Ottawa-Vanier will wait, we will go to another member and, if time permits, we will come back to him.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Madam Speaker, I also want to ask the hon. member a question.
Does the hon. member know that, in British Columbia, despite section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, despite section 530 of the Criminal Code of Canada and despite the Official Languages Act, francophones were denied their right to be tried in their language? It is left to the judge's discretion.
I will meet with a Franco-Columbian group in Vancouver in the same forum, because the hon. member talked about a forum. What must I tell that group who asked for funds in order to launch a court challenge against that provision? They want to use the program that you cut. What must I tell that group? That those proceedings are too expensive?


Fernand Jourdenais: Madam Speaker, I am not quite sure of the member's question, but I imagine that he is going somewhere in British Columbia. Are you going there as a lawyer or as a member of Parliament? I am not quite sure because earlier in your speech and in your questions, you kept referring to the fact that you were a lawyer and that you were aware of similar cases in which you were even involved.
If you are talking as a lawyer, I would tell you to be generous right now. What I accept now but found very hard to accept with this program and many others-because there are other programs that I oppose-was that the government gives money to people who then turn around and sue us.

I really have a hard time. The hon. member may remember when I stood in the House in 1984 to make my first speech that his question was the hardest question I
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had ever heard since coming here: "Will you paint your walls blue spending money?" I have a hard time answering a question like that. Every time I see him, I think he is going to ask me that question. We are not painting the walls any more. We have to save.
I read the other day 32 or 35 newspaper clippings saying that the budget that we presented about a month ago was the best budget that has been presented for over 10 to 15 years. I back it up and I am banking on it.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: There is one minute left. The hon. member for Ottawa-Vanier.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Madam Speaker, I will only be a minute.
I want to go back on the issue of education and minority groups. I am talking about school boards that refuse to give their students a teaching in the language of the minority. That is what we are talking about.
When we talk about wasting, this year the Department of Justice increased its budget for disputes by some $16 million, based on estimates made by the regions. This means that the federal government has $16 million more to go before the courts. I ask the member: What logic does he use to say that the Court Challenges Program which, over a period of five years, cost only $4,935,112, is wasting money, when the accused were provinces and sometimes even the federal government and school boards? Where is the wasting? I am sorry, but there is no wasting of money there.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Thirty seconds. The hon. member for La Prairie.


Fernand Jourdenais: It is going to be difficult to give a quick reply. I want to tell the hon. member that when I used the word wasting earlier, I meant in a general way. I mean there are so many expenses that were made, that are still being made, and I am opposed to that. When some departments get budget increases of $16 million for things like that, I do exactly what I did earlier in my speech: I voice my opposition to such measures. I understand the situation because the problem exists in my riding. We will have to find a solution by using other programs within the department.

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Elizabeth  (Beth) Phinney: Madam Speaker, yesterday in the debate on women and the budget, I chose to concentrate my remarks on the cancellation of the Court Challenges Program. I was then asked to speak on the subject again today. There are many compelling reasons for the reinstatement of this program so I am very pleased to address this issue again, specifically as it will affect Canadians with disabilities.
In my remarks yesterday I noted that nobody believes the government's explanation for the termination of this program. It has said there is enough jurisprudence but in fact we know there are many important areas of law where there is no jurisprudence at all. It is really quite outrageous for ministers of this government to stand up in this House and make these ridiculous statements. They have said it is time for the provinces, and even the private sector, to support this kind of program.
This strange approach reflects the bizarre mindset of this Conservative government. No one has explained why the private sector should have any responsibility for funding a constitutional human rights program. It is very clearly the responsibility of the federal government.
I certainly would be pleased to see private sector funding of this kind of program, but I am not holding my breath waiting for it. The government has given no indication that it has actively encouraged the private sector to get involved. I guess civic minded businesses are just expected to come forward and say: "here, take our money".
As for the provinces, I think the federal government knows very well what a poor record some of our provincial governments have in defending their linguistic minorities. If these governments were to suddenly show great leadership in defending and promoting human rights, Canadians would welcome this role from them. Although I do not accept the abdication of federal responsibility in this area, I think that the Court Challenges Program would enthusiastically welcome the involvement of the provinces. It would allow the program to become involved in many very important areas of law in which there is little jurisprudence.
Once again we see the Conservative government unloading responsibilities on to the provinces unilaterally, arbitrarily, and without consultation. I would be very happy to be proven wrong on this, but to my knowledge we have had no evidence to suggest that the federal government has actively sought funding from the provinces.
This is becoming a typical pattern for this government. Abandon federal responsibilities, declare that the provinces should fill the gap, but do not actually ask the provinces or work with them to make sure it happens. We all know veiy well that the provinces are not exactly rushing to take on new financial commitments. This government has hit them hard enough already, and this is supposedly the government of the new federalism.
The Conservatives have described this move to cut the Court Challenges Program as a cost cutting measure, but nobody is buying that. I want to point out that according to experts such as former Supreme Court Justice Bertha Wilson, this program provided excellent value for money. It was recently brought to my attention that lawyers of the Court Challenges Program earned on average about 66 per cent or two-thirds of the salary earned by the average Canadian bar association lawyer in Ottawa.
As a member of the Standing Committee on Human Rights and the Status of Disabled Persons, I have attended every one of the meetings that the committee has devoted to this issue. We have heard from the director and other officials of the program. We have heard from a number of expert witnesses, from the Canadian Bar Association, Canadian Human Rights Commission, as well as the Deputy Ministers of Justice and Multiculturalism. Every single one of these witnesses has spoken positively of this program. They have all stated that it has been an efficient and effectively run program.
I believe there is widespread agreement in the three major parties that this program should be reinstated. The decision to abolish the program was clearly a hasty and ill-conceived move that the government has come to regret. We even heard that the Prime Minister did not know that this decision had been made. To its credit, this government has been known to reverse unfair decisions in the past. I can say that we in the Liberal Party would
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applaud it sincerely for such a move. It takes courage to admit you have made a mistake.
I would remind the government that cancelling this program is a betrayal of the most vulnerable members of our society. The language and equality rights section of the charter were put there specifically to protect these groups.
The Court Challenges Program was intended to help these groups defend their rights because they are often financially unable to defend these rights themselves. If is safe to say that aside from the Reform Party, there has been overwhelming opposition across this country to this heartless decision. As I said yesterday, we know that respected groups such as the Canadian Human Rights Commission and the Canadian Bar Association have strongly criticized this move.
I want to quote from a few newspaper articles which give some indication of how Canadians feel about this decision. The following is from The Ottawa Citizen article of February 28. "A coalition of equality seeking groups condemned the program's death saying it makes a mockery of the charter. It essentially means that women and the disempowered groups such as the disabled community in this country do not have any access to their equality rights in the charter", said Shelagh Day of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women.
"Seven years after the introduction of the equality rights provision, we now have no way to use it whatsoever. How can anyone who is disadvantaged in this country use their equality rights? This was the one program we had". Day said the decision to cut the program had nothing to do with hard economic times. "This is just a straight ideological cancellation of a program that the government does not like. It seems to indicate that the law is for the privileged people and it is certainly not for people who are disadvantaged".
In a Toronto Star column on March 30, noted social policy writer, Leonard Shifrin, expressed his hope that the Standing Committee on Human Rights and the Disabled Persons can convince the government that "the price of wooing redneck votes is losing any vestige of respect from mainstream Canadians".
Mr. Shifrin quoted Jerome DiGiovanni, of the Canadian Disability Rights Council, who told the standing
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committee on human rights that abolishing the program made the charter inoperative for the disabled.
I would like to quote further from Mr. DiGiovanni's testimony to the committee: "The Canadian Disability Rights Council is the legal tool which will for the first time allow 3.3 million Canadians to really have access to the courts and to equality rights without discrimination. The council has been in existence since 1988. We have just barely begun to understand how systemic discrimination excludes us. The case law has not yet been written. Take the Locas case, for instance, the Swain decision where the Supreme Court said that handicapped persons had been experiencing discrimination for centuries, that they were excluded and that the time had come to redress matters. Prayers and goodwill will not correct the situation but access to the courts will. That is really the basic tool that will allow us to achieve equality". This access has again been removed by the cancellation of the Court Challenges Program.
Mr. DiGiovanni also listed a number of important disability rights cases that will not be able to come forward in the courts because of the cancellation of the program. Cases involving closed captioning of television programs for the hearing impaired; the matter of sheltered workshops and the exploitation of disabled workers; the question of access to buildings and planes and buses are vitally important issues for disabled Canadians. They find it very insulting when the government says there is enough jurisprudence. The government seems to be saying that these cases are not important, that they do not matter and, following this logic a step further, the disabled community and their rights as equal Canadians does not matter.
The minister might be interested to know that Hugh Segal, chief of staff to the Prime Minister, told this group during a meeting last week that the government should not be in the business of funding groups that take the government to court. So it is true, the cancellation of this program has nothing to do with jurisdiction, nothing to do with cost but it is to silence dissent against the government.
Finally I want to quote from the editorial in The Ottawa Citizen dated March 3 which had the headline "Tories pick on the weakest".

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"Once in a while a worthy and inexpensive innovation comes along on Parliament Hill. The Court Challenges Program was one. Seven years ago the federal government started this program to provide funding for deserving but powerless groups to challenge federal laws and policies under the language and equality rights guarantees of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. There was something in this sensible program for everyone. For women, the elderly, the disabled and ethnic minorities, the funding finally meant access to an effective tool: test cases of individual rights under the charter. For government and all Canadians, there was a chance to build up jurisprudence and guidance in the application of equality rights. Despite the demonstrated usefulness of this program, the federal government remains intractable in the decision to cancel".
I want to assure the government that this issue is not going to go away. As the Official Opposition we in the Liberal Party are not going to stand idly by and watch this program die. Human rights groups are not going to accept this decision either.
This afternoon we heard the minister of multicultural-ism go on at length about how great this program is and how well it works. He even suggested that there is still a need for something like the Court Challenges Program. Why? Why, if it works so well, and if there is still a need for it, is it being cancelled?
He suggested that he is looking for ideas of creative, innovative alternatives to the program. He wants to reinvent the wheel and have someone else pay for it. I want to say to the minister that we in the Liberal Party are not interested in participating in the government's face-saving effort.
There is no need for alternatives when we have a program that works perfectly well, is cost efficient and when there is still a great need for this program. We call on the government to do the right thing and reinstate this program immediately.


Gérard (Gerry) Weiner: Madam Speaker, the member for Hamilton Mountain has claimed that somebody on this side spoke of having enough jurisprudence.
Nobody ever said that we have enough jurisprudence. That is not a word we use. The member for Cape Breton-The Sydneys talked about the Solicitor General
saying that we have sufficient jurisprudence. Those are words that were never used.
We have said there is a significant body of jurisprudence. Just to set the record straight-I know if the Solicitor General were here, he would want to put this on the record-what he has said very clearly is this: "We think that now is the time for other levels of government, the Canadian bar and other non-governmental bodies to which most of the current court challenges pertain, to take a hand and participate in the funding of these matters. The program, we feel, has come to an end as far as this level of government is concerned. It has served the purpose and we think it is up to other groups to come forward at this time to participate in the program".
I always agree with the Solicitor General. Where is leadership? It is not just to say: "Put the money back", money that the finance minister has had in a very, very difficult time to find in one place and another so that we are able to cut taxes by cutting expenses, not by trying to increase the debt and passing it on to future generations.
If you were in touch with your constituents, you might find how well received that budget has been this time. I tell you, we are getting nothing but commendations for the magnificent work of this finance minister.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Gérard (Gerry) Weiner: You have not been back home in such a long time, it will be a surprise for you when you do get there.
Leadership is not to say: Put back what is taken away. Leadership is to recognize that we have something that was excellent. With all the representations that have come in from the bar association, from non-govemmen-tal organizations, from new provincial governments that may very well have an interest to participate, why not let them all come forward and create a new model. It will not necessarily be something which says: If government will not do it, it cannot be done at all. That is not leadership.


Elizabeth  (Beth) Phinney: Madam Speaker, sometimes it is the responsibility of the government to take over where an individual cannot. These are people who cannot afford to challenge these issues in court. That is what government is for. It is to help people who cannot help themselves. I have sat on the committee meetings when we have been listening to the witnesses to which I believe both the ministers in the House were invited but to which they were unable to go.
April 1, 1992


Gérard (Gerry) Weiner: Ah, go back to sleep.


Elizabeth  (Beth) Phinney: Madam Speaker, I will continue. I said both ministers were unable to go. Read Hansard, it will show that is what I said.


An hon. member:: I wonder what reason they had this time.


An hon. member:: They are just hypersensitive, that's all.


Elizabeth  (Beth) Phinney: They were not able to come at any date that was suggested. Their deputy ministers were there. Every witness who appeared before the committee said they felt that it was a good program. They did not know where the help would come from for those people who need it. They had no suggestions as to how to help these people who cannot help themselves.
We are suggesting that this program be reinstated to help Canadians who cannot help themselves.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: A very short comment, the hon. member for Port Moody-Coquitlam.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: I am
tempted to comment on the minister's bunker mentality saying: "Boy, they are really welcoming our budget". He had better not stick his head out of the foxhole because it would get shot off.
The member made a very good speech which showed quite clearly that there is much to do, especially in the field of the disabled, as she mentioned. There is much to do in the jurisprudence. It is not completed yet.
The minister raised this idea-I do not know if it is a red herring or whether he is serious-of a provincial contribution. I cannot see the province funding challenges to federal legislation. Has the member had any indication from this minister,the government, any member of the government, or any government member from her committee that any of them have ever made any attempt to talk to a province or to negotiate with a province about the province kicking in money? It seems to me that this was just a big surprise with the budget.
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Did the member hear of any negotiations with a province? I did not.


