1992-11-25

Mr. Guy H. Arseneault (Restigouche-Chaleur):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to return to the subject of Canada Post closing or cutting back post offices in rural areas. Since 1986, when Prime Minister Mulroney appointed Donald Lander president of the corporation, 1,300 post offices across Canada have closed or their services have been reduced.
This is an attack not only on rural Canada but also on the 3,000 or so postal employees who lost their jobs. Canada Post says that the purpose is to reduce the corporation's costs and improve customer service. The facts contradict this.

I call upon this government to instruct Canada Post Corporation to immediately abandon its policy of closing rural post offices. It is time to put a halt to this blatant disregard for the fundamental nature and character of rural Canada.


FEDERAL BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT BANK
Mr. Marcel R. TVemblay (Quebec-Est):: Mr. Speaker, since I was elected in 1984, I have been asked to advise many small business owners throughout my riding. I have been able to advise them with the help of resource people in various departments and Crown corporations.
I would like to pay special tribute today to the management and staff of the Federal Business Development Bank. This organization, created in 1944, was the first bank in Canada to provide term loans to small and medium sized businesses.
Now that many sources provide such loans, the FBDB complements private sector institutions by lending money to companies that cannot obtain financing elsewhere on reasonable terms. It provides funds for business expansion, capital acquisition, the purchase of existing businesses and loans to increase working capital in support of sales growth and also advises more than
100,000	entrepreneurs a year.
I congratulate these remarkably capable managers!


BILL C-91
Mr. Jim Karpoff (Surrey North):: Mr. Speaker, the Tory government is determined to prevent the legislative committee from having a full and thorough examination of Bill C-91, a bill which will result in higher drug prices for families, seniors and provincial drug plans.
The government directed the committee to restrict witnesses in order to end hearings by next Wednesday and report back to the House by next Friday. This is a complex bill. Over 80 individuals and organizations, including ministers of health, seniors, industry spokespersons, unions, consumer groups, health professionals, as well as federal ministers and officials wish to appear.
The New Democratic Party demands that all significant witnesses be heard. We will not facilitate the government ramming this bill through committee against the interests of consumers, seniors and provincial health plans.



Mr. Scott Thorkelson (Edmonton-Strathcona):: Mr. Speaker, as a member of the legislative committee on

Bill C-91, a bill to extend the patent protection for new drugs, I want to get on with the business of hearing witnesses.
Government members want to get into the serious work of the committee. We want the bill to be the best possible bill at the end of the hearing. Investments are at stake. Jobs are at stake. Researchers from the University of Alberta are eagerly waiting to be called. At meeting after meeting I have been urging my opposition colleagues not to disappoint Canadians by making a mockery of the committee process. Let us get on with the business. Let us hear some witnesses. We need the $500 million in investment. We need the new jobs and we need to study this thoroughly.


Mr. Jim Peterson (Willowdale):: Mr. Speaker, one in every 10 Canadian women will receive during her lifetime the devastating diagnosis of breast cancer. More than 14,000 women will be so diagnosed this year alone. Half of those diagnosed will die from it. It is the leading killer of Canadian women aged 35 to 54.
In spite of these figures, the incidence and survival rate for breast cancer have remained relatively unchanged for the past 20 to 30 years. The subcommittee of this House on the status of women reported: "There are big gaps in knowledge about breast cancer, the causes, the solutions, the appropriate treatment. This lack of knowledge exacts a price which is far too great".
This government has said that it will soon be announcing major spending cuts. On the eve of these cuts, I urge that more, not fewer, resources be devoted to the prevention, detection, cure and ultimate elimination of the disease breast cancer.


AUDITOR GENERAL
Mrs. Gabrielle Bertrand (Brome-Missisquoi):: Mr. Speaker, the Auditor General's Report tabled yesterday in the House of Commons reflects his commitment to focusing on the real problems.
As the Auditor General admitted himself, there is no easy solution to some of these problems. However, he
stressed the need for a better understanding of their impact and for taking constructive measures to deal with them.
I would like to read to you what he said in the first paragraph of his introduction, and I quote: "For several years now, Canada has experienced slow economic growth, business closures and high unemployment. Canada is not unique: other industrialized nations have experienced similar downturns. As Auditor General, and as a Canadian, I am deeply concerned about the economic challenges Canada faces both nationally and internationally, and about their impact on individual Canadians. Canadians are very worried about the impact of annual deficits and the accumulated debt on their standard of living and that of future generations of Canadians. At the same time, they expect the government to provide more, not fewer, services. The government's dilemma, which is not really new, is that its financial resources are constrained, while demands on those resources increase".
The Auditor General is the government's watchdog for the administration of our public finances, and that is as it should be.


SOCIAL PROGRAMS
Mr. Lawrence MacAulay (Cardigan):: Mr. Speaker, there has been a lot of talk from government about cutbacks on spending and social programs. More than ever older Canadians are worried about the future of the programs they rely on.
Seniors are concerned about the future of medicare, old age pensions and independence programs.
The Minister of Finance should realize that money spent today on seniors independence programs could save millions or billions of dollars in the future. Money spent on housing programs would not only create jobs for unemployed Canadians, it would provide older Canadians with decent affordable housing.
Seniors still remember the government's attempt to deindex their pensions.
I call upon the Minister of Finance to give seniors the guarantees they need that valued programs will not be cut by this government.
November 25, 1992


GUN AMNESTY
Mr. Doug Fee (Red Deer):: Mr. Speaker, I want to compliment the Minister of Justice for extending the November gun amnesty.
For the sake of safety, the minister is right to encourage Canadians to surrender prohibitive weapons and those no longer in use.
However, Canadians have long assumed that they have the right to own and enjoy property. Under the new firearms regulations, some have been required to turn in firearms that were legally purchased in Canada. I ask the minister to seriously consider the possibility of compensating individuals for voluntarily turning in newly prohibited firearms that they legally own.
No one has a greater stake in ensuring public safety and proper firearms use than law abiding gun owners. Providing compensation would demonstrate in a concrete manner the government's repeated statements that gun control laws are aimed at those who break the law and not those who follow it.


PAKISTAN
Mrs. Beryl Gaffney (Nepean):: Mr. Speaker, last week former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and many of her supporters were arrested for taking part in a long march to protest against the government of Nawaz Shariff.
Canadians were appalled at the sight of unarmed peaceful demonstrators being clubbed by Pakistan's security forces. These actions were an affront to basic human rights. In any society that calls itself a democracy, the right to have freedom of both association and expression cannot be denied.
The Canadian government should summon the Pakistan Ambassador to Canada and express Canada's outrage at the arrest and beatings of the peaceful marchers. By not vehemently expressing our anger, Canada risks being seen as condoning those actions.
Human rights have no borders. Any relations that Canada has with Pakistan and indeed with all countries must be considered in this context.
5. O. 31 BILL C-91


Mr. John E. Cole (York-Simcoe):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today as one of the sitting members on the legislative committee studying Bill C-91.
This week we have been trying to organize and arrange meetings so that we can accommodate the many witnesses that want to come and appear before this committee, speaking for both sides of this issue, whether they are industry, labour or corporate interests.
These meetings are being filibustered. These meetings have been obstructionist. We are not getting anywhere with these meetings. The opposition is not co-operating at all. We have put forward the names of ministers, of many people to come before this committee. We have offered to sit around the clock. We have offered to sit on weekends. This is no good for the opposition.
It is time to put this kind of nonsense aside. This kind of thing is not respected in the House of Commons. We must get on with hearing witnesses, making this a better bill and getting on with the investment, thus making a better economy for this country.


OZONE LAYER
Ms. Lynn Hunter (Saanich-Gulf Islands):: Mr. Speaker, the thinning of the ozone layer is costing Canada millions of dollars in lost productivity, damaged crops and increased health costs. Thousands of Canadians are developing skin cancer and cataracts and millions more are exposed to radiation levels that will result in illness and death.
Yet today in Copenhagen, the environment minister put on his rose-coloured glasses and did the scientific two-step so he could reassure Canadians about the ozone destroying compound, methyl bromide.
I quote from the June 1992 United Nations report on methyl bromide and the ozone layer: "scientists and governments have also identified methyl bromide as the major contributor to stratospheric bromine. Bromine is directly involved in the catalytic destruction of ozone". The best solution this minister has to offer Canadians is a mere 25 per cent reduction in methyl bromide use by 1998.

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I urge this government to show some real leadership. Take off your rose-coloured glasses, put on your UV protected sunglasses and ban methyl bromionde.


COMPETITION ACT
Mr. Don Blenkarn (Mississauga South):: Mr. Speaker, the Competition Act demands that merchants sell goods at advertised prices. Yet right across this country merchants today are advertising goods, knowing that there are taxes and other charges ranging from the GST, the PST to the gas guzzler tax and the tire tax and other taxes and charges that materially affect the ultimate price of the product.
This advertising of products is deceitful and almost bordering on the fraudulent.
I call upon the government to immediately produce amendments to the Competition Act to force merchants to sell goods at the advertised price unless the ad specifically sets out that the price is plus taxes and charges and sets out exactly what those taxes and charges are.


EMERGENCY RESPONSE PLAN
Mr. Lyle Dean MacWilliam (Okanagan-Shuswap):: Mr. Speaker, the report of the Auditor General has given the government a failing grade in preparing Canadians for the event of an emergency.
Since 1987 the Auditor General has been calling for improvements to Canada's Emergency Response Plan. Five years later, we see that longstanding problems in federal emergency planning have not been addressed.
The proposed national earthquake plan is still not complete. There has been no follow-up on the recommendations of the 1986 report on the Bhopal chemical disaster. A review on the Chernobyl nuclear disaster recommending major improvements to Canada's nuclear emergency response plan has been virtually ignored.
Last year, a number of my B.C. colleagues and I visited the Hanford nuclear reservation in Washington just south of the B.C. border. We learned that the Canadian government had failed to develop adequate co-ordinated emergency response measures in the event of a chemical or nuclear explosion at Hanford which could affect B.C. communities.
The Auditor General's report is vindication that my colleagues and I were right. Canada is not adequately prepared in the case of accident or disaster, be it nuclear, chemical or natural.


ARTS AND CULTURE
Mr. J. W. Bud Bird (Fredericton-York-Sunbury):: Mr. Speaker, with virtually all sectors in Canada the cultural community is experiencing severe financial, pressures.
In fact, in many budgets, both public and private, contributions to the arts have become the most tempting targets to cut. Unfortunately, the threshold of cultural funding is already too low for survival in many instances and a number of Canadian institutions, both large and small, are now in serious jeopardy. As they are compelled to close their doors, there will be a special kind of pain to this recession.
As budget priorities are reordered, we must not too quickly forget that the performing arts, the cultural industries and indeed even the CBC are among the most important ties that bind our country together.
Neither should we neglect the reality that culture is an area of significant potential for economic growth representing close to 3 per cent of our gross domestic product and growing as an important export industry.
It should also be remembered that the cultural threshold is so low to begin with that even marginal increases in cultural investments will pay disproportionately high dividends in terms of public spirit and economic return.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Hon. Jean Chretien (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the Prime Minister I would like to ask a question of the Minister of Finance.
In the past three weeks, interest rates have increased nearly three percentage points and the consequences are very obvious. For every point more in interest rates, the government has to spend virtually $2 billion. It is adding to the deficit all the time. In turn, when business people borrow money they have to pay much more than the,

business people with whom they are competing in the United States.
Jobs cannot be created and in not creating jobs, the number of unemployed is increasing. When will this government understand that the policy of fighting inflation at all costs is the wrong one and the time has come to have a policy that will create growth and create hope in our nation?


Hon. Don Mazankowski (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, I share the view of the hon. Leader of the Opposition that high interest rates are certainly having a dampening effect upon the economy and economic recovery.
I also point out to him that in order to maintain low interest rates over the long term we have to get at the fundamentals. That is essentially to bring inflation down and to keep it down. That has been one of our primary objectives.
There are concerns as a result of the volatility in the exchange market and indeed concerns in the financial market with respect to those who hold Canadian bonds and bills. There is a degree of concern as a result of the referendum. There is concern about the extent of the deficits, both at the federal and provincial levels. There is concern over the current account deficit.
This has all been focused on, particularly as a result of the focus which has been placed in Europe with respect to the United Kingdom, with respect to France, with respect to Italy and a number of other industrialized nations.
Really what is happening is that market forces are forcing up interest rates, and I think the hon. member understands that.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance is trying to find all sorts of reasons, but we have noted that the interest rates started to go up the day the Prime Minister said that he was to stay the course. People abroad know that staying the course is a disaster for Canada.
Why does the government have a policy of doing nothing when the community today is meeting, or there is a meeting of finance ministers to be held very soon, to decide on an approach to economic policies in Europe that would be oriented to growth and stop that problem
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of fighting only inflation? They all have fiscal problems, but they know that fiscal problems get worse when there is a depression and no growth in the economy.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I understand it is a legitimate policy position that the Leader of the Opposition takes. He is suggesting that we borrow more, that we spend more and the heck with inflation, the heck with the deficit.


Mr. Harvard:: He never said that, Don.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: That is not the position we will take. We have charted a macroeconomic course over the medium term of price stability, fiscal consolidation and economic restructuring. Those are important and vital. It is a vital policy stance to take for the medium term. That is what we intend to follow. It is important for the hon. member to understand that and it is also important for the people of Canada to understand that.


James Scott (Jim) Peterson: It's disastrous and did not work. Shame.


An hon. member:: Good prescription for a depression.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, it is pretty obvious this government is totally paralysed, but he says this is just the opposition's opinion. For months we have made it clear that we are in favour of a policy that encourages economic growth and lower interest rates, and if the dollar is weaker, we can live with that. We are not alone. The Quebec minister of industry and commerce, Mr. Tremblay, said the same thing yesterday.
I would like to quote the editorial writer of La Presse, who said this morning:
Brian Mulroney will have to decide whether he wants to maintain the dollar at any price, which means more unemployed workers, more people living in poverty and more businesses down the drain, because the economy will not recover as scheduled. Is a 77-cent dollar worth the price in broken lives and lost hopes?
It is time Mr. Mulroney opted for economic recovery.
When will the government wake up?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, the hon. Leader of the Opposition knows very well that you cannot isolate yourself from the reality of the global financial markets.

November 25, 1992
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A trillion dollars changes hands every day in the financial and exchange markets.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: They have no confidence in the government.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: The hon. member says they do not have any confidence in the government. Quite frankly, he is absolutely wrong, because the policy stance we are following is endorsed by the G-7, the OECD, the World Bank. It is the only course we can follow. We cannot borrow our way out of this particular difficulty. It is going to require a balance to contain the deficit, to maintain those fundamentals which will keep inflation down. That is the long-term menu and agenda for bringing about a strong economy with job creation and hope and confidence for the future.


REPORT OF THE AUDITOR GENERAL
Ms. Sheila Copps (Hamilton East):: I want to ask the
Minister of Finance about the affair of the untaxed Barbados billions. The Auditor General says that offshore schemes like surplus stripping in Singapore and upstream loans in Liberia amount to a legally sanctioned tax rip-off by the Canadian government.
Why does the minister think this tax evasion is so good and why is he promoting a policy of international tax piracy for multinational corporations?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, the dual objectives being followed are to ensure that we maintain international competitiveness while at the same time protecting the tax base of Canada.
My predecessor closed a number of these tax loopholes and introduced the general anti-avoidance rule which is being implemented. The government also monitors on an ongoing basis the tax regimes of other countries. Also, there are policy decisions that are taken from time to time which sometimes are perceived as tax loopholes but are really incentives to encourage economic growth and activity.
Furthermore, as the Department of Finance outlined in its response, there is really no conclusive evidence that the amount of money identified as being lost by the
Auditor General can be substantiated. I invite the hon. member to read the response that the Department of Finance provided in the Auditor General's report.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, listen to the tired old answers of the Minister of Finance. The problem is he is not listening to the fresh evidence of the Auditor General.

Yesterday the Auditor General said that letting the rich enjoy the fruits of tax evasion on the beaches of Portugal or under the palm trees of Barbados was grossly unfair to Canada's unemployed.
Why is the minister more interested in supporting these international buccaneers than in announcing employment policies for Canadians?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, in the department's response contained in the Auditor General's report the point is made that the claim is unsubstantiated. It goes on to indicate that "the Auditor General has failed to indicate that most of these concerns are the result of policy decisions. Moreover, he also overstated the impact of the rules on revenue collection while understating the degree to which any problems have already been addressed by existing legislation".
While there may very well be a fundamental difference in the point of view on this, what really has to be indicated is the fact that there is a response. This is a matter that can probably best be exposed during the committee hearings. We would be glad to have our finance officials appear to make the case that has been contained in the response included in the Auditor General's report.


Mr. Bill Blaikie (Winnipeg Transcona):: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance continually cites the general anti-avoidance rule as a measure that the government has taken to avoid this kind of tax evasion. The Minister of Finance used this yesterday. I had hoped that by today he might have read the Auditor General's report and noticed that the Auditor General says that no reassessment pursuant to the GAAR has taken place as of 1992. The fact is that this is not working.
November 25, 1992

Why does the Minister of Finance think it fair, when the taxes for the average Canadian family have gone up some $3,000 since 1984, for a select few to be able to take advantage of this kind of tax rip-off? When is he going to act on this? What he has done so far is not working.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, the Auditor General is an officer of Parliament. I respect his position and I respect him very much.
However, I have to say there is no solid evidence which supports the contention that hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue have been lost under this particular provision. I say that in all sincerity. There may be a difference of opinion on this, which would not be the first time that has occurred.
I say to the hon. member, that is our view, that is what we have said in the response and that is what we stand by-


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, does the Minister of Finance not know? Just look at yesterday's papers. There is an entire industry out there inviting Canadians to pay money to attend seminars where they can learn how to rip off the Canadian tax system, pursuant to some of the very things the Auditor General pointed out.
I ask the minister to look at yesterday's papers. Also, does he think it is fair that a Canadian company should be able to borrow money in order to invest in a foreign country and create jobs there, deduct the interest from that loan, make profits in that country, not pay taxes on those profits, then bring those profits home and have that money exempt from Canadian taxes through the dividend tax credit?
The interest deductibility rule and the dividend tax credit are two things I have raised time and time again in this House. When is the government going to do something about these rip-offs?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: I repeat there is no solid evidence to support the contention that hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayers' money have been lost in this particular exercise.
The hon. member knows very well that Canada's tax system has to be competitive with other regimes in the world. International competitiveness, while preserving the tax base, is clearly the objective of the Department of
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Finance. It is clearly my objective and I will continue to work toward achieving that.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, does the Minister of Finance not realize that this points out the moral flaw in this whole issue of globalization? He gets up and talks about having to be competitive and what he means is we have to have a tax system that is as corrupt and as loose as everybody else's tax system. That is what is wrong with globalization and the free trade agreements.


Mr. Tobin:: Ask Bob Rae.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: The Minister of Finance constantly talks about the deficit. Will he show that he is serious about distributing the burden of deficit reduction fairly and give a commitment to this House today that he will not, as he plans to do this afternoon, take one step further in extending the tax exemption that exists for private family trusts in this country?


An hon. member:: Right on.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Why does he want to continue to protect the richest families in this country, as the Liberals did before him?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I would be very interested to learn how the hon. member is going to single-handedly, or perhaps with the assistance of his colleagues, fight globalization, fight trade liberalization and fight international competitiveness.
How will he be able to do that and still maintain Canada as a viable place to do business, in order for it to be a global trader, a global trading partner that will provide jobs and economic opportunities for all Canadians? That is the way the world is unfolding. I wish the hon. member would get on board.


Hon. Herb Gray (Windsor West):: Mr. Speaker, I too have a question for the Minister of Finance but first I would point out to him that the Auditor General says in his report that he "analysed National Revenue's taxation 1990 information return data base". He concluded that hundreds of millions of dollars are being lost through tax loopholes based on foreign tax havens.
The Auditor General reported yesterday the cost of implementing the GST has risen to a total of some $1.7 billion. Why was this money not spent instead on improving the health care and skills of Canadians, and above all, on creating more private sector jobs through

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getting the economy moving instead of holding it back with the dead hand of the GST?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, since the hon. member wants to quote from the Auditor General's report I will do the same thing with your permission and read the response to the observations about the so-called loopholes.
The finance department's response is as follows: "The audit note alleges a number of concerns with respect to the taxation of foreign affiliates and foreign source income. In particular, the Auditor General claims that hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue are being lost. This claim is unsubstantiated".


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, the minister has not explained what the Auditor General found in the 1990 Taxation Canada data base. He has not answered my question about the GST so I am going to ask him another one.
The Auditor General also indicated the government has hired 4,000 more people to administer the GST. Why has the government hired all these bureaucrats to enforce an unwanted tax when the country has such a desperate need for improved health care, skills training, environmental protection and above all more private sector jobs? Why has this government got such a twisted sense of priorities?


An hon. member:: Do a spin for us.


Hon. Otto Jelinek (Minister of National Revenue):: Mr. Speaker, the only twisted sense of priorities is in the context of the hon. member's question. When he is referring to the Auditor General vis-a-vis the GST, the Auditor General said quite clearly that the government's spending on the GST has been duly authorized by and and fully reported to Parliament.
If the hon. member had been awake over the last three years, he would have known that this government, through estimates over a period of three years, has laid out the figures, both PY and dollar wise in detail so that they match exactly that of the Auditor General's report.


Mr. George S. Baker (Gander-Grand Falls):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of National Revenue. The Auditor General was critical of the
government for its management of the GST and in allowing tax avoidance through foreign investment.
Will the government now admit that the GST rebate, for example, designed for low and modest income Canadians with a single maximum $33,000 a year was paid in 1991 to 12,481 people with reported incomes over $100,000 a year, some of them over $200,000 a year, and that it was partly because of allowable deductions for investments in foreign nations compliments of this government.


Otto John Jelinek: Mr. Speaker, I cannot match the hon. member's showmanship unless I put my skates on.
My hon. friend knows that the GST credits are based on net income and treat all Canadians fairly and equitably. As far as the Auditor General's report is concerned, I think the hon. member should have stayed in the lock-up longer yesterday instead of depending on media reports.
If he reads the Auditor General's report he will note that the Auditor General is not in any way, shape or form critical of GST spending by this government. What he did was add up the costs of three years which we report to Parliament on an annual basis. It does not take a rocket scientist to add up those three figures and I know that there are no rocket scientists on the other side or in the media, as a matter of fact.


George Baker: Mr. Speaker, the minister is suggesting that there is no special deal here for the wealthy when it applies to the GST rebate.
I point out to the minister that the only deduction he talks about for ordinary Canadians involve the number of children. In other words, you have a maximum of $33,000 a year and for each additional child you can make an additional $2,000 a year.
Does the minister not realize that in order to get the GST rebate, if you were making $100,000 a year, you would have to have 35 children under the age of 18? That would have to be some man or some woman.


Otto John Jelinek: Mr. Speaker, if we are talking about 35 children in one family, my hon. friend is a better man than I am, I will tell you that.
November 25, 1992

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The member knows that the GST credit is based on fair and equitable treatment of all. It is based on net income and provides for deductions, not only for children, but for charitable contributions, for pension contributions, for research and development, for business investments and business losses-the list goes on.
If the hon. member is suggesting that this government take away the incentive for business investments and take away the write-offs for ordinary Canadians then we do not agree with him.


AIRLINE INDUSTRY
Mr. Iain Angus (Thunder Bay-Atikokan):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transport.
The minister announced the $50 million package for Canadian Airlines yesterday, an amount, by the way, that could buy 90 per cent of the company on the open market at the close of trading yesterday. The government disclosed to this House that American Airline's proposal will give the American company complete control over who runs Canadian Airlines, their business plans, their capital expenditures and any mergers or acquisitions.
Is it the policy of the Government of Canada to allow an American company to take control of one of Canada's national airlines?


Hon. Jean Corbeil (Minister of TVansport):: Definitely not, Mr. Speaker.


Iain Francis Angus: Mr. Speaker, yesterday's statement by the minister in the House and remarks to the media, in conjunction with some contradictory statements by his cabinet colleagues, have really muddied the public's understanding of what policy direction this government has taken the airline industry in.
Is the government prepared to finally reintroduce some form of pricing controls and some form of routing controls in order to assist both carriers to survive in the long term? Is the government prepared to take that necessary step?


Jean Corbeil: Mr. Speaker, in my statement yesterday I indicated that if there was no self-discipline imposed by the companies themselves, that we were actually working on some solutions to have some calibration measures introduced in legislation.


REPORT OF THE AUDITOR GENERAL
Mr. David Dingwall (Cape Breton-East Richmond):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance. The Auditor General said that in the case of the Westray mine project, the federal loan guarantee provided by the government covered, and I quote: "about 103 per cent of pre-production costs".
Why did the minister and the Government of Canada go to such lengths to accommodate the promoters of the Westray mine project?


Hon. Tom Hockin (Minister of State (Small Businesses and Tourism)):: Mr. Speaker, in his report the Auditor General talked about theoretical possibilities, and he has every right to do that. In fact, in the actual world of Westray and Curragh what he suggested did not happen.
What happened was that the tax sweeteners that were to be there never materialized. Also, the Auditor General failed to mention that if ever they had materialized, there would have been a pay down of the loan, which he forgot to acknowledge. As we stand here today we have a company which has already lost $28.5 million.


David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is for the government House leader. He will know that 26 men have lost their lives. Management fees which had been paid to the promoter in this particular case have totalled $9.9 million. There was a federal loan guarantee the equivalent of 103 per cent on pre-production costs and there is no enquiry in the province of Nova Scotia.
Will the government House leader indicate to the House today that he and his government are prepared to have an inquiry on the Westray mine project and stop covering up all of the facts surrounding this particular deal? Will he give us that undertaking today?


Hon. Harvie Andre (Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons):: Mr. Speak-

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er, I reject absolutely any accusation of cover-up. I remind the hon. member that all of the documents released pertaining to all the federal government activity are available. He need only go over and read them.


AIRLINE INDUSTRY
Mr. John Manley (Ottawa South):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transport. Yesterday in the foyer outside the House of Commons the Minister of Justice stated that there may be more loan guarantees for Canadian Airlines International. Was the Minister of Justice manoeuvring in the Tory leadership race?
Will the Minister of Transport tell us what conditions and what timetable he has for giving additional loan guarantee assistance to Canadian Airlines.


Jean Corbeil: Mr. Speaker, I would like to point out to the hon. member for Ottawa West that in a statement yesterday, the president of PWA said that the $50 million financial assistance will provide the corporation with funds sufficient to meet its current operating requirements. I think you have the answer there.


