1992-02-17

[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Monday, December 9, consideration of the motion of Mr. Gardiner that Bill C-236, an act respecting National Heritage Day, be read the second time and referred to Legislative Committee G.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: The hon. member for Victoria has nine minutes left.


Mr. John Brewin (Victoria):: Mr. Speaker, we had forgotten that I had already started my speech so I was listed for today as the second speaker. You are going to see an even more spontaneous speech than you might otherwise have expected.
I appreciate the enthusiasm of my colleagues who will be watching the clock to see if I can manage this feat. I think I can.
Bill C-236, to provide for the establishment of a national heritage day, is one which we will be voting on shortly and I hope will receive the support of all members of the House of Commons. The bill has already been debated fairly thoroughly. The effect of the motion on which we will be voting will be to send it to committee for further detailed study. I hope the House will agree to doing that.
The bill calls for the establishment on the third Monday of each February of a national holiday to celebrate the heritage of this great country. The bill will apply only within the federal jurisdiction but will provide leadership for all jurisdictions in Canada. Already many provinces are looking at similar legislation, but this House of Commons has a particular opportunity today to make a statement about the nature of this country. It is
long overdue that we acknowledge our heritage, and that is the first reason for supporting this bill.
The second reason is that to have a national heritage day will bind this country together from coast to coast to coast. It will give us an opportunity that not even Canada Day provides to focus on what it is that makes up this country and to have us pause for one day to reflect on the greatness of Canada and the heritage of which we are stewards.
Third, it will provide for the only holiday at this particular time of year. Anyone outside those who live blessedly on the west coast of Canada knows if there is any month in which we deserve and need a holiday it is February, particularly by the time we reach the third week of February. This may not be entirely necessary in Victoria where the blossoms are already in bloom, but in the rest of Canada still encased in ice and snow we need a national holiday. The workers in this country need a national holiday.
Some may be concerned that this will undercut our national productivity. Let me make two quick observations on that. Since the 19th century we have discovered that in fact the shorter work week provides for greater productivity. Reasonable periods for rest and recreation provide that workers will produce more in the long run.
Some of us have had the opportunity to be in western Europe and in eastern Europe. I noted that in Germany there are more statutory holidays than in Canada. Germany is one of the economies that is surging ahead. I think there a logical connection and I leave it to the House to decide.
Let me finish my remarks by expanding on one of the major points I have made, that is the need to recognize our heritage. I would like to draw the attention of the House to the fact that I have in preparation a private member's bill which would call for the establishment of a national heritage policy in Canada. This government and its predecessors have taken some specific steps to deal and look at our heritage. In particular there is a program now in force within the federal government that will provide some measure of protection for federal heritage buildings, that is buildings owned by the federal government which are designated heritage.

February 17, 1992
Private Members' Business
In my view, and I know it is the view of Canadians from coast to coast to coast, there is a need to enshrine the internal policies of the government respecting federal buildings into legislation and into coherent national policy. Even more important, there is a need for the federal government and this Parliament to provide for the framework of a national heritage policy. There are programs at all levels of government in Canada, at the municipal level as well as the provincial level, but there is a need to provide some coherence and some focus because in many respects our heritage is fast disappearing.
Heritage consists of three elements. First there is our geophysical heritage. We in Canada live in one the most spectacular countries of the world. Yet as we fly over it we see area after area in which we as human beings are destroying the very heritage we have been given and with which we have been blessed. It is important that we begin to examine the issues of our environment from the perspective of heritage, from the perspective of our stewardship over it. There are spectacular mountains, and what we sometimes do to them. There is Vancouver Island and British Columbia where strip mining is destroying the heritage we have been given.
The fish are a heritage. The prairies are a heritage. The farm lands of Quebec and Ontario and the beauties of Atlantic Canada are a heritage for us. We have a special obligation to view this heritage to develop policies to ensure that we pass it on to the next generation.
Our peoples and their achievements are a heritage. The languages of our aboriginal people are fast disappearing because we neglect them and we neglect to provide opportunities to preserve that ancient culture which has been given to our generation to preserve, protect and pass on to future generations. We have the heritage of a multicultural country which needs to be understood, honoured and grasped. This bill will do it.
Finally we have a heritage in the buildings that we and our foreparents have built. Daily that heritage is being destroyed across Canada. Again those of us who have just had an opportunity to come back from Europe can see both the glory and the destruction that has happened
in some of those very beautiful cities. Some buildings have been preserved, others destroyed.
What becomes very vivid when one looks around at the various buildings that have been developed in Ottawa, for example, in my home town of Victoria, and in other cities across Canada, is the need to ensure the protection of those buildings and for the federal government to provide leadership in that respect.
I commend to the House this bill that calls for the establishment of a heritage day so that across Canada all Canadians can join on the third Monday of each February to pay respect to our heritage, to consider our heritage, and to reinforce the efforts at all levels in Canada to preserve that heritage for future generations.