Elizabeth  (Beth) Phinney: Thank you very much for your comments and your question. We have certainly heard from no one who has appeared before the committee that there has been any suggestion, any help, any approach from this government to private enterprise or the provincial governments asking that they should help out in any way to either finance, replace or assist the communities in Canada who cannot help themselves, who have no money.
Most provinces have no money at all to put toward a program like this and are counting on help from the federal government to keep this program going. This is obviously a rich man's charter and the poor people, the disabled, the people who cannot fend for themselves, are out in the cold.


Mr. Reginald Belair (Cochrane-Superior):: Madam Speaker, it is with great distress and sadness that I take part in this debate because the government's decision to cancel the Court Challenges Program is not only a bad joke but completely absurd. I fully agree with the comments made earlier by the member for Ottawa- Vanier who stressed that this program is essential to the minority language groups of this country, to women, to native groups and to ethnic groups. Whenever these groups felt that their rights where being infringed upon, they could turn to this program to obtain financial assistance.
Where will these groups turn now to obtain the means required to have their rights affirmed under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms?
My colleague's opinion is also supported by Mrs. Wilson, a former Supreme Court judge who expressed her dismay and sadness that this government would abolish the Court Challenges Program. As a former judge of the Supreme Court of Canada who has in many instances passed judgment on cases involving Canadian minorities, Mrs. Wilson's opinion should not be taken lightly.

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By abolishing this program, the government is removing a unique mechanism that could be used by groups to defend their rights. It was also a relatively low cost program, if we consider that during the past seven years, the government, which was committed to spending over $8 million, only spent $4.9 million.
If we compare this cut with increases or allocations in other areas, it is a sad reflection on the government's value judgments. What about the $4 million for the Museum of Humour, the $28 million that was spent on the Spicer commission, whose report is gathering dust somewhere on a shelf in some department and has never been heard of since; and more than $20 million for the Beaudoin-Dobbie committee, whose recommendations the government has yet to endorse.
At least this was a relatively lost cost program that provided a guarantee for all Canadians that their rights would be respected and the democratic process would remain intact.
The government has acknowledged in many ways that this was a very valid and useful program, since more than 300 cases have been heard so far. Assuming that the program served us well for 14 years, why would it no longer be useful today? We on this side of the House wonder about this, because one gets the impression that the government is anxious to muzzle individuals and groups that favour equality for all Canadians.
To get back to the 300 cases that were heard by various courts across Canada, and I would refer to Hansard of March 17 this year, when the minister of multicultural-ism said, in response to a question from the hon. member for Ottawa-Vanier, and I quote:
This program was very beneficial, but after nearly 300 cases, according to my information, we have now created a certain body of jurisprudence.
I think we can assume that there will certainly be other cases that will be different from those that have already been heard by the courts and which deserve special attention, since they will also be useful in clarifying various sections of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Speaking of the charter, perhaps I may make a very modest comment, since I am neither a lawyer nor a constitutional expert. The charter has already lost much of its impact, in my humble opinion, because of the notwithstanding clause. If we lose the Court Challenges
Program as well, I wonder how the economically and otherwise disadvantaged in this country will manage to obtain official recognition of their rights?
Which leads me to say that those same groups, individuals and minorities would be in double jeopardy. They can no longer depend on this last resort in their quest for recognition of their rights. Where do they stand legally? The charter does not guarantee access to the courts for people who want to challenge laws that prevent them from exercising their rights. It was a very valuable program, a far-reaching program. It was somehow a haven for those who thought that their rights had been trampled.
If you compare this program to the charter, I believe that there is a significant difference for the reasons I have just mentionned.
I see that my time is nearly up. I would like to conclude by asking the government, in view of the modest costs involved and of the program's impact on the lives of all Canadians, to restore this program for the well-being of all parties concerned.
It would be more than unfortunate, even deplorable, if only one Canadian had his rights denied because he could not afford to defend himself. It woud be a shame.
One must always remember that what makes justice meaningful also gives meaning to a person's freedom and dignity.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Madam Speaker, I have a question for the hon. member.
I would like to read a paragraph from a letter I received from la Federation des Franco-Colombiens in Vancouver. As a matter of fact its office is in the riding of the Minister of Justice, Vancouver Centre.
I wonder if the hon. member would comment on this statement and tell me whether he agrees or disagrees. The letter says of the cancellation of the Court Challenges Program: "Nor could the decision have come at a worse moment, smack in the middle of the constitutional negotiations. Unless Canadians are enabled to appeal to the courts to have their rights respected, constitutional guarantees of linguistic duality are so much hot air. It clearly allows that the decision threatens the very principle of linguistic duality, that fundamental characteristic
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of Canada's identity. It might well cancel out all the positive effects that the current constitutional proposals could produce. The Court Challenges Program is an indispensable tool for guaranteeing the linguistic and cultural growth and development of minority official language communities".
I wonder if the hon. member would agree with that statement and agree with me that the lack of funding and the cancellation of this program is really a slap in the face to francophone groups, such as the one in British Columbia and other groups in other parts of Canada?


Réginald Bélair: Madam Speaker, I agree with my colleague from British Columbia that this is an extremely bad time to do away with this program. We are right in the middle of a constitutional crisis. This afternoon the Prime Minister pleaded with all members of this House to make an effort to recognize each other's values and traditions and also to recognize that there are minority languages in all of the provinces, be it English in Quebec or French in the other provinces.
It was an appeal to not only promote but also to protect those linguistic rights. The Constitution and the charter exist to protect those rights, but in some cases there is abuse. That is why we are concerned that employers-the federal government, its ministries, the provincial governments, corporations-would abuse the rights of individuals if this program is cancelled. It is almost synonymous to encouraging those groups that I have just mentioned to discriminate against groups or individuals in our society. The government chose a very bad time to cancel the program but hopefully it will rethink its decision and reinstate it.


Svend Johannes Robinson: Madam Speaker, I would like to stress that the Federation des Franco-Colombiens, and especially its chairperson, Mrs. Marie Bourgeois, with whom I had an excellent meeting a week ago, and its director, Mr. Pierre Rivard, are absolutely astonished by the government's decision to cancel the Court Challenges Program. According to them, this will greatly hamper their efforts to promote the rights of the Francophone minority in British Columbia.

I would also like to take this opportunity to make a brief comment and ask the member if he would comment with respect to another issue and that is the question of access by the lesbian and gay community to the courts pursuant to section 15 of the charter.
The minister of multiculturalism is in the House and will know that the argument has been made with respect to this particular decision, this ruthless decision to chop the Court Challenges Program is that those who are seeking justice, particularly from minority groups, can go to the Canadian Human Rights Commission and can seek justice there. The human rights commission can act on their behalf.
The minister will know that is not the case with respect to the lesbian and gay community because in their case the Canadian Human Rights Act does not include sexual orientation. They have been waiting six years for the government to keep its promise.
I want to point this out and point out the fact that a number of very important cases, whether it be the case of James M. Egan and Jack Nesbit with respect to spouses' allowance, of Graham Haig and Joshua Birch with respect to the Canadian Human Rights Act itself, Brian Mossop on spousal benefits or a CUPE pension case, could not have been funded without the Court Challenges Program.
I want to ask the member if he would comment with respect to this essential element of justice as well for a community that needs this program desperately in order to seek equality through the courts when it is denied by governments.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Unfortunately it will have to be a very brief comment.


Réginald Bélair: I would simply like to mention, Madam Speaker, that our official languages critic also went to British Columbia last weekend to meet with members of the Federation des Franco-Colombiens, including Mrs. Bourgeois who was a member of that same delegation, in order to find out how we could assist them. The first question that was raised is this: Why has the party in power cancelled the one and only means by which we

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could challenge the British Columbia government concerning school management? What do they have left?


Mr. Bob Corbett (Fundy-Royal):: Madam Speaker, I am pleased to be taking part in this debate on the hon. member's motion. It is an important motion and certainly deserves a lot of serious consideration.
Hon. members will be well aware of the tremendous gains made in equality in language rights since the Court Challenges Program began in 1978. This government has been and was an enthusiastic supporter of the program and there are numerous examples of court cases that attest to the program's successes.
I think my hon. friend will be quite interested in hearing about some of the programs and some of the very successful court cases the program has funded to advance the rights and freedoms we enjoy as citizens under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Let us examine equality rights. In 1989 the first case to reach the Supreme Court of Canada was brought by a British bom lawyer who was refused the right to practise law in British Columbia because he was not a Canadian citizen.
The Supreme Court struck down the requirement, citing section 15 of the charter. But the decision did more than permit non-citizens to practise law, it laid the foundation for the future interpretation of equality rights. The Supreme Court went on to make a series of decisions that have expanded the scope of human rights statutes.
All six judges who heard the case agreed that the citizenship requirement violated equality rights in section 15 of the charter. A four to two majority decision held that the law was not saved by section 1 of the charter, which allows reasonable limits on equality rights. As a result of the decision, we now have a clear understanding from the Supreme Court what equality rights mean.
Another example of an equality rights case funded by the program dealt with the denial of the right to vote. It challenged the section of the Canada Elections Act which denied the vote to persons unable to manage their property because of mental disability.
Just before the case was heard in Federal Court, this government agreed that the section violated the charter and should be struck down. One hour later the Federal Court agreed with the government and invalidated that section.
The result of this challenge by the Canadian Disability Rights Council is that many of our citizens with mental disabilities were able to vote in the 1988 federal election. As well, my hon. friend will be pleased to know that the case helped to challenge widespread assumptions that stigmatized persons with mental disabilities.
In another interesting case funded by the program, a man argued that as a natural father he should not be denied parental benefits under the Unemployment Insurance Act when those benefits are available to an adoptive father. The Federal Court agreed with him and ruled that the UI act violated section 15 of the charter.
The Court Challenges Program funded an Ontario children's rights organization representing a young offender who argued that the provincial government's failure to establish alternative measures programs for young offenders violated his equality rights under the charter.
In ruling in the young offender's favour, the trial judge said the Attorney General for Ontario had a duty to authorize alternative measures programs. The ruling was upheld by the Ontario Court of Appeal, but the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that his rights had not been violated and the court referred to the value of diversity in our federal system and the importance of federal-provincial co-operation.
The Court Challenges Program gave funding support to the Women's Legal Education and Action Fund so it could argue a case concerning the interpretation of the provisions of the Canada Pension Plan for credit splitting when a couple separates. The trial judge ruled that the husband was entitled to the full CPP benefits so his estranged wife appealed the decision to the Ontario Divisional Court. It ruled that the Canada Pension Plan cannot be interpreted in such a way that it waives credit splitting rights.
These are just a few of the many successful cases that received funding support through the Court Challenges Program.
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I remind hon. members that during the life of the program this government contributed more financial support that any previous government. The program funded up to $35,000 for each court level challenge and up to $5,000 to develop a case.
Canadians have every reason to be proud of this program. We have invested more in the Court Challenges Program than any other country in the world. I say to my hon. friend, not only have numerous cases been resolved under the program, but many more cases have helped to raise awareness among Canadians of several issues that must be dealt with if we are to ensure that this great nation continues to place a high value on equality for all its citizens.
The Court Challenges Program has enabled access for many more groups that for one reason or another are at a disadvantage to the justice system. For example, the Canadian Council of Churches received program funding to challenge many sections of the Immigration Act. The council believes the act violates equality rights.
To assure hon. members that the government had a strict hands-off policy regarding the Court Challenges Program, I must point out that the government argued that the Council of Churches did not have the standing to bring its case to court, but the Federal Court refused to strike down the council's case. The government appealed that decision but the Federal Court of Appeal ruled in the council's favour and the program is now funding the council's appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada.
The government has found it necessary to bring the program to a conclusion. However, as we have already made clear, the government intends to honour all its commitments made prior to February 27 of this year. These commitments include the one made by the program to the Canadian Disabilities Rights Council, which is challenging a section of the Immigration Act frequently used to bar families from immigrating to Canada if the member of that family has a disability.
The program has already funded a number of similar cases but the government settled each of them out of court. The program is now funding the council rather than more individuals so that the case can be argued on
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behalf of the entire group affected under the Immigration Act.
Many of the cases I have mentioned dealt with and deal with equality rights because that is a key section of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. However there are other concerns as well, such as those expressed by Victims of Violence. This community organization is disturbed about barriers to justice that can hinder a person with a disability who needs to give evidence in court.
The program is helping Victims of Violence develop a case on the potentially discriminatory impact of the Canada Evidence Act on people with disabilities. It wants the court to consider options such as allowing videotaped or written testimony for individuals unable to testify in person.
The Court Challenges Program will also honour its commitment to the Canadian Ethnocultural Council to help it research the question of access to the courts for persons with complaints of discrimination under the Canadian Human Rights Act.
Hon. members may know that currently only the Canadian Human Rights Commission can deal with complaints. The council is concerned that complaints of discrimination may not be dealt with effectively or promptly by the commission. It believes that individuals should have access to the courts in these matters.
Prejudice is widespread in our society. Unfortunately, judges are not immune to it. Members of disadvantaged groups frequently raise concerns about alleged discriminatory attitudes and rulings of judges. In that regard, the program has funded the Inuit Women's Association of Canada to help it examine the sentencing practices of judges in the Northwest Territories in cases of sexual assault against Inuit women.
The Court Challenges Program was originally intended to help citizens who wanted clarification of language rights through the courts. Financial assistance was provided to groups and individuals for test cases based on the language rights provisions of the Constitution. My hon. friend will appreciate that the program was intended to serve as a tool to promote our two official languages. It has done that, and the government is proud of what the program has accomplished in promoting the recognition and implementation of minority language rights across Canada. Through the program we have

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enhanced the vitality of the English and French linguistic minority communities.
It has been a decade since our charter became law. During the past 10 years the Court Challenges Program has been extremely useful in helping to advance the rights and freedoms enjoyed by Canadians. It has certainly strengthened the laws of Canada and influenced attitudes as we strive to ensure equality for all citizens.
However, nothing remains constant. This nation is going through many changes, as are countries throughout the world. We are not abandoning support of our basic rights and freedoms. We have many programs that address those issues and the government will live up to its commitment to provide funding already granted by the Court Challenges Program.
Yes, this government can be very proud of its accomplishments under the program. We have not shied away from giving the program the freedom to operate independently. However the hon. member knows, as do all hon. members, that we must make tough decisions to get our financial house in order. It is time to ask our provincial partners and private sector groups to share the burden and take on additional responsibilities in the area of implementing equality rights for Canadians.
I say to my hon. friend: "Let us work together to ensure the equality of all Canadians. Let us build on the foundation of the Court Challenges Program. Let us move forward and make this magnificent land a place in which all Canadians, whether citizens by birth or citizens by choice, will be equal under the law and full participants in their communities".