John Paul Manley: Mr. Speaker, I am afraid the minister did not hear the question.
Yesterday he said there would be no further assistance and the Minister of Justice said there may be further assistance. Could we please have a clear statement on at least one thing from the Government of Canada? Will there or will there not be more assistance to Canadian? If so, under what conditions?


Jean Corbeil: Mr. Speaker, perhaps I did not understand the first question, but surely the hon. member did not understand the answer I just gave him either.
We agreed with PWA and the employees that we would give them $50 million in financial aid. The employees and the company said that was enough and that is the agreement on which we consented to participate.


COMPETITION ACT
Donald Alex Blenkarn: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. The minister will know that every time he goes to the store to buy something, the price that is advertised is not the price he pays. He has to pay the GST, the PST, and in many cases other charges and taxes on top.
Will the minister amend the Competition Act or introduce amendments to the Competition Act to make merchants sell goods at advertised prices, or in the alternative specifically set out the taxes and other charges that are in addition to the price advertised in the advertisement?


Hon. Pierre Blais (Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs and Minister of State (Agriculture)):: Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend raises a very important element. It is the responsibility of any store to get the right information to the consumer. It is very important.
I know in some circumstances there are different approaches. Some are with GST included, the PST included, and some other taxes included like in Ontario, but in co-operation with my colleague, the Minister of National Revenue, I would be ready to look at maybe delivering some guidelines to the stores to make sure the information is available.
We will ask the director of the Competition Bureau to look at this matter closely.


SMALL BUSINESS REPORT
Mrs. Edna Anderson (Simcoe Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I have noticed that the recent annual report of the minister responsible for small business lacks the glossy lustre of reports of the past.
My question to the minister is: Can we conclude that this new look also represents savings for the government coffers?


Thomas Hockin: Mr. Speaker, the cost of the new report is 25 per cent less than the costs of previous ones.
November 25, 1992

What was particularly innovative this time was that we tabled a diskette. For another 25 cents one can buy a diskette, download the diskette and disseminate the information hundreds of times virtually without cost.
I should like to see this reform used for other annual reports in Parliament because it will save the Government of Canada and the people of Canada a great deal of money.
In this particular case we were helping to give strategies to small business to increase its exports.


IMMIGRATION
Mr. Dan Heap (Tbinity-Spadina):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Employment and Immigration.
The minister has announced that processing of immigration applications which has slowed down since he downsized the department staff will be handled by a simple processing unit at Vegreville.
The Globe and Mail reports that a similar system in the United States has caused new delays.
Can the minister assure us that the Vegreville system will not cause a further decline in client service?


Hon. Bernard Valcourt (Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Yes, Mr. Speaker, I can give that assurance to the hon. member.
We have been experiencing with mail-in applications in our immigration centres in Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver for the last couple of years clients of employment and immigration having faster service under this scheme, and taxpayers will save $6.5 million a year, which is not negligible.


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: Mr. Speaker, I have in my hand a memorandum that the director of inland operations, Ontario region, wrote in September to all managers in the CEIU in Ontario. It says that all five models of the new system will cause backlogs of client applications, backlogs of administrative functions, and that client service will suffer.
Can the minister explain to this House why he did not heed the advice of his senior Ontario official and
Oral Questions
whether he will stop this new system now until a more workable system can be found?


Bernard Valcourt: Mr. Speaker, I will not stop trying to give Canadians better service. This is exactly what this new case processing centre will do for Canadians who deal with immigration.
For the information of the hon. member, the officials of my department have recommended to me that we proceed in that fashion. After having taken full cognizance of this case processing centre and the technology that will be used, I have recommended it for approval. The government has decided to go ahead, again with a view to saving Canadian taxpayers at least $6.5 million a year.


HOUSING
John Williston (Bud) Bird: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Finance.
During 1992 the government introduced two programs to help Canadians purchase affordable housing. The first was the 5 per cent down payment for new homes and the second was the RRSP provision to assist in the acquisition of homes either new or existing ones.
My question pertains to the RRSR Has there been a measurable impact upon the RRSP with respect to the stimulation of the new housing market? Based on present experiences, would the minister be willing to consider extending that program beyond the present expiry date of March 1, 1993?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question.
As of this date I believe some 130,000 withdrawals have been made under the RRSP. We do not have accurate statistical data as to the number of homes that were actually constructed as a result, but we are satisfied and comfortable with the fact that at least 100,000 homeowners have been helped in this particular process. At least 6,000 new homes will have been built as a result of this program.

Oral Questions
In so far as the latter part of his question is concerned, I think it is fair to say that this has been a successful program. I will take the latter part of his question as a representation.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Mr. George S. Rideout (Moncton):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Secretary of State for External Affairs.
Last night on the Fifth Estate we saw the horrors in Brazilian jails. Military police invaded the prison with guard dogs. The police fired over 5,000 shots leaving 238 prisoners dead. The threat of death and violence hangs over Christine Lamont and David Spencer every day.
The minister said yesterday that Brazil may not expel, but just this year a Chilean prisoner was sent home under an expulsion order. Why will the minister not request the expulsion of David and Christine?


Hon. Barbara McDougall (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, the term expulsion is used to apply to a lot of things in Brazil that have nothing to do with expulsion as the hon. member understands it.
The Chilean who was expelled from Brazil was actually extradited. Our understanding of the term is that he was extradited home to stand trial for offences that he had committed in Chile. He was not expelled under the provision that is being looked for or that would be said to apply under these conditions. It is actually an extradition.


George Saunders Rideout: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question.
Premier McKenna said last night that he was very concerned about the safety of Christine and David and he characterized the judgment as extraordinarily callous and cruel. The Prime Minister has said that he was profoundly troubled by this case.
Canada is known world-wide for its compassion. Will the government honour the Prime Minister's commitment to Premier McKenna and compassionately request the expulsion order to bring them home?


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, we have all expressed our concern about the length and severity of the sentence that was applied to Mr. Spencer and Ms. Lamont. I have said so myself. I think the sentence is excessive.
That is why we look to the appeals that we believe are about to be heard on the length of the sentence; and we are looking forward to seeing the results of this in the very short term. We are hoping those sentences will be reduced as a result.


SEXUAL HARASSMENT
Ms. Mary Clancy (Halifax):: Mr. Speaker, last year two Halifax women employed by the Public Service of Canada lodged a complaint of sexual harassment against their supervisors. Two internal investigations found that sexual harassment occurred.
My question is for the President of the Treasury Board. I want to know what that minister is prepared to do to ensure that sanctions are applied in this case and that retaliation does not take place.


Hon. Gilles Loiselle (President of the Treasury Board and Minister of State (Finance)):: Mr. Speaker, I can tell the hon. member that I will look into the particular case of which I am not aware. I can assure her everything will be done to ensure there is no harassment.


Mary Catherine Clancy: Mr. Speaker, I hope I can depend upon that but I have fears.
Yesterday one of the complainants was terminated by her supervisor. Another of the complainants has also been refused any attempt at a transfer and is consequently out of a job. I raised this matter last Thursday in the House and I raised it yesterday.
Again I ask the President of the Treasury Board: What guarantees does the minister have in place that there will be no retaliation like this again?


Gilles Loiselle: Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. member is aware of the process we have in the Public Service to address these issues. I am sure they have been followed.
However, in this particular instance I will look into it, as I have told her, to be sure there is no retaliation, of course.
November 25, 1992


HUMANITARIAN AID
Mr. Pat Nowlan (Annapolis Valley-Hants):: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the Minister of National Defence, I will direct my question to the associate minister of defence or the Secretary of State for External Affairs. I have given notice of the question.
In view of the dirge of bad news out of former Yugoslavia this might be a glimmer of some hope to a good many people still there. I have a letter from a constituent whose grandson is a sergeant with the peacekeeping force in Yugoslavia. He wrote to his grandmother who happened to be a constituent of mine.
As a result church groups in my area collected over two tonnes of used clothing. Through the bureaucracy of the Red Cross and Defence there does not seem to be any way to get this material to Belleville, hopefully to get it over there to help some of the children caught in that quagmire.
As a matter of humanitarian need, I am just asking them to break through the bureaucracy. At least one of the ministers could get a co-ordinator to find out how best this could be done. I understand this spontaneous grass-roots interest of citizens to help is spreading to many churches in Atlantic Canada. There is more than two tonnes of used material and clothing right now in one church alone.


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, I have stated in this House before that the policy of the government in terms of humanitarian assistance overseas is that we urge Canadians who wish to help, and we know that many Canadians do, to work with the international agencies in the position to assess needs in the region and the uses to which things can be put. We urge them to work with agencies like the International Red Cross and other organizations.
We do not have the capacity as a government to provide transport for the goods that people choose to send. I have warned Canadians before-and I would ask the hon. member to pass this on to his constituents and to his church groups-that international organizations are not in a position to use much of what is being
Oral Questions
collected. There are very particular needs; they have to be co-ordinated. Indeed we have hard evidence of goods having been collected and shipped to other parts of the world that have not been able to use them.
It is such a disappointment, I know, to those who want to give, but it is far better to work with the international organizations. I have a pamphlet on this that I would be prepared to give the hon. member for his groups.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: Mr. Speaker, I understand the minister's answer in part and I appreciate the bureaucracy involved.
My constituent, this 80-year old grandmother, Reverend Vaughan of the church and other churches have been in touch with the International Red Cross that has told them, much to my amazement, that the International Red Cross would help if it were money or if it were new clothing.
Surely used clothing in the horror of Bosnia, Croatia, and all the other places over there including Yugoslavia, could be of some help since we do have transport going over there from time to time. It might help to have at least some officer either in Defence or in External Affairs to be the co-ordinator to talk to the citizens of Canada and tell them the answer, that there is no hope or they might be able to do something rather than meet the stone wall they have met until now.


Mr. Speaker:: We will get on to the answer, if the minister wishes to answer.


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, this is not the bureaucracy. This is the result of careful planning in which those of us at the political level have been involved.
I had asked my department to look at all the ways and bring all the imagination that it could to how we could best help. Through working with international agencies the conclusion we have come to, not once but many times as we were examining this issue, was that we had to assist the international agencies in the way they advise us and they advise what is the most appropriate.
We do not have free transport or free space in transport going over. When our planes and our transport

November 25, 1992
Routine Proceedings
go to places like this it is because they are full, because they are being utilized. They do not have empty space.


HUMAN RIGHTS
Mr. Raymond Skelly (North Island-Powell River):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Secretary of State for External Affairs. In the Toronto Star she claims that her top two priorities are the defending of democracy and the promotion of human rights.
Amnesty International condemns Mexico for widespread torture, abuse of human rights and political corruption.
I wonder if the minister could explain to this House why we are involved in a free trade agreement with Mexico, and would she be prepared to appear before the subcommittee on international trade to explain this contradiction in the policy of the government.


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, there is not a contradiction in the government's policy.
In fact, we have worked very closely with the human rights' people in Mexico in an effort to assist the objective of their government in improving the human rights' conditions in Mexico. It is something about which we have been in regular touch with Mexico. We know that the president has made great strides toward improving the judicial system and the democratic systems within Mexico.
It is in the interest of Mexicans, as they move forward economically, that some of the assistance and the work that we do with them helps them also to move forward democratically.


Raymond John Skelly: Mr. Speaker, my question for the minister: Is Amnesty International through its last three years of reports on widespread torture lying or is the government's policy complete hypocrisy?


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, the government's policy is certainly not complete hypocrisy. We can see that
through the stands that we have taken in a great many countries.
We already trade with Mexico through the GATT and through other organizations, as well as bilaterally. Is the hon. member suggesting that we shut all that down?



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Mr. Jim Edwards (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8), I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government's response to 23 petitions.
[.Editor's Note: See today's Votes and Proceedings.]



EXCISE TAX ACT


Mr. Ronald J. Duhamel (St. Boniface) moved: for leave to introduce Bill C-377, an act to amend the Excise Thx Act (books and reading material).


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


Ron J. Duhamel: Mr. Speaker, the purpose of this bill is to apply a zero rate of tax on books and reading materials with respect to the goods and services tax. It is not unlike a previous bill which I introduced which had a similar intent, but which was blocked by the government.
The House will know that I have received thousands of petitions on this issue and I am anxious to proceed. Hopefully I can get co-operation from all members of all parties this time.


Mr. Speaker:: Mr. Duhamel moves that the bill be now read the first time and printed.
Pursuant to Standing Order 69(1), the motion is deemed adopted.
Bill read the first time and printed.
November 25, 1992



JUSTICE AND THE SOLICITOR GENERAL


James (Jim) Stewart Edwards: I move:
That the Standing Committee on Justice and the Solicitor General be authorized to travel to Halifax, Nova Scotia from November 29 to December 1,1992; and to Vancouver, British Columbia from January 17 to January 20, 1993, in order to hold public hearings on crime prevention, and that the necessary staff do accompany the committee.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


James (Jim) Stewart Edwards: I move:
That five members and the necessary staff of the Standing Committee on Forestry and Fisheries be authorized to travel to British Columbia and hold public hearings for three days during the last week of January, 1993 in relation to a study on salmon fisheries.


Mr. Jim Fulton (Skeena):: Mr. Speaker, a point of order on the motion put forward by the parliamentary secretary. My understanding was that the hearings in British Columbia were going to be more than three days. Has there been some further consultation to limit the hearings on fisheries to only three days?


James (Jim) Stewart Edwards: Mr. Speaker, my understanding was-


Raymond John Skelly: Point of order, Mr. Speaker, would it be possible to-


Mr. Speaker:: Just a moment, please. I wish that hon. members would just wait a moment to be recognized. The hon. member for Skeena rose and put a question. His colleague has an addition to that question? I recognize the hon. member.


Raymond John Skelly: Yes, Mr. Speaker, the question of the urgency of these hearings is absolutely critical. Continuously moving them back is going to create a great deal of hardship. I wonder if there is a possibility to do two things; first, to reconsider the time and to give it a closer proximity to the time of the problem, and second, to extend those
Routine Proceedings
hearings longer than three days? There is an illegal commercial fishery going on at the Nimpkish River at this time which we would like to see the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans address and shut down forthwith.


Mr. Speaker:: I am going to hear the hon. parliamentary secretary in a moment. I listened carefully, as I am sure hon. members did, to the motion. The question raised has its own legitimacy, I accept that, but I have some doubt as to whether this is the place to be arguing this particular point.


James (Jim) Stewart Edwards: Mr. Speaker, I greatly appreciate your advice on this. I would go further to say that customarily these motions are agreed upon by the Whips of the various parties and I would recommend to both hon. members that the points they raised should be raised within their own caucuses or within the committee.
This is a recommendation that, as you are well aware Mr. Speaker, comes from the committee, was dealt with by the parties and consensus was arrived at among the parties. Any difference of opinion appears to exist in that quarter.


Mr. Nelson A. Riis (Kamloops):: Mr. Speaker, perhaps I can be helpful. We should proceed with this motion and if there are other concerns that need to be raised to extend the period of time or the mandate, that could be done in the appropriate committee and then we could reconsider the motion. However, I think it would appropriate to move forward now and perhaps consider some additions to reflect the reality of British Columbia later.


Mr. Speaker:: I thank the hon. member for Kamloops, because I am concerned that we are getting into a discussion on two things which, while connected they are different. I will recognize the hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond.


David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, just so that the record is clear, I want to concur with the comments of the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader about the usual procedure.
I believe that the suggestion made by my hon. colleague, the House leader of the New Democratic Party, is worth pursuing at this time. However, the record

Routine Proceedings
should show very clearly that was the understanding which was reached yesterday by all three political parties.


Mr. Speaker:: I thank the hon. member. The House has heard the hon. parliamentary secretary. Is there agreement?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Mr. Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

Mary Catherine Clancy: Mr. Speaker, I rise to seek the unanimous consent of the House for the withdrawal of Motion No. 698 in private members' hour this evening. Due to an immutable commitment, I am unable to be here. I would ask for unanimous consent that the motion be withdrawn.


Mr. Speaker:: Is that agreed?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.
Motion withdrawn.


FISHERIES
Raymond John Skelly: Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to move a motion that would have the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans immediately close an illegal fishery that is occurring this day on the Nimpkish River on northern Vancouver Island.


Mr. Speaker:: The House would have to give unanimous consent to that. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.


Mr. Speaker:: There is not unanimous consent.


PETITIONS
James Ross Fulton: Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to rise today on behalf of a large number of British Columbians who petition this House concerning Bill C-91 which seeks to end the licensing of further noname generic drugs at an additional cost of at least $1 billion a year to Canadians.
Since the price of both new and existing drugs has already increased substantially to individuals, provincial and private drug plans since 1987 when Bill C-22 allowed up to a 10-year period of no generic competition, the petitioners pray to this House not to proceed with Bill C-91 and repeal Bill C-22.


Mr. Robert E. Skelly (Comox-Alberni):: Mr. Speaker, I have a petition from a number of people from the west coast of Canada. They draw to the attention of the House the fact that the United States has unfairly imposed a duty on our softwood lumber exports to that country, and has engaged in numerous other trade practices which amount to harassment of Canadian producers.
The petitioners also note that the free trade agreement between Canada and the United States has resulted in lost jobs and devastation to the Canadian economy while not providing the promised benefits.
The petitioners therefore call upon Parliament to request that the Prime Minister and the Minister for International Trade take any necessary action to defend the interests of the Canadian softwood lumber industry against the unfair duty. They also request that Parliament act immediately to effect the cancellation of the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement.


James Capsey (Jim) Karpoff: Mr. Speaker, I have two petitions to file pursuant to Standing Order 36.
The first petition points out that family-class and assisted-relatives historically have been an important part of Canadian immigration and that family-class and assisted-relatives have people in Canada to help them find employment, housing and learn Canadian customs and language.

Routine Proceedings
The petitioners pray that the government undertake a change in policy direction that will give family-class and assisted-relatives first priority in immigration.


James Capsey (Jim) Karpoff: Mr. Speaker, my second petition points out that 75 per cent of all services in the immigration office in New Delhi are from people seeking assistance from the Punjab. They point out that it is very difficult for people to travel from the Punjab to New Delhi.
The petitioners call upon the government to immediately open a new Canadian consular service in the Punjab to provide not only immigration services but services for visitors' visas.


Mr.   Brian@: Madam Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, I have the honour and the privilege to present a petition on behalf of hundreds of Albertans, many of whom live in my riding in places like Sherwood Park, New Sarepta, Beaumont and South Cooking Lake.
The petitioners ask that Parliament review the laws of Canada to replace the Young Offenders Act with an updated Juvenile Delinquents Act with a lowered maximum age of 13 years.


Mr. Jean-Robert Gauthier (Ottawa-Vanier):: Madam Speaker, I have another petition today on the Court Challenges Program which, as we know, was abolished by this government.
The petitioners urge the government to restore this program, and as of yesterday they are supported by a report from the Commissioner of Official Languages which shows the significant achievements of the program and the effect that abolishing it has on linguistic minorities. The Commissioner of Official Languages and the signers of this petition recommend that the government find a way to make it easier for Canadians to defend their constitutional rights in court, because it is fundamental in a democracy to be able to go to court. Thousands of people like these have already signed this kind of petition. I therefore ask the government to act as soon as possible.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Madam Speaker, I rise to present a petition signed by many hundreds of people from Winnipeg who join many hundreds of thousands of Canadians in their concern about Bill C-91, which is now being fought in committee.
These petitioners ask Parliament to not proceed with Bill C-91 and to repeal Bill C-22, which was passed in 1987, so that Canadians will have the full benefit from lower priced generic drugs and so that provincial and private drug plans can serve Canadians without being forced to charge higher fees and provide less coverage.


Mr. Garth Tbrner (Halton-Peel):: Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise in this House once again to present more petitions regarding the murder of Nina de Villiers and containing suggestions by many of my constituents that the justice system in Canada be changed.
These petitioners believe that crimes of violence against the person are intolerable and that they are the most abhorrent crimes facing society. The petitioners are asking that sentencing in crimes of violence more appropriately reflect our society's abhorrence of violence in order to act as a true deterrent.
They also point out that too often the risk to society posed by the early release of a violent offender appears to be a secondary consideration to the rights of the individual criminal. These petitioners are from many communities in my riding and are added to the thousands of constituents who have already raised their voices on this important issue.


Ron J. Duhamel: Madam Speaker, I have a petition requesting that the goods and services tax on books and reading materials be removed. These petitioners point out that literacy is a cornerstone of a democratic society. It contributes to productivity and competitiveness, which are clearly objectives of Canada.
These petitioners ask that this tax on books be reviewed and, if at all possible, eliminated immediately.

Routine Proceedings


Mr. Guy Saint-Julien (Abitibi):: Madam Speaker, I would like to table a petition from people in Val-d'Or, Abitibi. The signers say that violent movies on television are dangerous and therefore unacceptable because they incite violence.
They say that all toys that incite violent games are unacceptable and should not be made. They also say that the freedom of the press to report acts of violence should be limited and information on violent acts that is repeated too often on all television stations and on radio can incite others to commit the same acts of violence.
Therefore the petitioners humbly ask Parliament to legislate on the above-mentioned points to eliminate violence in our society in order to protect our children more and give all our fellow citizens a better quality of life.


Mr. Lyle Dean Mac  William@Okanagan -Shuswap: Madam Speaker, I have a number of petitions from signatories throughout my riding presented in conjunction with a number of petitions throughout the province of British Columbia.
These petitioners are concerned about a project proposed by Multinational Resources which intends to dam a portion of the flow of the North Thompson River and divert that water into the California market.
The petitioners are concerned about the export of Canadian waters. They have urged the Government of Canada to state categorically that it will not permit our freshwater rivers to be dammed or diverted into the United States and to state that our Canadian rivers are not for sale.


Mr. AI Johnson (Calgary North):: Madam Speaker, I would like to present a petition signed by more than
1,000	residents of Calgary in memory of Ryan Garrioch.
These petitioners draw the attention of Parliament to the following: That the majority of Canadians support equal treatment of criminal offenders but with legislative age shelters from criminal law for very young adolescents; that chapter 15 of the Charter of Rights guarantees the equality of rights.
Therefore your petitioners request that Parliament revise the laws of Canada to replace the Young Offenders Act with an updated Juvenile Delinquents Act with a lowered minimum age of 13 years.


Mr. Ray Funk (Prince Albert-Churchill River):: Madam Speaker, it is my honour to present a petition signed by hundreds of people from Nova Scotia to B.C., including many from my own riding. These people believe that we do not know enough about aboriginal cultures in this country and that we do not give enough recognition to their diversity and strength.
Therefore they are calling on Parliament to enact Bill C-268, an act respecting a national solidarity day for the First Nations of Canada. This would be a day of recognition of Canada's original inhabitants, a day on which to honour their native cultures. It would take place on June 21 of each year.


Mr. Peter Milliken (Kingston and the Islands):: Madam Speaker, I have a petition signed by numerous residents of Kingston, one resident of Bath, Ontario, and one of Enterprise, Ontario. They are concerned about the widespread and very dangerous diphtheria epidemic which has occurred in Ukraine.
This medical crisis, compounded as it is by medical shortages and the risk of further economic difficulties in that country, is of great concern to them and to other people who have friends and relatives in that country. They call upon this House to adopt a resolution providing for immediate consultations with the public health authorities in Ukraine and with the Government of Ukraine to determine the best means by which Canada could most expeditiously provide diphtheria vaccinations and other necessary medical supplies to alleviate the crisis caused by this epidemic.
I would like to indicate that perhaps there could be some arrangement whereby such a resolution could be adopted by unanimous consent on motions tomorrow.


Lynn Hunter: Madam Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36 I am honoured to submit a petition from people concerned about
November 25, 1992

Routine Proceedings
Canada's health care system and the assault that Bill C-91 is inflicting upon it.
They are also asking the government to not proceed with Bill C-91, which is now in committee, and to repeal Bill C-22, which was passed in 1987.
People are concerned about the costs of drugs and the increased cost passed on to the provinces. Canada's health care system is under assault and the signatories to this petition want it stopped.


Mr. Brian L. Gardiner (Prince George-Bulkley Valley):: Madam Speaker, I am pleased to table a petition today from residents in different parts of Canada who are concerned about the impending legislation to implement the North American free trade agreement.
The evidence is in and growing daily that the North American free trade agreement does nothing to improve the trade situation between Canada and the United States. In particular for those communities dependent on lumber exports, issues like the softwood lumber tariff are hurting this country.
We do not need the North American free trade agreement and these Canadians agree with us.


Raymond John Skelly: Madam Speaker, I too wish to present a petition from a large number of individuals who complain about the government's introduction of Bill C-91, which is a bill to eliminate generic drugs and allow the brand name drug pedlars to exploit the people of Canada.
These citizens are absolutely outraged that the government would allow this kind of theft from senior citizens and low income Canadians to occur.
They also point out the possibility of the destruction of provincial pharma-care systems by this outrageous legislation.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Madam Speaker, it is my privilege, and indeed honour, to present a petition on behalf of a number of constituents from greater Kamloops. They point out their strong opposition to the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement and now to the Canada-U.S.-Mexico trade agreement.
They are concerned that it is going to result in major water transfers between Canada and the United States and northern Mexico as part of the North America water and power alliance program.
This now brings the total number of signatures received on this particular issue to well over 30,000.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Madam Speaker, on another unrelated matter I would like to present a petition concerning what these petitioners see as the increasing sense of lawlessness in their communities. They believe that there is an increasing number of break and enter thefts, and an increasing number of petty crimes, violent crimes, and extremely serious crimes of all sorts.
They are asking the Canadian government to ensure that adequate funds are set aside to ensure proper policing of western Canadian communities.


Nelson Andrew Riis: I would like to present another petition. The petitioners point out that crimes of violence against the person are intolerable and constitute the most abhorrent crime society faces.
They point out that the risk to society posed by the early release of a violent offender seems to be of secondary consideration to the rights of the individual criminal.
They are asking Parliament to recognize that crimes of violence against a person are serious and abhorrent and that the government amend the Criminal Code of Canada and the Parole Act accordingly.


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk)
James (Jim) Stewart Edwards: Madam Speaker, the following question will be answered today: No. 384.


Mr. Peterson: With respect to the Canadian Human Rights Commission, (a) what
is the total number of cases tried by the Canadian Human Rights
Commission since its inception (b) how many of these cases have been

November 25, 1992
Routine Proceedings
decided against the complainant (c) how many of these decisions
against the complainant have been overturned on appeal?