Mr. Mike Breaugh (Oshawa):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join in this debate. I feel very strongly that part of what is wrong with this country-and there are many things right, but there are some things wrong-is that the Canadian people do not know their own nation.
I do not quite know why this came about. If we go to other countries in the world we see how much effort has gone into identifying who the people are, what are their roots, what is their origin, what is their heritage, what is the history of their country. I am constantly struck by the fact that has not happened here. The people in my own community are not aware of what is happening in Oshawa.
I know a number of people work very hard to explain their heritage. They work very hard to explain the history of the trade union movement in my own community, but part of the problem is that there has never been much in the way of an incentive or a push from those in leadership positions to do that.
I want to make the case that this bill is worth it. In much of the argument I have read and in the debate on the bill itself people have made some pretty mundane arguments: "We cannot do it because the provinces would all have to agree on a common day", "we cannot do it because somebody would have to shut down a business for a day", or we cannot do it for this reason or for that reason. What they are really saying to me is: "We do not want to be bothered".
February 17, 1992

I want to be bothered. I want the people of this country to have another opportunity to see what this great nation is about, and they do not know that. Several simple tests can be put to the people of Canada to establish that sad fact. Ask them about their own Constitution. They do not know it. Ask them about their own nation. They do not know it. Ask them if they have been to different parts of this country. They do not know it. Ask them where they want to go on their holidays. They want to go to Hawaii, they want to go to Florida, they want to go to Arizona, they want to go to Europe, but they have not seen Cape Breton yet. That is a shame.
If there is a Canadian who has not been through the Cabot Trail, who has not spent a little time in Cape Breton, he or she should go to see it, to see its magnificence. If there is a Canadian left who has not seen the Rocky Mountains, he or she should go there. If you have not had a chance to go through northern Ontario, go there. If you have never seen what life on the prairies is about, go there and see what it is like to get into your truck and drive for three hours to go to a football game. People in the prairies do it all the time because it is part of their life. Go to the great province of Quebec, walk around and see the great joy that is there, see the great people who are there, see the great heritage that is there, see the magnificence of another language flourishing in the middle of North America. It is a magnificent concept, but Canadians do not have time for that. They ought to have time for that.
I use my own family as an example because I think it is pretty typically Canadian. No one received much formal education until my generation. I happen to be the only one in my family who went to university, and I did it by correspondence, which is not exactly the greatest way to do it, but I did it.
No one in my family was in a position to take the time to write down the history of the family. Much of what my ancestors did, I heard from my grandmother, my father, my mother but there is no written record of it.
I looked around to find out. What did all those other people do who came here at the same time from places like Ireland, Ukraine and other parts of the world? To try to find a written record is difficult but it can be done.
I mentioned Cape Breton because one of the things that struck me each time I visited it was the rich cultural
Private Members' Business
heritage that is there and the efforts that have been made to preserve it.
It is sad that in my own town of Oshawa, which prides itself on being a hotbed of trade unionism in Canada, you have to search out the history of the trade union movement. You have to go back to the newspaper files. You have to read some of the stories that were written about the early days in the trade union movement.
It is tough to remind people today who have a legal right to be part of a bargaining unit that in our community, a place which prides itself in being a centre of trade unionism, less than half a century ago the Government of Ontario was ready to shoot people for belonging to a trade union. That is not very long ago. Some of those people, very few of them, are still alive, and there is not much in the way of a written record.
Sometimes we think of heritage in Canada as being a nice old stone building. That is part of our heritage but a larger part of it is what happened in that old stone building. Who lived there? What did they do? Those questions still need to be answered but you must search for them.
Some of us are a little upset from time to time that other nations are very proud of their heritage. They seek out and exploit every possible opportunity to wave their flag, to sing their national anthem, to display their heritage proudly. Canadians for some reason have never done that.
I mentioned earlier that Canadians do tend to go to other jurisdictions for their holidays. You can learn a lot by that. You can learn a lot by going, as I did, to a women's basketball game at the University of Texas on a Tuesday night. Twenty-two thousand people came out to see a basketball game in Austin, Texas. You ought to hear them sing their national anthem. You could not leave that basketball arena without feeling that these people have something that we do not have.
Name for me the last time you went to a sporting event in Canada where 20,000 Canadians stood up and sang the national anthem. I have never been to one. At the very best, someone comes in and sings it for them. There will be a little goldfishing here and there but people are pretty tentative in this country. They are not sure whether they should sing the anthem in English, in French or in either one. The end result is that for most of the time, they do not sing it.