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Madam Speaker, I have a question relating to some of the comments made by the member, particularly dealing with the appeal process.
We all know that court cases start at trial level and proceed up to other levels of the justice system until they get to the Supreme Court of Canada.
The Minister for Multiculturalism and Citizenship said today when he made his statement in the House that the government will honour its funding commitment: "For the level of court at which funding was approved". Most
of the cases funded by the Court Challenges Program are at the trial court level.
Therefore, I want to ask the member if he has inquired of the government or of the Minister of Justice, and since she is here maybe she would like to inform him, what the government proposes to do to ensure that the cases funded by the Court Challenges Program, which will be honoured, will continue to be funded if they proceed to appeal without imposing on those minority groups-the underprivileged, linguistic, women, multicultural groups-the onerous financial costs incurred by an appeal to the decision at a court level which has been approved for funding.
My question is simple. Is there an answer for these groups that find themselves in a very difficult situation? They have been approved to go to a certain level, that has been guaranteed. What happens if there is an appeal?


Robert Alfred Corbett: Madam Speaker, I can well understand the hon. member's concerns about commitments that have already been made to previous groups because when his party was in power there was a blatant disregard for commitments made by his administration for future undertakings when it came time to pay the piper.
The fact of the matter is that this government, of which I am proud to be a supporter with all good reason as the record will show, honours its commitments. It has made the commitment that it will honour those cases that have already been funded under the process. It will see them through to fruition.
I see the hon. minister shaking his head in the affirmative, agreeing that this is the case. Although I am not privy to decisions that are taken in cabinet the fact of the matter is that when cabinet ministers of this government advise me that certain things will take place then I have no difficulty in accepting their word at face value. I am sure that as these groups express their concerns- and he mentioned underprivileged groups, women's groups, minorities and a host of others.
On this side of the House we are extremely proud of the work. I understand that when this program began there was very little funding required because there was very little activity in that direction. This year and in previous years this government has been providing funding to the tune of up to $2.5 million a year to assist
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these groups. Provided they qualify, these groups are entitled to $35,000 per litigation. They qualify for up to $5,000 for case developments.
In extreme cases, if there is a further requirement for funding up to $25,000 per level of court case can be funded, and probably has been funded on many different occasions by this government which I am proud to be associated with.
I want to assure all of those groups that the hon. member mentioned that should they have concerns about their future, provided they are already under the umbrella of the program they will be dealt with fairly and equitably by our government.


Svend Johannes Robinson: Madam Speaker, I want to put to this vigorous supporter of the government a question concerning a couple of women, Christine Morrissey and her partner, who are challenging the policies of the Canadian immigration department which deny them the right to remain together as a family unit. They are challenging this policy which discriminates against the lesbian and gay community, and that challenge is being funded by the Court Challenges Program.
These women have not yet had this case come to trial. When the case comes to trial presumably the commitment initially made to them with respect to the trial will be honoured-that is the understanding I have. However, what happens beyond that, when the government appeals, as the government has appealed in each and every instance? This is a government which claims to be concerned about the rights of minorities, yet in each and every instance in which those rights have been trampled on this government has appealed, has taken it to a higher court.
I want to ask the member a very specific question. The program is being dissolved. There will no longer be any administrators of the program, there will no longer be any funds for appeals. What will happen to Christine Morrissey and other women and men like them who rely on this program to assert their rights under the charter? What will happen to these people and how will they be able to pursue this case in higher courts?


Robert Alfred Corbett: Madam Speaker, unless I have missed something in the question, it seems that the question put
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by the hon. member is the same as the question put by the previous questioner. The answer is obviously the same. Any commitments undertaken by this government, whether to these two women that the hon. member brings to the attention of the House or any other groups, will be carried on to fruition and conclusion.
The hon. member may make all kinds of comments about how we are appealing decisions and taking decisions to court but the fact of the matter is that I have just read into the record a litany of people who have successfully accessed the program, despite the fact that the federal government from time to time makes a decision because that indeed is its responsibility. After all, it is the responsibility of the government to implement and introduce into the House legislation and deal with the Constitution and the charter in a way that it sees fit, as the electorate has put it in place to do.
It is to the credit of the government that despite all of that it has supplied a large amount of money on a consistent basis, in excess of $2.5 million in the past year and a substantial amount of money in the years leading up to that. We are extremely proud of the record that we have of supporting groups such as the hon. member and others in the House have mentioned.
It is important that in the future they take up the challenge that we have laid down. The minister and I have told our provincial counterparts and other civic-minded groups that there must be ways other than constantly relying on the federal government as a cash cow because the taxpayers of this nation have said: "Enough is enough. We must come to grips with the rising debt. Taxes can no longer afford to be increased at the expense of the taxpayer".
My hon. friend is a strong supporter of the NDP government in British Columbia and I dare say that there are many out there that he would like to assist that fall into the category he has already referred to. I would ask that he go to his counterparts in the provincial Government of British Columbia and ensure that they understand the importance and the willingness of our federal government in Ottawa to share with them the opportunity to put together programs. Together we may be able to effectively deal with the program that has been proven very successful in the past.

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Now the time is upon us when we must, move and make the changes that are necessary as we evolve in a changing world.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I listened very attentively to what the member for Fundy-Royal just said. I take him to be a serious individual and I have a serious point of order.
He is speaking with some authority in assuring the people of Canada in this House and those who are listening that the government will indeed fund appeals to the court cases at the level they have been approved. That means that the government policy announced by the minister today is either misunderstood or has changed while this debate was going on.
Can we get unanimous consent to have the minister to clarify that question for us now, for all Canadians to understand? Where does the government stand on appeals of these cases that have been approved?


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I think the hon. member knows very well that is not a point of order. It is a question of debate. With unanimous consent we can debate it, but I do not see anyone rising to answer this point.


Mr. Neil Young (Beaches-Woodbine):: Madam Speaker, usually I rise on these debates in the House and start my remarks by saying I am pleased to be able to contribute something to this debate. I cannot say it on this particular motion because of the serious impact that it will have on thousands of Canadians in the future.
This country has just gone through a period of constitutional renewal. In fact we are still in the process. It has been a process of inclusion through which we have attempted and are still attempting to include an entire province in the Constitution of Canada.
The Charter of Rights and Freedoms is an integral part of our Constitution. It is important we understand that with this removal of $2.7 million that supported the Court Challenges Program we have effectively made the Charter of Rights and Freedoms meaningless to thousands of Canadians. They will not be able to go through the courts to redress wrongs that may be perpetrated on them in the main by arbitrary acts of the federal government.
In the main the government has presented two arguments to the House. One was that there had now been a basis of jurisprudence established that made the Court Challenges Program no longer necessary. The other argument, which was just presented by the hon. member for Fundy-Royal, was that there was a need to reduce government expenditures, that that was the reason why the program was terminated.
I am a member of the Standing Committee on Human Rights and the Status of Disabled Persons. After the government action came to our attention through the estimates, we decided to examine both of those arguments to determine whether they stood up under close examination.
In the course of the last two or three weeks, we have had what I consider to be expert witnesses with a special understanding of the Court Challenges Program appearing before our committee. We asked nearly every witness those two questions: First, is there a basis of jurisprudence established that no longer makes the program necessary? In every case the response was: "No, there has not been".
To put that in perspective, one witness that appeared before the committee, the Canadian Bar Association, pointed out that after 200 years of having the constitution in the United States enacted, there continues to be litigation to determine the exact meaning of the American Bill of Rights. That is no less true with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
We asked the minister's own deputy minister what reasons she could provide for the cancellation of this program. The deputy minister's response was that it was purely a method of reducing costs. There was no other reason. Jurisprudence did not come into it. All those other arguments we have heard did not come into it. It was a straight cost cutting measure.
If that is the real reason, and I rather suspect it is, it is a crying shame. What it means in effect is that if one has personal wealth or access to a lot of wealth, one will be able to go through the courts to determine one's rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The recent case we have heard was the one on pornography. If a federal law says that individuals making all kinds of bucks peddling pornography cannot do that, they can work their way through the charter and up
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through the courts to ask the courts to give them that right.
However, if one happens to be a single woman-I am trying to use the worst case scenario-a disabled individual, or a person at the low end of the socio-economic scale, one will not have the means to use the charter to establish one's rights. It is as simple as that.
When we consider the importance of that $2.7 million program to the rights of Canadians, I think it was a bad economic error to cancel it.
The argument has been made that if we all think this program is so important we should be asking the provincial governments to pick up the cost. We have been told that people's rights can be protected through government departments, even though in the first instance it is the federal departments and legislation that are denying these people their rights.
It has even been suggested that the Canadian Human Rights Commission or the Official Languages Commission could protect those rights. We asked the human rights commissioner whether or not he was empowered to do just that, or whether he would have been able to do that when he was the commissioner of official languages. He answered unequivocally that he could not and neither could the official languages commissioner.
Then it was suggested that perhaps an individual who did not have access to wealth could go through provincial legal aid systems. We were told that once a case had been established to proceed it could cost anywhere around $300,000. Provincial legal aid systems are not structured to do that kind of thing.
In effect it means that if individuals out there do not have a friendly lawyer who is willing to donate up to $300,000 or in excess of that to challenge federal laws through the courts, or if individuals do not have the money, then they are not going to be able to do it. Only rich folk are going to be able to do it. I think people should understand that.
I make a plea to the minister who is listening carefully. I really think this was not well thought out at all. It would appear from our questioning of officials before committee and the responses we received to these questions that indeed it was not well thought out.
As far as I could determine no cost benefit analyses were done on how much the government would actually
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save by retaining the program. There was none of that. It just seemed to be that somebody came up with the bright idea that federal spending could be reduced by chopping this program.
Knowing what impact the termination of this program was going to have, at the very least I think the government should have said: "Look, we don't think we can continue to fund the program. Let's at least first explore various avenues, whether through the Canadian Bar Association, provincial governments or any other available means, before removing the program".
Now that has done been, at the very least I think the government should seriously consider extending the program until that kind of work has been completed, not only in fairness to itself but in fairness to all those Canadians who are going to be adversely and seriously affected by the termination of this program.


Mr. John Nunziata (York South-Weston):: Madam Speaker, I would like to ask the hon. member about obligation. I do not want my comments to be construed as in any way supporting the government's position and action in this regard. My question for my colleague is with regard to the obligation of the legal profession in Canada.
As a member of the legal profession it seems to me that the profession has a responsibility. What we are talking about here in effect are legal fees that must be paid to lawyers in order to litigate certain cases that are constitutional test cases.
We know that lawyers do quite well vis-a-vis the federal government in terms of the amount of money that is transferred to the legal profession for work they do. They are paid handsomely, I would submit.
I was at a committee the other day and we are paying an outside lawyer $600 a day to sit there and help draft legislation notwithstanding that we have lawyers in the Department of Justice.
My question to my friend and colleague is: What obligation does he believe the legal profession has? Does he not believe that the legal profession has a responsibility in these cases? I am not talking about single practitioners or lawyers who might not be able to afford it. Is he aware of what programs major law firms have right across the country to help fund these types of cases on a pro bono basis? Is he familiar with what efforts the legal

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profession is making as a contribution to this type of litigation to ensure that people with legitimate cases that ought to be litigated vis-a-vis matters affecting the Constitution have an opportunity to do so?