Mr. Robert D. Nicholson (Parliamentary secretary to Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada):: (a)
The Commission has considered 5,629 cases.
(b)	There have been 1,398 cases dismissed and a further 578 "no further proceedings" decisions.
In general, dismissals coud be viewed as having been decided against the complainant as could a certain (unspecified) proportion of "no further proceedings" cases.
(c)	Strictly speaking, none. If a complainant wins an appeal, the commission may be asked to reconsider the case but the decision is not overturned.
In the past three years, we estimate that approximately five cases per year were appealed after having been dismissed by the commission after the investigation was completed. Prior to 1989, there were even fewer appeals.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: The question as enumerated by the parliamentary secretary has been answered.


James (Jim) Stewart Edwards: I ask, Madam Speaker, that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.


Ron J. Duhamel: Madam Speaker, on a point of order. Last week the hon. parliamentary secretary will recall that I had asked what progress had been made on Question No. 207, which basically asks how much money had been collected by the goods and services tax and how much would be applied to the deficit, the debt and what the start-up costs had been for the goods and services tax.
While the Auditor General's report is somewhat helpful with the latter I would very much look forward to receiving an answer to that question of December 1991.
The parliamentary secretary did say that he would pursue it personally. I am wondering what progress has been made.


James (Jim) Stewart Edwards: Madam Speaker, I anticipated my hon. friend's question because I discovered to my chagrin that
the material was not ready today when I had hoped it would be.
I made inquiries and I am confident that before another week is out we will have the material he is looking for.


James Ross Fulton: Madam Speaker, last Thursday my House leader requested information from the parliamentary secretary on the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act and he indicated that he would get back to the House. I wonder if he can report to the House on what is happening with the 30 required amendments for word changes between the French and the English text and on what date Canadians can expect the final promulgation and Royal Assent to that legislation.


James (Jim) Stewart Edwards: Madam Speaker, I appreciate the reminder from my hon. friend from Skeena. I can inform the House and the member that his inquiry and my follow-up have resulted in galvanic action taking place. He can be assured that what he is looking for will be accomplished in the very near future.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Shall the remaining questions stand?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


James (Jim) Stewart Edwards: Madam Speaker, would you be so kind as to call Motion for the Production of Papers No. P-17.
P-17-Mr. Milliken:
That an Order of the House do issue for copies of all expense
accounts of all persons who travelled with the Prime Minister on his
trip to Calgary on April 21 to 22, 1991.


James (Jim) Stewart Edwards: Madam Speaker, this motion is acceptable to the government, subject to the usual reservations concerning personal information, and the documents are tabled immediately.
I would ask that other Notices of Motions for the Production of Papers be allowed to stand.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Madam Speaker, I want to thank the parliamentary secretary for the efforts that have resulted in this document being produced. I am very pleased and it looks to be a thorough report. We will see what has been excised.
I wonder if, while I am on my feet, I could ask another question. I am like his boss, the government House leader, who once he gets something always wants more. However, I do have another motion standing in my name dated June 3 on the Order Paper, which asks for a simple copy of some studies commissioned by the Department of National Defence in connection with the relocation of the military supply depot in Montreal.
I am wondering if, as a result of his diligent enquiries, he has brought forth any light as to when we might expect those reports.


James (Jim) Stewart Edwards: Unlike Oliver what my hon. friend has offered is not a new twist at all. He constantly wants more. I will with all diligence chase the material he is seeking.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Shall the remaining motions stand?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS

[Stage Direction]
Translation]

Hon. John McDermid (Minister of State (Finance and Privatization)) moved: that a Ways and Means motion to amend the Income Tax Act, the Canada Pension Plan, the Income Tkx Conventions Interpretation Act, the Thx Rebate Discounting Act, the Unemployment Insurance Act and certain related acts, laid upon the table on Friday, June 19, be concurred in.


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


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.
Government Orders


Madam Deputy Speaker:: All those in favour will please say yea.


Some hon. members:: Yea.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: All those opposed will please say nay.


Some hon. members:: Nay.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: In my opinion the yeas have it.
And more than five members having risen:


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Call in the members.


PAIRED MEMBERS
[Stage Direction]
nil/aucun
Madam Deputy Speaker:: I declare the motion carried. Motion agreed to.


AN ACT TO DISSOLVE OR TERMINATE CERTAIN CORPORATIONS AND OTHER BODIES MEASURE TO ENACT
[Stage Direction]
The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill C-63, an act to dissolve or terminate certain corporations and other bodies, as reported (without amendment) from a legislative committee.
Madam Deputy Speaker:: On a point of order, the hon. parliamentary secretary.


James (Jim) Stewart Edwards: Madam Speaker, I think you will find that there is unanimous consent to the following:
That, in relation to Bill C-63, an act to terminate certain corporations and other bodies, the remainder of this sitting day should be allotted to report stage and one sitting day should be allotted to third reading stage of the bill;
That, if necessary, the debate at report stage shall continue tonight beyond the hour of daily adjournment, but no later than 9 a.m. on Thursday, November 26, 1992, until all questions necessary to dispose of the report stage of the said bill are disposed of, provided that no dilatory motion or quorum call shall be deemed receivable during the extended sitting, and that any requested division shall be deferred until 10 a.m., Thursday, November 26, 1992;
That, notwithstanding any Standing Order, on Thursday, November 26, 1992 the House shall proceed with the third reading stage of Bill C-63.
That, if necessary, the debate at the third reading stage shall continue beyond the hour of daily adjournment on Thursday, November 26,1992, but no later than 10 a.m. on Friday, November 27,1992, until all questions necessary to dispose of the third reading stage of the said bill are disposed of, provided that no dilatory motion or quorum calls shall be deemed receivable during the extended sitting, and if a recorded division is requested, it shall be deferred until 6 p.m., Monday, November 30, 1992.


David Charles Dingwall: Madam Speaker, the parliamentary secretary is correct. There have been some discussions among the House leaders and their representatives with regard to this particular motion and the debate on Bill C-63. It is likely we will not run all that late this evening, but there are a number of speakers from all parties who wish to participate, both at report stage as well as on third reading. I give the official consent of the Liberal Party.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Madam Speaker, I too want to concur that there have been discussions. I want to make two points. One is that we do have a number of speakers but I too do not anticipate that we will be sitting that late.
I do want to take this opportunity to express my appreciation to my hon. friend, the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader, for the degree of consultation that occurred to make this possible this
November 25, 1992

afternoon. It is that kind of co-operation which makes this House of Commons very productive.


Mr. Louis Plamondon (Richelieu):: I would like to add that we were also consulted or at least informed, and that we agree with this proposal.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I understand that there is unanimous consent.


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Agreed and so ordered.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

Madam Deputy Speaker:: There are 92 motions in amendment to Bill C-63, an act to dissolve or terminate certain corporations and other bodies, standing on the notice paper.

Motion No. 1 standing in the name of the hon. member for Scarborough-Rouge River will be debated and voted on separately.

Motions Nos. 2, 4, 6, 9,11,13,15,17 and 19 standing in the name of the hon. member for Essex-Windsor, and Motion No. 7, standing in the name of the hon. member for Scarborough-Rouge River, will be grouped for debate and a vote on Motion No. 2 will apply to Motions Nos. 4, 6, 9, 11,13, 15, 17 and 19. An affirmative vote on Motion No. 2 will obviate the necessity of a vote on Motion No. 7, while a negative vote on Motion No. 2 will require a vote on Motion No. 7.
Motions Nos. 3, 5, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18 and 20, standing in the name of the hon. member for Winnipeg South Centre, are identical to Motions Nos. 2,4,6,9,11,13,15, 17 and 19 and will therefore not be selected.
Motions Nos. 21, 23, 25, 28, 30, 32, 34, 36, 38, 40 and 42, standing in the name of the hon. member for Essex-Windsor, and Motion No. 27, standing in the
Government Orders
name of the hon. member for Scarborough-Rouge River, will be grouped for debate and a vote on Motion No. 21 will apply to Motions Nos. 23, 25, 28, 30, 32, 34, 36, 38, 40 and 42. An affirmative vote on Motion No. 21 will obviate the necessity of a vote on Motion No. 27, while a negative vote on Motion No. 21 will require a vote on Motion No. 27.

Motions Nos. 22, 24, 26, 29, 31, 33, 35, 37, 39, 41 and 43, standing in the name of the hon. member for Scarborough-Rouge River, are identical to Motions Nos. 21, 23, 25, 28, 30, 32, 34, 36, 38, 40 and 42, and as a result, they will not be selected.
Motions Nos. 44, 46, 48, 51, 53 and 55, standing in the name of the hon. member for Essex-Windsor, and Motion No. 49, standing in the name of the hon. member for Scarborough-Rouge River, will be grouped for debate and a vote on Motion No. 44 will apply to Motions Nos. 46, 48, 51, 53 and 55. An affirmative vote on Motion No. 44 will obviate the necessity of a vote on Motion No. 49, while a negative vote on Motion No. 44 will require a vote on Motion No. 49.
Motions Nos. 45, 47, 50, 52, 54 and 56, standing in the name of the hon. member for Winnipeg South Centre, are identical to Motions Nos. 44,46, 48, 51, 53 and 55 and will therefore not be selected.

Motions Nos. 57, 60, 62, 64 and 66, standing in the name of the hon. member for Essex-Windsor, and Motion No. 58, standing in the name of the hon. member for Scarborough-Rouge River, will be grouped for debate, and a vote on Motion No. 57 will also apply to Motions Nos. 60, 62, 64 and 66. An affirmative vote on Motion No. 57 will obviate the need for a vote on Motion No. 58, but a negative vote on Motion No. 57 will require a vote on Motion No. 58.

Motions Nos. 59, 61, 63, 65 and 67, standing in the name of the hon. member for Cape Breton-The Syd-

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neys, are identical to Motions Nos. 57, 60, 62, 64 and 66 and will therefore not be selected.
Motions Nos. 68, 70, 72, 75, 77, 79, 81, 83, 85, 87 and
89,	standing in the name of the hon. member for Essex-Windsor, and Motion No. 74, standing in the name of the hon. member for Scarborough-Rouge River, will be grouped for debate and a vote on Motion No. 68 will apply to Motions Nos. 70, 72, 75, 77, 79, 81, 83, 85, 87 and 89. An affirmative vote on Motion No. 68 will obviate the necessity of a vote on Motion No. 74, while a negative on Motion No. 68 will require a vote on Motion No. 74.
Motions Nos. 69, 71, 73, 76, 78, 80, 82, 84, 86, 88 and
90,	standing in the name of the hon. member for Saint-Henri-Westmount, are identical to Motions Nos. 68, 70, 72, 75, 77, 79, 81, 83, 85, 87 and 89 and will therefore not be selected.

Motion No. 91, standing in the name of the hon. member for Essex-Windsor, and Motion No. 92, standing in the name of the hon. member for Scarborough- Rouge River, will be grouped for debate. An affirmative vote on Motion No. 91 will obviate the need for a vote on Motion No. 92, but a negative vote on Motion No. 91 will require a vote on Motion No. 92.


MEASURE TO ENACT
Mr. Derek Lee (Scarborough-Rouge River) moved:: Motion No. 1.
That Bill C-63 be amended in Clause 1 by adding immediately after line 16 at page 1, the following:
"(3) The Minister of Employment and Immigration shall
(a) identify property, including intellectual property, data bases, models or library materials, that were created or acquired by the Canada Employment and Immigration Advisory Council in the fulfilment of its mandate and that have a capital or commercial value; and
(ib) transfer that property, with or without valuable consideration, to a federal, provincial or non-governmental body to be used to pursue that body's mandate."
He said: Madam Speaker, I congratulate you on your grouping of the motions for debate. There is a certain mathematical symmetry in how the motions have been grouped now. That will probably make it easier for us
here in the House. But mathematical symmetry is not what we are dealing with in this government bill this afternoon.
The particular motion we are dealing with identifies what I believe is a gap in the government's treatment of the way in which agencies and Crown corporations are dissolved and dispensed with, privatized. It is not immediately apparent why the government has failed to give attention to this.
One could accept that over the last dozen years or so there has been some initiative to reduce the size of government and make it more efficient, to privatize areas of activity that are perhaps more appropriately dealt with in the private sector and the business sector.
In developing the field, the lexicon and the procedure of privatization and dissolution, I am not so sure we have it right yet.
The amendments take note of the fact that there will likely have been-I would be very shocked if it had not occurred-a development within the agency, here the Canada Employment and Immigration Advisory Council, of a certain amount of knowledge and expertise. Some may call it intellectual property, which was often referred to in the committee hearings, but computer-stored data and information, all of which was relevant to the original existing mandate of the agency. When the agency was about to be dissolved, no one gave much thought to the value, if any, of the accumulated expertise, intellectual property, data bases, and information libraries of the particular agency.
What often happens in the private sector when a business goes down is that the ownership interest departs, locks the doors-maybe they do not even lock the doors. Suddenly, the scavengers, the vultures, the auctioneers and those who work in the field of bankruptcy swoop down, scoop up and take away. They sell the stuff for the best price they can get, but it is often at a fraction of the original market value of these things.
In this particular case the government is dissolving an agency that it feels no longer can serve a good public policy purpose. While some of our colleagues opposite are convinced that it can no longer fill the purpose and that other agencies can, the government is going to proceed. I believe the government has not taken account of just what assets there were in this category and how
November 25, 1992

the government proposes to protect them. Certainly we would not want to see them destroyed.
I want to point out in this particular case, as I will point out in relation to some of these other agencies as we debate this bill today and tomorrow, we must take note of the stark reality that the government has already dissolved and liquidated the agency.
There is something that does not ring quite right about that. I had an assistant attempt to locate these agencies on the map, by telephone, by fax machine, and we have come up with precious little. I am puzzled when the law clearly requires a statute of this House to dissolve and liquidate an agency like this how it is that the agency, as I speak now, has already disappeared off the map.
As we make what I believe to be a constructive proposal here in disposal of the assets, maybe it is all for naught. Maybe the government has gone ahead of its authority to do so and dissolved the agency and liquidated it. Maybe what we are doing in this House just does not matter any more. I feel I have to note whether what the government has done or not done is legal or illegal.
In any event, the debate on this must be here if for no other reason than to lay constructive groundwork for dissolutions and privatizations in the year to come because undoubtedly there will be some no matter what government is in power. When we do it, we want to do it right.
To recap, this particular amendment would require, by statute-not just by policy or by someone's good judgment in the department-that the minister responsible for the agency identifies property including intellectual property, data bases, models, library materials, et cetera, that were required and developed in the course of the agency's mandate. The minister will protect them, keep them together and transfer them to a successor agency or the ministry involved. In that way they would be protected as an asset and would continue to serve the public in the domain for which they were originally created.


Mr. Steven W. Langdon (Essex-Windsor):: Madam Speaker, I would like to speak just briefly to this particular section.
Government Orders
I echo the words of my colleague with respect to the divisions that have been made concerning the remaining motions. With respect to this particular agency however, the Canadian Employment and Immigration Advisory Council, the position that we took in committee and here in the House on second reading was that it did seem to us that this was an agency which could be replaced. Its work was in fact being done by other agencies within the government and it therefore was not serving a function for which the money contributed by taxpayers represented a valuable contribution and a valuable return to those taxpayers.
For that reason, it seems to us that to transfer the property associated with the Canada Employment and Immigration Advisory Council to other federal, provincial or non-governmental bodies is questionable.
I look, for instance, at something like the Canadian Labour Market and Productivity Centre. It seems to me that they are handling much of the work which the Canada Employment and Immigration Advisory Council was looking at. To continue therefore with this particular council's activities would represent, in our view, a waste of taxpayers' resources at a time when those taxpayers' resources need to be marshalled as carefully as possible to achieve the wider social and political objectives that we have in our economy.


Mr. Pierre H. Vincent (Parliamentary Secretary to Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance):: Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak on this motion concerning Bill C-63. This motion talks about the Canada Employment and Immigration Advisory Council, which was created in 1977 to advise the Minister of Employment and Immigration of the time about the department's policies and programs.
You will understand that since 1977, this function has been replaced with a much broader consultation structure in the Canadian Labour Force Development Board. The council costs the federal government $200,000 a year. The government decided that the Department of Employment and Immigration, with what is now in place, no longer specifically needed the council and that is why it is being abolished. This will save Canadian taxpayers $200,000 a year. I think that is important.

Government Orders
Madam Speaker, you must understand that legally, the boards and commissions mentioned in Bill C-63 continue to exist, as legal entities, but they no longer have any money to spend. Therefore they no longer cost the federal government anything. That is what you must understand: the board still exists as a legal entity and there is no reason to believe, as my colleague would suggest, that Parliament has acted illegally by ending these boards before Parliament has decided the issue, because they continue to exist, legally.
As for all the assets and property of the various boards and commissions to be discussed this afternoon, a plan was submitted to Treasury Board which approved the liquidation or transfer of these various goods and services to already existing federal agencies or departments. All the intellectual property, as mentioned in the motion, and other assets are already transferred to some department or other. In the case ot the Canada Employment and Immigration Advisory Council, it is transferred to the department; in the other case, it will be transferred to the National Library, the National Archives, et cetera. Everything is being done to ensure that all the data and other resources in these various boards and commissions remain for the needs of the Canadian government and at the same time Canadian taxpayers can save money by closing and abolishing some councils.
This is how it has to be looked at. In closing, let me point out that since all that is now in place and Treasury Board has already made the necessary arrangements, I think that many of the motions before us are not applicable since the work they ask us to do has already been done.
Therefore I hope that Bill C-63 will be passed as soon as possible.


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


Some hon. members:: Question.


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


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.


Some hon. members:: Yea.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: All those opposed will please say nay.


Some hon. members:: Nay.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: In my opinion the nays have it.
I declare the motion negatived on division.
Motion 1 negatived.


Steven W. Langdon: Motion No. 2.
That Bill C-63 be amended by deleting Clause 4.
Motion No. 4.
That Bill C-63 be amended by deleting Clause 5.
Motion No. 6.
31131 Bill C-63 be amended by deleting Clause 6.


Derek Vincent Lee: 
Steven W. Langdon: Motion No. 9.
That Bill C-63 be amended by deleting Clause 7.
Motion No. 11.
That Bill C-63 be amended by deleting Clause 8.
Motion No. 13.
33iat Bill C-63 be amended by deleting Clause 9.
Motion No. 15.
That Bill C-63 be amended by deleting Clause 10.
Motion No. 17.
That Bill C-63 be amended by deleting Clause 11.
Motion No. 19.
That Bill C-63 be amended by deleting Clause 12.
He said: Madam Speaker, this particular piece of legislation carries through the government's intention of eliminating a number of important institutions and agencies which have provided valuable assistance to Canadian policymakers and valuable ideas to the Cana-
November 25, 1992

dian public in the period since they were variously established.
The particular set of amendments we are dealing with at the moment attempts to restore to the legislation and therefore to restore to life the Canadian Institute for International Peace and Security.
We heard testimony about a great many of these institutions as we went through this bill in committee earlier this year. Frankly, the case for some of the institutions, as I suggested with the Advisory Committee on Employment and Immigration, was not strong. However, the case for this particular institution was especially strong. This is partly because this was one of the most recent institutions to be established. It was established by legislation in 1983. This was an institution which reflected and represented, to the Canadian public and to policymakers in the government, some of the newer thinking in foreign policy debate and consideration throughout the world. It was not an institution which reflected the old-style belief that that you could somehow maintain peace through massive arms build-ups and through the philosophy of the deterrence. It was not, on the other hand, an institution which took the polar opposite position of saying that the solution is complete disarmament.
Instead, this was an institution which sought through collective co-operation and collective security to establish a new approach to our thinking about international affairs. It was an institution which operated very successfully and at a very limited cost to the federal government. A measure of its success is the tremendous list of names of people who were in touch with the legislative committee that looked at this piece of legislation. They tried to persuade the committee that this was at least one institution that should be maintained because of innovative approach, its thoughtfulness and its excellent leadership.
I could go through the many names of Canadians who wrote to the committee. It is perhaps even more interesting to recognize the international reputation which CIIPS, as the Canadian Institute of International Peace and Security came to be called, had managed to establish throughout the world.
Government Orders
We received letters and representations to maintain this institution from the Brookings Institution in the United States, ABC News in the United States, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Congressional Research Service, various representatives from the faculty of Harvard University, the Centre for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University, Princeton University's Department of Psychology, the United Nations Development Program, the U.S. Institute for Peace, and the University of Michigan. Outside the United States we received representations from a great many Canadian institutions and from a great many international institutions.
Some of those international institutions that were in touch with the committee included the University of Southampton in the U.K., Western Australian Health Promotion Foundation, the Asian Peace Research Institution, the German Society for Foreign Affairs, the National Institute for Research Advancement in Japan, SIPRI in Sweden-which is one of the foremost institutions dealing with international peace, and the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research. I could list a vast number of institutions.
The arguments which many of them put forward are perhaps best summarized in a letter which I have received from the Department of Political Science at the University of Windsor in my own home area. Let me just read this into the record if I could: "We are shocked and dismayed," the writers of this letter indicate, "by the government's announced intention of disbanding the Canadian Institute for International Peace and Security. If Canada is to have an effective voice in this time of new alignments and unexpected problems on the world scene it can only be based on independent research of high quality done from a Canadian perspective".
The writers of the letter went on to say: "The Department of External Affairs by its nature is not well equipped to do research designed to find innovative solutions to unprecedented problems. We would therefore urge your committee to oppose rescinding the existing legislation which created CUPS and to urge the government to provide it with funding as the legislation provides".
I would like to quote from the institute's original act: "Increase knowledge and understanding of the issues relating to international peace and security from a Canadian perspective with particular emphasis on arms control, disarmament, defence and conflict resolution".

November 25, 1992
Government Orders
In pursuit of that to: "(a) foster, fund and conduct research on matters relating to international peace and security; (b) promote scholarship in matters relating to international peace and security; (c) study and propose ideas and policies for the enhancement of international peace and security; and (d) collect and disseminate information on and encourage public discussion of issues of international peace and security".
It is especially important in our changing international context that we have an institute that can create the possibility of promoting discussion and debate among the public about international peace and security. It is especially important that we have new approaches to collective international security being discussed, studied and debated in this country.
It is especially important that we in Canada have new approaches to some of the age old questions that our Department of External Affairs has looked at. It is especially important that we bring into this debate and permit to contribute to this debate some of the younger scholars, some of the newer approaches, and some of the more innovative institutions throughout our country. That is what CUPS did. It reached out to new people, it reached out to new ways of thinking, and it reached out to the public in a way, frankly, that the Department of External Affairs does not do.
This was a valuable institution. It was an institution led by people who, when they talked to the committee, were most impressive in terms of their concern about getting value for the money for the taxpayers of Canada.
I regret very much that the government has chosen to wind up this institution. I therefore urge the House to support this series of amendments by taking out of this bill the points dealing with the Canadian Institute for International Peace and Security. That would see to it that CUPS would continue as an institution able to give good service to the people of this country.


Hon. Lloyd Axworthy (Winnipeg South Centre):: Madam Speaker, in speaking to this series of amendments that the member from Essex has put forward, which are similar to those which I introduced, I would like members for a moment to think about what they saw on the news last evening or what they read in their papers this
morning: major questions about our peacekeepers in Bosnia-Hercegovina; negotiations about a new agricultural agreement, an international arrangement for rationalizing our farm products; problems dealing with the environment that affect the supply of our cod stock off the Newfoundland coast; and the deposit of Soviet nuclear waste in the Arctic Ocean which will immediately spread into our own arena.
I mention only a very small sample of issues to prove an obvious point, which is that no such thing as domestic politics is left in Canada. In effect, we are all internationalized. Our jobs, our security, our well-being, and our welfare are all very dependent on and very conditioned by what happens in the world around us. We do not live in a fire-proof house.
What is essential for responding to this incredible turbulence and jungle of developments is that Canadians be informed, understand, and have knowledge so that they can make proper judgments about where this country will go and the kinds of stands we should take in responding to this multitude of global requirements and needs.
In a column that appeared in the Toronto Star this week by Carol Goar, in which the external affairs minister was defending her record as a minister against attacks that had been levelled in that column the week before, the minister said that people do not get enough information about Canada's activities around the world to make reasoned judgments. She went on to say that one of the primary requirements under her ministry would be to ensure a much broader based level of information and a more open discussion and debate about our options and choices.
It comes as some surprise that we arrive in the House of Commons on a Wednesday afternoon to find out that after the minister had made this proper assertion of the need for debate, information and understanding we now have a bill in front of us which will exterminate the most significant agency in the country providing that information, that debate and that understanding. It would be an understatement to call it a total contradiction.
The Canadian Institute for International Peace and Security was established in 1983 as an outgrowth of the then Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau's world peace initiative. However, it is important to recognize that it was
November 25, 1992

supported by all sides of the House. All parties in the House supported it because they understood that we needed the kind of institution that would have an independent base of operation to develop ideas, to disseminate information, and to participate in and create a marketplace of ideas.
Far be it from me to lecture members opposite about the marketplace. They are the experts on it. However, surely if they believe in the free marketplace of the economy they should believe in the free marketplace of ideas which means that a product must be generated to create a free exchange.
Yet what are they doing? They are exterminating, cancelling, and shutting down the source of these ideas in the crucial area of our international arena. I refrain from using the word "international" because that creates barriers in peoples' minds so that they say that the real gutsy things to talk about are what is happening here on the domestic level. However, as I tried to say earlier, there is no distinction between what is happening in the world around us and what happens here. Just ask the fishermen in Newfoundland, the grain farmers of western Canada, or the steel workers in Hamilton about how what has happened internationally has affected their own livelihood.
We are told this is a cost-saving measure. In fact, it is not a cost-saving measure because most of the budget of CIIPS has been transferred to the Department of External Affairs. That is what we were told.
The minister made announcements this summer that the Department of External Affairs would set up scholarship programs, and a new program of co-operative competitions to start research.
There is a difference, a very significant difference. The decision as to what those areas of research and debate will be are now going to be controlled by the Department of External Affairs. It will make the decisions on what is done. There will not be a free marketplace of ideas, and scholars will not be encouraged to search out new thinking but more to act as a rubber stamp for government policy.
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We do not get innovation by simply trying to respond to the status quo. We do not get debate and new ideas by simply echoing official lines set out by the department.
Perhaps more tragic is the total cancellation of some of the most experimental and innovative work that CIIPS is doing. Let us return to the comment by the Secretary of State for External Affairs: "People do not get enough information about Canada's activities around the world to make reasoned judgments".
What was CIIPS doing? First it had a school program that supplied materials, speakers, lecture notes, videotapes, and other forms of information to the schools of Canada, to the young people of Canada, those who will have to live most directly with the impact of international events.
That has disappeared, I guess on the assumption that it does not help our young people to understand the world around us. Therefore the primary source of material to educate young people in our schools about world development has been shut down, cancelled.
More interesting is that CIIPS had just begun a joint project with the CBC and Radio Canada to develop televised programs on our national television networks discussing a series of problems on peacekeeping, environmental problems, global warming, security issues, and economic rearrangement. That would allow a two-way dialogue which Canadians could watch on their TV screens. It would provide an exposition of these problems. There would be a system through which various schools and universities could act as a means of providing a forum in which feedback could be received by members of Parliament and government.
An interesting exercise in public education on a massive scale using new technology is wiped out, disappeared, and gone. How can the Secretary of State for External Affairs, with any shred of integrity, any scintilla of honesty, state in a column in the Toronto Star that we need more information, more reasoned judgment, more debate and more dialogue when she is one of the authors of this bill eliminating the Canadian Institute for International Peace and Security, which had a mandate to provide the very same thing?