February 17, 1992
Private Members' Business
What a shame. What a shame that our little kids in school do not get an opportunity to learn much about their own heritage as Canadians. What a shame that our academics do not get much opportunity to write about our own country, to make that part of our fibre.
People often say: "Canadians are moderates. They are boring". The sad truth of it all is that Canadians are pretty exciting, pig-headed people. We did not survive in this kind of economic and geographic climate without having something going for us. The vast majority of the people who came to this nation were poor and had no skills.
I listen to people who say: "Wait a minute, you cannot allow people to immigrate to this country unless they have something to contribute. They need some skills". Thank God nobody thought like that when my ancestors came here. They had no money, they could not read, they could not write, they were in poor health and they were poor, dirt farmers from Ireland who came here to avoid starvation.
I am glad that people came from many nations with exactly the same motive, to survive. That is a pretty noble motive. When my ancestors came here, we met all kinds of opposition. People did not like us because of what we looked like, because of the religion we believed in, because we did not speak the language that they spoke, because we were not well dressed. Thank God we lived through that.
Some of us even learned that when somebody comes to this country and does not speak a language that we like, does not look like us and dresses a little differently, maybe we should remember that they are like our ancestors. It is our heritage as a Canadian and maybe we should just back off and let them have the same opportunities in this country as our ancestors had.
All of this is not going to come easily. It will require a major change in the persona of Canada, the public face. Part of what needs to be done is to take an opportunity like a heritage day and make it a focal point.
The Government of Canada says to all our provincial governments and all our municipal governments: "Wait a minute, here is something worth putting together. It is going to take a little work. It will take a little effort. It
will not come easily. It may not always be as successful as we would like it to be, but it needs to be done and it is worth doing". That is why I support this bill.
I am happy to say that on the few occasions now that I see Canadians starting to think about their country and celebrate their country and their greatness, it works. It is not easy and it requires a little effort, a little motivation and a focus as we have on Canada Day.
Every once in awhile some athlete somewhere does something great. I saw a kid from the west coast, whom I had never heard of before, do some skiing on the weekend. I am ashamed that I have never heard of her before but I am proud that she is a Canadian. People all across this country who have never heard of her, got a chance to see this young woman display her ability. I do not care whether it is in athletics, in cultural events, in business, in a profession or whatever, we should be proud of being Canadians and there should not be a member in this House who does not support this bill.


Mr. Allan Koury (Hochelaga-Maisonneuve):: Mr. Speaker, it is a real pleasure to take part in this debate on the bill to designate a national heritage day.
This proposal seems particularly relevant today, when Canadians across this country are attempting to redefine the future of their country and give new meaning to their national identity.
It also comes at a time when we are preparing for the 125th anniversary of Confederation, which should be a special time for all of us to emphasize the heritage we received from our ancestors and to reflect on the Canada of tomorrow.
The idea of designating a national heritage day, especially this year, the 125th year of Canada's Confederation, is gaining ground. And why not? It is an excellent idea. Especially since the heritage theme, in addition to being universal and speaking to the experience of all Canadians, is a very broad concept. It calls to mind the vast tracts of wilderness in this country, from Terra Nova Park in Newfoundland to Forillon in the Gaspe Peninsula, Pacific Rim in British Columbia and Ellesmere in the Northwest Territories. It refers to our historic sites such as Fort Louisbourg in Nova Scotia;
February 17, 1992