Neil Young: Madam Speaker, that is a legitimate question. Indeed it is one that we asked the Canadian Bar Association and others who appeared before our committee.
It is worth pointing out-and the hon. member for Fundy-Royal mentioned it in his speech-that around $35,000 is provided under the program for each case. It costs anywhere around $300,000 to take the case through the system. The only way it can go through the system is by the Canadian Bar Association and its member lawyers providing what they call pro bono service, which is initially free service or for much reduced fee charges.
The Canadian Bar Association and its members have actually given the Canadian public a veiy good deal. When we take the $2.7 million that has been chopped from this program and weigh that against the value that Canadians have received under this program by free work by lawyers, by reduced work by lawyers, I think we got a basement bargain deal. Why we are destroying that is beyond me.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Madam Speaker, I just want some clarification. The member for Beaches-Woodbine was at the committee. I have just heard a question by the Liberal member from Toronto who appears to be advocating, unless I am wrong, that this become a matter of charity from the bar. I do not know if the Liberals have two positions on this.
I understood from all their speakers today that the Liberals had been for this Court Challenges Program. Now we have a Liberal who stands up and seems to say it is the charity of the bar that has to do it. You cannot be all things to all people. The Liberal Party cannot do that. It cannot keep doing that and have any credibility in Canada. I have to tell the hon. member from Toronto that.
I want to ask the hon. member for Beaches-Woodbine, what position did the Liberal Party take on the committee? Did the Liberals appear to be in favour or
against the cutback of this program? The member said very brilliantly that one, the program is needed; two, that it is a sad case to cut back and it is wrong; and, three, that it cannot be done through the charity of the bar. It has to be done as a proper program.
As a lawyer who did public interest programs, these cases also have to be co-ordinated. It is not just hit and miss. That is where the member for York South-Weston is wrong if he is advocating that it be the private bar.
I am angry because the Liberals cannot have two positions on everything. I want to ask the hon. member for Beaches-Woodbine: What position did the Liberal Party take in the committee?


John V. Nunziata: Madam Speaker, on a point of order, the member from Vancouver is clearly misconstruing and misinterpreting my position. Now if he wants to score some cheap political points he can. But I could ask him what his government at Queen's Park is doing or what his government in B.C. is doing.


Mr. Robert E. Skelly (Comox-Alberni):: Madam Speaker, I have no hesitation in rising to support this motion which calls for the restoration of the Court Challenges Program. I would like to congratulate the Liberal member for Ottawa-Vanier for bringing this motion to the House.
It appears that the government is arguing that the Court Challenges Program must be cut in order to reduce the expenditures and consequently to control the public debt of the country.
Canadians should know that this program costs only $2.5 million a year, perhaps a little less. It has been suggested before in this House that we could save the same amount of money if we cut back the tremendous amount of clipping services and media analysis that goes to the Prime Minister's office every single day. The polls that he does at the end of his media interviews. Most Canadians feel that that kind of money is wasted.
Yet the Court Challenges Program is an excellent expenditure of taxpayers money and should be continued.
The problem is that we have a Constitution. The Constitution contains the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
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John V. Nunziata: Bob Rae?


Raymond John Skelly: Madam Speaker, the member can stand up in the House and make a speech if he wishes. But he should be called to order at this point for his irrelevances.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Heckling during debate is sometimes part of this House. The Speaker will not intervene unless things being said are really unparliamentary or if the person who has the floor asks the Speaker to intervene because he or she finds it difficult to continue. I will give the floor to the hon. member for Comox-Albemi.


Robert Evans Skelly: Madam Speaker, we do have a Constitution and a Charter of Rights and Freedoms and they do create problems for people in this country.
Not all constitutions are protective of people's rights on the face of them. I recall that back in 1933 the best constitution in the world was delivered to the Soviet people by Joseph Stalin. It guaranteed minority rights, it guaranteed national rights, it guaranteed individual rights. It guaranteed all sorts of things, but nobody had access to the courts in order to establish their access to those rights. As a result, millions of people went to the Gulag and millions of people died when they tried to establish their rights that were guaranteed in that Soviet constitution.
The same thing applies here in Canada. Unless there are the mechanisms and the provisions in effect for people to guarantee their rights under this Constitution and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms it does not operate on its own. It does not have a mechanism to enforce itself. People have to challenge for their rights and that is why we have that Constitution.
Without assistance, the vast majority of people in this country would not have access to the judicial system in order to pursue their rights. That has been demonstrated hundreds of times over. That is the reason we have this Court Challenges Program in the first place.
I would like to quote a section from a paper written by the now hon. Andrew Petter who is the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs in the Government of British Columbia. He wrote this paper when he was an assistant law professor at the University of Victoria. He notes how in
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charter cases the judicial process discriminates against the financially disadvantaged and in favour of the wealthy.
Let me make a few quotes from Mr. Petter's paper. He says: "There are two features of this system that make it a particularly inappropriate forum for advancing the interests of the disadvantaged. One is the cost of gaining access to the system. It will come as no surprise to those familiar with the process of litigation to discover that the cost of mounting a charter challenge is extremely high. The successful action of Southam newspapers to have a search of its business records by anti-combine officers struck down under the charter took two and a half years and cost Southam about $200,000.
The charter challenge brought by Merv Lavigne against the compulsory collection of union dues for political purposes at the time this paper was written, had already cost the National Citizens' Coalition, the rightwing lobby funding the challenge, about $400,000 and the case, at that point, had only proceeded as far as the Ontario Supreme Court.
For people to take actions under the Charter of Rights through the whole court process is an extremely expensive undertaking and many of the people in Canada who need access to that process simply cannot afford it. Without the assistance provided in this program those people are not going to be able to take advantage of the Canadian Charter of Rights in order to establish what their rights are."
Now Southam corporation and the National Citizens' Coalition, which is financed by a large number of corporate donations, do not have any problems getting government funding because their court actions are considered a cost of doing business. They can right it down against their income taxes so that you and I and rich and poor alike in this country end up paying for their challenges under the charter.
The only problem is that for those poor, for those disadvantaged people in this country there is no access to the courts if this program is done away with.
A number of cases have been mentioned by my colleagues speaking in this House over the last short period of time. Some of them in fact come from my riding. One of the cases in fact was the case of Jim Egan and John Nesbitt who are residents of the Comox valley in my riding.

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Now these men have lived together on a same sex relationship for something like 40 years. It is a long established relationship. They in fact have grown old together. Unfortunately they are not the same age so that one is now entitled to his old age pension and the other, had he been of a different sex, would have been entitled to the spouses allowance.
How can somebody who is in receipt of old age pension and is in need of a spouses allowance, how can somebody in that type of financial condition take this issue to court and have any reasonable hope of having the court respond when he really does not have the money to do it.
These people took their case to the first stage, to trial division in the Federal Court. They ended up with a judge who brought down a regressive decision that actually set back the rights of those kinds of couples years and years.
They were hoping to be able to go on through the appeal process, through the higher courts. In fact, they were promised by the Court Challenges Program that the funding would be there and they could proceed to have this resolved in the upper courts so that one of the same sex partnership would end up being entitled to the spouse's allowance.
Unfortunately your program cut them off in mid process and left the state of the law with respect to same sex couples worse than it was before the process started.
I heard the member from New Brunswick state that cases that are in process now are going to continue in process until they have a resolution.
I am wondering if that would apply to the Egan-Nes-bitt case. Are they going to be permitted by the Court Challenges Program to finish the process until they get a final decision in the upper courts or are they going to be cut off and leave the state of the law in Canada with respect to individual rights in this case worse than it was before the process started.
It is very important that a lot of these cases that have been left hanging have resulted in the law being even worse than it was before those cases started.
This minister and I have had a number of words over the years about programs which have been cut by his ministry when he was Secretary of State. Unfortunately
those cuts had been directed at the people who were least responsible for the deficit and who were the least able to fight back, the weakest, the poorest, the most disadvantaged.
This was the minister who cut off the aboriginal communications program when he was responsible for the Department of the Secretary of State.
This was the minister who cut off the aboriginal representative organization funding program, the AFN and other organizations that represent aboriginal people across this country when he was Secretary of State.
This was the minister who cut off support for women's centres across the country when he was Secretary of State. Now that he is minister of multiculturalism, he again takes a direct attack on those who can least afford it. He does this through the Court Challenges Program.
Is it something about this minister or is it something about this government? Why is it that they constantly direct their attacks against those who are poor, disabled, disadvantaged, those who can least expect to defend themselves. That is my problem with this.
Again, I would like to thank the member for Ottawa- Vanier for bringing this motion forward. I would hope that the government would respond more positively to it. Unfortunately, this is a government that is extremely secretive and extremely close in the way it holds power to itself and does not let that power out to the people.
We do not have an ombudsman in this House as we do in virtually every province across this country. We do not have other mechanisms in this House to allow citizens to have input and challenge for their rights.
The Canadian Human Rights Commission is considered a toothless body because it has very little in the way of power that it requires in order to assist citizens who feel they have been the object of discrimination and injustice.
Is it something about this government? Is it something about this minister? All I am saying is that something has to be done. I hope the government and this minister in particular will reconsider the decision he has taken on the Court Challenges Program so that the disadvantaged will not be further disadvantaged in pursuing their rights under the Charter.
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John V. Nunziata: Madam Speaker, I will be brief. Let me make it very clear. I do not support the government and the Liberal Party does not support the government's decision to terminate the Court Challenges Program. It was not a wise move.
What I take exception to is the self-righteousness, the holier-than-thou attitude of the members of the New Democratic Party. They know that the administration of justice is a provincial responsibility. They know, and their members have indicated time and time again, that it costs $200,000 or $300,000 to litigate a case. Surely the issue is not only with respect to the Court Challenges Program, but what ought to be done in order to improve access for all Canadians, not only those to the courts and not only those who are challenging the provisions in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms or in the Constitution.
The NDP has a provincial government at Queen's Park and provincial governments in British Columbia and Saskatchewan. If they are so pure and so holier than thou, let me ask what their governments are doing, given the fact that the administration of justice is a provincial responsibility. What are these hypocrites doing in order to ensure-


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Order. I think the hon. member might care to withdraw and rephrase his question.


John V. Nunziata: Madam Speaker, I will withdraw the reference to hypocrisy.
I would like to ask the hon. member what Premier Bob Rae or Premier Romanow or Premier Harcourt are doing in order to improve access to the courts for ordinary Canadians?
Why does the NDP not put its money where its mouth is and stop being so self-righteous and holier and thou, and tell me what those guys are doing in order to ensure that all Canadians have access to the courts. He cannot speak out of both sides of his mouth.


Robert Evans Skelly: If I could speak out of both sides of my mouth, Madam Speaker, I would be a Liberal.
I am prepared to put up the record of the NDP governments in Saskatchewan, in Manitoba, in Ontario, in Yukon and anywhere else against any Liberal provincial government, or in fact any Liberal national govem-
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ment, when it comes to defending human rights, when it comes to assisting people and obtaining their rights through the courts under programs similar to this. We stand second to no political party.
But I think the member should have talked about what the Liberal governments did in this country. They did absolutely nothing and that is why we are in the situation that we find ourselves in now.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Madam Speaker, if the hon. member for York South-Weston would tone it down a bit and look, he might realize that the Ontario government has instituted another look. As Kathleen Ruff said in a speech here on the Hill last night: "another look at how they could make human rights laws effective". They say that we have a human rights law but we have to somehow make it effective and workable. They are looking at all these areas, and they have specifically given that mandate to a group and Ms. Ruff is working with that mandate.
I do not understand the hon. member. This is a Liberal motion; this is a motion from his own party.


John V. Nunziata: Yes and we support it.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Does he support it? He just said that lawyers should give charity a few minutes ago. I do not know, the critic better grab him and get the Liberal position together so they do not talk out of both sides of their mouths.


An hon. member:: He's a closet Tory.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: I want to ask the hon. member from Comox-Alberni this. The hon. member who spoke gave a veiy eloquent speech. He mentioned the Egan case and the difficulty that sometimes great cases that establish advances in human rights are lost in the trial division, but ultimately win in the higher courts.
I think a perfect example, and I wonder if he might acknowledge this, was the Nisga case. In the early seventies, Tom Berger, a lawyer in Vancouver on behalf of the Nisga nation, brought a case, lost in the lower courts, I believe lost in the Court of Appeal-if my friend would help me-and a divided Supreme Court of Canada allowed political pressure in this House and elsewhere to convince the government for the first time to really recognize aboriginal rights and we have moved on from there, of course.

April 1, 1992
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I want to ask the member if he could confirm that point and reiterate once again why it is necessary that these cases go to the highest court of the country.


Robert Evans Skelly: Yes, Madam Speaker. Maybe I will go back to an even more remote case where the United States Constitution guaranteed equal rights to all of its citizens regardless of race, creed, colour or nationality, whatever. That was understood to mean that everyone had the right of access to schools of the same quality. It was not a simple guarantee written into the Constitution or the Bill of Rights of the United States that provided that. Ultimately those children in the United States who were black had to win their right to go to quality schools at the point of a gun. The U.S. army had to be sent into some states of the United States that refused to obey the Constitution.
What is needed is mechanisms by government to challenge, through the judiciary, the Constitution on behalf of disadvantaged people if we are going to avoid the kind of situation that we had in the United States back in the 1950s. I encourage this minister and this government to keep the Court Challenges Program in place. It is an examination of what the alternatives are. This is a valuable program, we should-


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I am sorry, the time has expired.