November 25, 1992
Government Orders
I do not use the word lightly, but hypocrisy immediately comes to my lips when I think of what the minister said in this statement and what the government is doing by eliminating this program.
The minister cannot with any degree of honesty make these kinds of statements about the need for informed and reasoned public information and dialogue and at the same time be a member of a government that is cancelling, eliminating, and exterminating the primary agency that supplied it.
Even if external affairs itself said: "Well, trust us. We have no politicized agenda", the fact of the matter is that the department has already received a number of budget hits from the finance minister, the latest one last week of 2 per cent. What will be left of its so-called research information program?
If we are to believe the Secretary of State for External Affairs, if her own members are to believe her, then we and they have no option but to vote for these amendments and stop the cancellation of the Canadian Institute for International Peace and Security.


Derek Vincent Lee: Madam Speaker, following the sterling remarks of my colleague from Winnipeg South Centre on the dissolution of the Canadian Institute for International Peace and Security I would like to make three short points.
The first concerns my perception that the government has acted prematurely to dissolve, liquidate and kill the agency before it had the authority to do so from Parliament. Someone on my staff today tried to reach CUPS and eventually got through to someone. They were told that apparently all the employees, with the exception of five board members, were laid off and given severance packages between June and July of this year. The person on the phone indicated that the only reason the phone lines were still open was because of a legal opinion that the operation must continue until the legislation had been approved by Parliament.
What is the government doing? It seems the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing. If the minister was here I would want to ask the minister-I am sorry, we are not supposed to comment on the presence or absence of the minister who does not have to be here now. However, in the event the opportunity arises to ask
the question I would want to ask what the heck the government is doing dissolving, liquidating, firing and severing when the agency has apparently received a legal opinion that the government should not be doing this until it had authority from Parliament? The government does not have authority from Parliament. That is why we are here today.
I just wanted to make that point as clearly as I could.
My next point concerns Motion No. 7, which is being grouped for debate in this grouping. That motion deals with the protection of the assets of the agency upon the dissolution or winding up of the agency to ensure that the assets are protected, kept intact and moved to another agency or another non-government agency, or at least some body, that could make use of the accumulated expertise of the agency that is being dissolved.
I note that in this particular case the library collection of this agency, which was extensive and valuable and noted at committee as being unique in Canada, I believe, has been transferred to the Canadian Forces Command and Staff College in Toronto.
I acknowledge that. It is exactly the kind of thing that the amendment had in mind.
Second, some of the program has been transferred to a new program which apparently has an annual budget of $2.1 million. This flies in the face of the purported cost-saving motive of the government in dissolving this agency.
Even though it transferred the assets and kept intact this valuable library which all Canadians own, I want to point out that there was never anything in the statute that required it to do that. I think that that kind of a direction should be in the statute when the agency is dissolved. That is why the amendment is there. The government has done it in any event, in relation to the library. We do not know what other assets may have been lost in the move, shall I say. I hope nothing has been lost, squandered or destroyed in the move.
The amendment is there. It should have been there on day one and I think it should be there for every agency dissolution. I wanted to make that point as well.


Mr. Dennis Mills (Broadview-Greenwood):: Madam Speaker, I would like to pick up on the comments that my colleague from Winnipeg South Centre made.
First, I consider it totally incomprehensible that the government would dissolve an institute like the Canadian Institute for International Peace and Security. Even though there are many Canadians in this country who are suffering and even though we are in deep economic pain, there would not be too many Canadians who would really support the dissolution of this if they really knew the full extent of the service that this organization provided.
My colleague talked about the school programs on world development that the institute has been providing and was continuing to expand. I can recall periods of time when this particular institute would supply speakers for town hall meetings. Sometimes there would be organizations or conferences that would not want a speaker who was advocating any particular partisan point of view. That was one of the unique things about this organization. It was perceived as an independent thinking operation. It was an independent service. With all the concerns and lack of trust in terms of partisan politics today, it seems that to destroy an organization that has such a fine reputation is not good logic.
I want to pick up on this issue of the library. Madam Speaker, I appeal through you to the government that this library that the institute has built up over a number of years is a very valued asset. Even though I am from Toronto and we all fight for our constituents and our communities, I think it is a mistake that that library goes to the Military Staff College in Toronto. That library should be here, somehow connected to our own library. I would be deathly afraid if one day I saw that library on the Crown assets list of DSS.
There is no guarantee that it could not happen. Obviously the government will use its force to ram through this legislation. I wish there would be some kind of a directive given that the Department of National Defence might find themselves running short of space one day and not realize the full extent and the value of this treasure that has been built up over many, many years.
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I regret that in the excuse of debt reduction that we are cancelling this agency. It is a sad day. We obviously are appealing here in the last hours for the government to reconsider and all we can do is hope.


Pierre H. Vincent: Madam Speaker, I would like to respond to some comments made by hon. members opposite.
First of all, it should be understood that in his February budget, the Minister of Finance announced that certain councils and committees would be dissolved. He said this would be done in June. Administratively speaking, starting in June, the operations of these committees, councils and agencies were reduced to a minimum.
The official termination, however, will not take effect until the bill before the House today is passed. In other words, the process reflects due respect for the Parliament of Canada but also an understanding of the financial problems of the government and the responsibility this government has to Canadians.
Perhaps I may say a few words about the Canadian Institute for International Peace and Security, which was established in 1984 to increase knowledge and understanding from the perspective of arms control, disarmament, and other aspects of international peace and security. The institute also has a research role.
When preparing for the February budget, the Minister of Finance and the government realized it was more economical to ask the Department of External Affairs to do the work currently being done by the CUPS. When I say more economical, I am talking about a savings of $2.5 million annually. It will cost the government $2.5 million less annually, because instead of having the Canadian Institute for International Peace and Security, we will have officials within the Department of External Affairs doing the same job.
The February budget did not raise taxes. It did, however, announce cutbacks. What we are talking about this afternoon are those cutbacks. They are an important

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part of our fight against the deficit and our constant struggle to stop Canada from getting deeper into debt. The opposition will probably say that $2.5 million annually is peanuts for the federal government. That may be. However, if every time a $2.5 million cut is feasible, and we do not cut, by the end of the day it all adds up.
All the files and assets of the institute have been transferred to the Department of External Affairs. For instance, the institute has transferred its library to the staff training college in Toronto, with the appropriate funding, so that external affairs officials can take over this responsibility.
It is important to realize that the work done by the institute will be carried on, but at lower cost, within the department. That is the message we must get across to our colleagues opposite.
Again, I think this bill should be passed as soon as possible to put the legal seal of approval on these administrative changes. Since by the end of June, these committees and institutes had practically wound up thenactivities.


Mr. Ross Harvey (Edmonton East):: Madam Speaker, I will defer to my hon. colleague for Windsor-St. Clair with your kind indulgence.


Mr. Howard McCurdy (Windsor-St. Clair):: Madam Speaker, I had not really expected that I would be involved in this part of the debate. However, if the hon. parliamentary secretary represents the view of government, then we have stupidity compounded by innumeracy. He has tried to convince this House by standing up on this debate-which he recognizes is on television-that the expenditure of $2.5 million and the cancellation of that expenditure represents a part of the government's attempt to economize on this expenditure to a significant degree. He maintains that this fight against the deficit makes necessary the elimination of the Institute for International Peace and Security.
He says at the same time that the bureaucrats in External Affairs are going to do the job.
I say innumeracy because even the parliamentary secretary and this government ought to know that this government spills more money in taking polls than the cost of this. It spilled more money than this in its
prosperity initiative charade. It spent far more than this in sending propaganda to Windsor alone on NAFTA. He has the audacity, the nerve, if not the stupidity, to believe that the country and the electorate believe that we are to take him seriously when he says that we have to save $2.5 million on an institution that is studying peace and security in a world that is constantly threatened by insecurity and division and the prospect of war that has been accounted for by those who have preceded me in this debate.
It is absolutely outrageous that we have to be subjected to this kind of argument, that could do nothing but reflect upon the government in the worst way possible. That is the way in which it ought to be reflected because it is perhaps the worst government that this country has ever seen. To listen to this particular example of a misleading and stupid argument is something that the population should not be subjected to for very much longer. I just wanted to put that intervention on record.
To suggest that external affairs is a place where we are going to get independent judgment, where people are going to obtain information, is to belie the very character of the bureaucracy. The studies occurring at external affairs have one purpose and one purpose only. They are to reflect the policies of a government that, in the absence of this kind of institution, is not going to be subject to the kind of critical judgment, examination and research that ought to be available to it and to the people of Canada. What this government does in external affairs can be critically analysed and rejected or accepted depending upon its inherent merits and not the propaganda that is now going to be substituted for the institute that we are now abandoning.
If I sound angry, I hope it communicates to you, Madam Speaker, and to the government that I am not the only angry one about the garbage we hear in this House meant to justify the garbage that the government does.


Ross Harvey: Madam Speaker, I would like to commend to the House, at the risk of appearing boring by comparison, a question of perspective, because that really is what is before the House. As the hon. parliamentary secretary said, it is the intention of the government that the tasks previously discharged by the Canadian Institute for International Peace and
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Security will now be undertaken and discharged by the bureaucrats of the Department of External Affairs.
I have nothing against the bureaucrats of the Department of External Affairs. I am certain that they are wonderfully competent, dedicated, well-trained, intelligent and well-motivated people. They are the products and exponents of a system of diplomacy and international relations that has just about come to the end of its tether.
The days in which we could find our security and the world's peace in a system of counterbalancing alliances netting the globe have passed. They have passed for a number of reasons but they have most certainly passed.
We are entered in an extremely perilous time on this planet, a time in which the extremes of wealth and poverty have never been greater and a time in which those who are caught in the extremes of poverty have never had greater access to the representation of wealth in which people like us live.
This is a recipe for the most violent and protracted forms of planetary social confrontation. It is these extremes more than any other factor, augmented it is true by climatic catastrophes and gradual changes but rooted in the maldistribution of wealth on our planet, which constitute the greatest threat to our security and the planet's peace, to the degree the planet can be said to know peace at any time this century.
What is required to meet these new challenges, especially for a comparatively wealthy middle power like Canada, is a complete rethinking of the precepts on which we base our international relations. With all due respect and compliments to the bureaucrats of the Department of External Affairs, they are singularly ill placed, not ill equipped, to undertake that absolutely vital ongoing reconsideration.
That being the case, it is simple good sense for the Canadian government on behalf of the Canadian people to create institutions which can foster, promote and disseminate that reconsideration.
The Canadian Institute for International Peace and Security was one such body, a very important body, in fact in these regards probably the pre-eminent body in
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the country. That was recognized at its establishment in 1983 when it was given, as I understand at the time, unanimous support of this Chamber. That was a prescient move on the part of this Parliament at that time in the early 1980s. It is unfortunately an extremely blind move that is being contemplated by this Parliament now as it contemplates the eradication of the institute.
I would only ask members present and those who may be brought in for the vote to consider very carefully the needs that we have in a changed world, the requirement placed upon us as a comparatively wealthy society to use in part our wealth to find the means to foster peace and security around the planet. If we do not find those means they will not be found and the consequences will be dire indeed.


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


Some hon. members:: Question.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: The question is on Motion No. 2. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.


Some hon. members:: Yea.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: All those opposed will please say nay.


Some hon. members:: Nay.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: In my opinion the nays have it.
And more than five members having risen:


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Pursuant to Standing Order 76(8), a recorded division on the motion stands deferred.


Steven W. Langdon: Motion No. 21.
That Bill C-63 be amended by deleting Clause 13.
Motion No. 23.
That Bill C-63 be amended by deleting Clause 14.
Motion No. 25.
That Bill C-63 be amended by deleting Clause 15.

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Derek Vincent Lee: Motion No. 27
That Bill C-63 be amended in Clause 15 by adding immediately
after line 11 at page 4 the following:
"(4) The Minister shall
(a)	identify property, including intellectual property, data bases, models or library materials, that were created or acquired by the Council in the fulfilment of its mandate and that have a capital or commercial value; and
(b)	transfer that property, with or without valuable consideration, to a federal, provincial or non-governmental body to be used to pursue that body's mandate."


Steven W. Langdon: Motion No. 28.
That Bill C-63 be amended by deleting Clause 16.
Motion No. 30.
That Bill C-63 be amended by deleting Clause 17.
Motion No. 32.
That Bill C-63 be amended by deleting Clause 18.
Motion No. 34.
That Bill C-63 be amended by deleting Clause 19.
Motion No. 36.
That Bill C-63 be amended by deleting Clause 20.
Motion No. 38.
That Bill C-63 be amended by deleting Clause 21.
Motion No. 40.
That Bill C-63 be amended by deleting Clause 22.
Motion No. 42.
That Bill C-63 be amended by deleting Clause 23.
He said: Madam Speaker, this set of amendments tries to overturn the government's intention to eliminate the Economic Council of Canada.
The Economic Council of Canada had a proposed budget of about $10.3 million for this year. It had 118 full-time people working for it. It also had a council of 28 members, three of them full time and 25 part time.
It is striking that the House of Commons in this session before Christmas was said by the Prime Minister to be focusing especially on the economy of this country. We dealt with the divisive, difficult question of constitutional reform. It was rejected by the people, and the Prime Minister said that we would concentrate on the economy.
What is the very first legislation that in fact deals with the economy? It is of legislation which does away with
the independent body designed to provide advice to governments and to the people on what we should do about the economy.
One would think that any sensible government, any sensible Prime Minister, any Prime Minister who had thought things through at least a little, would have recognized that to get such independent advice not just from the professional researchers at the Economic Council but from business people, labour representatives and representatives of different social groups making up the council membership itself would have been absolutely paramount in the concerns of that Prime Minister.
What do we find instead? We find that the government is doing away with the Economic Council. Why? It is not to save money as the government will claim. There will be a speech made that it is to save money. In point of fact, as I can demonstrate and may do if I have enough time, there will not be any savings of money whatsoever in this fiscal year and very little in future fiscal years from doing away with the Economic Council of Canada, because every task the Economic Council is putting into effect and has been putting into effect will continue.
There has been a whole transfer of the projects of the Economic Council to a new institute at Queen's University for which, guess what, the Government of Canada is paying. It is not to save money. It is because the government could not face the fact of receiving independent criticism from the Economic Council. It could not face the fact that an independent group of business people, of economists and of labour people would actually say that the government was wrong, as this council has said consistently as this government has put us further and further into an economic mess in the past three years.
That is why this council is being eliminated. It is a question of shooting the messenger because the government did not like the message. That is what is at issue here.
The reality is that the institution has done and is doing excellent work. It has done work on health care, how to develop a more efficient, economically effective method of dealing with our health care problems, one of the crucial issues faced by every provincial government and

November 25, 1992

this federal government. Yet the government is doing away with the institution.
It is an institution which is tracking Canadian poverty. Perhaps that is something that made the government angiy at the institution. The Economic Council showed in its studies that poverty was increasing under the government. Maybe that was the mistake. Maybe it was the mistake that this council committed when it said that the high interest rate policies of the government and the high value of the Canadian dollar were causing the tremendous increase in unemployment. Maybe that was the reason.
It could not have been because the Economic Council was wrong about free trade. Mark my words, the Economic Council was wrong about free trade. It predicted that in the first five years of free trade there would be hundreds of thousands of new jobs. We have seen in the first four years of free trade a loss of something close to
500,000	jobs in this country.
The government refuses to admit that. The government refuses to criticize free trade. The government refuses to change its mind about free trade. It cannot be that the Economic Council was wrong about that subject which disturbs the government. In fact the government used to quote the Economic Council day after day in the last election campaign because it liked the message then. It liked the message because it seemed to be something that was supportive of what the government was trying to promote.
I want to leave the people of this country as they watch this debate with two quotations and a final set of realities. The first quotation is from the president of the now defunct Economic Council when he spoke to our committee. The president said, summing up what would happen with the elimination of this council: "We are losing our capacity to build our knowledge of Canadian society by testing theories against Canadian data".
I also want to quote from an independent research institute which makes its money not from government but independently. The president of Informetrica said: "The council is indispensable for its ability to assign teams of economists to big projects. University researchers and private sector firms cannot mount the long-term,
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large-scale projects the council undertook". That is what we are losing.
However, I have to admit that I thought in the past when we first heard the debate around eliminating the Economic Council that maybe the government actually did believe it was going to save some money, no matter how little, and it justified eliminating this independent voice which would help us reform, change and improve our economic policy. I thought the government might actually have been telling the truth.
What emerged from the government was the prosperity report inventing our future. It was called "An Action Plan for Canada's Prosperity". The action consisted of recommending the establishment, believe it or not, of not just an economic council, but six new economic and social institutions which would fill exactly the same roles as the Economic Council.
I conclude by listing these because what is being suggested is staggering. We will get rid of the Economic Council and replace it with a national quality institute, a centre for excellence for sustainable development, a Canadian forum on learning, a federal-provincial body which is supposed to examine economic prospects and propose fiscal stances, another federal-provincial body, and finally a prosperity council. How is this prosperity council to be formed? In exactly the same way as the Economic Council of Canada was formed.
This government is trying to hoodwink Canadians. It is trying to get rid of the Economic Council. It is trying to replace it with far more expensive institutions which will simply parrot the government's line as opposed to the independent advice which the Economic Council has provided this country so valuably in the past.


John Paul Manley: Madam Speaker, may I say first of all that for once I agree almost entirely with what my colleague from Essex-Windsor has said in his comments on the Economic Council of Canada.
The hon. member and I served together for a long time on the finance committee and received many submissions from the Economic Council of Canada. There were many appearances by the chairman of the council as well as members of the council before us to discuss a variety of issues.

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It causes me some sadness to be participating in a debate about the demise of the Economic Council of Canada. I suppose the situation in which the government finds itself, having again failed to estimate properly its revenues for the current year, running a deficit which is going to be somewhere in the order of $35 billion after having estimated something less than $28 billion in their budget last year; in other words, having achieved a deficit that exceeds the prediction by something close to 30 per cent, is unsettling.
I understand why it may say it needs to save money, but as the member for Essex-Windsor has just pointed out, in fact the effort here is not one to save expense. If it were a matter of saving expense, many of the other initiatives introduced by the government in order to talk economic policy would not have been on the table. We would not have just spent a pile of money on something called a prosperity initiative study which has produced yet another volume of reports and information which is entirely redundant, together with what was already produced. That, as my friend reminds me, was on untendered contracts.
My purpose in speaking is really to say that the Economic Council of Canada is an institution for which Canadians should have a large degree of pride. I would like to point out the work that has been performed by the council before the announcement was made.
The council was preparing, at the time the budget was released, an important study on education in Canada. That report was issued shortly after the budget, a study called A Lot to Learn: Education and Training in Canada.
Canadians should be aware of this work because not only does it have a great deal to say to us about where we are and where we should be going, but it is an indication of the valuable work that a body such as the Economic Council of Canada can perform.
As we all know, education lies within provincial jurisdiction. We also know that we as Canadians cannot stand by impervious to what is happening outside our borders. We must begin to find ways to equip our people to deal with the competition that we face and the production of goods and services not only in the United
States and Mexico, but in Europe, in Japan and increasingly in the developing world.
Again and again we discover that it is in our ability to equip our most important resource, the human resource, that we need to focus attention. If we fail to prepare our people for the global competition in which our nation is engaged, we will fail to maintain the standard of living that our people have every right to hope for and to expect and we will fail to perform our role as a developed and resource rich country in aiding in the alleviation of poverty elsewhere in the world.
The council's study discovered, among other things, that 30 per cent of Canadian adults who have completed their secondary education have difficulty reading and try to avoid situations that require reading. Thirty-six per cent of adults in the same group cannot perform simple sequences of numerical operations that would enable them to meet most everyday demands. I am quoting from the report A Lot to Learn: Education and Training in Canada.
From the same report are results for science and mathematics, which can be summarized as follows: At age 10, Canadian children compare favourably with those in most industrialized countries. By age 13 or 14, Canada's relative position deteriorates somewhat, though evidence on this is somewhat mixed. By the end of secondary school, Canada's achievement is weak when adjusted per years of schooling, retention rates and freedom of subject choice. The result is particularly pronounced in science but it seems to hold for mathematics as well.
This information is of crucial importance to Canadians in determining how we face the challenges of the future. This is the work produced this year by the Economic Council of Canada. It is able to do this on a budget which is not overly generous because of a broad mandate to study issues related to the economic welfare of Canada.
An existing institution such as this can be redirected, retooled, re-equipped far more effectively, efficiently and with less waste of money than the government has engaged in by disbanding the existing organization and trying to redirect the finances into other efforts that are primarily intended for show rather than for the product they will produce.
November 25, 1992

I would like to cite another 1992 report. It is again by the Economic Council of Canada: The New Face of Poverty: Income Security Needs of Canadian Families.
I cite these two as examples of the breadth of work that has been undertaken by this important council. I am sure people hearing of the disbanding of the Economic Council of Canada have given it very little thought other than to think, well good, perhaps government is cutting back, saving a few dollars here and there.
It is crucial that government have this information. However, it is unusual that an independent agency funded by the Government of Canada can say this, the opening words of the foreword. "The war against poverty stalled in the 1980s".
How important is it that an agency be able to make that statement in the face of the rhetoric that we hear on a regular basis from the other side of the House of Commons? We have been told since this government was elected that poverty has declined when in fact, according to the council, the war on poverty stalled in 1980s.
This is the kind of critical analysis that it is crucial for us to have in order to be able to make the proper policy judgments that are needed as we move through this decade.
The projects, the papers, the work that was ongoing are enormous. This is a council that was extremely productive. Publications alone from 1989 to 1991 include three annual reviews; four council statements on reports, one on Globalization and Canada's Financial Markets in 1989; Good Jobs, Bad Jobs: Employment in the Service Sector in 1990; From the Bottom Up: The Community Economic Development Approach in 1990; New Faces in the Crowd: Economic and Social Impacts of Immigration in 1991.
Research reports; Globalization and Canada's Financial Markets, 1990; Employment in the Service Economy, in 1991; Economic and Social Impacts of Immigration, in 1991; Conference Proceedings, two of those.
Monographs; three on labour markets, two on agriculture, five on other topics. A discussion paper on the proposals to reform the Bankruptcy Act. A list of working papers and an annual publication: Au Courant which contained discussions of many other topics. This was a very well-spent dollar by the Government of Canada. Its loss will be felt and will be noted because we will be deprived of valuable, independent and useful
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advice, advice that can be replaced at a cost, advice that is not always something that the government or the opposition agrees with, but advice that has been useful and that has ensured that the level of debate has been vibrant and has been worth while.
I think the notion, and I conclude on this, that private sector agencies can provide all of this commentary is one that is particularly misleading. Most of the private sector research is funded for a purpose in order to determine certain results.
What we have with the Economic Council of Canada is the ability to mandate an agency to provide what is truly independent advice on subjects of importance in the economy. That advice, I suggest, has not only been valuable but is essential in a democratic environment such as ours.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: Madam Speaker, I was wondering if the member realizes that the whole question of the Economic Council and its validity was explored by the finance committee in 1984 and explored by the finance committee every year after then as it came to the finance committee to study its estimates.
Does the member also understand that when talking of councils, this council does cost or did cost the country about $9 million? The real issue is whether you can get the same advice from people who work for the Department of Finance, the Bank of Canada, the C.D. Howe Institute, the Conference Board, the Niagara Institute, the Fraser Institute and away you go one after another, with every bank having its own economist.
Surely the member would realize that another Government of Canada institute is always suspect. He will know that when the free trade agreement was entered into, the Economic Council of Canada supported the free trade agreement and that council was criticized and railed against by his party day after day in this House because the report of the committee was said to be influenced by the government.
What is the point of having an economic institute that is an arm of the government, so to speak, so that its decisions, claims and investigations are always suspect because they are part of what the government might do? Why is the member so interested in defending an economic institute that is there as an arm of government? It is not really independent. After all, the govern-

November 25, 1992
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ment appoints people to it. The government gives it the space. The government tells it what to do.
Therefore, I am wondering why he wants to defend that expense or does he just want to defend that expense because he and his party do not want us to cut expenses of government? Is he really interested in just bigger and better government, more government, more expense, more borrowing, more, more, more? Do they not ever take a look at these institutions and say: "We do not need this institution any more"?
As far as the Economic Council is concerned, we have lots of places to get advice on economic matters. The government does not need advice from another economic advisory council. The opposition can get its advice from lots of places other than the government's economic council.
Therefore, why would the member, other than just to feather the nest of more accountants or more economists, or make sure that more economists are employed, want to keep this institution going when the government could save, if it is abolished, some $9 million to $10 million a year?


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Resuming debate. Just a second, there seems to be some confusion. I think the hon. member thought there were questions or comments on that. No, there were not. It is a 10-minute debate.
I will recognize the hon. member for Essex-Windsor if the hon. member would kindly sit down for a moment. The hon. member for Mississauga South may continue with his remarks as there is a 10-minute period. If the hon. member would allow me though to take the point of order from the hon. member for Essex-Windsor, I will return to him in a minute.


Steven W. Langdon: Madam Speaker, part of my point of order was simply to point out to the member that this was not the usual 10-minute question and comment period. I also wanted to ask the member as he continues his comments if he could explain why, if he felt as he now says he felt in his years as finance committee chairman, he never sought to eliminate the expenditure on the Economic Council of Canada.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: What is going on here?