Bellevue House, the home of Sir John A. Macdonald in Kingston, Ontario; Fort Garry in Manitoba, and Dawson City in Yukon. It also refers to the linguistic and cultural diversity of the people who live in this country, and we think of Quebec, the Acadian presence, aboriginal people, the Ukrainian communities in western Canada and Vancouver's Chinatown, and the many festive events that reflect this diversity across the country.
It is all part of our national heritage, but there is much more. That is why this concept is so important to all Canadians. It is not only important to have festive events celebrating this rich legacy in communities across the country. We must also understand its impact on our national identity.
How can we define our national identity, if we as Canadians do not take the time to discover all its brilliant facets and appreciate them as they should be appreciated?
We could all learn more about our past heritage, about our country today and its prospects as a nation. We would all be richer if we had a better understanding and a better appreciation of our cultural diversity. Would we not make an effort to learn to know other Canadians of different origins if we had a better understanding of the significance of this joint legacy, if we realized that the linguistic and cultural diversity of our country is an asset, not a liability, and that it is not a cost but indeed a benefit?
While we have every right to question the approach suggested for the institution of a national heritage day, because of the costs involved or the implementation procedures to make it a truly national event not only for federal civil servants who constitute merely 8 per cent of the Canadian work force, but for all Canadian men and women, the fact remains that there is a need to promote our national heritage somehow.
This is even more crucial in view of the political situation, as all parts of the Canadian society are seeking, through the constitutional talks, to redefine the future of our nation. Our national identity is at stake here.
Private Members' Business
Therefore, I suggest it is important to encourage Canadians to reflect upon their common heritage, upon their past history and upon their outlook for the future. It is essential and incumbent on the federal government to foster the emergence of a distinctively Canadian culture and identity, to promote our national symbols, past accomplishments and plans for the future.
That is the role I feel this House should be playing. Instituting a national heritage day could certainly help us achieve our goals, but other approaches could also be considered which would promote just as well the pride we feel in being Canadian.
As the Prime Minister said: "Only Canadians can build together the Canada all of us want and we have inherited from our founders and pioneers the tools we need, that is determination, generosity and faith in the future".
We have the duty, to help the people of Canada rediscover these tools handed down to us by our forefathers who wanted our country to be built on solid foundations.


Mr. Rod Laporte (Moose Jaw-Lake Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity of entering into this debate to support my colleague from Prince George- Bulkley Valley on his private member's bill to have the third Monday in February declared national heritage day.
I come from Moose Jaw, a part of the country which as far as settlement is concerned really began only after 1882 when the railway went through. It is interesting that about 10 to 12 years ago-there was a heritage club already-an office was opened up by Heritage Canada. I remember at the time this office opened up that people were wandering on the streets asking: "Why are they there? Why do they have this little office down on Main Street? What is it doing there?"
It was at that time that I started to realize how little people actually understand about their heritage, how little thought they give to their own culture. We have examples right in the city of Moose Jaw.

February 17, 1992
Private Members' Business
I know that in Moose Jaw, the skyline, if you can call it that-there are not many high buildings-or the streetscape is very old for Saskatchewan. It is not really that people took any care in trying to preserve it. It is because development has not taken place and knocked it down. It is just now that people are starting to realize how important their streetscape is to the history of their city. It is too bad that this recognition did not start a few years ago.
I know that there was a school in Moose Jaw called Victoria School. It was the oldest brick building in the Northwest Territories. At one time of course most of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta were part of the Northwest Territories. Victoria School in the city of Moose Jaw was the oldest standing brick building in what was at one time the Northwest Territories which was well over one-half of Canada, probably three-quarters of Canada.
There was a debate in the early seventies over Victoria School. Some developers wanted to put up a high-rise and call it Victoria Place. There was a small group which was very boisterous and very active in trying to prevent that from happening.
I can remember in fact at one point there were permits for demolition and the bulldozer went right in front of Victoria School. People actually laid in front of the bulldozer and stopped the school from being tom down. These people were seen more as a curiosity than anything else. Unfortunately the developers were successful. Victoria School was destroyed. It no longer exists. That is very regrettable.
Victoria School in fact was the school that my grandmother went to when she first came from England in 1907 and it is gone. It is gone forever; it will never be replaced.
When we think of knocking down our brick buildings, buildings of any historical value at all, those buildings will be gone forever. In fact, I think the oldest building in the city of Moose Jaw is from the late 1890s. That is the oldest building we have. That is our heritage.
Heritage day is important to start Canadians focusing on our heritage, focusing on our past. We do not realize the past this country has. When asking most Canadians, certainly in western Canada, they think back to 1867 when Canada began. There is no appreciation of the culture that existed or of the communities that existed before that.
When we look across the border, the Americans have a different attitude. It is ironic that we grew up with Davey Crocket, Daniel Boone and other individuals who are in American folklore. They celebrate days such as Robert E. Lee Day, Martin Luther King Day and Flag Day. There is a better understanding of American culture and American history in that country.
Certainly if you go to places like Europe, this would not even be a debate in Europe. If you go to any part of Europe, whether it is France, Germany or Italy, they know who they are. An Italian knows that he is an Italian and that he is different from someone from France, who is different from someone from Germany. They appreciate the differences. It grows with them. We in Canada do not have that appreciation at all.
I remember studying history when I was an undergraduate student and I remember first coming across Andre Laurendeau who is famous for many things. One of the things I remember him most for is from reading some articles by him.
He came out to western Canada back in the sixties, and this is of course the ongoing debate between Quebec society and the rest of the country and English Canada. He made a comment that the people of English Canada do not know who they are. I remember also reading another of his comments that English Canada likes to hang on to Quebec because that is what is seen as its history. It is like the hand of a drowning man grabbing on to a shoulder.
There is a point there, because in western Canada where I am from we often associate ourselves and look fondly at the Americans. Instead of focusing on Canadian history and Canadian values and Canadian heritage, we are looking at the so-called American dream. We are inundated these days. People are wearing NFL T-shirts and looking fondly at American values.
We have a tremendous amount of heritage in this country. Certainly when I first became a member I had not travelled beyond east of Montreal. I had the opportunity to go to the maritimes. I was in Halifax, the Annapolis Valley, and over on Prince Edward Island. I only saw parts of the east but there is a culture there, there is a history there. It is local but it is there and it is something that other Canadians do not seem to be aware of.
February 17, 1992