Mr. Murray W. Dorin (Edmonton Northwest):: Madam Speaker, I am pleased today to be able to join in this debate about the Court Challenges Program. Before I begin my intervention, I would like to remind members that this Progressive Conservative government has put more funding and political will into ensuring human rights for all Canadians than any other government in our history.
No other government has created anything like the Court Challenges Program but now the time has come to share the responsibility. Times are tough; money is short. We all know that. What we should be exploring here today is a new direction that involves natural partners like the provinces, the territories, the Canadian Bar Association and the law societies.
First, let me put the Court Challenges Program into the context of all the programs which currently serve to support language and equality rights.
As members will have read in the 1989 official languages annual report, the Official Languages Act, administered by the Secretary of State remains a key law in support of linguistic minority groups. It fully covers both anglophones in Quebec and francophones throughout the rest of the country. It gives that department the mandate to insist and support the development of linguistic minority communities and to promote complete recognition and use of both official languages. That mandate has not changed.
The rights of these citizens are laid out for all to see in our Constitution. By no means is this government abandoning that set of legal statements, but the use of our judicial system is the only way to ensure the protection of human rights in Canada. We must continue to develop other systems through negotiation and co-operation with other levels of government, with human rights lawyers and with advocacy groups by which linguistic and social rights are safeguarded.
Federally we shall continue to pursue the values of Canadian citizenship that influence our daily lives: equality and participation. In addition to the official languages program, the programs of the Department of Multiculturalism and Citizenship and Secretary of State remain in place.
We have, for example, a disabled persons participation program. Since 1985 project funding and technical support from the Disabled Persons Participation Program Fund have helped organizations work to change the attitudes, systems and practices that have kept persons with disabilities from getting jobs and gaining access to buildings, goods, services and information. In 1991 the program was expanded to include a partnership fund so that other relevant organizations can join with groups of people with disabilities to address these issues which are important for all Canadians.
The projects funded under the Disabled Persons Participation Program must relate to one of three objectives. First, representation, that is to enhance the capacity for persons with disabilities to represent effectively their rights and responsibilities as Canadian citizens.
April 1, 1992

Second, improvement of access, to support the development of community-based mechanisms aimed at addressing attitudinal, institutional and informational barriers excluding persons with disabilities from participation in Canadian society.
Third, to create new solutions, that is to facilitate the development by people with disabilities of innovative approaches to participate fully in the social and economic life of Canada.
The achievement of full participation on the part of persons with disabilities will occur only if their concerns are taken into consideration by all sectors of society: business, labour, governments and other organizations. To ensure this happens, groups of persons with disabilities must be able to effectively represent their membership and their issues. This requires groups to be well organized, informed and functionally able to work on behalf of their members. For example, a disability group could bring its membership together to conduct leadership development training workshops, or in collaboration with native band councils, address the needs of persons with disabilities on reserves.
Improvement of access means improving access to education, housing, information and other goods and services in our communities. For example, what are the particular needs of students with disabilities? How can we improve access to services for people living in rural communities?
Your project should address specific, concrete issues and have the potential to initiate change. For example, one could establish a community coalition on transportation for seniors and persons with disabilities to identify issues and present them to the local transportation authority. Or one could share information and ideas with the media about how terminology shapes the way in which persons with disabilities are perceived and could identify current accepted terminology that portrays them in a positive light.
In some cases there are no readily apparent solutions to the issues facing persons with disabilities. In these instances, organizations have to come up with innovative ideas to enable them to take part in all aspects of Canada's social and economic life.
These initiatives could show businesses the capabilities of persons with disabilities and demonstrate that there
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are different ways to do tasks on the job. Examples of innovative approaches are the establishment of an independent living resource centre to address cross-disability information and community participation needs in a particular community, or the development of a transitional education training program for use with the disabilities.
As well, the government has the race relations and cross-cultural understanding program. Multiculturalism in the 1990s is about removing the barriers to full participation, full contribution and full citizenship of all Canadians, regardless of their background or cultural heritage.
Canada's multiculturalism policy plays a role in helping to adjust to Canada's growing cultural diversity, in promoting Canadian unity and in ensuring that all Canadians participate actively in the social, cultural, economic and political life of Canada.
Canada's approach, integration through effective multiculturalism, is preferable to assimilation and other means of dealing with a diverse mix of ethnocultural backgrounds.
Despite recent well publicized concerns about multiculturalism, we now have reason to believe that the majority of Canadians understand the importance of having a multiculturalism policy and programs.
In July 1991 an Angus Reid national survey found that 76 per cent of Canadians understand that multiculturalism refers to Canadians of every ancestry. Seventy-seven per cent of Canadians feel that our multiculturalism policy enshrines Canada's culture and an overwhelming 85 per cent strongly supports equality among all Canadians as an objective of multiculturalism policy.
Support for the policy's integration objectives is at a level of 73 per cent, and support for its role in helping Canadian society to deal with cultural diversity is at 74 per cent.
Racism and racial discrimination affect the lives of all Canadians, regardless of their age. There can be no doubt that we all want to enjoy a fair and friendlier Canada, not a land divided by racial tensions. We share the responsibility of supporting each other in building a dynamic and forward looking multicultural society of which we can all be proud, and which includes us all.

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The Canadian Multiculturalism Act sets out the policy of the Government of Canada to promote the full and equitable participation of people and communities of all origins in the continuing evolution of Canadian society.
The act also calls on the government to assist in the elimination of any barrier to such participation. It commits the government to promoting the understanding and creativity that arise from the interaction between individuals and communities of different origins.
In addition, it encourages and assists the social, cultural, economic and political institutions of Canada to be both respectful and inclusive of Canada's multicultural character.
The objectives of the race relations and cross-cultural understanding program are to foster the elimination of racism and racial discrimination, to assist Canadian institutions in becoming responsive and adapting to Canada's multicultural reality, and to promote cross-cultural understanding and the principles of equality and access. Through 1990-91, institutional change, public education, community advocacy, cross-cultural training and research have been the five mutually reinforcing objectives supported by the program to foster equality and access for all Canadians and to promote social change.
Public education initiatives, especially around March 21, the international day for the elimination of racial discrimination, were. supported, as were activities addressing the race relations concerns of visible minority and aboriginal youth and of aboriginal Canadians. These have been achieved with the crucial help of the community and the fruitful co-operation of institutions and organizations.
We also have a human rights program. The purpose of the human rights program is to promote the development, understanding, respect for and enjoyment of human rights and to facilitate the implementation of Canada's domestic and international human rights obligations. Its activities include education and promotion, co-ordination and presentation of Canada's human rights reports to international bodies, federal-provincial-territorial co-ordination to fulfil Canada's international human rights obligations and interdepartmental co-ordination.
Since 1986 the program has carried out a range of activities designed to promote and protect human rights: for example, to work with non-governmental groups, NGOs, educators and others working in the human rights field, including both specialists and those who from time to time carry out human rights activities and to carry out other public education activities. It is there to serve as the central point of reference for the federal government's domestic interest in human rights and as part of this latter mandate, to develop interdepartmental and federal-provincial-territorial consultations and coordination to implement human rights treaties.
Powers, duties and functions of the Department of Secretary of State were transferred by section 9 of the Department of Multiculturalism and Citizenship Act. As well, the number of reports that the directorate prepares in consultation with federal departments, provinces and territories, has greatly increased over the last two decades. Reports are prepared to meet legal obligations under international treaties that Canada has ratified and to meet other commitments relating to Canada's membership in the UN and the OAS. The directorate often participates in the review of the reports by international bodies.
I would like to go on to the women's program. The women's program attempts to promote economic equality. Women are employed in every sector of Canada's economy and make a major contribution to our country's growth and prosperity. Despite this fact, there are still many hurdles preventing them from fully participating in the economy and from receiving recognition for the role in the labour force and at home.
Many of the groups funded by the women's program are working to improve economic opportunities for women. For example, a group of women lawyers in Saskatchewan is working with farm women. Their aim is to identify the economic and legal concerns of farm women with regard to property, pensions and family law.
Another voluntary group has documented the flexibility needed by employees balancing work and family responsibilities and has made recommendations in this area. In New Brunswick a group of francophone women is working to have the experience of homemakers and volunteers recognized when they look for work.
April 1, 1992

The women's program also promotes social justice. Social justice covers many issues relating to women's fair and equal treatment in all segments of our society. On a practical level, social justice for women includes the development of a safe society, free from violence and discrimination. Such a society would open more possibilities for women to realize their full potential.
The women's program has partners with many groups working in the area of social justice. In Nova Scotia one group is working with medical practitioners to ensure that the needs of battered women are better met. A native women's group receives financial assistance to raise the issue of family violence in their communities.
Across our country community groups funded by the women's program are working to break down the obstacles that hinder women from full participation in Canadian society at all levels. These include, for example, a Nova Scotia group helping unemployed women access training and education options; in Quebec a voluntary group of Haitian and Italian immigrant women learning about their rights and what can be done about discrimination.
The women's program works with the many different partners in our society. The goal of these activities is to ensure that women can fully contribute to all dimensions of life with the assistance of the program. Many voluntary groups are bringing us closer to making that goal a reality. What these groups accomplish leads to measurable improvements in the lives of women, whether their activities result in single mothers obtaining adequate housing or elderly women on pensions improving their economic and social situation, or whether the discriminatory attitudes that discourage women from entering scientific and technological fields are addressed. The Government of Canada is committed to bringing about social justice and economic equality for Canadian women. In doing so, the government recognizes that many choices, decisions, and challenges face Canadian women today.
To attain equality for women, the government has set out a national strategy in dimensions of equality: a federal government work plan for women, 1986. The women's program of the Department of the Secretary of State is an important part of this over-all national objective to advance the equality of women.
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In 1988 the government renewed the mandate of the women's program. In implementing this mandate the women's program assists women's and other voluntary groups working on a wide range of equality concerns.
There is support for the voluntary sector. Members of the more than 800 volunteer groups funded annually by the women's program give their own time and resources to make our society more just and caring. These groups are dedicated to improving the economic, social, and legal situation of women; in the home, the workplace, and the community. Some groups for example are working to improve public understanding of how family violence affects women.
Others are helping immigrant women increase their access to language training, while still others are striving to remove barriers women face in the work force. In fact, together these groups' activities touch on every area of our society where women face obstacles.
The women's program has many objectives: to increase the public understanding of women's equality in order to encourage action toward resolving these issues; to promote the organizational development of women's groups so that they can work more effectively toward equality for women; and to encourage institutions to integrate women's equality issues into their decision-making structures, policies, and programs.
In meeting these objectives the women's program provides assistance to women's and other voluntary groups working to advance the equality of women in the areas of economic equality, social justice, and access and participation.
Within these funding areas the program also responds to new needs and issues such as the concerns of immigrant women, women with disabilities, and those who live in rural and isolated areas. More and more the women's program is working with volunteer groups representing the concerns of women who experience unfair treatment based on their sex, race, disability, or other factors.
I had a few other things to say about some of the other programs, including some of the native programs that we have, such as the Native Citizens' Directorate, the Aboriginal Representative Organization's Program, and some of these other programs. I understand and know that I am quickly running out of time so I may have to speed over that a bit.

April 1, 1992
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The bottom line is that the Government of Canada has many programs to address the legal and social responsibilities of Canadians. It is time that we started to share the load and see other groups in society, including provincial governments, come to assist us and to recognize that they must take their share of responsibility as well.


Mr. Howard McCurdy (Windsor-St. Clair):: Mr. Speaker, I must say that I regret that the hon. member for Edmonton Northwest was unable to finish his four-hour speech. I am sure it would have been very interesting.
Earlier we heard the member for Fundy-Royal give a very vigorous and positive appraisal of the Court Challenges Program, leaving all of us to wonder what defence he could possibly have offered for discontinuing a program that cost $2.3 million as compared to $15 million for almost any average government publicity campaign.
Then we hear the member for Edmonton Northwest talk about the importance of removing barriers among the various groups in this country. He talked eloquently about multiculturalism. He talked about the necessity of full participation. I do not know whether he realized, however inherent in what he said, was the necessity of empowering the people who are disadvantaged by race or ethnic derivation to defend themselves.
I have to ask him what his reaction is since he did not mention at all the question of the Court Challenges Program what he thinks within the context of what he said about the discontinuation of that program, a relatively inexpensive program, particularly now in view of what he said about racial discrimination, since the director of that program was about to embark on encouraging racial minorities to use the program more effectively than they have in the past and how he reacts to the deferral of the Race Relations Institute. But most especially, in view of what he has said about the necessity of ensuring that every Canadian, regardless of their ethnicity or racial derivation, participating fully in this countiy as equal citizens, and the fact that the members of his party on the constitutional committee along with the Liberals refused to support an amendment to section
27 as a recommendation that would have added these words: "and the preservation and promotion of racial and ethnic equality", how can he reconcile that to what he has just tried to tell the House? I am sure he is sincere. I want to know if his defence of his government is on that account.


Murray Dorin: Mr. Speaker, I was not on the constitutional committee. Therefore, I do not know what kind of deliberations took place. I am going to say this.
The member made reference to my four hour speech and I think that speaks for itself. I spoke for 20 minutes, simply discussing some of the programs that this government has in place to support the legitimate rights of all Canadians to a better quality of life. I could have probably gone on for four hours tiying to get through all of them. The fact is because of its unique contribution to human rights, unmatched by any government or any party at any level, this government has earned the right to insist that this crucial responsibility now be shared.
I would hope that the hon. member for Ottawa-Vani-er who proposed today's motion would seek the agreement of his colleagues and members of the NDP to ensure that all provinces and territories now take up the challenge by demonstrating some political will of their own.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, I have a question I would like to ask the member for Edmonton Northwest dealing with testimony which was put to the Standing Committee on Human Rights and the Status of Disabled Persons, by the Deputy Minister of Justice, I believe, to the effect that there were mechanisms in place to allow Canadians to go to the Human Rights Commission or to the Official Languages Commission as an alternative to the Court Challenges Program.
He and others in the House know that the Court Challenges Program was specifically put together by the Liberal government in 1978 to deal with constitutional issues under the BNA Act, extended to the 1982 charter of rights by the Liberals again, and then in 1985 to section 15. That is the course of events of that program.
April 1, 1992

My question is, how can this government entertain that statutory decision or commissions existing in this country under statute of this House are equal or able to deal with constitutional questions which are the first law of the land and are not, in my view, similar in any way, sense or shape. How can one pretend that there are other avenues than to go to the courts to get your constitutional rights affirmed and clarified? How can one say that?
Is the minister close to him in agreement with the Deputy Minister of Justice?