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I am sure the hon. member will agree with me that he has gone much further than pointing out what could or could not be a point of order.
At report stage, as the hon. member for Mississauga South should know or should remember, there are only 10-minute speeches with no period of questions and comments. There must be close to five minutes remaining that the hon. member could use.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: That is interesting. I guess the question is whether they really want to cut the deficit of this country, whether they really want to cut the spending of this country, whether they really want bigger and bigger government or smaller and smaller government. We happen to believe in smaller government. We happen to believe that we have to cut down the cost of government. This bill is about cutting down the cost of government. This bill is about eliminating those things in government that are no longer required. Organizations are developed, they blossom, and there comes a time when the sun should set on them. There are some 40 institutions here.


Raymond John Funk: Point of order. Now that the Speaker has pointed out that time is brief, I was wondering if the member might address his thoughts in this brief period to the actual question that was asked by the hon. member for Essex-Windsor.


An hon. member:: Oh, come on, that is not even a point of order.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: The hon. member has risen on debate for 10 minutes. As the subject is quite large, accusing him of not being on the subject is not quite fair at this time.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: My friend wants to know what we were doing in the finance committee. Let me tell him that on a number of occasions, as the chairman of that committee, I spoke to the Minister of Finance and the President of the Treasury Board concerning the institutions that we were examining. You do not always make your reports in the House of Commons when you are a chairman; you often make your reports directly to the minister on a personal basis.
November 25, 1992

I was delighted to see the Economic Council of Canada being terminated. I make no apologies for that. It did not have to be a report in this House. There are other ways of handling the affairs of the country. Those affairs can often be handled much better, not by reports to the House but by quiet conversations with ministers. That is how things get done, and that is what members on this side of the House are doing. They are all the time examining the problems of the country, looking at how institutions and other activities of government are running and trying to make sure that those institutions of government run more efficiently and effectively and that taxpayers' dollars are protected.
I am listening now to the member across the Chamber who claims to be in business. Of course, if he really is interested in making sure Canada works effectively, he would be doing exactly the same. We do not have to make a House of Commons speech or make a House of Commons report to influence how governments operate, how bills are prepared and how bills pass in the House.
The members of the New Democratic Party might well understand that. They might well know that if they really worked the system properly, if they really got to know what the problems were and made sensible suggestions, those suggestions would probably be reflected in government legislation. They know they have to play politics and that is why they are here tonight. That is why they are here tonight debating, opposing and speaking out on this bill. They know in their hearts of hearts the government is doing the right thing. The government is eliminating expenses of agencies and activities of the government that are no longer required.
It is my hope that when the Minister of Finance addresses this House on December 2-


Ross Harvey: Madam Speaker, I must protest. The hon. member is being too modest when he says the government is doing the right thing. In fact, it is doing-


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I do not think the hon. member really knows what a point of order is. The hon. member for Mississauga South.
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Donald Alex Blenkarn: Madam Speaker, he really does not know what a point of order is. He does not know very much about this House, Parliament or government.
The issue really is, what are we going to do to cut back expenses. As I was saying before I was interrupted, it is my hope that the Minister of Finance in his statement next week will also find other places and other activities of the government that perhaps should be restricted or eliminated to eliminate the cost to the people of Canada of too much government.
This House ought to realize that we presently have very severe problems. We have revenue that is away off the original projections. We have bills that must go on. We have people on pensions, activities and transfers, all of those things that must be paid. We can continue to spend on every item that is in this bill, but those expenses are not necessary for my constituents and they are not necessary for yours, Madam Speaker. They can be eliminated. Without any ripple in the water at all, we can eliminate those expenses. That is what we are doing here in this bill.
My hope is that the Minister of Finance on December 2 will eliminate more of these expenses. We cannot continue to carry on activities that are no longer required, that are no longer essential for the peace, order and good government of Canada and this bill ought to pass now and this debate ought to end now.


Dennis Joseph Mills: Mr. Speaker, I listened to the member for Mississauga South. There are many times when I agree with the member and some of his ideas, but on this particular issue I think that the member is off track.
I would like to read for the House and for our viewers the introductory paragraph of the latest Economic Council of Canada estimates: "The Economic Council of Canada fulfils its role as an independent adviser to Parliament by providing objective analysis of Canada's economy. Acting at arm's length from the political process, the council provides policy advice and technical information and contributes to the national debate on economic policy ideas. Its goal is to contribute to the well-being of Canada and Canadians by providing rigorous analysis and pertinent advice to policymakers on national, provincial and regional issues. The council's principal clients are provincial officials, legislators across

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Canada who can request that the council undertake research on their behalf".
I believe the government must concede one thing at a time when our economy is going through such a difficult period. It seems that no matter what formula the government tries in order to put our economy back on track, nothing seems to be working. It seems to me that more than ever we need an independent think tank that would bring forward policy ideas for the purpose of advancing debate on economic issues.
For the life of me, I cannot figure out why the government at this particular juncture would not be supplementing the budget of the Economic Council of Canada. Through you, Mr. Speaker, to the member for Mississauga South, I say he knows of the difficulties. He knows that the Department of Finance is in a gridlock when it comes to advancing ideas or allowing the creative process to move forward. When I tried to fly a couple of ideas past them on tax reform it did not get very far because finance officials are locked into their own programs.
When one moves away or dismantles the Economic Council of Canada, one loses an independent form of audit or accountability on the Department of Finance. The Department of Finance does not have all the answers for developing a strategy of economic renewal for this country. The track record shows that. We need independent ideas that are well researched and that have networks of access.
This Economic Council of Canada is respected all over the world. They can plug into systems of evaluation and systems of analysis on a whole range of issues, not just in terms of our own country, but through other comparable systems right around the world. That is one thing we are forgetting in this debate. This institution has an international reputation and a history and a library of information that not only this legislature but other legislatures across this country can call up on an as-needed basis from time to time.
For the sake of $9 million we are going to dismantle this organization. How much of the resources or the people in the Economic Council will be packaged to other departments of government? Therefore, what is the true saving? Is it a couple of million dollars, maybe, and we are giving up the independence of this unit?
I am totally opposed to this unit in the bill. It shows a lack of appreciation and a lack of respect for the many men and women whose credentials over the years have made this institution one of the finest in the world. I believe the government will really regret it. At this time when we need ideas to debate, it shows once again that when it runs into a problem in terms of the economy, the best thing it knows how to do is cut or dismantle and it is wrong.


Howard Douglas McCurdy: Mr. Speaker, I was really quite amazed by the intervention of the member for Mississauga South.
I wondered whether he might in fact have been a prototype for a character who was a senator in Li'l Abner some years ago. He is not old enough for that to be true, nevertheless, in his bluster, he certainly does remind me of that character.
I was rather taken by what he said about the Economic Council being dispensable because there were so many sources of advice for government. I suppose that to lengthen his list he should have emphasized those sources of advice that have been most influential for this government.
I suppose he might have included on the list the Business Council on National Issues. The Chamber of Commerce undoubtedly would have been on that list. Perhaps more tellingly, Mr. Bush would have been on that list along with Madam Thatcher.
He accuses us of not understanding government and yet he tells us that the Department of Finance provides for all intents and purposes, all the advice that the government needs. I wonder if the hon. member considered himself to be a waste of time as chairman of the House finance committee when he was proffering so much advice which was so consistently rejected. Part of the advice that he provided was that there should be a change in monetary policy and an easing of interest rates out of the consequent lowering of the exchange rate on the dollar.
As I understand it, he did not get that information from the Business Council on National Issues. He did not get it from the Department of Finance. As a matter of fact, I find a wonderful historic concurrence between the advice that he was offering as chairman of that committee and the advice that was being provided by the
November 25, 1992

Economic Council of Canada which he regards as so dispensable.
Maybe it is dispensable because he is no longer chairman of the finance committee. It is clear from the record that the hon. member for Mississauga South had the Economic Council appear before his committee with great frequency to bolster his own arguments.
We have heard mention of a report by the Economic Council on learning in Canada which revealed the catastrophic state of education for too many Canadians. The essential import of that report was the recognition that the competitive environment in which Canada now exists in the global economy puts a great deal of priority on knowledge, skills, education, innovation, research and development, technological diffusion and so on.
I just want to remind the hon. member for Mississauga South that there has not been the slightest significant thrust from the Department of Finance or from the former Minister of Finance to improve Canada's performance with respect to high value-added initiatives that are a reflection of the knowledge, skill and an innovation-intensive economy.
As a matter of fact, this deficit that he talks about that will not allow us to spend $2.5 million on peace and security or $10 million on independent, badly-needed advice that the Economic Council of Canada could have provided, is a result of bad economic planning.
By the way, at least to a significant degree, it is a reflection of the failure of the Department of Finance that he lauds so much when it follows his advice on monetary policy. In fact, 35 per cent of the deficit is made up by payment of interest and lack of revenue. Why is there is a lack of revenue? It is because we had
75,000	bankruptcies this year. We have 1.5 million people unemployed. We have 2.5 million on social assistance and he wonders why we have a deficit. It is because he got bad advice from the finance department.


Some hon. members:: We can't hear you, Howard.


Howard Douglas McCurdy: I think they and everybody in this country do hear me and understand thoroughly what I am describing.
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The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Order, please. Order, please. I cannot hear the hon. member, please. The hon. member for Windsor-St. Clair has the floor.


Howard Douglas McCurdy: I heard pleas from those on the other side who ordinarily have difficulty hearing that they did not hear me. They will hear me because what I am saying is not just about me. They better not pretend to be deaf because the people of Canada are saying they have had enough of this. They have had enough of members such as the member for Mississauga South on the government side saying the whole world is going on as it should and that this is the best of all possible worlds as provided by the neo-Conservative agenda, the know-nothing agenda and the Senator Foghorn agenda.


Mr. Ross Belsher (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and Minister for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency):: Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak this afternoon to the report stage of the legislation before us which deals with cutting back certain agencies which have been appointed in the course of deliberations in the House of Commons.
We are talking about eliminating the Economic Council which was mandated in 1963 to provide advice and ways to increase economic growth and improve the quality of life for Canadians.
With a multisector body of 28 members, a staff of 118 and an annual budget of $10.3 million, the council has produced over the years numerous studies and reports, including an annual review of medium and long-term economic prospects and problems.
The budget announcement to wind up the council was made in light of the government's need to carefully assess the priorities for the limited funding available for arm's length research and advice.
As I said before, the council had been established in 1963 at a time when the infrastructure for research was far less developed than it is now. Today, there are many other sources of such advice in places such as universities and think tanks like the Conference Board, the C.D. Howe Institute, the Fraser Institute and the Institute of Research and Public Policy to name but a few.
The government can no longer afford to support a separate organization for these purposes.

November 25, 1992
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Of the studies under way at the council at the time of announcing the closure, the government decided that five studies should be completed. These studies deal with the government and competitiveness-this was initiated by the council at the Prime Minister's request I might add-human resources management in Canada, cost effectiveness of the Canadian health care system, Canada's changing industrial structure and adaption strategies and Canada's commercial relations with the Pacific rim.
Three of the studies are now being completed through a contract with the University of Ottawa and Queen's University and are being overseen by the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce. CIDA and Statistics Canada are handling the other two studies.
Funding has been provided by Treasury Board for these contracts. The savings estimated at budget time for the closure of the agency are coming to fruition. The government will save $10.3 million annually, minus the cost of finishing the existing studies that I have just outlined.
In conclusion, the closure of the Economic Council will result in the government achieving its goal of saving taxpayers' money, rationalizing government and better targeting of funding for economic research and advice.
As with all other agencies to be wound up, the government requested the council and the Department of Industry, Science and Technology to prepare a windup plan. The aim was to ensure that the assets of this organization were protected, that the employees were treated in a fair and a humane manner, and that arrangements were made for existing contractual commitments.
In a letter dated June 10 of this year the chairman of the Economic Council wrote to the legislative committee on Bill C-63 confirming arrangements that were made regarding its assets. The letter indicated the library collections were turned over to the National Library pursuant to the National Library Act. The electronic data holding including the economic models were disposed of pursuant to the National Archives Act. The method of operating and manipulating the models was documented and the models were then transferred to the archives.
We have before us tonight the legislation reported back from the legislative committee without amendment, permitting the government to move forward with this piece of legislation which flows from this year's budget to completion. I trust we will be able to vote on it now.


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


Some hon. members:: Question.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The question is on Motion No. 21. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.


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


Some hon. members:: Yea.


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


Some hon. members:: Nay.


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


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Pursuant to Standing Order 76(8), a recorded division on the proposed motion stands deferred.


Steven W. Langdon: Motion No. 44.
That Bill C-63 be amended by deleting Clause 24.
Motion No. 46.
That Bill C-63 be amended by deleting Clause 25.
Motion No. 48.
That Bill C-63 be amended by deleting Clause 26.


Derek Vincent Lee: Motion No. 49.
That Bill C-63 be amended in Clause 26 by adding immediately
after line 35 at page 5 the following:
"The Minister shall
(a) identify property, including intellectual property, data bases, models or library materials, that was created by the Centre in the fulfilment of its mandate and that have a capital or commercial value; and
November 25, 1992

(b) transfer that property, with or without valuable consideration, to a federal, provincial or non-governmental body to be used to pursue that body's mandate."


Steven W. Langdon: Motion No. 51.
That Bill C-63 be amended by deleting Clause 27.
Motion No. 53.
That Bill C-63 be amended by deleting Clause 28.
Motion No. 55.
That Bill C-63 be amended by deleting Clause 29.
He said: Mr. Speaker, at this stage we are dealing with a third institution which the government has sought to eliminate. We on this side of the House feel it has been serving a useful purpose and has been, in this case, an important institution for Atlantic Canada in particular.
The International Centre for Ocean Development is the institution with which these particular amendments deal. Again the attempt is to eliminate the clauses of the bill which seeks to wind up various institutions, dealing with winding up the International Centre for Ocean Development or ICOD.
ICOD is an organization which was announced in 1981 at a Commonwealth Head of States Conference. It was incorporated following the 1982 signing of the UN Conference on the Law of the Sea. It therefore was something that very much followed on an objective for which the Canadian government had fought for many years: the establishment of a Law of the Sea treaty.
The centre became a Crown corporation in 1985. As of 1992-93 it was costing the people of Canada something in the order of $13.3 million. Of the 74 people who worked for it, most of them were in Halifax, some were overseas and some were in Ottawa. It also had a board of directors including a chairman, a president, seven directors from Canada, and up to five directors internationally-
This centre, as we discovered in our discussions in committee, was of importance for two reasons. First, it was of importance because it dealt with many of the serious concerns not just of Canada but of many countries in trying to manage the ocean's resources effectively. We in this country of all countries should be aware of the immense potential problems which exist in ocean management.
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We have seen the Atlantic coast fisheries devastated by the failures in ocean management. We have seen the complete shutdown of large parts of the Newfoundland fishery. We have seen the near shutdown of large parts of the gulf fishery. This is just one example of the tremendous cost to the country of not managing ocean resources properly.
This institution was established to help Canada and to help poorer developing countries throughout the world carry forward such ocean management successfully.
Again the government will claim that it is saving money by shutting this institution down. Yet every bit of activity which ICOD is undertaking is being transferred to CIDA and to funding by CIDA. This means that in practice we will be spending virtually the same amount of money. We will probably find ourselves having to spend even more money in dealing with some of our domestic oceans management problems as a consequence of winding up ICOD.
The second point however which is important about this institution is that it is one of the few institutions located in Atlantic Canada. It is one of the few government bodies established there on an independent basis providing inputs, professional jobs and specialized activities for scientists in Atlantic Canada. It is some way in which this government offers to the people of Atlantic Canada a chance to participate in trying to develop policy and work with the Government of Canada on ocean management questions which are important to Atlantic Canada and important throughout the world.
We had testimony in front of the legislative committee indicating to us these very significant contributions to the Atlantic Canada economy, especially for professional employment, especially for the scientific employment which ICOD provided. Yet we have the government eliminating this institution despite the fact that much of the expenditure will continue to be made. The difference is that the expenditure will not be made in Atlantic Canada. It will be made in central Canada. There will be a shift in resources contributing to the well-being of Atlantic Canada from the Halifax area to Ottawa.
I cannot see how it makes any sense, in a country already marked by inequalities of opportunity and inequalities of government activity in Atlantic Canada compared with central Canada, to shut down this institu-

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tion and have its work carried forward by CIDA located in central Canada.
I would therefore urge the House to accept these amendments, not just because of the value of ICOD but because the government in its prosperity report-and I mentioned earlier in the House of Commons this legislation is to eliminate various institutions-is suggesting the establishment of six new institutions.
I listened with amusement to the member from Mississauga, the former chairman of the finance committee, who suggested that the government wished to save money by eliminating institutions. The government, having moved to eliminate these institutions, brought forward a report to establish six new institutions, many of them duplicating the work of the institutions being eliminated here.
These institutions which will be newly established in 1992 or 1993 will be far more costly than keeping the present institutions going. I hope the member from Mississauga, the former chairman of the finance committee, will explain to the House how establishing six new expensive institutions, as the prosperity report recommends-a quality institute, a prosperity council, an institute for sustainable development, a centre for learning, a forum for learning, and new federal-provincial bodies to help in different areas of our economy-will somehow help the expenditure position of the federal government.
Of course it will not. The government is eliminating institutions which it did not set up so that it can set up new institutions and spend new money, probably more money, to establish new institutions which undoubtedly will be staffed by Conservatives.
Undoubtedly these institutions will provide new patronage opportunities for Conservatives. That is at the heart of what is taking place. This is not a story about saving money; this is a story about eliminating good important institutions in parts of the country like Atlantic Canada and establishing six new institutions which will be sources of patronage for this dying Conservative government.


Hon. Roger C. Simmons (Burin-St. George's):: Mr. Speaker, I have always listened with rapt attention to my good friend for Mississauga South. This man is known by
reputation and by some of the sentiments he expresses, not just in this Chamber, but is known particularly in my home province of Newfoundland and Labrador.
The hon. member for Mississauga South is remembered there for very good reasons. In Newfoundland, no man's return is more anticipated and looked forward to than the gentleman from Mississauga South. They are ready for him and they want to have a party for him. They have picked the site. They have the refreshments all ready and indeed, they have the rope all ready. The rope is ready and they cannot wait.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: They didn't even bring it out.


Roger Simmons: If he was there this summer, it was the best kept secret in Newfoundland. I can understand why he would go incognito. He has some concerns.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: I went there bold as brass.


Roger Simmons: He might not know much about government but he knows a lot about survival. What I say to him is that they are all ready. Anytime he is ready to go incognito, I will take him to the site.
Why do I treat my friend from Mississauga South so charitably today? Because I wanted attention drawn to the one who tells us about downsizing government. He is the one who has expressed some fairly lively opinions about Newfoundlanders. He did that. When he paints, he paints with a fairly broad brush you understand. I had a professor at Boston University who used to say: "All natives walk in single file; at least the one I saw did". That pretty well sums up the approach of the member for Mississauga South.
Let me come now to something he said today. I do not know why I get exercised about this because he usually says very outlandish things anyway. But to show the consistency of the man, let me tell you what he said today.
We had a great oration from him about downsizing government. As I listened and watched him today I had some difficulty reconciling his position on the matter of downsizing with the position that he adopted during the GST issue, because the Auditor General's report is now out and it confirms exactly what we said in the GST debate.
November 25, 1992

The Auditor General said yesterday that the government talks about downsizing government out of one side of its mouth and has just proceeded to bring 4,000 more people on staff just to collect another tax.
This is the government that was going to replace the old manufacturers' sales tax with the GST because it was going to simplify things. It was going to simplify the administration. It simplified it all right, at a cost of $1.7 billion and that is just the money to set up the new machine to collect the tax. It cost $1.7 billion to take the tax from people who can ill afford to pay. Elow is that for downsizing government? There are an extra 4,000 employees to collect the tax.
Think what that could do, Mr. Speaker, in your riding or mine in terms of industry. Just think of what industries you might have in your riding or I might have in mine. Four thousand people. Who is paying for it? All the people who are paying the GST. The member for Mississauga South says it is all right because it is all part of downsizing government you understand. My, what you can justify in the name of downsizing. Now we come to this.


An hon. member:: Chickening out.


Roger Simmons: It is all right. He is just going to make a call to make sure he can get the next plane to Newfoundland. He got so excited about that reception I told him about he wants to get there. He has taken the view that: "If t'were to be done, t'were best it were done quickly". However, I say to him, Mr. Speaker, that he should wait for my company because I have a better rapport with some of those people than he does. The bit of mercy in me says that perhaps I should be there too, because a rope can be used for all kinds of things and I would not want it to be put to the wrong purpose, although the motive might be well-intentioned.
As part of the government's downsizing effort it wants to wipe out the International Centre for Ocean Development. Who is it that wants to remove from the scene an organization that since 1981 has provided technical assistance and information and training programs to improve management and utilization of ocean resources? Who would want to do that? Who wants to do it at this particular time and juncture in our history?
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I remind you, Mr. Speaker, that this juncture in our history includes the worst crisis in the Atlantic fishery where the whole area is on its knees. Community after community is facing the threat of extinction. People who have traditionally worked for eleven and a half months a year are now walking around, not because they are too lazy to go to work, but because there is no work to go to and no fish to catch. That has to relate to the kind of management we have had of the ocean resources.
Who in their right minds would want to wipe out an organization with that mandate? You got it, sir. You guessed it. The same crowd that put those people in Atlantic Canada into that mess by mismanagement of the ocean resources. Why do they not want any advice on how to manage ocean resources? Because there is always the fear that the advice might actually tell them they are doing something wrong. If there is one thing the crowd on the other side of the House cannot stand, it is having someone tell them they are doing something wrong. To put it differently, even when they are told they are doing something wrong they do not much care. Remember, 85 per cent of Canadian people told them they did not want the GST but they got it anyway.
Without seeking to defeat my own argument, what is the point if government gets advice on anything? It is not followed anyway. That is why the fishery in Atlantic Canada is in the mess it is. That is why the fishery on the west coast of Canada is in the mess it is. It is because the management of the ocean resources by this administration has been absolutely abysmal and shameful.
If that were just a bit of rhetoric, if that were just a few words, what difference? There may be a few people watching television or some people here, but what is the difference? Behind those words is the reality that thousands upon thousands of people in Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and P.E.I. are suffering tonight. Thousands of families are suffering tonight. Thousands of heads of households, men and women, are faced with great uncertainty tonight throughout Atlantic Canada. They can no longer do what they were traditionally able to do because of the bungled management of the ocean resources by this administration.
Then, government has the gall to come in here and ask me because I represent the people of Ramea and the

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people of Burgeo, Grand-Bruit, Grey River and those other dozens of communities that are being devastated by the mismanagement of the cod stocks: "Would you agree to putting out of existence yet another agency dedicated to the marine environment and ocean resources?" My answer to that government on behalf of those people in those communities is: "No, I will not agree to that. No, I will not agree".


Ross Belsher: Mr. Speaker, just a short recap on what these motions are about.
In the February 1992 budget, it was decided to wind up the International Centre for Ocean Development. ICOD was doing some of the same functions being done by CIDA, the Canadian International Development Agency. The role of ICOD does not require that it be a separate organization. This is why the government decided to wind up ICOD and transfer its resources to CIDA.
The resulting savings in overhead, some $3.3 million, will be redirected within the official development assistance envelope for programming. CIDA will take the appropriate measures to ensure that assistance in relation to ocean resources continues to be provided to developing countries.
The work of ICOD has been accomplished with a staff of 74 and an annual budget of $13.3 million. At the government's request, ICOD and CIDA have prepared a wind-up plan for approval. The plan which was approved by Treasury Board outlines a fair and humane severance package for ICOD employees and the transfer of necessary working files to CIDA and the arrangements for ICOD's existing contractual agreements. For example, ICOD has contracted its programming activities to the Consulting and Audit Group of Canada pending parliamentary approval of dissolution. After dissolution, CIDA will assume this contract.
In conclusion, the government's decision to wind up ICOD will mean more aid for international programming for developing countries. It will mean less overhead and a rationalization of the government's department and agency portfolio.


Derek Vincent Lee: Mr. Speaker, I want to add a couple of points to the debate from the submission of the hon. member opposite.
The assets and the surviving program of the International Centre for Ocean Development are being transferred or rolled over to CIDA. One can only hope that CIDA will pursue the objectives, the mandate and the functions of the international centre with as much vigour as the international centre itself did.
There are not too many other things that I can usefully contribute to the debate, other than quote a statement made in 1985 by the Hon. Stewart Mclnnes who was then parliamentary secretary to the minister for international trade.
At that time, the international centre was in business. It was in the process of undertaking projects aimed at developing food resources in the sea in underdeveloped countries. I gather that has gone on in some 35 countries. It did a good job. It is still doing a good job even though it appears as though the centre is out of business now.
In 1985 Mr. Mclnnes said: "We believe that the International Centre for Ocean Development will add an important new dimension to our efforts to assist less fortunate nations. Canada, a great maritime centre, will use this centre to share its long experience and expertise in maritime resource management. As we are all aware, the ocean is a potential major source of food that needs to be developed as soon as possible".
I will close by noting that at a year in this century when Canada appears to have mismanaged its own cod stocks on the east coast, creating a desperate situation there, it is the same year that this government decides we should no longer be in the business of providing expertise through the international centre to the less developed countries. Maybe it is an appropriate year to dissolve.


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


Some hon. members:: Question.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?
November 25, 1992


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.


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


Some hon. members:: Yea.


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


Some hon. members:: Nay.


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


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Pursuant to Standing Order 76(8), a recorded division on the proposed motion stands deferred.


Steven W. Langdon: Motion No. 57
That Bill C-63 be amended by deleting Clause 30.


Derek Vincent Lee: Motion No. 58.
That Bill C-63 be amended in Clause 30 by adding immediately after line 30 at page 6 the following:
"(3) The Minister of Justice shall
(a)	identify property, including intellectual property, data bases, models or library materials, that were created or acquired by the Commission in the fulfilment of its mandate and that have a capital or commercial value; and
(b)	transfer that property, with or without valuable consideration, to a federal, provincial or non-governmental body to be used to pursue that body's mandate."