Newfoundland is different again. It is a culture unto itself. As Canadians, we are richer for having these cultures. Quebec has its history and its heritage.
These are things that all Canadians should be proud of. Yet we do not seem to be aware of them. Most of us seem to go through our lives unaware of other Canadians. We are very parochial. On the prairies I am sure a lot of us think that all Canada is flat with no trees, not realizing that we are the exception instead of the rule.
The bill in front of this House to promote a heritage day is very significant. It is significant for us as a people. It is also significant for us as a nation to promote national unity, a national pride in ourselves and a feeling that, yes, we are unique.
As my father says: "You have to leave the country to find a Canadian". When he was down in the States he ran into somebody and asked where he was from. "I am a Canadian", he said. But if you were to ask him in Moose Jaw he would say: "Oh, I am Ukrainian" or some other ethnic group. Only when one leaves Canada does one become Canadian.
It is time that we started thinking of ourselves as Canadians, promoting those values as Canadians, and looking at our heritage and the diversity of culture that exists in this country, coming to appreciate it and to understand it.
A day such as heritage day can do an awful lot to help promote that, to help us as Canadians appreciate ourselves as Canadians, to understand ourselves as Canadians, to understand our history and to be better Canadians for it, and as a result to have a better country.


Mr. David Bjornson (Selkirk-Red River):: Mr. Speaker, I was reluctant to get into this debate because I thought probably in arguing for this particular motion, or the concept of this particular motion, I would not be able to present myself in the manner that I thought I should.
Private Members' Business
After listening to some of the comments that I have heard from speakers prior to my rising, the attitude we are facing in looking for a heritage day seems to be a negative-type attitude.
It is being said that we do not appreciate ourselves as Canadians, we do not understand ourselves. I am very fortunate in the area I represent because we do know who we are and we do celebrate the fact that we are Canadians. We are very conscious of our heritage. The various community groups in my particular area go out of their way, first to say they are Canadian and, second, to respect their heritage.
In rising to speak about this, I have a little history that keeps going through my mind. In fact, many years ago, about the time that Heritage Canada discussed the possibility of creating a heritage day, a group that I worked along with, the Kinsmen and Kinettes of Canada, were very strong proponents of this heritage day and still are. In fact, right now across Canada there is a "Proud to be Canadian Tour". There are two Peace Tower flags, one moving from eastern Canada and one moving from western Canada, working with these various Kinsmen and Kinette clubs in each community, showing support for the heritage and the unity of our country.
I have some concern about the fact that we are looking for another holiday. Coming from a small business community, I know the effects of all of a sudden having a long weekend. Even in Manitoba where the weather is cold in the winter, we do an awful lot of work in that area in the construction industry. To disrupt a pretty good construction schedule, I know the cost analysis would be-


An hon. member:: Just to recognize your country.