Murray Dorin: Mr. Speaker, I think the point is that we have a multitude of programs at the federal level to try and assist people in ensuring that they receive their basic human rights. We are involved in many, many ways in this area.
The fact of the matter is, as was pointed out in the earlier debate by others, that the administration of justice is a provincial responsibility. It is not up to the federal government to simply take the whole burden in this area. We think it is time that some of the others started to take their part of the load.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Mr. Speaker, I have a short question.
You say it is time for other levels, meaning the provincial level. Right? That is what the minister was talking about.
If francophones in Alberta want to exercise their rights under the Official Languages Act, or other rights of the Constitution, and they go to the government of Premier Getty are they going to get money to finance that case?


Some hon. members:: No way.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Who is kidding whom?


Murray Dorin: Mr. Speaker, I cannot speak for the Government of Alberta and I do not plan to. This hon. member will know, and all hon. members will know, that from time to time I have disagreed with the Government of Alberta even though it happens to be of the same political persuasion. Once in awhile I would like to see members of the NDP disagree with some of their provincial counterparts when they know that they are wrong rather than just standing up and repeating those lines.
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An hon. member:: Against the gospel.


Murray Dorin: They should be telling their provincial counterparts to take their responsibilities seriously and not leave it all to the federal government rather than coming into this House and demanding that we do it. They should be speaking to their political cousins back home if they are so supportive of them.


Mr. Jack Iyerak Anawak (Nunatsiaq):: [Editor's Note: Member spoke in Inuktitut]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to be here. I am pleased to rise today in support of the motion of my hon. colleague calling upon the government to restore the Court Challenges Program.
A great many ordinary Canadians are deeply concerned by the government's recent decision to terminate this program. The program has benefited women, minorities, disadvantaged groups and aboriginal people. It has enabled these groups to mount court challenges under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It has provided financial assistance for the preparation and defence of test cases.
Without this program many of these court challenges simply would not have happened and Canada's human rights situation would be worse than it is. If the program is not reinstated many cases which would benefit Canadians will not even get to court.
Lawyers are expensive. Fighting government in the courts is expensive. The government has all kinds of resources at its disposal.
Ordinary Canadians with human rights grievances do not have the resources that the government has.
This program, the Court Challenges Program, has helped equalize the imbalance in resources between ordinary Canadians and government.
The Court Challenges Program was first established in 1978. At that time it dealt only with official language minority rights.
In 1982 the program's mandate was expanded to include the new language rights guaranteed under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In 1985, after the charter section on equality rights came into force, the program was expanded to include equality rights.

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To ensure an arms length relationship with government the program was taken out of government and administered by the Canadian Council on Social Development. It was given a five-year mandate.
In 1990 the program was renewed for another five years and became affiliated with the Human Rights Education and Research Centre of the University of Ottawa.
This is not an expensive program. It costs veiy little and is a very cost-effective program. Each year the program would commit up to $2 million for cases. The program's operating costs are $750,000 a year. The total annual budget is thus only $2.75 million. I understand as well that the program's lawyers charge well under the normal fee.
The program has received a total of 951 applications under its equality rights component since 1985, 310 of those applications have been funded. Court decisions or reports have been received on 115 applications, and there are 156 active files.
Eighteen aboriginal applications have received case funding and 22 aboriginal applications have received case development funding.
The language rights component has received a total of 171 applications, 94 of those applications have been funded. Court decisions or reports have been received for 56 applications and there are 27 active files.
The NWT Association des Parents Francophones in Yellowknife has received funding under this component.
Some of the cases assisted by this program have had far-reaching effects. For example, the case in which a Toronto father won the right to child care benefits, and the case in which residents of mental institutions won the right to vote in the last federal election. There have been some landmark cases on minority language rights.
In other words, the government and Canadians have been getting good value for their money. The program has funded parties or interventions in cases that have resulted in judgments of the Supreme Court of Canada that have made new laws, yet the government has cancelled this program. Why?
There are still many questions and issues outstanding and unresolved. What will happen to all those cases that
are in progress? Apparently those applications which have been approved for funding will receive funding only for the level they have been approved at, but what about appeals? If a group loses and wants to appeal or they win and the government appeals, there will be no funding available.
I want to elaborate on this issue by referring to a case the Inuit Women's Association, Pauktuutit, is developing.
Last year, Pauktuutit applied for funding under the Court Challenges Program to prepare for a section 15 challenge to the NWT judiciary's practice of issuing lenient sentences to individuals convicted of sexually assaulting Inuit women. In November, it was notified that that its application had been approved in principle. The cancellation of the program puts its case in some jeopardy. While it will take the case to trial, there is no funding available for an appeal should an appeal be necessary.
The president of Pauktuutit has written to the Minister of Justice to express shock and disappointment at the cancellation of this program. I want to quote briefly from that letter:
Since its inception, the Court Challenges Program has provided organizations such as our own with the opportunity to take on very difficult cases affecting our constitutional equality rights. Without the support provided by the Court Challenges Program, we fear that justice and equality in Canada are sure to suffer.
In her letter, the president of Pauktuutit also pointed out to the Minister of Justice the significance of the case that they are working on. I will again quote briefly:
This is a very important case, one that offers hope to the victims of sexual assault (and Inuit women in general) that the crime will be dealt with as a serious one.
The letter concluded with an appeal to the minister to support the reinstatement of the program. Again I quote:
The Charter of Rights and Freedoms will never be able to fulfill its promise of equality and justice if disadvantaged groups are unable to take their cases to the courts.
I agree with the views and concerns expressed by Pauktuutit and join with it and the many other Canadians calling for the continuation of the Court Challenges Program.
Several other aboriginal groups and organizations have been assisted by the program. The Chippewas of Nawash received case development funding to pursue a fishing licence issue. The Native Women's Association of
April 1, 1992

Canada received funding to challenge aspects of the Indian Act.
Aboriginal people have received funding to challenge issues related to voting rights, exclusion from programs, cultural rights, language rights and aboriginal customary law. Inuit, Innu and aboriginal women prisoners have also received assistance from the program.
I want to conclude my presentation today with some comments made by a very distinguished and respected Canadian.
Former Supreme Court Justice Bertha Wilson now heads the royal commission on aboriginal peoples. She had this to say about the cancellation of the Court Challenges Program:
As a Supreme Court Judge, I saw what an invaluable contribution this program made. It was exciting; it made you think government can't be all that bad. And then-bingo! This policy makes the people who can least afford it bear the brunt. There's no point in giving people rights if they don't have the wherewithal to go to court.
It is totally illusory to confer rights on people who do not have the means to enforce them-
I have difficulty with a policy that places the burden of-restraint on those who can least afford to bear it.
There is still a need for this program. The clarification of the rights and responsibilities of Canadians is an ongoing process. A committee of this House, the Standing Committee on Human Rights and the Status of Disabled Persons, has strongly supported the program. There is no other comparable program existing in Canada. The Government of Canada must not cancel this program because it is too important for ordinary Canadians. The necessary refinement and elaboration of human rights in Canada must not be cut off at the knees by withdrawing the only possible source of funding from those who need it the most.
I call upon government members to support this motion. The Court Challenges Program must continue and minorities must continue to have the tools they need to defend, protect and enhance their rights.
Mr. Francis G. LeBlanc (Cape Breton Highlands-
Canso): Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by complimenting my colleague from Nunatsiaq for a very moving and informative address on this very important Court Challenges Program.
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I also wish to mention how valuable he is in this Chamber in defending the interests and rights of that large part of Canada to the North that is such a rich part of our heritage. I was particularly struck in his speech by his enumeration of the cases that have been brought forward with the assistance of the Court Challenges Program affecting voting rights, minority rights, and the rights of the people that he represents in Canada's North, as well as minorities across this country.
It was a very eloquent testimony to the value of this program, particularly in an age in which our democracy is increasingly being defined by the court system, and in response to litigation in a very complex court process.
One of the disturbing things that took place in this budget and that is taking place in the actions of this government is that the ability of ordinary Canadians to participate in this new kind of democracy through the courts is being undermined.
In Nova Scotia, in my own riding the Minister of Justice has been taking over a year to fill a judgeship appointment. The consequence is that there have been cases which have not gone before the court on sexual assault matters, on family violence and on many very important matters affecting ordinary Canadians because they have no access to the court system.
The second disturbing development is that there has been consolidation in my province of Nova Scotia making it more difficult for people to access the court system. This decision by the government to cut out the funding from the Court Challenges Program is another way in which this government is undermining the abilities of ordinary Canadians to participate in this new aspect of democracy, which does not only take place in this Chamber but in a very complicated legal and court system.
I come to my question, which I know my friend from Nunatsiaq is waiting patiently to hear. That question has to do with the list he enumerated. Somebody told me when this was announced that it was as if the federal government had decided that all charter questions had been decided, that there was no need for further clarification of charter provisions on equality rights. Clearly my colleague has already enumerated a long list of concerns which are very much related to the charter.

April 1, 1992
Private Members' Business
I would like to ask my colleague if he knows of more possible instances of legal problems affecting minorities or citizens in his part of the country?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Order, please. I draw your attention to the fact that there was a small power failure and it is now eight o'clock.
It being eight o'clock p.m. it is my duty to inform the House that pursuant to Standing Order 81(17), proceedings on the motion have expired.


Mr. Prud'homme:: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.
With respect, I think it is too bad we were not warned we had lost a few minutes. I was in committee all day, on that important joint committee of the Senate and the House of Commons and also on the special committee on electoral reform. I would have liked to take part in this debate. It is too bad we have run out of time, but I want to be on the record as saying that I would have liked to speak in this debate. We had no idea the bells would take us by surprise and we would miss the hon. member's brilliant response to the question-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Order, please. With his experience, the hon. member for Saint-Denis ought to know that. In any case it is 8 p.m., even if we are running somewhat late.


George Albert Proud: Would you consider Standing Order 26?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Pursuant to Standing Order 30(7), the House will now proceed to consideration of Private Members' Business as listed on today's Order Paper.



PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS


[Stage Direction]
SETTING OF GUIDELINES Mr. John R. Rodriguez (Nickel Belt) moved:
That, in the opinion of this House, the government should consider introducing legislation setting conflict of interest guidelines for Members of Parliament and Senators; and that these guidelines should also regulate conflict of interest and post-employment practices for senior bureaucrats and senior political staff.
John V. Nunziata: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The hon. member for Nickel Belt who is moving the motion and others are members of a parliamentary committee that is presently dealing with the whole issue of conflict of interest.
The government has already introduced legislation which is the subject matter before this committee. We will soon be writing our report, and it seems to me that this motion is redundant in that the matter that the member is raising has already been done.
If it is the wish of the House to take the next hour to generally discuss this matter, then so be it. But the House should be aware that the matter is already before a parliamentary committee which is looking into a piece of legislation that was introduced into this House.


Mr. Rodriguez:: Mr. Speaker, there is nothing in the Standing Orders that says a private member's motion that has been introduced in the House cannot be debated while a motion similar but not the same would be under review.
That bill which my hon. colleague has referred to was never debated here at second reading. It was introduced and then turned over for pre-study.
The committee is doing a pre-study, but there is nothing in the Standing Orders that precludes a member's motion introduced into the House from being debated on an issue which is under discussion by a study committee of the House.


Charles A. Langlois: Mr. Speaker, I fully agree with the hon. member who said that the subject matter of this motion is now before a Joint Committee of the House and the Senate. If I could have unanimous consent, Mr. Speaker,
I would move that the motion as presented be referred to this committee for consideration and subsequently reported back to the House.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: The hon. member for Saint-Denis. The Chair awaits your sage advice.
April 1, 1992


George Albert Proud: Mr. Speaker, I must say that the hon. member from Toronto, who read with great gusto the motion presented by our hon. friend from Nickel Belt raised a point which is of particular interest to those of us who are students of the Standing Orders of this House. I see that our table officers, the Chair's advisers and my old colleagues and friends, the experts, are all busy with their reference books, because this is quite an interesting point.
I was prepared to come here to discuss the matter, or at least to listen to the hon. member, because his speeches are always most interesting, brilliant and full of energy, and that is why I was here, even at this late hour. Since we are talking about conflicts of interest, I wonder whether he realizes that he himself has a conflict of interest because he is asking the government to consider introducing legislation.
In fact, the government did introduce legislation but it did not ask for a vote so that we would have as few constraints as possible in committee-and my hon. friend certainly had none, in committee-in order to present a bill that establishes conflict of interest guidelines for members and senators. Monday we were together all day, the hon. member, my colleague from Toronto and the member for Etobicoke-Lakeshore. We talked about this all day and all last week. And we are still very busy, because Parliament has asked us to consider this matter.

Because of the devotion of our colleague who is putting this private members' motion forward, we are also discussing among ourselves the question of having tough guidelines that should regulate conflict of interest and post-employment practices for senior bureaucrats and senior political staff.
The more we talk with each other privately, the more we discover that probably it is the political staff and the senior bureaucrats who are the most dangerous people for conflict of interest and not backbenchers.
I am in your able hands to decide if we are not having a redundancy by debating this motion. I will listen attentively to my esteemed colleague to find out whether he
Private Members' Business
finds himself in a total conflict of interest by debating his motion.
Of course, I will abide by your judgment, Mr. Speaker. If you were to decide that no, he cannot go on, I assure my colleague that I will stay here until nine o'clock to listen to what he has to say.