Steven W. Langdon: Motion No. 60.
That Bill C-63 be amended by deleting Clause 31.
Motion No. 62.
That Bill C-63 be amended by deleting Clause 32.
Motion No. 64.
That Bill C-63 be amended by deleting Clause 33.
Motion No. 66.
That Bill C-63 be amended by deleting Clause 34.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I will simply move the motions. I would like to permit my colleague to actually speak on it since he is our justice critic.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is there consent?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.
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Mr. Ian Waddell (Port Moody-Coquitlam):: Mr. Speaker, I thank all my colleagues in the House. I have been watching many of them debate these motions on television. I must be a little bit masochistic to sit there and watch them when there are so many other choices.
However, it is a good debate. It brings, through the member for Mississauga who is on the government benches and is always, even though I disagree with him most of the time, controversial and engages the debate. He is truly one of the best exponents of the Conservative philosophy. It is not my philosophy but he puts it forward very well.
The hon. member for Essex-Windsor, the NDP finance critic, has really made the point in the debate for our side. One of the points he made, and it is an important point and it certainly pertains to these amendments on the Law Reform Commission, is that the government is really not going to save money in the long run. It is just taking the money that it would spend on some of these problems and shifting it over to other bodies or other ways of doing it. It is the same amount of money, but the difference is that it will control the other bodies, it will control what is being said. In other words, these will not be independent bodies.
The member gave the example of the Economic Council of Canada. The council was a bit of a thorn in the side of the government; that is gone. Now we have studies by an institute at Queen's and other studies through the finance department, and so on, which will, of course, be controlled by the government because it pays the piper.
I want to talk about the Law Reform Commission. These amendments deal specifically with the Law Reform Commission. I am the justice critic for the federal NDP and as a lawyer I have been involved over many years. Actually I became a lawyer about the time the Law Reform Commission was established in 1971. The Law Reform Commission is 20 years old.
It was established by the Law Reform Commission Act and it reports to Parliament through the Minister of Justice. Its mandate was to provide an ongoing review of the statutes of Canada to make recommendations for improvement, modernization and reform of legislation. It undertook some research in-house, contracted out other work to consultants on a full or part-time basis, held seminars and conferences, visited universities and

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schools, published articles and learned journals, et cetera.
If I can put it in plain English, the Law Reform Commission looked at changing the law in a systematic, very intelligent, rational way and it has produced good results. Recently we were forced by the courts to pass new legislation on mental health because the old law was against the charter of rights. On abortions, on juries, the courts in fact threw out parts of the law and we had to come back to Parliament and revise it so that it would be within the charter of rights. In some of those cases the Law Reform Commission had long recommended this reform before it happened.
We dealt with a bill called the Contraventions Act. It took a number of minor federal statutes like speeding a boat, minor pollution laws, trespassing on federal property in a national park, being in the park without a permit or licence and so on and put forward a very simple procedure to deal with them, much as we do with the highway traffic acts when one gets a speeding or parking ticket in the province or city in which one lives. The Law Reform Commission had recommended that awhile ago and we in Parliament followed what the Law Reform Commission had recommended.
The Law Reform Commission was working, it was independent and it was producing these reports that were useful. We were spending about $4.8 million a year. What is going to happen now? We are going to do the research in-house. We are going to do it by contracting out of the Department of Justice and so on.
Does the House know what that will mean? It will mean more bucks for some big, fat Vancouver law firms. They are already making a lot of money from this minister. It will be more contracts to their friends and reports that the government can live with. If it does not like the report, it will not make it public, whereas the Law Reform Commission reports were always public because it reported to Parliament.
One of the commission's highlights for 1992 to 1993 was to continue a comprehensive study of the Criminal Code. Several recommendations by the commission have been used by the Supreme Court, other courts, lawyers or incorporated in government and private members' bills. I am a member, along with my colleague from the
Liberal Party, the member for Cape Breton on the justice committee. Part of the subcommittee of that committee is considering revisions to the general part of the Criminal Code and we have used the work of the Law Reform Commission.
Here we had something that was working, something that was not too expensive, something useful and something that was independent of this government. That is the rub. It does not want an independent body. It wants to do the research in-house. It is going to spend the same amount of money and control the research.
I am concerned about some of the reactions to the demise of the Law Reform Commission. JJ. Camp, president of the Canadian Bar Association was quoted in The Ottawa Citizen, March 11, 1992, as saying: "I have had it reported to me by some sources that the Law Reform Commission was too independent. I bridle at that because I do not believe there is such a thing as being too independent". This did not come from the justice critic of the NDP, or the justice critic of the Liberal Party who is in the House tonight. This came from the president of the Canadian Bar Association.
Also, Vincent Del Buono, the president of the Society for the Reform of Criminal Law, is quoted in The Ottawa Citizen as saying: "The Law Reform Commission, both in terms of the legal talent it has nurtured in Canada and abroad and the prestige that its recommendations hold, has had a far greater impact than the simple mechanical assessment of its legislative implementation record would suggest. The fact of the matter is that this is a small change and what we are doing is taking the engines of new ideas and future thinking in the government and cutting them off". That is a serious charge that Mr. Del Buono makes.
In other words, here is a place where there are fresh and new ideas and we are cutting them off. Also, the president of-

-the Association des avocats de la defense de Montreal said in La Presse, and I quote: "The federal government used its latest budget to terminate the Law Reform Commission of Canada, an agency whose relevance to the Canadian legal system was recognized across this
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country. We feel this so-called austerity measure is entirely unjustified".
[English)
He said that this decision, taken supposedly for economic matters or to save money, was unjustified. I did not say that. It was the President of the Montreal Defence Advocates Association. They are lawyers in Montreal and independent, outside sources.
A lawyer working for the Law Reform Commission who is not quite so independent, put it very well. She is Susan Zimmerman and one of the few people who did this. Some people in the Law Reform Commission managed to get some nice jobs out of the government. They sort of got paid off so that they would not make comments about the demise of the commission. This woman had some courage to do it.
She said: "The commission was created to provide a vehicle for lawyers and occasionally philosophers to reflect on the law as it stands and as it ought to be. This is not an idle pursuit. It is a vital part of the life of a healthy democracy which is founded on the rule of law".
The Minister of Justice made a famous speech. Perhaps it is not as famous as her Madonna-like posing in the recent coffee table photograph book. In her more serious endeavour, she said earlier this year that politicians were too often letting the courts make tough decisions for them. She called this "an abdication of Parliament's role as the primary agent of social change".
The Minister of Justice says that Parliament should be making the social change and changing the law. In fact, what we should have been doing in this Parliament, in the time of this Minister of Justice who is spoken of now as the next Conservative leader, is looking at the record. The record is that we have been responding to the courts that have told us we have to change the Mental Health Act and the abortion and juries part of the Criminal Code and so on. It refers to a number of acts along with the abortion part of the Criminal Code.
We have not been carrying this out the way we are supposed to. The Minister of Justice was right originally. We have to be the agents of legal change in this Parliament. We need independent advice to do that. We
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had it from the Law Reform Commission of Canada. It cost us $4 million, but we are going to spend the money anyway. We are going to spend it in contracts.
Instead of sending it to fat law firms and to consultants who are in the pocket of the Department of Justice, I say that it would be better to keep the Law Reform Commission of Canada. There are only two other countries in the industrialized world that do not have a Law Reform Commission. This is a false economy and I challenge my friends to get up and defend this saving because I say that this is indefensible. If you want to save money, there are lots of ways you could save money. This is a small amount and it is an important amount. It created an independent commission which we do not have any more.


Mr. Russell MacLellan (Cape Breton-The Sydneys):: Mr. Speaker, I would first of all like to follow up on the last remark of my colleague from Port Moody-Coquitlam when he talked about the money for the Law Reform Commission as being a small amount, but an important amount.
What we mean is that relatively speaking it is a small amount, $4.8 million, considering the good that this funding has done. This funding has acted as a cement to our legal system in Canada, along with our Supreme Court of Canada.
The member from Mississauga, who would have no more idea about the rule of law than he would about a turkey shoot, would not know the difference. His philosophy is that if you do not like somebody take them out and tie them to a parking meter, if there are not any stocks available in your community.
The Law Reform Commission goes back centuries in Great Britain. It goes back in this country to 1968 when the Canadian Bar Association actually requested that the governments of this country enter into these organizations so that we would have a means of projecting the needs of our legal system into the future. In this way our law would always have something to look to in terms of important writing and original thinking, and we would be able to take not a whole book, not a whole concept, but various ideas from one writing, from one periodical, and bring together new laws that reflect the needs of society

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at a particular time. This was done when the Law Reform Commission was set up in 1971.
It has existed and done excellent work since that date. In fact, all of the provinces in Canada have Law Reform Commissions. The only government jurisdiction of the 11 federal and provincial governments that does not have one now is the federal government. All the provinces have Law Reform Commissions but the federal government does not. In a federal system of government that is absolutely incredible, absolutely stupid. Not only that, but in the British Commonwealth of Nations, Canada now joins Bangladesh and Zimbabwe as the only three countries in the Commonwealth without a Law Reform Commission.
There are those who say that the Law Reform Commission has not done anything because it has never had its ideas put into law holus-bolus. Well, that is not the way it works. Not any piece of writing, not any organization, not any person has all the right concepts needed to formulate the law for the future, but the concepts have to be there. Some will be chosen, some will not. The idea is that there be some thinking ahead into the future.
The importance of the Law Reform Commission is reflected in the fact that work of the Law Reform Commission has been cited in 255 court decisions in this country, including 44 decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada.
As my friend from Port Moody-Coquitlam has said, what the government hopes to do in closing down the Law Reform Commission is do this work itself, which is an entirely different idea than allowing the Law Reform Commission to do it.
As the member mentioned, J. J. Camp, the former president of the Canadian Bar Association, said: "I have heard it said that they were too independent",-meaning the Law Reform Commission-"I do not think that is possible".
If the government takes it over and does it in-house it will, as my learned friend from Port Moody-Coquitlam has said, probably wind up spending as much if not more. The difference will be that it will not be original thinking. The government will be able to bring forward the ideas it wants brought forward. It will be engendering its own thinking as it wants to impose it. What a terrible
situation in a free countiy like Canada. What an odious procedure.
The Department of Justice is too prosecutorial. It looks at one side. The government departments, and the Department of Justice in particular, will have a conflict of interest because they will be bringing forward ideas in which they are engaged or plan to be engaged. That is like allowing the lawyer for the plaintiff or the defendant in a case before the courts write the decision. It is absolutely incredible and totally unacceptable.
As well, a policy paper may be used by the opposing side against the government. If the government introduces an idea, a concept, then that is forward, front and centre, as the thinking of the Department of Justice.
In a subsequent case, what is to stop a lawyer from taking this position of the Department of Justice and putting it before the court, from saying: "My lord, the Department of Justice is advocating this position, which I am now advocating in this case against the Department of Justice".
What a stupid position for the Department of Justice to put itself in. What an absolutely ludicrous procedure. Not only that, but we may never even find out what the writings are and what they state. We may never actually see the reports. The government may decide it wants to use the reports itself and therefore will not release them for others to benefit from them. No more will we have the courts relying on and quoting the work of the Law Reform Commission.
This whole procedure is totally offensive. Not only has the Law Reform Commission been quoted but in the 20 years since its creation it has produced 33 reports to Parliament, 61 working papers and 76 study papers.
A lot of that work will never be used. Some may say that it is frivolous, useless work. People could say that certainly about this House, and particularly about this government, yet its salaries and budgets go on.
I would say categorically that the work of the Law Reform Commission has provided much more benefit, generally speaking, than the work of this government, which has decimated the economy of this country.
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It has been done because this government does not like criticism. This government does not want independent thinking. This government is totally and utterly afraid of new ideas. This government is an unmitigated Neanderthal. The reason for this is not cost cutting. The reason is the government does not want criticism.
I just want to read a couple of quotes. In Washington, the Solicitor General, the former Minister of Justice, stated that we in Canada are proud of the work of the Law Reform Commission. That was the former Minister of Justice. The present Minister of Justice stated in May 1990 that the commission's draft Criminal Code, which has been the subject of so much favourable comment both in Canada and internationally, would be of great assistance to the committee in its review, which is presently going on, of the general provisions of the Criminal Code.
The present Minister of Justice praised the work of the Law Reform Commission on the Criminal Code. No one except this government applauds the demise of the Law Reform Commission. We on this side of the House and members of the legal profession would say that this is a dark moment for law and legal thinking in Canada. We can only hope, although we have no precedent for this, that the government will show some intelligence and change its mind on this matter.


Scott Jon Thorkelson: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to say a few words in this debate.
I will agree with the hon. members who have spoken when they said that the Law Reform Commission has done good work. Yes, it has done good work. It was created in 1971 to help governments overhaul their laws and certainly it has done good work. Various governments have listened to its advice on many occasions and we have overhauled laws.
It costs $4.9 million each year. It has five full-time commissioners and a staff of 36. That is a lot of staff and a lot of commissioners, and it costs a lot of money.
It is my belief that in Canada we have created too many commissions and too many boards, and in a certain way we have devalued Parliament. I would rather see work of this nature done by parliamentary committees.
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The member for Windsor-St. Clair has spoken so eloquently in committee meetings about the value of Parliament and how Canadians want to change. Part of that change should be that we should do more work like that done by the Law Reform Commission in the past.
It is too easy to spin out regulatory agencies and advisory bodies and so on. However, what is the role of Parliament and the role of committees but to give advice to the government? History since the McGrath commission in 1986 has shown that committees have given very independent and very good advice.
The laws that have emanated from Parliament after the reforms have been better laws than they would have been before House of Commons reform.
I ask my opposition colleagues where Parliament should fit in. Do we always have to spin off things that Parliament should be doing? Do they not believe in parliamentary reform? They talk a good story. Yet they want to create commissions and spend money and only do the politicking, but not the serious business of looking at policy in an analytical way, creating public policy and coming up with new ideas, which is what we should be doing.
Parliament has a role to play. The justice committee, of which I am a member as is the previous member who spoke and the member for Port Moody-Coquitlam, is involved, and has been, in several major studies. We have had an impact. Perhaps what should be done is to generally beef up the research bureaus of parliamentary committees and empower them to come forward with policy positions and papers.
Some committees have appended draft laws to then-reports and have suggested the House leaders consider these draft laws and the government adopt and introduce them. Private members have come forward with their own private members' bills to improve the laws in the country.
I say to my colleagues in response, we have had an independent agency that has done a lot of good work but it is time we ourselves did this work and brought some prestige back to Parliament. Let us not devalue Parliament by giving its role to outsiders. We can do that independent work.

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There is also a fiscal argument here. It is an expenditure of $5 million a year. We have had a deficit over the past years of roughly $30 billion a year, now $34.6 billion has to be borrowed. We have to borrow that money each year and then we have to borrow money to cover the interest on that money each year. It is a vicious cycle.
The government has had to take a hard look at where we spend our money. Some of this work will be contracted out but there will be a net saving. There will be a net saving this year of $300,000, and $2.1 million annually in the future.
Some work will be contracted from the Department of Justice but it is my hope that the justice committee itself will be able to do some of this work. The people involved in the Law Reform Commission have been placed elsewhere. I understand that most of them have jobs.
The government has been quite responsible in looking after the people who were affected by this. The library and research material has been transferred to the Department of Justice. I am sure, as the justice committee or as individual members of Parliament, if we asked to see some of that research, we would have access to that material too.
I support this bill to streamline a number of agencies, of which one is the Law Reform Commission. The Law Reform Commission has done good work but it is time for Parliament to regain its role as the maker of policy. It is time for committees to come forward with new ideas and reforms. I believe we can do that. It is time to get our fiscal house in order and this is one small part of it. Five million dollars a year is not insignificant. Opposition members think that money grows on trees. Everyone pays taxes and that is a lot of tax dollars, $5 million.
I believe we are doing the right thing.


Derek Vincent Lee: Mr. Speaker, I have one short comment on the issue of independence of these advisory bodies. At the moment we are speaking about the Law Reform Commission of Canada.
Have we ever thought about how absolutely difficult it is, maybe even impossible, for career civil servants in one of the ministries-let us take the Department of Justice-to do some original research. They make an original,
independent proposal to the minister. I say that this just does not happen any more, that individuals in the Public Service have a career and their job is basically to do their job, to do what the minister wants them to do.
When the minister and the government say they want to embark on a certain path, the department will simply do that. I do not want to call all civil servants yes men and yes women, but basically they are going to do the job they are asked to do. They are going to do it in the way that is most consistent in the eyes of the minister, so that the minister will smile and indicate that they are a great workers and have done a great job and they will go a long way in the department.
The problem is that there does not exist enough mechanisms, if any, within the Public Service to generate the independent approach that is absolutely critical in giving government some guidance for the future. That is the kind of advice and research that the Law Reform Commission has been carrying on for a couple of decades.
Members opposite may even acknowledge, some of them will not, the leading role in independent advice that this agency has given. Other agencies-and we are dealing with she here today-have done that same kind of independent research and to government and given advice to Parliament. We are now going to be without it.
It is naive to believe that the justice department is going to commission some original work or research or drafting that is going to give it a product that varies one iota from the product that the justice ministry wants or that they wanted when they started out.
We need a mechanism like the Law Reform Commission. I regret that we are losing it.


James Ross Fulton: Mr. Speaker, I do not have a long speech to give. The House will appreciate that I like to keep my comments concise. I was encouraged to get to my feet after the remarks by the member for Edmonton-Strathcona suggesting that the justice committee of the House is now going to take over the work of the Law Reform Commission. That is pure, unadulterated smoke and mirrors.
I came to this place from the criminal justice system and I know of the work that has been done over the last more than 20 years by the Law Reform Commission. We
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need an independent body that can take the time to do some future thinking, to look at the Criminal Code, to look at how laws are evolving, to look at how juries are dealing with certain matters, to look at how different judges in different areas of the country are dealing with things, to look at what is being said by the public, to hear what the public interest is saying.
We need an independent body that can do that kind of futuristic analysis and reporting to the Minister of Justice and to Parliament.
When we hear a member of the justice committee on the government side suggesting spuriously to this House that the justice committee is going to pick this up and carry it, he is doing a disservice to this House and a disservice to all Canadians who are interested in this. He might think the justice committee is actually going to do it but it cannot. It is functionally impossible, no matter how much you reform it.
Let us look at the last couple of months. The House was sitting in June. It was closed in July and August. There was the referendum in September and October. There is a four month period, one-third of the year, gone where the justice committee never sat one day, one hour, one minute on a single issue. During that whole period of time an independent body like the Law Reform Commission can carry on its ongoing investigations and research into changes that this Parliament needs to enact over time.
Earlier today we heard one of the members on the government side saying it costs $200,000 a day for the House of Commons to sit or maybe he even said $200,000 an hour, some preposterous sum at any rate. The total budget in the most recent 1991-92 fiscal year for the Law Reform Commission was $4.9 million for 36 person-years.
If the government side were really serious, that its serious intention was to put an adjunct body attached to the justice committee, do you not think the justice committee would have seen some kind of a work plan, that Whips and House Leaders would have had some discussions about a multimillion dollar adjunct body being attached to Parliament? It might have been a good idea if the government had been serious about it.
I still do not think it would have been as good as an independent commission. I do not think smoke and
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mirrors and charade-like arguments should be put on the floor of the House. I do not think anyone who has been associated with the Law Reform Commission for a moment thinks that anything other than the one comment that the member did make is likely to be true and it is that this kind of work is to be contracted out to law firms that are friends with the government or firms that are likely to deliver the kind of report back the government would like to implement on hot topical criminal justice issues.
Whether we are talking about capital punishment, abortion, firearm's issues, violence or about a lot of the more serious community sensitive law issues, there are political sensitivities. Of course it is easier for a government to shrug off independent advice and take advice that follows along in the same ideological rut as that party is in.
I do not bar my own party, the Liberal Party or any other party from that natural near politically instinctive role of trying to head off any kind of serious political heat that is coming toward you, whether it is in the case of someone like Philip Ng in terms of an extradition proceeding or whether it is in relation to some terribly complex and difficult issue such as some of the issues of violence that this House has to deal with in terms of reforming the Criminal Code.
I reject the facile arguments that have been put before the Chamber tonight because I do not think anyone with any interest in the law or anyone who has ever had any association with the Law Reform Commission would buy it for a moment, but the justice committee is going to do it because there is no work plan, there has been no suggestion in the committee. The chair has not come to our critic. There has been no money put forward. There have been no researchers hired. The library of the Law Reform Commission was not sent over to the justice committee so they could set up this body and start doing it.
I think it is disreputable and dishonest to try to bull the public on these kinds of issues that have significance over time. We have one of the highest rates of incarceration in the western world. We have some endemic and epidemic problems within the justice system. There are very high levels of incarceration of aboriginal people. There is extraordinarily unusual sentencing procedures

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that affect people of certain income levels, backgrounds, education and employment opportunities.
I used to write pre-sentence reports for a living. I used to be a parole officer on contract to the National Parole Service. I was a full-time probation officer and family court counsellor.
I look back on it with interest. I know the problems that were endemic then and I look at the problems of now. Whether it is the Young Offenders Act or the Criminal Code, this Chamber has enormous difficulty in ever even getting these issues before the House, past the minister, through the bureaucracy, past cabinet and so on.
Having had one of the independent arms of serious analysis cut off in such a cavalier way leaves me with a chilly feeling about what is the real agenda. This is not an expensive operation. This is about five minutes of interest on the national debt.
I looked through the Auditor General's report. I listened to the member for Mississauga South going on about why it was great to get rid of the Economic Council of Canada; that it was too expensive; that we should dump this one in the trash barrel, get it out there into the landfill and bury it over; and that we could not have these things lurking around.
The bodies giving independent advice that the government did not want to heed or found embarrassing have found their way to the trash can. In a democracy that is a frightening revelation of a government afraid of accurate research, afraid of any kind of independent academic or intellectual evaluation over time.
What is the government afraid of? Does its ideological paranoia of Presto and the Reform Party go so far as to say: "When we go into the election campaign we need at least 30 organizations that we have dumped or cut their budgets in the last six months"? That is how we will take on Presto.
The jaw that walks like a man does not need to have these kinds of phoney excuses: "Oh, we are going to give it to the justice committee". Government members should be forthright, come forward and tell the truth about why these are being cut.
The Law Reform Commission is being cut because they did not want to take its advice. In a complex democracy we need these kinds of independent bodies because they act like the canary in the mine; they act like the bell on the deck of a ship. This body has done a lot of important work. It was nationally recognized and respected. It was internationally recognized and respected for the work it was doing for this Parliament and for the people of Canada.
No member on the government side should callously say that there is a body of this Parliament that will take it on, because that is not true. The government should admit that many of the difficult legal issues that come up will now regrettably have to be farmed out to big, overcharging law firms. We will never get this kind of broad, reasonable cost research and delivery of product from private sector firms. It has not happened in the past and it will not happen now.
I urge the member for Mississauga South and others to read the Auditor General's report. If they are looking for areas to cut, they should look within their own incompetence and neglect of departmental budgets which have been occurring for the last eight years under their administration.


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


Some hon. members:: Question.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The question is on Motion No. 57. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.


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


Some hon. members:: Yea.


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


Some hon. members:: Nay.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: In my opinion the nays have it.
And more than five members having risen:
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The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Pursuant to Standing Order 76(8), a recorded division on the proposed motion stands deferred.
We will now turn to the sixth grouping.


Ross Harvey: I rise on a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Even as I rise and speak now, the hon. member for Essex-Windsor is racing to the Chamber. He has been temporarily inconvenienced elsewhere but, with the kind indulgence of the House, can be expected here momentarily. In fact, I would imagine that if I were to tell one brief joke-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Do we have unanimous consent to have the member for Skeena move the motions for the member for Essex-Windsor?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


James Ross Fulton: moved:
Motion No. 68.
That Bill C-63 be amended by deleting Clause 35.
Motion No. 70.
That Bill C-63 be amended by deleting Clause 36.
Motion No. 72.
That Bill C-63 be amended by deleting Clause 37.


Derek Vincent Lee: Motion No. 74.
That Bill C-63 be amended in Clause 37 by adding immediately after line 32 at page 7 the following:
"(4) The Minister shall
(a)	identify property, including intellectual property, data bases, models or library materials, that were created or acquired by the Science Council in the fulfilment of its mandate and that have a capital or commercial value; and
(b)	transfer that property, with or without valuable consideration, to a federal, provincial or non-governmental body to be used to pursue that body's mandate."
Motion No. 75.
That Bill C-63 be amended by deleting Clause 38.
Motion No. 77.
That Bill C-63 be amended by deleting Clause 39.
Motion No. 79.
That Bill C-63 be amended by deleting Clause 40.
Motion No. 81.
That Bill C-63 be amended by deleting Clause 41.
Motion No. 83.
That Bill C-63 be amended by deleting Clause 42.
Motion No. 85.
That Bill C-63 be amended by deleting Clause 43.
Motion No. 87.
That Bill C-63 be amended by deleting Clause 44.
Motion No. 89.
That Bill C-63 be amended by deleting Clause 45.


James Ross Fulton: Mr. Speaker, this section of amendments deals with the Science Council. I wonder if I could have Your Honour's permission and the permission of the House to permit my colleague who is responsible for our science and technology policy to speak to the motion.


An hon. member:: Let's hear your pearls of wisdom.