David Bjornson: We should always recognize our country. We are getting off on a tangent here. I am very proud of my country, but does there have to be another holiday? Is there any possibility that we can designate one of the many existing holidays as heritage day? Let us take a long hard look at that. There is a real possibility there.


An hon. member:: How much is involved here?


David Bjornson: The cost remains the same, the cost to our economy and the cost to our competitiveness, but we have the opportunity to celebrate our heritage. Once again, I think we should be celebrating our heritage, not having a holiday supposedly to educate ourselves and our children. We should be out there celebrating.

February 17, 1992
Private Members' Business
There were a number of comments about the fact that we are not popular with ourselves. The hon. member who preceded me talked about NFL T-shirts being worn across Canada. I would like to remind the hon. member that one of the most valued items in international travel happens to be the little Canadian flag pins. We have a lot to be proud of. That is part of our heritage and it goes beyond the borders of our country.
If this motion goes beyond this reading and gets into committee, I hope that the committee will take a long hard look at how we can carry on the discussion on a heritage day in a manner that is far more convenient than the way it is today. We are discussing a motion that basically only deals with the federal government.


An hon. member:: It is 8 per cent.


David Bjornson: There is only 8 per cent, as the hon. member says, who will be affected by this.
I am very curious about why this has not worked the other way. Why have the various provinces not stepped forward? Are they prepared to buy into this package? Once given that package, the provinces do it with their employees and then we have to go to organized labour. Some of the organized labour groups have found themselves in the position where they supply to the membership a heritage day, usually in February. Some of the others use it as a floating holiday. Then there is the private sector. Is it prepared to buy into it? I think it is prepared to buy a national heritage day, but it wants to buy it by changing something that is already existing so that we can promote our national heritage.
I look forward to a very constructive vote in the very near future. As a result we may have a heritage day but it may be at some other time other than the third Monday in February.


Mr. Nelson A. Riis (Kamloops):: Mr. Speaker, I am delighted today to have an opportunity to participate in this debate on Bill C-236, an act respecting national heritage day.
I first of all want to congratulate the hon. member for Prince George-Bulkley Valley for sponsoring this legislation.
I have been very encouraged by the remarks I have heard from the last number of speakers who have addressed the principle of this bill. The forceful commentaries and support are very encouraging. If there is one thing all of us are sensitive to these days, it is the
future of our country, whether we will have a future for Canada as we know it today. We are celebrating the 125th birthday of Canada. I cannot think of a more appropriate initiative for the House of Commons to take than to advance this legislation later today and eventually see it become a law of Canada. It would be a tremendous positive signal.
I also want to say that I believe in the principles on which we developed Canada as a bilingual country, a multicultural country, a country that has extended a warm welcome to people from around the world. We have prided ourselves on the fact that we are a mosaic as opposed to a melting pot. This has sometimes caused us an identity problem. To understand ourselves is critical. Just as we as individuals try to understand who we are today, we must understand our past. We must understand what has gone before and what this legislation is all about.
When we start looking at our past, we have to acknowledge that there are many dimensions. National heritage is something that is critical. In British Columbia we are concerned about preserving our ancient forests, the first growth forest, the virgin forests. Our magnificent cedar trees, perhaps 12 to 15 feet in dimension, and cathedral like forests are something we must preserve. This is an incredible piece of heritage that is now becoming unique world-wide.
We can talk about the natural heritage of Canada. Previous speakers have acknowledged the fact that we live in a Garden of Eden. We live in one of the most attractive parts of the globe. It is accessible, it is safe and it is unique in many ways. When it comes to our biosphere and the natural landscape, we have taken the initiative to set aside a wilderness area, a park area and other areas of uniqueness. That is something we will feel very proud of in years to come.
The critical one is our cultural heritage, the cultural landscape. I am reminded of a term that is normally used to describe a piece of old parchment. It is called papyrus. In the old days, when parchment was very critical, people would use the sheet of parchment, erase parts of it, draw or write on it, again erase parts of it and write on it again. When you saw the completed parchment, you could see the various layers of previous use. This is what we are talking about today when we describe our cultural landscape. In my community of Kamloops some fascinating cultural landscapes, landscapes of heritage, become very real and vivid when one simply notices them.
February 17, 1992