John R. Rodriguez: Mr. Speaker, on the same point of order, to draw this bow so widely that it is possible I could be in a conflict of interest is beyond credulity.
I have been introducing motions on conflict of interest since I was elected into this House. The latest one that I introduced was in April 1989. This motion has been standing on the books since April 1989.
The government's bill, Bill C-43 which my colleagues are referring to was introduced in November 1991. If anybody is in conflict, it has to be the government that is in conflict, not this hon. member.
I also want to point out to my colleagues that there was no opportunity to discuss this issue at second reading, which is the traditional way in this House of Commons. When a bill is introduced, there is a debate in principle at second reading.
I have to ask myself what this little exercise is about. Here we are with a motion. Here is an opportunity for members on all sides of the House to exchange ideas. Why are people so jittery about talking about something that we should be turning the lights on, conflict of interest.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, I recognize my friend as an expert on the matter. I know that his motion has been on the books of this House for some time and that indeed the government may have stolen the idea from him.
I do think that there are some differences in the proposal put by Bill C-43 for pre-study by a committee of the combined House and the Senate and this motion. One example is that there is no reference in the motion before us to spouses but there is in Bill C-43.
I am just wondering, Mr. Speaker, since you are in the chair, whether you could not rule if indeed according to Beauchesne's Parliamentary Rules and Forms, citation 173, it states:

April 1, 1992
Private Members' Business
The Speaker may:
(2)	Rule out any question which violates the procedures of the
House and in the same way deal with irregularities in motions and
amendments.
It continues:
(3)	Make alterations to proposed motions or may refer them back
to the Member for correction.
I am just wondering, Mr. Speaker, if you cannot rule at this time so we can proceed with debate as to whether the motion is receivable. If it is receivable, then let us proceed.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: I want to thank hon. members who just spoke. Since I am not an expert on parliamentary procedure, it has always been my policy to give members the benefit of the doubt in debate. This is Parliament, so it means giving all concerned the benefit of the doubt. I will take under advisement the point of order raised by the hon. member for York South-Weston, and meanwhile, I would prefer, in line with our great parliamentary tradition, to let the debate continue, while the Chair may later consider the advisability of extending the debate.


John R. Rodriguez: Well, now we are past the preliminaries we can get into the main round.
Mr. Speaker, what is a conflict of interest for a private member of Parliament? What is a conflict of interest for a public office holder? It seems to me that we have to start with the definition of conflict of interest. For those who are watching, what do we mean by a conflict of interest?
I would like to put on the record that when a member while pursuing his public duties and responsibilities is perceived or has the potential or actually furthers his or her own interest or the immediate family's financial gain, it seems to me that is a definition of conflict of interest that covers both potential, apparent and real.
I see it as a spectrum. At one end of the spectrum we have what I have just described on this ethical spectrum. On the other end of the spectrum, as I see it, we have acts which are premeditated and deliberate. Those are covered by the Criminal Code. I am not intending to
discuss that part of the spectrum, but rather the first part which is more ethical in nature.
My motion deals, as I said, with the first part of the spectrum. So I start by asking the question: Why do we need a conflict of interest bill? Why do we need conflict of interest legislation?
I want to suggest three main reasons. Members may think of other reasons but I can see three particular and precise reasons.
One is that the job of the member of Parliament has changed. There is a new climate. The jobs of MPs and public office holders have changed. In fact the MP today, the member of Parliament, the public office holder, has so much more influence than 20 to 25 years ago, more influence than when I first came to this place in 1972. We are constantly upgrading the role of the private member. There is a demand by parliamentarians to make members of Parliament more influential in the whole process of law making, in the whole process of decision making in the House of Commons.
Just think of the changes in the role of the spouse of the MP. There was a time when the MP was invariably male and the spouse had no outside assets. Her assets were his assets and that spouse was invariably, 99 per cent of the time, someone who stayed at home.
That has all changed now, thank heavens. We are finding that women are taking their place in the House of Commons. Women have businesses of their own. They have professions of their own. There is a whole change in the climate in which MPs and public office holders operate today.
Second, I would like to point to technological changes mainly in communications. There are more functions. Think of the thousands of people who MPs interface with every year. MPs now are the target of lobbyists, whether it is anti-gun legislation, program legislation, anti-banking legislation or whatever.
MPs are involved with thousands of people. Elected members attend a multiplicity of functions on a yearly basis. A multiplicity of functionaries hover around elected members, and government affects them all; Parliament affects them all.
The third aspect is an important one. Public expectations are different. When I first came here the House of
April 1, 1992

Commons was not televised. Now the House is televised, what is said in the House. What I am saying now is instantly broadcast across the nation.
The media are much more instant in their reports. Reputations can be instantly destroyed with a few key strokes on a computer. Innuendo can destroy. That has changed. The public has changed. The media have been and are the message now because they modify perception of people about elected politicians.
I could point out the explosion in the number and frequency of contacts with people by the member to whom I referred previously. All of these provide more occasions for elected members of Parliament to be in a situation where there could be or seems to be, in the eyes of the public, a conflict of interest.
Let me give a specific example. An MP who happens to be on the board of directors of a trust company comes to the House and is elected chairman of the finance committee. I would suggest that is a potential for conflict.
Then the committee receives legislation on financial institutions. Now we have the appearance of a conflict, an apparent conflict. If that MP as chairman, maintaining his position on the board of directors of the trust company, participates and votes in the decisions of the committee dealing with financial institutions I want to suggest that he is in a conflict of interest.
This is in stark contrast to an elected member of Parliament who actually takes money to push or oppose legislation. That is an act covered by the Criminal Code.
I want to point out the last case we had, the cause celebre of all this, was the Sine Stevens incident. It was interesting to note that Justice Parker reported Sine Stevens had not done anything criminal. He had not broken any law but there had been conflict of interest on 16 occasions. We had no legislation to cover that in this House, none whatsoever.
There is the transparency of the political process. We have had occasions on which we have advanced that transparency. When we passed the Election Expenses Act we recognized that it was important to know who was making contributions to the politicians and the political parties, how much, when it was made and by whom. We made that transparent. The first part of the transparency puzzle was put in place.
Private Members' Business
The second part, I would suggest, is when we passed the Lobbyist Registration Act. We turned on the light on a very arcane profession, those who wielded influence in the nation's capital with the nation's politicians.
The whole demand that I made on behalf of my caucus during that process was to apply the same transparency. The principle I used was that the public has a right to know who is doing what to whom and for how much. The whole purpose was to create the transparent environment so that the public had access to what was going on.
The third light we have to turn on so that we can create this environment and raise the ethical level-and God knows it needs raising in terms of the public perception-is a conflict of interest bill that in fact deals with the part of the ethical spectrum I discussed before: potential, apparent and real conflict of interest.
What is the cornerstone of all of these pieces of legislation? What is the cornerstone?


An hon. member:: Disclosure.


John R. Rodriguez: , Public disclosure. Obviously members of this House are in tune with the mood. After an exhaustive judicial inquiry into the Sine Stevens affair, Justice Parker said: "Public disclosure is the cornerstone of any modem conflict of interest legislation". That is what he said.
If members of Parliament think we can get away with just hiding these things, with having our own confessor-adviser tucked away neatly in the bowels of the House of Commons, and with taking the attitude that everything is for us to know and for the public to try and find out, we are barking up the wrong tree.
One member used an argument against this whole question of disclosure and said: "Well, it is only widows and Mother Teresa who will ever run for Parliament. If you do this you will scare off all these good people from running for Parliament". Then we heard the argument: "What my assets are is my own business and nobody else's business". Then we heard the charter argument, that if we forced spouses to divulge we would be violating their rights under the charter and we would have a charter challenge.
On the first argument against public disclosure, the one about only widows and Mother Teresa running for Parliament, it seems to me that Justice Parker said at page 350: "I was particularly interested to leam that the disclosure requirements have not discouraged good peo-

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Speaker's Ruling
pie from entering politics or running for public office. For example, a study of members of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate conducted by the Centre for Responsive Politics in 1985 found no one who felt that financial disclosure affected his or her decision to seek public office".


An hon. member:: Oh, oh.


John R. Rodriguez: I want to tell my colleague that nobody twisted his arm to run for politics, to run for Parliament. He wanted to. If we set the rules, these are the rules. If he cannot accept the rules by which the game is going to be played then he should not get on the team. It seems to me that is pretty straightforward.
I want to deal with the other argument in the same way. All the provinces have this conflict of interest legislation with public disclosure.


An hon. member:: What about Ontario?


John R. Rodriguez: All of the provinces have it, including Ontario. It was brought in by the previous government. As a matter of fact we were just looking at David Peterson's report the other day. The member saw it. It is there and it has not resulted in anybody challenging anything in the charter.
Nobody has challenged it in the Supreme Court. It has not stopped people from running for provincial legislatures. As a matter of fact in the last provincial election in this country we had three times more people seeking seats than there were seats. It certainly has not prevented anybody from running.
What would conflict of interest legislation do? In my view conflict of interest legislation would prevent situations of conflict from deteriorating and becoming criminal acts. I believe that it will minimize the instances of potential conflicts becoming apparent or real, thereby improving the quality of public life. Third, I think it will go a long way in protecting elected members from unfair allegations.
Thus I think the public perception of Parliament would be enhanced so I recommend to my colleagues that there be support for the enacting of legislation that would provide conflict of interest guidelines.


George Albert Proud: I rise on a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Of course we have accepted your ruling and we cannot debate it, but may I at least call upon my colleague to try to restrain himself as much as possible from giving us in public what we are trying to arrive at together a good bill.
He is discussing with me and other colleagues the exact subject matter he is now talking about in public. We have abstained from giving the views of the committee publicly. It is only for en frangais, on dirait pour le bon fonctionnement du comite. I have no objection. I believe in conflict of interest laws. We are getting very close to using the same arguments with each other, trying to convince each other that this is the best bill possible.


SPEAKER'S RULING
The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Before giving the floor back to the hon. member for Nickel Belt, the Chair has had some time to think over the point of order raised by the hon. member for York South-Weston. I do not think that it is good to leave the House uncertain and so I think it useful to go over the chronology of events, given the sensitive subject before us.
On May 13, 1991, the hon. member for Nickel Belt presented a motion concerning, among other things, conflicts of interest for senior officials and senior political staff. On November 22, 1991, Bill C-43 was tabled in the House of Commons on first reading and this bill makes no mention of senior officials and senior political staff.
On the same day a special committee was created and the subject matter of Bill C-43, not the bill itself, was referred to it. On December 2, 1991, the motion of the hon. member for Nickel Belt was placed on the order of precedence. It was drawn by lot and placed on the order of precedence and on December 10,1991, the committee was struck to consider Bill C-43.
In summary, we are faced with certain principles, the first of which is the right of any member to present bills and motions-this is an important point. Second, the motions are not identical. The motion for Bill C-43 is not the same as the one from the hon. member for Nickel Belt, since this one extends the debate to senior officials and senior political staff. Finally, the motion is not votable. That is why, under the circumstances, I think the Chair can allow a debate limited to one hour. On balance, weighing the pros and cons, I think that a member's legitimate right to present a motion could be weakened or violated by an overly strict interpretation of the rule which forbids discussing a bill that is already being considered in committee.
April 1, 1992

All this is to say that I find the motion of the hon. member for Nickel Belt to be in order and I again give him the floor for the three minutes remaining to him. Again I ask hon. members to be careful in what they say since the subject referred to is part of the work now going on in a parliamentary committee.
Therefore I call on both sides of the House to co-operate.


ESTABLISMENT OF GUIDELINES
John R. Rodriguez: Mr. Speaker, I deliberately started out debating the motion. I had to put it in context. I started by describing a definition of conflict of interest as I see it.
Second, I started with the question, why is conflict of interest legislation necessary?
Third, I stated what I hoped would be accomplished if it ever becomes the law of the land.
I know my hon. colleague from Saint-Denis is a gentilhomme. He is a very kind and gentle person and he harks back to a period in our parliamentary history which was possibly a gentler, kinder time. But it also had overtones of being an old boy's club. This business that I cannot say what is being said in committee-well, our hearings and witnesses, whatever took place, was open to the press and many matters have been reported in the press.
The hon. member for Mississauga South did a survey in his own riding which was carried in the Hill Times, which said that 80 per cent of his constituents supported conflict of interest legislation and 78.2 per cent included that spouses should be included in the whole matter.
My motion proposes that not only should the elected members and the public office holders be covered by the legislation, but that it is also important for senior bureaucrats and the most important political advisers to politicians be covered. In fact, they receive the same kind of lobbying, they are subject to the same influences as members of Parliament in many instances. I have proposed in my motion that they also be covered.
I would urge members to support this. I think it is part of a very important triad of bills that will enhance the
Private Members' Business
credibility and the ethical performance of the House of Commons as perceived by the public.