Howard Douglas McCurdy: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague giving me the opportunity to speak to the issue of the abolition of the Science Council. I am especially pleased by the enthusiasm expressed on the other side of the House to hear this intervention.
The hon. member for Edmonton-Strathcona is not in the House at present, but I do appreciate his reference to what he described as my eloquent interventions in favour of committee reform. However, he has had a complete misapprehension of my opinion about how parliamentary reform can be translated into the work of committees.
I would like to use the example of the committee on industry, science and technology vis-a-vis the issue of the abolition of the Science Council to demonstrate how vacuous, empty and unproductive is the proposal that committees such as that replace institutions such as the Science Council.
I would like to point out this is a committee that started out with a great deal of optimism about the capacity of well informed and interested parliamentarians to engage in research, discussion, debate and reflection on issues such as the issue of science policy in Canada. We had a good start.
One of the unfortunate truths of the present Parliament is that as soon as that committee with its members from all three parties began to reflect seriously on the failures of government policy with respect to science and technology and research and development, the committee has been hijacked by those who absolutely refuse any

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engagement that would precipitate any kind of criticism of government policy.
There is no use our looking to committees to get the kind of reflection at arm's length and independent of government views that this country so badly needs. There is no use looking to the National Advisory Board on Science and Technology which is allowed to speak only directly to the Prime Minister whose reports may occasionally be sneaked out of the library. Science policy cannot on an arm's length basis be gained from the Department of Industry, Science and Technology. It carries out the job, it administers, it overrules the endeavours of government and relate to what is going on in industry.
In terms of an independent, objective examination, such as has been provided by the Science Council, not only of science and technology policy in this country, but also of scientific, technological and industrial success related to technology, only the Science Council has and can provide it.
This institution was established some 25 years ago. There has been so much attention to the cost of these bodies that are being abolished in this bill, I should point out that the Science Council has a budget of $3.2 million. Yes, you heard me correctly, Mr. Speaker, $3.2 million. A piddling sum, particularly at this time to spend on having the government and the people of Canada, I will repeat that, not just the government but the people of Canada, provided with advice that will have an impact on Canada's capacity to make the kinds of decisions, both government decisions and otherwise, that are necessary for Canada to compete in the new global economy.
We hear a great deal about the new global economy. What characterizes the new global economy are the importance of knowledge, the importance of science, the importance of technology, the importance of innovation in economic success for any nation.
If there was a necessity to demonstrate the need for good science policy and changes in science policy in this country, all one has to do is look at the performance of this government since it came into office in 1984.
On the basis of every objective criteria, not only has Canada failed to advance in its relative position with
respect to research and development and technology, it has also fallen behind. There has not been one single net increase in the devotion of resources by this country to improving the scientific condition of this country needed to advance our industrial and economic growth, not one.
Of course, one of the problems with the Science Council is that it recognized that. It said so. One of the things that occurs to me about the execution of all of these institutions is that old legend about the monarch who, displeased with his advisers, said: "Off with their heads". This is what has happened here. The Economic Council disappointed, off with its head; the Science Council dared to criticize, off with its head; the Law Reform Commission dared to be critical, off with its head.
A very important Canadian had something to say about this. John Polanyi, the Nobel prize winner, expressed it this way: "In our concern that the size of the ship is too big, we are removing the rudder". At a time when we need, desperately need, the work of the Science Council, off with its head. Buried completely.
For the information of those across the aisle who look so mystified, let us give them a few examples of the things in which the Science Council was engaged. It was in the process of doing studies of 15 of Canada's industrial sectors in respect to their research and development performance. It was looking at the role of women in science. It has looked at the environment. It has looked at science in the north. It has looked at community economic development. That is a study which has been only slightly recognized. It is a veiy important series of studies and fora in the municipalities in this country which relates to how one goes about generating new jobs, new industries, and bringing about economic development in a sieve.
The council looked at biotechnology. It looked at education. It looked at a whole host of things which were necessary to straighten out if we were going to come to grips with the need for new science, new technology, and new innovation, and real high value industrial growth and economic growth in this country.
Now we are left with one of our most prestigious institutions eliminated. We are left with a government that remains rudderless. As my colleague has said, it has eliminated the Science Council and the Economic Coun-

cil and it is inventing things like the prosperity council out of the prosperity initiative.
I would like to quote the words of a member of Parliament to whom I am very close and who summarized this very well. This is in reference to those who attempted to convince the government that its decision was wrong-headed. It goes as follows: "No matter how little support there may be for the elimination of the Science Council or the Economic Council or other bodies that were eliminated, and how little justification there might have been for the government to carry out these executions, you are likely going to find what too many Canadians have found: No matter how legitimate the claim, no matter how perfect the point of view, no matter how important what it is you have to say for the guidance of this government, it will be ignored. Your head will be cut off".
That is one of the reasons we have such disrespect and cynicism about politics. It is because the democratic process is not working. It cannot work if the government continues to disregard not only the voices of the people but also the voices of those who know more than this government is capable of understanding and whose advice is rejected. It is advice that would be in the interests of Canadians at a time when, particularly in science and technology and research and development, we so badly need a voice that is listened to.
This government is condemned by its actions. It will be condemned by the people. It will be condemned by those who continue to lose jobs and who continue to fear losing their jobs because this government is too stupid to know that it is stupid and that it needs advice.


Mr. Benno Friesen (Parliamentary Secretary to Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, I will not speak long but I do want to respond to one of the comments that the member made. He spoke quite forcefully about the need to make sure we are prepared to participate in the new world economy. I take it he does mean the new world economy and I agree with him. We need to and for that we need up-to-date technology and up-to-date industry to be able to compete.
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I understand from him and his party that they are opposed to the free trade agreement. They are opposed to NAFTA. Yet they want to be part of the whole new world trading arrangement.
Maybe he wants to have an updated technology and an updated manufacturing sector to make sure that our inventory shelves are all stocked up, but we are not trading with anyone if we are not trading with the United States and with Mexico. We will have a surplus that we cannot handle because most of our trade is with the United States and hopefully our trade will build with Mexico.
Surely one of these days members of that party are going to have to get it together. If they want to have an updated technology, an updated market and an updated industrial sector, I guess it is not unfair to ask if they want to sell a product. If they want to sell it, to whom do they want to sell it? Maybe the best customers would be the United States and perhaps even Mexico.
If he wants to have a world trading economy and he wants Canada to be part of it and he thinks that the national science council is important to it, that is fine. Then he also has to agree that it would be best to build the kind of trading arrangements that would enable us to sell those products and to deal with disputes, if there are trading disputes between those two countries. Sooner or later they will have to get together and come to a conclusion.


James Scott (Jim) Peterson: Mr. Speaker, the words of the last member who spoke from the government side of the House put in stark relief the difference between members of that side and members on our side. To him the major problem is, who do we trade with, where do we get the markets.
This has never been the problem. The problem is what do we trade with. This is represented today by one of the most shocking statistics about our current economic plight.
Today we have a $15 billion trade deficit in high-tech goods. This deficit is increasing every year. It means that we do not have the capability of producing the modem, technologically sophisticated goods that this world is demanding.

November 25, 1992
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Small wonder that our standard of living is sinking. Small wonder that in two years our ability to compete, according to the World Economic Forum, has fallen from fourth to eleventh position.
What is the reason for this? The world community has condemned our economic performance on the basis that we do not have the technology. We do not have the science. We do not know how to obtain it. We do not have a science culture, a technology culture. We are not educating our people in these areas. We are not training them in these areas. We do not know how to obtain it from elsewhere and apply it to Canadian production.
If we are going to compete in this global community, it is incumbent upon us to make sure that we have the goods and services that the world demands. They are no longer demanding our abundance, our natural resources. That is a very competitive market. The advantage we had from our natural resources no longer brings us wealth. We are going to have to create it out of our heads, out of our human resources, out of our minds and our efforts and our talents. This is a challenge for our young people, to adapt to that new global requisite for creating wealth. What has this government done?
In 1984 the Prime Minister promised that we would double research and development. We started to approximate world standards. From 1984, when we had 1.4 per cent of our gross domestic product invested in R and D, we are now at 1.3 per cent. We are going backwards.
Our competitiveness, our ability to compete is declining annually. Our high-tech trade deficit is going up. We are in trouble. What has this government's response been? As the member said, and I take it at face value, its major economic thrust was to get us into the new markets of the world, but it never found out what it was going to be with. It was not going to be with the goods that created the jobs and the value added here in Canada. Why else since free trade would we have lost
375,000	or 18 per cent of all our manufacturing jobs?
It is because of its free trade policy, combined with its obsession with inflation rather than dealing with the fundamentals of what make a competitive economy in the goods and services that we are going to have to trade.
Today, in this bill, we are asked to perform the final rites for the burial service for the Science Council of Canada, an institution which this government killed off some months ago. The Science Council of Canada was doing more work than any other body in this country to deal with the questions of technology, developing a science mentality in Canada, getting our younger people interested in science, transfer of technology, ways to diffuse it throughout our economy. It had done more work in this area than any other body and it cost us only $3.2 million a year. The $3.2 million is a lot of money, but not when we consider that it had some 25 of Canada's best professionals on its staff, not when we consider that the prosperity agenda of this government cost us seven times that. What did it produce? Yes, some good recommendations, a few pages, but not the volume of detail, scientific and economic research into science and technology. Where is this government's priority?
Why would the government kill off a body which, it admits, was doing work that was critical to our future? Our government pays lip service to science and technology, saying we need to have more of it, meanwhile cutting its commitment to science and technology.
Just look at its cuts to bodies such as the NRC. Look at the way it cut out completely the Economic Council of Canada. What happened? The government abolished the Science Council of Canada, not because it was not living up to what the government hypocritically is saying Canada's future needs, but because that Science Council was the only body, through its chairperson, Janet Halli-well, to say: "Government, you must not be cutting back, particularly when you are saying that Canada should be increasing in these areas". That person had the temerity to criticize publicly the government, unlike other persons who have come before our industry committee in the past, such as Mr. Perron from the NRC who said, no, he would never as the head of the major research body in Canada have the temerity to criticize the government; oh, no, that was not his role. The government could keep cutting as much as it wanted. Janet Halliwell had the guts to tell it the way it was. What happened? Today we are here to perform the final rites on Janet Halliwell and the Science Council of Canada.
November 25, 1992

Let me say one more thing. Not only is this government hypocritical, ill-informed and misdirected in what it has been doing in terms of science policy, it is continuing to pervert this process. When the government a few months ago abolished the Science Council of Canada, killed it, the industry committee, the standing committee of this House, through the opposition members, said we should at least have the Science Council here to have a report on what it has done, what it has accomplished and to get the benefit of its wisdom, even though it is no longer here, as to what we should be doing in the future.
Would the government House leader allow that Science Council to at least impart its wisdom to a committee consisting of all members of this House? No. Absolutely not. The Whips were on. This government was too embarrassed to have any more publicity on this shameful issue. At least the finance committee was able to get the Economic Council before it.
Let us not continue with the approach being adopted by the government. It is trying to throttle debate on Bill C-91, the drug bill, when all we want to do is have witnesses who can tell us whether its drug policies are working as it promised. The government is afraid to have the light of day shed on what its measures entail. It is so ashamed of its acts of cutting the Science Council, of trying to change the drug legislation through Bill C-91, that it is trying to scupper debate. It knows when the Canadian public hears these witnesses, they will rise up in further rebellion against the economic mismanagement, economic incompetence and the totally dictatorial and misdirected attitudes of this government.


Mr. Murray W. Dorin (Edmonton Northwest):: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to say a few words on this motion. I am not someone who would claim to be particularly familiar with the Science Council of Canada, but I recall that two or three years ago there was a gentlemen from Edmonton by the name of Ron Grantham, a distinguished engineer, principal in major engineering firm in western Canada, well known person in the community who was appointed to the board of the Science Council.
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I recall seeing a letter he wrote after a period of time on the board. I believe it was addressed to either the Prime Minister or the minister-I received a copy of it-where he suggested that the Science Council was simply redundant, duplicating what was being done otherwise, and generally his recommendation as a board member was that it should be abolished. I was quick to contact him after the announcement and let him know that he was now out of a job which he, frankly, was glad to hear.
The mandate of the Science Council was to assess Canada's scientific and technological resources and requirements and to increase public awareness of science and technology issues. It had 30 council members, supported by a staff of 29 and a budget of a little over $3 million a year.
When the council was established in 1966 there were no other forums to provide independent advice on science and technology issues. However, with the establishment of many other institutes and centres of research and science and technology there are now many sources of information and advice available on those issues.
Clearly, government spending must be examined to increase its efficiency and effectiveness. In particular, resources in support of science must be rationalized to target research and minimize overhead. The closure of the Science Council will accomplish this with savings of $3.1 million annually starting in 1993-94.
The Science Council and the Department of Industry, Science and Technology have prepared a wind-up plan to predict Canadian taxpayers' investment in the council's assets, to prepare a fair, humane, severance package for its employees, and to outline its intentions for work in progress.
Almost all the work in progress at the time of the February budget announcement has now been completed. Furthermore, Industry, Science and Technology has assumed responsibility for printing and distributing final publications to the public once the council becomes dormant.
The National Library, pursuant to the National Library Act, has arranged for reassignment of the Science Council's library collections, and archival collections have been handed over to the National Archives as per the National Archives Act.

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To conclude, the decision to close the Science Council was the right one as it achieves fiscal savings, rationalizes the government portfolio departments and agencies and redirects science resources from overhead to researchers.


James Ross Fulton: Mr. Speaker, I am glad to have an opportunity to speak on the Science Council because it is a body of which this government and this Parliament was and still is in great need.
I think of the words of Canada's Nobel Prize laureate, John Polanyi, where he said: "In our concern that the size of the ship of state is too big, we are removing the rudder."
We are not talking about a great deal of money. We are talking about $3.2 million. I know the member who just spoke said he was not too familiar with the Science Council of Canada. He is probably not aware that it was wrapped up in July. They are not actually working on a wind-up plan now but shut its doors a number of months ago.
In speaking of Nobel Prize winners, I am reminded that two days ago, 1,600 scientists representing almost every country in the world, 100 of them Nobel Prize winners, held a press conference and warned all of the government's of the world of the impending dangers of ozone depletion, in part because of the meeting going on in Copenhagen where our Minister of Environment is at the moment.
They have come to a new conclusion, one that I think Parliaments such as ours needs to take a look at. A body like the Science Council of Canada would have borne the message to this Chamber, to the Prime Minister and to the cabinet. These scientists have come to some conclusions over the combining effects of ozone depleting substances over the Arctic; this is over northern Canada. When you get carbon dioxide into these super cold air masses higher up above the Arctic, the super chilled carbon dioxide does the same ozone depleting as do CFCs and halons and all of these other substances that we have heard about. These 1,600 doctorate level scientists world-wide are now predicting that the ozone will disappear entirely over the Canadian Arctic.
It seems to me that this is the kind of thing that should be debated in this Chamber. Perhaps it is not because as David Suzuki discovered when he provided a questionnaire to a sampling of this Parliament, he discovered that the average level of comprehension on science issues is grade 4. My son is in grade 5. He is 10 years old and he has a higher level of comprehension than the majority of members of this Chamber. I do not denigrate the Chamber for that. Individual constituencies elect members from many different backgrounds. But one of the things that members of this House have not been doing and should be doing is regularly reading scientific periodicals and getting briefings from independent bodies like the Science Council of Canada.
It is just beyond me. This government likes to practise what I call voodoo economics, and this is an example of a book-burning mentality. The Science Council made a number of recommendations on research and development; that we should be going forward on R and D from 1.4 per cent forward and yet under this government we have been going from 1.4 per cent of our GNP backwards. When recommendations saying: "If you are going to get anywhere, you are going to have to get some serious financing into the science community; you are going to have to start going on some of these high-tech ventures and high-tech products, and you have got to have a skilled, trained work force and a skilled, trained academic work force which is capable of staying at the cutting edge." We are not doing that, Mr. Speaker.
We heard my friend from Surrey-White Rock talking about the issue of the Science Council and the expenditures, the need to save money. We heard from the member for Mississauga South saying that we need smaller government, not bigger government. That is no longer the debate in this country or in the world. What we need is better government. We need reasonably intelligent and reasonably well-educated and reasonably with-it people who are involved in the process of governance, in the Public Service and in the work force.
I am appalled. Of the 295 members in this House, there is only a handful who could pass a grade 5 exam on what the depletion of the ozone is all about, who could really tell you what sustainable development is, who could tell you why there are 70 endangered species in Canada, who could tell you why it is important to protect 12 per cent of the endangered spaces in this country.


An hon. member:: How do you know, did you run tests of members of the House?
November 25, 1992


James Ross Fulton: Tests have been done. Yes, a test has been done, and the average level of comprehension on science issues is grade 4.
There is 39 or maybe it is 49 members of the cabinet. Most of the members on the government side, at any rate, are in the cabinet so we know the average comprehension level in the cabinet is grade 4 or less on science issues.
We have book burning. Right? That is what you do when you do not like advice coming from people who are educated, you bum the books and you shut them up. Get a big sock and jam it in the mouth of those members of the Science Council. For God's sake, do not let them tell you that there are serious issues out there; do not let them talk about Great Lakes water quality, long chain organo-chlorines; do not let them talk about the problems of plutonium; do not let them talk about what is going on in the atmosphere. Just stick in there and worry about the bottom line. Make sure you get lots of ink-with this government it does not seem to matter whether it is red or black, just make sure you have lots of ink.


An hon. member:: It's all red.


James Ross Fulton: It's all red. We have never had it this bad.
Let us compare, Mr. Speaker. The cabinet, these experts on science, decides to buy $4.4 billion worth of helicopters. Then it says: "We are going to put them on our new frigates. We have 10 ordered and we have had one delivered", but the helicopters have too wide a swath to land on the frigates. So it says: "Well, we bought them anyway; we'll use them for search and rescue". Out go the cabinet, riding across the land saying "We bought these for search and rescue".
I have talked to the search and rescue guys who actually jump out of helicopters to rescue people off mountains, out of the ocean and from sinking boats. They say that you cannot perform search and rescue out of the new EH-101's because the down-wash is 160 miles per hour. It would blow their eyeballs out on the pavement.
They cannot get away with that. They have 50 helicopters. They cannot land on the frigates so they cannot go offshore, they cannot chase subs, they cannot go out and check on the fishing fleet because they cannot cany
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enough fuel to go out, and they cannot conduct search and rescue missions because the down-wash is too strong.
It is like the subs. This is the same cabinet that was going to buy 10 or 20 nuclear subs and keep them under the Arctic ice to count polar bear tracks. We need the Science Council of Canada.


Derek Vincent Lee: Mr. Speaker, speaking about significant down-drafts I want to address one more item in this bill. I want to note that we are dealing with a number of sections involving the dissolution of the Science Council of Canada. Clause 36 says:
The council is hereby dissolved.
I want to point out that this section is not yet passed. That is what we are debating here.
Subclause 3 of clause 37 reads:
The minister may do and perform all acts and things necessary for
and incidental to closing out the affairs of the council.
Today my office attempted to reach the Science Council of Canada, which is still not dissolved. The minister has not been given the authority to close out the affairs of the council. We found that neither Bell Canada nor the government operator had a listing for the Science Council of Canada. By dialing both of the old numbers we found that the numbers had been disconnected. When my office called the general inquiries number at Industry, Science and Technology we were advised that "the council has been shut down and no longer exists".
Why are we here? Why are we debating the dissolution of the Science Council if the minister's department is saying that it no longer exists? Why are we authorizing the minister to do things when he has already done them? Could it be that he has done them without authority? Someone from the other side has to explain this in this continuing debate. Help us out a little bit on this question.


Harvie Andre: Mr. Speaker, I listened to some of the debate about scientific illiterates in grade 4 and I felt I had to come in to defend some of my cabinet colleagues. I thought that I would defend the Minister for Science, who has a Ph.D. in metallurgy. He probably understands as much about

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science as the hon. member for Skeena's 10-year old son who is in grade 5.
Maybe the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, who has a Ph.D. in aeronautics, might understand a little bit. Maybe the government House leader, who has a Ph.D. in chemical engineering, might understand. Who knows?
What really brought me in here was that I heard a glimmer of hope when I heard about the necessity for research in Canada. I heard members of the Liberal and New Democratic parties talk about more research. Right now before this Parliament there is an opportunity to pass legislation that will bring forward a billion dollars in incremental research in pharmaceuticals, biotechnology and all those important areas.
I hear the professor from Windsor talking. I would ask him to talk to the biochemists, the biologists, the pharmacologists and the medical researchers in his university and ask them what they think about Bill C-91. I have at least 100 letters from researchers across this country who say that passing Bill C-91 is the most important thing we could do to help research and development in this country. I was delighted to hear the concern about research and development from the opposition parties and I look forward to their support on that important legislation.


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


Some hon. members:: Question.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The question is on Motion No. 68. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.


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


Some hon. members:: Yea.


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


Some hon. members:: Nay.


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


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Pursuant to Standing Order 76(8), a recorded division on the proposed motion stands deferred.


Steven W. Langdon: Motion No. 91
That Bill C-63 be amended in Clause 46 by deleting lines 41 and 42 at page 8 and substituting the following therefor:
"come into force on July 1, 1994."


Derek Vincent Lee: Motion No. 92
That Bill C-63 be amended in Clause 46 by striking out line 42 at page 8 and substituting the following therefor:
"by order of the Governor in Council but no earlier than one year after the date that the Act receives Royal Assent."


Steven W. Langdon: Mr. Speaker, this has been an interesting debate. In many ways it is not a bill that we really expect to see change because, as the representative from the Liberal Party has pointed out, these institutions have already been wound up despite the fact that we on this side of the House have not had a chance to debate even the report stage of this bill in the House of Commons. There has not been final passage of the bill in the House of Commons and yet all of these institutions are dead for all practical purposes.
The reality is that this government has not respected Parliament on this issue. This government has simply ploughed ahead despite the fact that Parliament passed acts in the past to establish these institutions. Now these institutions no longer effectively exist, despite the fact that these acts are still on the books.
This is as clear a demonstration as you could possibly want of the contempt for democracy which infects this Conservative Party, a contempt for democracy which leads this party to continue to hold office despite the fact that the Prime Minister of the country stated before he was elected that there should be an election every four years. Yet this government stays in power despite the fact that it has been well over four years, five days or four days over. It has been over four years and there is no prospect that this government has any intention of facing the people within the foreseeable future.
November 25, 1992

The Prime Minister has stated that he will probably be thinking about an election next August. That also shows the contempt of this party in power, as far as the democratic process is concerned.
The reality is that six institutions are being eliminated by this bill, including the Advisory Council. There are six institutions being eliminated and at the same time a prosperity report is being brought in by this government to establish six new institutions which I am certain will cost far more than these six that are being eliminated. The difference will be that these new institutions will be she new sources for Conservative patronage, six new chances to put people into positions at the public trough before these people are booted out of office. This is not the way a decent, democratic government in this country should run. A decent, democratic government in this country should have resigned after the referendum defeat of October 26. A decent, democratic government should now be facing the people. They should be facing the people. They should be receiving all the portents of defeat which are certain to face them no matter when they face the people.
They can delay. They can put it off. However, they have a date with the guillotine and that guillotine is going to come down. It is going to be, as some of them tried to suggest during debate the other night, a chop-chop ending to this government. This is an ending which is deserved, an ending which is long overdue, an ending which we will help to bring about, an ending which will, in the end, lead to their replacement by a social democratic government that will put into effect a decent, democratic government that will serve the people in this country. It will be a decent, democratic government which responds to the needs of the country and is not interested in simply establishing patronage positions. It will be a decent, democratic government that will act in an honest, straightforward way instead of trying to hoodwink people as this government is trying to do by eliminating six institutions so it can set up six more that will cost this country even more in the future. Let us throw these people out as fast as we possibly can.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Essex-Windsor was
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doing very well in his speech until he got to the bit about social democrats replacing the government and then I realized that his head was in the clouds where it usually is with his fellow friend and premier, Bobby Rae, who we all know has been a total disaster in Ontario. Indeed, almost everyone in this House realizes that if we had any other government in Ontario except the Rae government, Ontario would be out of the recession and the country would be on the road to prosperity again.
The only thing stopping that is this bunch opposite with their high interest rate policy and this kind of legislation which is doing untold damage to the fabric of the central government and only aggravating matters which are made worse by Bobby Rae and his group in Ontario. If these members beside me on my left would smarten up and tell Bobby Rae what to do and help get this government out instead of pandering to the government the way they do, we would all be better off.
If there was an election tomorrow it would not be just the government that went down the tubes. We would get rid of the NDP as well because Canadians are sick and tired of the pious nonsense they utter in this House on a daily basis.
What we are talking about in this bill is an attempt-


An hon. member:: Don't count on it.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: The hon. member says: "Don't count on it". I say call an election. We will find out. I urge him to look at the polls. At 14 per cent they have big trouble.
I want to say that the bill before us has chopped six venerable institutions in Canada. The amendment we are faced with tonight is one that deals with a date on which this act is to come into force. It is clause 46 of the bill.
I am disappointed in the amendments that have been moved, frankly. Had I realized the amendments were so brief in their import, I would have moved ones that were a little longer myself. The hon. member for Essex- Windsor was prepared to let this bill come into force on July 1, 1994. Why 1994 for heaven's sake? It is only two years away. It is ridiculous.
I would have put this off for 15 years. Why would we ever agree to a bill that came into force that chopped all these agencies right away? As my good and learned colleague from Scarborough-Rouge River has said, the

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government has implemented this bill before we even started debating it.
It chopped the Science Council of Canada even before today. The hon. member tried to phone them today and could not get an answer. Where did he phone after that? He called the Minister of Industry, Science and Technology-
He has been proven incompetent. We read the other day in the Auditor General's report how he was letting out contracts of $700,000 without tender to all his Tory fat-cat friends. That is what was going on there.
As for the prosperity initiative, we know who got prosperous as a result of the prosperity initiative. It was a pack of Tories. They were the ones who got prosperous as a result of the prosperity initiative. It has been a total disaster for Canada.
My distinguished colleague from Glengarry-Prescott-Russell asked an intelligent question on this subject the other day and he got absolutely no answer whatever from the government. I am not surprised.
If the government is prepared to chop the Science Council and the Economic Council because it does not like their advice, clearly it is prepared to do anything and to go to any length to make sure that it does not suffer at the hands of the electorate. The best way to do that is to give good contracts to your fat-cat Tory friends who will give you back the money in spades and campaign donations. That is what we see going on right now. That is what is going on in this country at this moment.
The hon. member looks shocked and pretends he is shocked. He knows perfectly well what is going on. We see it on this side of the House every day. We may point it out. Hon. members opposite laugh. Listen to them laugh now, Mr. Speaker. They laugh. They think that wasting the public funds of Canada on lining the pockets of Tory fat-cats is a good policy or something that they should laugh about.
We on this side are not laughing. We think this is a disaster for this country and the sooner we have an election so that we can get this bunch out the better it will be for all Canadians.
Let us look at this bill. Let us see what the government has done in this bill. The Economic Council of Canada
was headed by a very distinguished economist in recent years, Ms. Judith Maxwell. Queen's University in my constituency has hired Ms. Maxwell to assist them as assistant director of the school of policy studies at Queen's. They have taken her on primarily so that she can complete the very important research that was being done by the Economic Council of Canada before this government announced that it was terminating the Economic Council in the last budget.


An hon. member:: It is being done at the expense of Queen's University.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: I believe the Government of Canada is paying some money to complete this research work. Therefore, it is not all at the expense of Queen's University, although I have no doubt the university is picking up some of the cost.


An hon. member:: It is patronage in your riding.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: It may be an advantage in the riding. I would not say it is patronage. Normally, when research is done by universities as he must know, universities themselves pick up some of the cost. That cost is being absorbed by Queen's. I have no doubt that it is absorbing some cost in having this done.
Nevertheless, it has the advantage of having the good advice and the instructional capability of Ms. Maxwell whose ability is well known and well recognized across this country because of the excellent work she did for the Economic Council of Canada. Yet the government decided that it did not need this kind of advice. Why not? Because it did not like the advice. That is why not.
The advice was contrary to the rather stupid policies the government has been following in this House which have cost Canadians dearly every day and month of the year. We have paid handsomely for having this government in office.
The questions that were asked by the Leader of the Opposition today and by the member for Windsor West and even the one by the opposition House leader on the Westray situation all indicated a complete and flagrant abuse of the use of public funds in Canada since 1984 and certainly in the last couple of years. That is a subject that should be the subject of intense discussion in the course of an election campaign.
November 25, 1992

I cannot believe that there are only two minutes left. Have I spoken for eight minutes already? I find this hard to believe.