Charles A. Langlois: Mr. Speaker, I welcome this opportunity to speak this evening to Motion M-22 presented by the hon. member for Nickel Belt. I will read it into the record so it will appear in Hansard in French, as follows:
That, in the opinion of this House, the government should consider introducing legislation setting conflict-of-interest guidelines for Members of Parliament and Senators; and that these guidelines should also regulate conflict-of-interest and post-employment practices for senior bureaucrats and senior political staff.
That is the wording of the motion moved by the hon. member for Nickel Belt. Hon. members are aware that the subject matter of this motion is being given broad consideration at this time.
As we all know, on November 22 last year, the government did in fact table similar legislation. A special joint committee of the Senate and the House of Commons was appointed recently to examine the subject-matter of Bill C-43, the Members of the Senate and the House of Commons Conflict of Interests Act. The hon. member for Nickel Belt is a member of this committee and is therefore familiar with the initial proceedings in which he was an active participant.
I also think it is important to recall that the Conflict of Interest Post-Employment Code for public office holders tabled by the government is already in place. This code was introduced for the first time by the Prime Minister in September 1985. The code already provides guidance with respect to conflict of interest and postemployment practices for public servants, senior political staff and ministers and parliamentary secretaries. In this respect, the Special Joint Committee has already heard testimony on its application from a government witness, the Assistant Deputy Registrar General, who is responsible for enforcing the code.
However, conflict of interest, the general focus of the motion, is an important issue for parliamentarians and deserves to be taken very seriously. The work of this committee will have an immediate impact on the lives of all parliamentarians, now and in the future. Canadians generally are also interested in the subject because they

April 1, 1992
Private Members' Business
want to be sure that parliamentarians put the national interest before any thought of personal gain.
The work accomplished by this committee is unprecedented at the federal level. As soon as it finishes its study of Bill C-43, the special committee will submit a number of important and historic recommendations to the House and the Senate on what should be done about conflict of interest.
Today we should consider the purpose of this bill in a broader perspective. When I say we, I mean not only parliamentarians, who are more directly concerned, but also all Canadians who want their government to function fairly and well, in the best interests of all Canadians.
Canadians, and that includes parliamentarians, set great store by ethics and expect high standards of behaviour from all those who hold public office.
Because of this great concern, the public feels the integrity of the government decision-making process is very important and has been increasingly demanding more openness, responsibility and accountability on the part of government.
Members of Parliament and senators undergo daily extensive and justifiable scrutiny by the media and the citizens in respect.
I believe as does the government that parliamentarians must all submit graciously to this scrutiny and its consequences.
It is fair and proper that we, as public office holders, should be guided by the highest standards of conduct and that we should be judged on the basis of these standards which, as far as the Canadian people are concerned, vouch for the health and vitality of our parliamentary democracy.
The principle that no public office holder shall use his or her office to further his or her private interests is central to these standards and our democratic parliamentary government. The special joint committee presently reviewing this bill will be guided by this fundamental principle in the historic proceedings it will be holding over the next few months.
When dealing with conflicts of interest we, as parliamentarians, must also take into account the need to
achieve a delicate and necessary balance between the importance of respecting and preserving the privacy of all parliamentarians and the need to maintain the highest possible standards of behaviour for parliamentarians fulfilling their public duties, and to encourage them to respect them. The committee is now faced with the task of finding such a reasonable and acceptable balance in the context of today's political life in Canada.
As we all know, and as Justice Parker underlined in his report to the government on the conflict of interest issue, respect for ethical standards is above all a matter of individual conscience and behaviour. In his comments on this, Judge Parker said:
- the faith of the public in the integrity of the government depends on the integrity of each of its public office holders and their sense of honour.
Canadians are quite right in expecting from their members of Parliament and senators that they display this integrity and this sense of honour. However, as Judge Parker pointed out, no conflict of interest regulation system can fully guarantee that such situations will never occur. In fact, what is important is not that there be a system guaranteeing that no conflict of interest situation will ever occur. The important thing is to determine what must be done to prevent, as much as we reasonably can, conflicts of interest and, should those occur, to deal with them in the appropriate manner.
The basic objective of any arrangement regarding conflicts of interest is therefore to help well-meaning people to conform to the high standards of conduct imposed on public office holders while allowing them, as much as possible, to enjoy their right to a reasonable degree of protection of their private life.
This committee obviously has a very important role to play in the coming months; it will have to deal with a complex and sensitive issue. Its task will be to try to reconcile the interests of the individual with those of society, so that the government can operate in an efficient manner. Parliament and Canadians hope that the committee will give serious consideration to these issues and will prepare adequate and reasonable guidelines that will help parliamentarians to avoid finding themselves in conflict of interest situations and, should that happen, deal adequately with the situation.
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The work of the committee will be a public demonstration of the unanimous will of Canadian parliamentarians to conform to the highest standards of conduct in the exercise of their public responsibilities.


John V. Nunziata: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to make some brief submissions on Motion M-22, presented by the hon. member for Nickel Belt.
I have the honour, as does the mover of the motion and the previous speaker and others in the Chamber who will likely speak later, of sitting on a special House of Commons and Senate joint committee that is reviewing Bill C-43. Just yesterday the committee, consisting of MPs and senators from the three major parties, with the exception of NDP senators because they do not have any, they do not believe in the Senate, met at Meech Lake not too far from Parliament Hill to consider this whole matter.
The committee has been sitting over the last number of months and we have had the opportunity to hear from a significant number of Canadians who have expertise in the area of conflict of interest.
As the member indicated, we heard from Judge Parker who headed the royal commission of inquiry that investigated the Sinclair Stevens matter. We heard from Mitchell Sharp, a former cabinet minister, who was the co-author of a report that was tabled several years ago in this House. The member for Etobicoke-Lakeshore was the executive director of that particular committee and I hope he will have the opportunity to speak this evening as well. We heard from a number of individuals, including people who had expertise in other jurisdictions.
The committee will consider now all the issues and hopefully present to this House legislation that will serve the public interest, that will be fair to MPs, senators, bureaucrats and their spouses and that will hopefully meet with the unanimous approval of this House.
I am speaking this evening on my own position and not necessarily the position of the Liberal Party, although a number of my colleagues happen to agree with the position I take on a number of matters.
Private Members' Business
I have some concerns about the position taken by the member for Nickel Belt. He believes in full disclosure. He believes that MPs, senators and their spouses ought to publicly disclose their assets and liabilities.


John R. Rodriguez: Without quantifying.


John V. Nunziata: He is through heckling. He is trying to add a few caveats.
The point is that generally speaking the NDP, through that particular-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Order, please. On a point of order, the hon. member for Nickel Belt.


John R. Rodriguez: Mr. Speaker, I do not mind genuine criticism but I would hope that the member would not misrepresent the position I have taken. I have never suggested that you quantify the assets or the liabilities. That is the position I have taken consistently as he well knows. So do not do that, John. It is not becoming of you.


John V. Nunziata: With respect, Mr. Speaker, the impression the member of the New Democratic Party left with this House and with all who are viewing and all who might review his comments later is that the NDP wants full public disclosure.
But yes, the member says "without quantifying". If the member from Nickel Belt owns 1,000 shares in the Royal Bank or the Bank of Nova Scotia, that would not be indicated in the public disclosure that he is advocating. It would only indicate that he owns shares-


John R. Rodriguez: Like it is done in certain provinces.


John V. Nunziata: -in those banks. That is one of the issues that the committee will have to consider, whether there ought to be full public disclosure on the part of MPs, senators and their spouses.
The committee will also have to decide what sanctions ought to attach to any infractions or improprieties or breaches 9zof the conflict of interest legislation, keeping in mind of course that we are not dealing with criminal activity. The Criminal Code of Canada deals with criminal matters, as the member pointed out, breaches of trust, corruption, bribery. We have the Criminal Code to deal with that kind of activity.

April 1, 1992
Private Members' Business
What we are dealing with here is activity that falls short of criminal activity, but is still improper in that MPs and senators could use their offices in order to gain personally or through their families.
I support disclosure but not full public disclosure. Let me explain the reasons why. The member talks about disclosure but he does not indicate why disclosure is necessary. Is he suggesting that once an MP discloses what he or she has publicly, that MP is free then to be involved in a conflict of interest? In other words, is the member suggesting that once you disclose, that becomes your carte blanche or your opportunity to be in a conflict of interest situation? With all due respect, he did not say that in his submission. Once a member discloses publicly then that member ought to withdraw from the debate, declare the conflict, not participate and not vote. I have not heard the member advocate that yet. This has to be clarified.
In my view, MPs ought to disclose to a jurist counsel, a commissioner or a well-respected, highly revered individual by way of prescribed form, assets and liabilities without having to disclose to the public. Frankly I do not believe the public wants to know what assets each individual member of Parliament has, what cars they drive, what bank accounts they have, where those banks accounts are, what shares they own in what companies, what debts they might have. All they want is some honesty and integrity from the people that sit in this House.
The NDP want spouses to also be required under the law to disclose. If you think about that it is pretty old fashioned thinking, thinking that is unbecoming of the New Democratic Party. The New Democratic Party often advocates equality, fairness, the Charter of Rights. Our spouses are independent people. They have lives of their own. The member for Nickel Belt in his submission and in his goal would almost treat spouses as chattels of MPs that they can lead by the nose and force into disclosing. That is not fair. Spouses have their rights to privacy.
This member wants to have the public to know exactly all the assets and liabilities of his wife. I wonder whether that member has spoken to his spouse about whether or not she may or may not agree. The fact is that there are a significant number of spouses who object to having their
lives fully exposed by way of public disclosure. I do not think it is fair. It would lead to systemic discrimination. It is chauvinistic and it is old-fashioned thinking. It is somewhat surprising coming from the New Democratic Party that they want to require spouses to have to disclose publicly all their assets.
I support disclosure but only private disclosure. As well, let us not forget that we have to distinguish between MPs and members of the cabinet. There has to be a different regime for cabinet ministers, a higher level because they are exposed to more private information and are able to influence public policy more than average members.
I regret that my time is up. We will have the opportunity in this House in the not too distant future for all MPs to offer their views on a piece of legislation that this committee will bring forward that I believe will be fair and equitable to all those involved including MPs, senators, their spouses and bureaucrats.


Mr. Patrick Boyer (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of National Defence):: Mr. Speaker, tonight we are debating ethical conduct in government. As previous speakers mentioned, yesterday those of us, myself included, who are members of the parliamentary committee dealing with this subject, began at 8.15 a.m. and went through to 5 p.m. non-stop. Tonight in the House of Commons we are debating it. Tomorrow morning, we start again at 9.30 a.m. This is in addition to other matters.
What we are discussing of course is the subject matter of Bill C-43, the government's legislation which substantially addresses the points raised in the motion before us tonight from the member for Nickel Belt. I believe that the public trust rests on a belief and on a conviction that those in public office will conduct themselves in an ethical fashion.
Those of us holding public office, whether with great or modest responsibilities, carry with us a portion of the responsibility for the destiny of our country and for the carriage of the government of the day and also a part of the trust which the Canadian people vest in government. That is why the issue before us tonight of ethical conduct in government is one of transcending importance because in a democracy, ultimately our system of government depends upon the consent of the governed, not the coercion of the governed.
April 1, 1992

We must always see that the people of our country have confidence in those of us who are in this place and all of us, including those who are members of the Public Service, must carry out our duties in accordance with the public interest.
The issue, I would submit, is not whether a conflict of interest arises. Show me an individual who never has a conflict of interest and I will show you a one-dimensional person perhaps living in the outskirts of Frobisher Bay as a hermit. In our complex society it is inevitable that we have conflicts of interest.
The issue is not that they arise, but that when conflicts do arise, they be resolved in the public interest. That is what this bill is all about. That is what our committee is discussing; the mechanisms, the procedures, the rules that can permit all of us in public office to see that there is a way of resolving conflicts.
There are different ways that that can happen. It is by no means sufficient for those persons who hold public office in Canada to act within the law. There is a further obligation to act in a manner that will bear the closest public scrutiny.
On this point I join with the member for Nickel Belt in favouring full public disclosure. I want that to be a fundamental principle of any legislation that we enact, and then to the extent necessary to find balance and to protect the rights of privacy to which the member for York South-Weston has referred.
There can be reasonable and proper exceptions and limits, just in the same way that we have passed the Freedom of Information Act which states as a fundamental principle that all Canadians have a right to information about the public programs of our country. We make some reasonable exceptions for matters that pertain to national security, matters that pertain to sensitive commercial transactions currently under way, matters that pertain to rights of privacy of individuals and so forth, just as we do with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
We have established fundamental rights of Canadian citizens and then make some restrictions and limitations according to what can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society. That is the approach that I hope we can see the legislation proceed on.
Private Members' Business
The member spoke about the committee report that was prepared by the task force on conflict of interest. I was very pleased to serve as executive director of that task force, appointed by former Prime Minister Trudeau and to work with two outstanding Canadians, the Hon. Mitchell Sharp and the Hon. Michael Starr, both former cabinet ministers, both long-time members of this House. I believe that this report stands us in very good stead.
Out of the 10 principles that were recommended for inclusion in any legislation, there is one I would refer to. It states as follows: "Any conflict between the private interests of public office holders and their official duties must be resolved in favour of the public interest.
Upon appointment to office or election to office, and thereafter, public office holders are expected to arrange their private affairs in a manner that will prevent such conflicts of interest from arising".
As my time is concluding, I want to simply make these final two points. We have before us this legislation. Simultaneously, another committee on which I am serving is looking at election finance legislation and reforming the election laws of the country. We also have the Lobbyist Registration Act due for a comprehensive review later this year.
It is time for the Parliament of Canada to look at all of these different statutory regimes and recognize that they are woven out of a single fabric. We must have a common approach'in all of these legal regimes that govern ethical conduct in the Public Service of Canada.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBIois):: The time provided for the consideration of Private Members' Business has now expired.
Pursuant to Standing Order 96(1), the order is dropped from the Order Paper.

It being 9 p.m., this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at ten o'clock, pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 9 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Thursday, April 2,1992