An hon. member:: See how time flies.


An hon. member:: It is too long.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: The hon. member says: "It is too long". I can understand his discomfort. I can understand how uncomfortable he feels hearing these true remarks about his government's disastrous record for Canada.
Let us turn to the Law Reform Commission. That is another good one. The Law Reform Commission has provided excellent service to Canadians over the years. I have talked, on second reading of this bill, about when I was in South Africa some months ago with some colleagues from the other side who unfortunately are not here tonight. They have been fleet of foot and I can understand because they must be terribly embarrassed.
In South Africa, we met with a senior representative of their Law Reform Commission. He was not the chairman but he was very senior member of the commission. In the course of our trip, he sat down to a very nice lunch with us to talk about the Law Reform Commission and the work it was doing in South Africa in trying to end apartheid in that country.
His first remark was how much he appreciated the work of the Canadian Law Reform Commission. The reports they received from Canada were among the best in the world. That is what he said. I said: "Well of course". This was in March. The budget came down in February and the government chopped the Law Reform Commission. I said to him: "Well, of course you realize our Law Reform Commission is being terminated". He said: "What?" I said: "Oh yes. In the latest budget the Minister of Finance gave it the chop".
My two colleagues, who are both Tories, good friends of all my hon. friends opposite, went: "Oh no, you would mention that", as though this was something that had gone wrong. Well, it had gone wrong. They realized that their government had failed them badly. Their government had let them down. Their Minister of Finance had done something he should not have done. They knew it
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but they are not here to vote against this bill tonight. I bet you they will not be here tomorrow to vote against it either. They were so ashamed. They almost went blue in the face they were so shocked.
If the hon. members opposite had any sense of shame, any sense of decency, they would also stand up and vote against this bill and get this government defeated in this House so that we can have an election and then see who wins. Because if they really believe that what they say is right, if they voted against the government, they might win their own seats. The five or ten that are here might win their own seats and the rest of them can go down to defeat.
The government would be thrown out. We would get a good Liberal government in Canada and Canadians would rejoice. They would rejoice. Canadians would be so pleased that these members had voted their government out they might elect them again.


Hon. Marcel Prud'homme (Saint-Denis):: Mr. Speaker, I truly regret the day the Government of Canada announced it was terminating these institutions. There was one in particular that meant a lot to me and still does, and I am referring to the Canadian Institute for International Peace and Security.
I would like to go back very briefly to April 1984, when, if I remember correctly, we had a debate on second reading of the bill to establish the institute. If I am not mistaken, the bill was referred to the standing committee on external affairs and national defence which I had the privilege of chairing at the time. There were many hurdles to overcome, and I must admit a number of parliamentarians made clever show of ostensibly supporting the bill, because they realized the Trudeau era was drawing to a close and did not want to be accused of preventing the establishment of this important institute. It was important to the people of this world, to Canadian pride, to the young people in our universities and to those who believe that Canada has a major role to play in this area because of our exceptional reputation on the international scene, a reputation I wish Canadians would be more prepared to recognize, because I often notice that foreign nationals take greater pride in Canada than Canadians do themselves. When I say Canadians, I also

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mean Quebecers, because to me, Canadians include Quebecers.
In 1984 we managed to do the impossible. We were able to report the bill back to the House on June 28, when it was passed. The next day, the Right Hon. Prime Minister at the time, Mr. Trudeau, had the extraordinary kindness to thank the chairman of the committee. I must say I was not in the habit of being thanked by the Right Hon. Mr. Trudeau. Since he assumed I was in the House, he was particularly cordial, but unfortunately I was on the telephone in the lobby, trying to clear up an immigration problem, so I did not hear a word of what he said. I do know that at the time, there were several members like my friend, Stan Darling-even if it is against the Standing Orders to refer to him by name, I will take that liberty-who was involved in those issues, and I am sure he will remember.

The Prime Minister of Canada at that time said: "This is one of the nicest things that happened to me on my last day, the 29th of June, 1984". It was also the last day for the minister of foreign affairs, Allan MacEachen, who announced also that day that he was not going to run again and went to the other place, as we like to call it.
Now, today, the peace institute is disappearing, the pride of Canada, because of a few million dollars.
This institute was created to try to understand the changes in the world. Now the government thinks that communism has exploded, it is finished. Well let me tell you otherwise. This institute would be as important now as it was then to study the world at a very low cost to the taxpayer.
I am known as Mr. Scrooge in my party. I do not like to spend money in a frivolous way. However I have to be on record not because I have given much of my life to that institute, not because with my friend, the hon. member for Parry Sound-Muskoka, we believed at that time that we should have that institute, but it is because of the good that it could still do today.
I am telling you that if I stay in this House longer, if the gods of the day, the ladies who sit in heaven, are kind to me and if I do come back here and if there is a chance, I assure you there will be a reinstitution of a peace institute of that kind.
The world is becoming more and more difficult. Canada has the reputation in the world of being sensitive and understanding. People look to us as a breath of fresh air.

The whole world sees us as a glimmer of hope in an increasingly complex world. People think that if Canada can find some solutions, there may be some hope at the United Nations. The institute analysed all these issues and invited people from all walks of life. You are aware of my support for the Palestinian cause. The institute organized meetings between the people of the country I recognize, the State of Israel, and the people of a country that should exist, which was and will be called Palestine, to try and understand the motivation behind their mutual hostility. I see the hon. member for Outre-mont, a psychologist who knows that if we understand what motivates people, if we understand the motivation behind love and hate, a solution can be found.
The institute provided a dispassionate analysis of the international situation in a world that is changing fast, too fast. We need people with this kind of dispassionate view and an insight, and I admire them. I would like to name all the directors of the institute, but I will name the first one, Mr. Pearson, the son of the man who brought me into politics, Lester B. Pearson, a man of peace, who incidently was the first secretary and the first director general, and the last director, Bernard Wood. No partisan politics here.
Like all the people who wrote to me and whose letters I am still answering, I don't understand. I can find no rational explanation.
I wish to give a rational explanation to people who ask me why it was cancelled. I cannot find one because it was good.
We talk about a new world order. The United States says that there is a new world order. I do not want to live under that kind of definition of new world order. I want-and this is what the Peace Institute was trying to do-more than one superpower in the world. This is known. I want Europe to be one. I want Asia to be one. It is very dangerous if we do not understand the definition of the new world order as defined by the United States of America, our friend and our neighbour but certainly not

my patron or my boss. The Peace Institute was trying to-

-analyse these complex situations.
So I wanted to put this on the record, and I want to thank you, Mr. Speaker, for your kindness and I also want to thank one of the committee's survivors, the hon. member for Pany Sound -Muskoka-

He has been the pillar of the committee on foreign affairs. When everybody was talking nonsense, he was the only one who could come to the committee and say: "That is enough, Mr. Chairman, they are out of order". That would include his own colleagues and at times my own colleagues. I was happy because I felt I had the confidence of my colleagues.
First, I regret. Second, I do not understand. Third, I would hope whoever is in government would reconsider the good that was created by that institute and reconsider the re-establishment of that institute some day. That is why I wanted to be on record.


Mr. Don Boudria (Glengarry-Prescott-Russell):: Mr. Speaker, I will not take up too much of the House's time, but this is the first chance I have had since the beginning of this debate to address the termination of these agencies.

It is important for all Canadians to realize just what it is that the government is trying to shut down tonight. When I say trying, I know it will ultimately succeed. It is not that I want it that way but for the time being, albeit temporarily, we still have a majority of Conservative members in Parliament. They want to shut down the Canada Employment and Immigration Advisory Council at a time when issues involving immigration are, shall I say, probably at the top or close to the top of the political agenda of our country.
The Canadian Institute for International Peace and Security is proposed to be shut down. The hon. member for Saint-Denis put the case for retaining that institution so well that there is little I could do to embellish the very good argument he has already put forward.
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Turning to the Economic Council of Canada, here we are in the depths of a recession, the worst one we have seen since the great depression of the 1930s by far. There is higher unemployment and the toughest economic situation I have ever had to live with. Yes, I was there in the previous recession of 1982 and in my riding this one regrettably is far worse. At a time when we could be listening to constructive suggestions to get out of the recession, the Economic Council of Canada is all but non-existent save and except a telephone line.
Next is the International Centre for Ocean Development. Last night we were hearing about environmental issues in the Soviet Union. We learned that tonnes of radioactive waste had been dumped in the Arctic for years and none of us knew about it. The new Russian authorities are now making us aware of the environmental disasters created by previous administrations.
On the Law Reform Commission I read a submission some months ago in a newspaper article which indicated that Canada without a Law Reform Commission would be right up there with underdeveloped nations of Africa. I believe the example used was Rwanda. That is now where we are.
I am not a lawyer, not that I apologize for that of course, I want to tell my colleagues over here particularly, but I have read extensively the reports of the Law Reform Commission on a number of issues. I can think right now for instance of the reports it did on such controversial issues as abortion and others, not that I have always agreed with everything that was said. As a matter of fact, I have agreed with dissenting reports but it does not matter. I had good, sound, unbiased information provided by great legal minds that I as a legislator could use. I am not the only one; the courts and others read them. How many people have read reports of the Law Reform Commission? The former Law Clerk of Parliament sat on the Law Reform Commission. I am speaking of Joe Maingot whom you probably know quite well, Mr. Speaker.
We are at a period when we are talking about the future of our country being in research and development. We as a nation are in the process of establishing a space agency. We are debating a bill right now-and I do not happen to agree with the government on its merits- on research issues such as pharmaceutical products. Yet the Science Council of Canada is being abolished, an

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agency that could give us and give Canadians good and sound advice.
What are we doing it for? I want all Canadians to know that we are doing it to save $22 million a year. I am not saying that is a small amount. That is a lot of money.


An hon. member:: Yes.


Don Boudria: Now that we have all acknowledged that is a lot of money, including the member for Mississauga South, let me give a few instances of money not so well spent.
I just happen to have a copy of the Auditor General's report tabled in the House yesterday. Let us read a few excerpts from this report. It is quite good stuff. I recommend it. It is good reading.
Let us talk about the industry, science and technology department. We are closing down the Science Council. Presumably there must be some sort of affiliation. The industry, science and technology department entered into 22 contracts worth $3.3 million for such things as advertising and organizing public meetings.
Guess how many of them were correct. Guess how many of them were approved by Treasury Board. Zero. Guess how many contravene Treasury Board regulations. Twenty-two out of twenty-two. Guess how many of those contracts were untendered and went to friends of the government. Twenty-two out of twenty-two.
Let us look at the health and welfare department and its income security programs. This is a cute one.


An hon. member:: Oh, oh.


Don Boudria: I hear the member across the way asking questions. I tell him to be patient. We will enlighten the member. We can even ask him questions later.
The Auditor General is not a member of the opposition, but an independent officer of the House and one appointed by the present Prime Minister, I might add. He said: "The department failed to properly administer contracts valued at $5 million during the planning phase of the Income Security Program redesign project". Let me give you just a bit more information on this, Mr. Speaker, because I know that I have now aroused your curiosity. "While they spent on these contracts, some $350,000 were given in untendered contracts." Do you
know how they did it to give untendered contracts? They broke them down in $10,000 slices and gave a whole bunch of contracts to the same people to contravene the Treasury Board rules. This is what we are told.
I have just enumerated two examples. I could go on and on and tell you about hundreds of millions in government waste. I have just read a few lines in this very thick document.
I say to the members across, if it is $22 million they want to save, why not do some reasonable things like reducing the size of cabinet and having some integrity in contracting procedures? Why is it that this government has no money for these councils, no money to improve the lot of Canadians but it has enough money to renew the lease on a building which the Auditor General says the government does not even need? Why? Why? Those are the questions those members who are heckling right now will have to answer.
They will have to answer to the people of Canada soon. We are into the fifth year of this government's four-year mandate. I hope that they answer very soon.


James Ross Fulton: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to give some wind-up remarks on Bill C-63. We saw the government House leader come zinging in here, saying that there were a couple of people in the cabinet who had an education. That is great. I am glad there are. However, one thing the government House leader did not talk about is why the Minister of Employment and Immigration did not have anything to say in this debate to those people who had something to do over the past few years with the Canada Employment and Immigration Advisory Council. If it is such a good idea to get rid of it, you would think the minister would want to stand up for it.
Why did the Minister of Justice not come and say something about the demolition of the Law Reform Commission that served this country and this House well for 20 years? What about the Canadian Institute for International Peace and Security, CUPS as it is known? Where was the Secretary of State for External Affairs? Why did she not having something to say about why this was such a good idea and that the replacement body was where people could find knowledgeable, internationally
November 25, 1992

respected researchers they could communicate with and give their ideas to?
What about the International Centre for Ocean Development? Why did the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans not come and have something to say? Perhaps he could have made some remarks as to the issue that was raised with him so directly in Rio at UNCED on why Canada has not ratified the Law of the Sea, something that is important to countries around this world. We are within a couple of countries of having the necessary numbers for full ratification and yet Canada is still hiding in the weeds.
The Science Council of Canada. What about the minister of science and technology? One would have thought that if the demolition of the Science Council of Canada was so good that surely the minister of science would want to put on the record what these great ideas are for getting rid of it and where scientists are to place their opinions so they can be heard and parliamentarians can find out the independent, collective wisdom of the scientific community.
We do not have that. Here we have the methodology of the book burners. We have the lip-zippers. You do not want anybody talking because they might be talking against your government and you cannot have that.
Of course what it really comes down to is what I describe as the implementation of the flat earth theory from the government benches. It is that these small independent bodies had some influence. They had some power. If we learned anything from the referendum, surely we learned that the collective initiatives of elected members do not have a great deal of influence on certain very important issues in this country. What we should have learned from that is the desire for more local control, more local input, and for these kinds of arm's length institutions where people have some serious feelings that they are going to be heard.
I know lots of peace activists who think the last persons in this country they would ever bother to write to any more, bother to try to call or try to get a meeting with, are the present Minister of National Defence and the present Secretary of State for External Affairs. They know that is a dead end. They do not want to come and play around the skirts or the edges of Parliament. The places they were going, because they knew they were
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being heard and they knew they were avenues to the international community were places like the Peace Institute and CUPS. People knew there was good quality research, good quality information. It was a place where they could be heard and it was a place where they knew at least parts of their message would be carried to parliamentarians.
That had to be muzzled. It had to be shut down. I see the bloody fingerprints of political handlers all over this. This was not decided by the Minister of Finance alone. We know something, for example the proposal to put the new immigration operations in Vegreville, Alberta. The government is saying that it is putting it there because it will be better; it is the high-tech age and we have to centralize and to do it all there.
We know enough about computers now. Those 200 people who would be placed in Vegreville could be anywhere. They could be in Iqaluit, Yellowknife, White Horse, Prince Rupert or Toronto. They do not need to be all in the same building, in the same place. Those same political handlers are putting it in Vegreville for crass political reasons. It is the Deputy Prime Minister's seat.
You are nodding Mr. Speaker; you know that. You are a member from Alberta. You know how these things work. You are responding to those vibes from Presto. Presto is saying: "Watch out, Maz" so we have to respond this way or that way; there are too many institutions.
The horrific part of the termination of these particular institutions is the cold, hard, political eye of the handlers. They got their fingers on the jugular of these institutions. The Economic Council of Canada had bad things to say about the government's interest rate policy, its policy on the dollar and what it was doing on research and development. So out comes the hands of the political handlers to strangle it down. They say: "If all you other independent institutions want government funding-see what we did to this one-say nice things about us or you are next".
CUPS says something about something the minister of external affairs does not like and out comes the hand of the handlers. It strangles it down. There is the end of another independent voice. The Science Council of Canada with Nobel laureates gives advice to the Prime Minister and to the country. They say: "There is not enough research and development going on. Canada is

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going to start to fall behind". Out comes the arm of the Tory political handlers and strangles it down.
At some point this whole institution, members who can still think, has to say: "What kind of messages are we sending out of here?" This is dictatorial. My colleague is going to enlighten the House on something he knows a great deal about in terms of the entirely undemocratic nature of what is being done here.
These were acts of Parliament. There were votes by every member of this place to initiate them. Their throats were slit. The government treated them like some kind of economic aneurysms. They say: "Give them all a lobotomy. Get rid of these people". Who are these people?
They are not average, run of the mill Canadians, the people who donate their time. I know some of the lawyers who have worked on the Law Reform Commission. They stepped down from the big bucks to donate some of their time, sometimes a few months, sometimes a few years at a time, to move a legal ball forward, back into our court, because they know we kick it out because it is politically sensitive.
It is the same with the Science Council of Canada. Most of these scientists donate their time. I spoke earlier this evening about the 1,600 scientists who two days ago gave an alert to the world. Was is ever debated in this House, that the potential for life on this earth is threatened by something that we are doing? Are we doing anything about it? I think it is one of the problems with this place. There is not a collective, intelligent voice coming out of here any more. I think there was when I came here but we have been battered back, badgered.
We talk about parliamentary reform but every single power that an individual member had when I came here in 1979 has been stripped away. Even private members' bills, what are your chances of ever getting one of serious value voted? You have to win a lottery, then you have to convince a bunch of government members, then if they get a phone call from the government House leader they will not be able to do it. It is preposterous.
The fingerprints of the demands for power are all over this place. It has been corrupted. I think that these are the symptoms of serious corruption and an election could not come soon enough for me. It really could not.
I hear my friends to my right-and frankly I quite often think the Liberals are to the far right of the Tories on many issues, on the FTA and NAFTA. They do not have the moxie to stand up in this House and be honest. They do not believe what the hon. member for Vancouver Quadra said, that they would tear up the FTA. They voted here on May 11 against abrogating. They voted with the Conservatives. It is the same with the North America free trade agreement. In the committee they voted against going to members' constituencies. They voted against going to most of the provinces and the territories of this country.
They do not want the Liberals to be exposed to the reality of their position on NAFTA, that they support NAFTA, they support the free trade agreement. They do not have any plans to change it.
And they have the pomposity to stand up here in the coachman's uniform of the previous speaker and rattle and prattle on about Bob Rae. Bob Rae is a very fine politician. People in this House should have the decency on all sides to say good things about people when they are good. I did that in my constituency and throughout the referendum about the member for Yellowhead. I am proud that I did and I would say it in here any time about someone of that cut of cloth.
I will not say it about the Prime Minister because the Prime Minister did not play fair during the referendum. He knew what he was doing. He knew what he was crafting, and asking in Quebec. That is why the polls are being hidden. We wonder why $3 million in polls are being hidden after the court rules they have to be released. Taxpayers' money was used for partisan political purposes.
It is the same kind of crap in here and it galls me to the bottom of my soul that not a single minister had the guts to come in here and tell the people of Canada why they slit the throats of these independent institutions.
November 25, 1992


Derek Vincent Lee: Mr. Speaker, to steer us back into the section we proposed, this particular amendment would postpone the implementation and proclamation of this statute for a period that I hope would be a very long time.
What we have behind this bill is an initiative to streamline and privatize and reduce some of the spending. While the expressed motives may be laudatory it is my perception in this case this is not a question of government as in an ordinary privatization of government getting out of business. In this case it is a question of government getting out of government. There is a whole lot of government that has to be done and which, in my view, is not being done. I think Canadians feel that way now.
By cutting these agencies the government says it is going to save some money. The last estimate we heard here on the floor was $22 million. Although the government is cutting these agencies, as my friend from Essex-Windsor said earlier, it has created another six agencies this past year covering the same territory.
I can only note cynically that the creation of these new agencies, or new initiatives, doing things in the same areas happens in the year running up to an election. It is very odd. I resist the urge to be more expressively cynical than that, but the point I am trying to make is that really the government is not saving money here. It says it is, but it is not. It is a very small example, big numbers though.
Just a very few years ago the Law Reform Commission undertook on its own a comprehensive study of the law and reproductive technologies. The cost of that exercise and the report which many MPs have in their offices was $250,000.
Right now a Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies is going on and the estimated cost for that-hold on to your hat-is $30 million. On one hand, we have a reproductive technology study costing $30 million and on the other is $250,000. Make the calculation and figure out which was better for the taxpayers.
The Law Reform Commission was better by far. The expertise, all of the information and data was right there in the Law Reform Commission, and it would still be there had the Law Reform Commission stayed.
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This government has acted with regard to these agencies without a law to back them up, as I pointed out earlier. I could say that the government was lawless, acting without the benefit of the statute. In any event, it has proceeded and I regret that very much.
The adoption of this amendment would serve Canadians well.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: Oh, no.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, I have just received the ultimate compliment. The member for Mississauga South said: "Oh, no" when I got up to speak.
I just wanted to make a few comments on this bill. A great deal has already been said that I concur in, particularly by the hon. member for Skeena. However, the one thing that struck me is something that when I first came to this Chamber I would have heard Tories saying, but we do not hear them saying it anymore.
This particular bill has two things in it that augur against the spirit of true parliamentary debate. One, of these various councils, institutes, et cetera that are being shut down, many have been shut down before this bill was even considered by Parliament and passed by Parliament.
I can remember the so-called old days when people would have railed against this usurpation of the power of Parliament. Would it not have been more parliamentary for these institutes and councils to have maintained their existence until such time as there was a real debate in Parliament, and maybe even a debate in Parliament during which members would have been freed to have voted their own particular judgment on this issue because the Science Council of Canada is not a matter of confidence.
We hear a lot of talk about free votes and that sort of thing. Most of these institutions were established by separate acts of Parliament and they should have been disbanded, if they were to be disbanded, by separate acts of Parliament so that we were not greeted as we were tonight with something else that the Tories made a big fuss about many times when they were in opposition, which is basically an omnibus bill.
One time when they were faced with an omnibus energy bill they rang the bells in this place for 16 days and precipitated a parliamentary crisis.

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Our fundamental objection to this bill is not that it is an omnibus bill. We object to the whole bill. It is not as if there are some parts of it that we want to vote for. It is no wonder people are cynical because the fact is that we see the Conservative Party in government doing time and time again the very things that it made a political and parliamentary career out of criticizing when it was the opposition.
It was good at it. I have to confess I believed the Conservatives. There was a time when I thought they might actually be different in some respects. There was a time when they were different in some respects-very few, very little, not much, but in some respects they were. For instance, there was a time for a while when ministers took the House more seriously. They came in here and made policy statements.
The member for Yellowhead was pretty good at that, and the member for Skeena has already spoken well of him. There were a few others like that, but what have we seen in the last few days? The Prime Minister makes a major economic speech to whom? He made it to the PC Canada fund at $500 a plate.
Here we are. That same day we asked the Prime Minister as representatives of the people, as people who have been elected by the people: "What are you going to do about the economy?" We did not get any answers at all. We were not even told to wait for the evening. We were not even told that anything was going to be said. We had to read about it in the newspaper the next day.
We read about what the $500 a plate people got to know about the Prime Minister's plans that members of Parliament were not told. Just today the Minister of National Revenue outlined a new plan for streamlining Revenue Canada and the collection of taxation in Canada. Did he make it in the House of Commons? Oh, kid me not. Why would you want to do that? Who cares about the House of Commons any more on that side of the House?
He makes a major statement to the Canadian Tax Foundation, and the examples go on and on and on of the systematic contempt in which this government has come to hold Parliament.
There are people on that side of the House who should know better. Some of them are in the Chamber tonight. Some of them would have complained about this
had the Liberals done it and yet we hear nothing. If we hear anything at all, we might hear some kind of sophistic defence of this particular kind of activity on the part of the government.
We have come a long way from those heady days of 1984 and 1985 when there was some reasonable expectation that the great parliamentary reformers would actually act in such a way, through the McGrath committee and so on, as to bring Parliament out of the disrepute into which people thought it had fallen then. I look back on 1984 now as a golden age of Parliament when I compare it to what it is now after eight years of Tory rule. It is after eight years of rule basically not by Parliament, not even by the Cabinet, but by the Prime Minister's Office and by the praetorian guard that gathers now around leaders wherever they are. In some sense this is a function of modern political leadership regardless of party. Here, though, we have its finest example, whereby members of Parliament, the elected representatives of the people, just keep getting more and more marginalized.
It is no wonder that people are mad at politicians. Their anger, however, is in some sense misdirected because they are angiy at the powerlessness of their politicians, of their members of Parliament and of their MLAs. The roles that we collectively used to have, have been eroded by Prime Ministers' offices, by nameless anonymous staff, everywhere you turn. They are making the real decisions in political parties, in the bureaucracy and in the ministries wherever you go. It is eroded by pollsters, eroded by the courts, eroded by federal-provincial conferences and by executive federalism. You name it. There is hardly anything left for members of Parliament to do except to engage in various forms of surrogate political activity.
We fill our days with busyness as a substitute for power. It was not that members of Parliament ever had a lot of power, but they had some and they could make some things happen because this used to be a more human place where making a case to a minister or to some key person might have made a difference on behalf of a constituent or on behalf of an issue.
Look at tonight as we debate the demise of the Canadian Institute for Peace and Security. I was here when that was formed and it was formed out of the concerted effort of a number of members of Parliament on all sides of the House.
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I think tonight of the former member from New Westminster-Burnaby, Pauline Jewett, who was very instrumental in setting up CUPS. If she were here tonight, the rage that I have expressed and that the member for Skeena has expressed would pale by comparison. That is because there was a recognition at that time that we needed something like the Canadian Institute for International Peace and Security to provide independent and objective reflection on a variety of issues.
The end of the cold war does not bring an end to the need for that kind of reflection. In fact, the post-cold war era in many respects might make the cold war look like a picnic if we don't get a handle on the rise of neo-Nazism in Germany and the proliferation of nuclear weapons sold in every comer of the earth by desperate Russians, Kazakhstanis and Uzbekistanis and so on.
We have big problems and the last thing we need is to shut down a think-tank that was trying to give some systematic reflection to these kinds of things. We would not want that, though. Just let the bean counters rule the world. Well, their day will soon be up.


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


Some hon. members:: Question.


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


Some hon. members:: No.


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


Some hon. members:: Yea.


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


Some hon. members:: Nay.


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


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Pursuant to Standing Order 76(8), a recorded division on the motion stands deferred.
Normally at this time the House would proceed to the taking of the deferred divisions at the report stage of the bill now before the House. However, pursuant to an order made earlier this day the recorded divisions will stand deferred until Thursday, November 26, 1992 at 10 a.m.
It being 9.15 o'clock p.m., this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 10 o'clock a.m. pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 9.15 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Thursday, November 26,1992