First of all I think of the aboriginal cultures that occupied so much of Canada for thousands of years. You see the cultural landscape today when the Keekwillie circles, reminiscent of the old subterranean villages, were built along the riverside as a winter home, the summer home being more of a portable structure.
Today when subdivisions are built, you see these circles representing the old homesteads of the aboriginal cultures that have unfolded on top of one another for centuries and centuries. Then you notice other aspects of the heritage landscape. The old churches remind us of the diverse ethnic communities that built the historic landscape of the country as we know it today.
[Translation\


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: It being 11.54 a.m., pursuant to Standing Order 93, the time reserved for debate has expired. Therefore the vote is on the motion moved by the hon. member for Prince George-Bulkley Valley. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.


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


Some hon. members:: Yea.


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


Some hon. members:: Nay.


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


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Call in the members.
Before the taking of the vote:


Mr. Gagliano:: Mr. Speaker, since this is a private member's bill, could you take the vote row by row, it being a free vote?
Private Members' Business


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Does the House agree to take the vote row by row?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: I would like to remind members of the procedure used in voting by row. Members who support the motion vote first. I will ask members on my right to stand one row at a time; then I will ask the members on my left to do the same. This procedure will be repeated for members who oppose the motion.
The House divided on the motion, which was negatived on the following division.
(Division No. 105)
++YEAS
Members
Allmand	Arseneault
Assad	Barrett
Bellemare	Benjamin
Blackburn (Brant)	Bosley
Breaugh	Brewin
Butland	Caccia
Catterall	Clancy
Dingwall	Ferguson
Finestone	Fisher
Foster	Fblton
Gaffney	Gagliano
Gardiner	Gauthier
Harb	Harvey (Edmonton East)
Hovdebo	Hunter
Jordan	Karpoff
Kristiansen	Langdon (Essex-Windsor)
Laporte	Mac William
Maheu	Marchi
Masse	McCurdy
Milliken	Mills
Nault	Nystrom
Peterson	Phinney
Proud	Riis
Rodriguez	Rompkey
Samson	Scott (Hamilton-Wentworth)
Stewart	Tobin-52
	NAYS
	Members
Anderson	Atkinson
Bird	Bjomson
Blais	Blenkam
Boudria	Champagne (Champlain)
Cole	Corbeil
Corbett	Darling
de Cotret	Della Noce
Edwards	Epp
Fee	Feltham
Ferland	Fontaine

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Fretz
Guilbault
Hicks
Kempling
Layton
MacDougall (Timiskaming)
Marin
McCreath
McKnight
O'Kurley
Pronovost
Richardson
Saint-Julien
Sparrow
Thacker
Turner (Halton-Peel)
Vincent
Assiniboia)
Worthy-55
Greene
Hawkes
Jourdenais
Koury
Lopez
Malone
Martin (Lincoln)
McDermid
Merrithew
Plourde
Ricard
Robitaille
Siddon
Stevenson
Thompson
Van De Walle
Wilson (Swift Current-Maple Creek-


PAIRED-MEMBERS
[Stage Direction]
Danis	Marleau
The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: I declare the motion lost.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


Mr. Jim Peterson (Willowdale) moved:: That this House condemn the government for its economic
mishandling and incompetence.
He said: Mr. Speaker, my office in Willowdale is in a plaza in the heart of my riding. My office is on the eighth floor. Every time I go to my office, there are many people, a lot of them young people, standing at the elevator with me. They get off at the fifth floor. If I leave my office building between nine and five, the elevator stops at the fifth floor, the welfare office, where people get on. I am reminded every day of the misery that is devastating so many Canadian families.
Let us look at what this government offered Canadians when it came to office in 1984. It offered Canadians jobs, jobs, jobs. Its methodology for achieving this was, first of all, to control the deficit and, second, to give us free trade.
We know what has happened to the deficit. The national debt has gone from $170 billion to well over $400 billion in that time. Today, 15 per cent of Canadians are living in poverty, 2 million Canadians use food banks,
700,000	of those are children, and this is up 40 per cent in the last year. Today, unemployment in Canada is at 10.4 per cent, 16 per cent of young Canadians are unemployed, 92,000 fewer young Canadians are working today than were working a year ago.
In addition, we have had dropouts, people who give up all hope of getting a job so they do not even bother registering. There were 33,000 dropouts last year. In addition, Canada has 1.2 million welfare cases, or an estimated 2 million individuals on welfare today.
The over-all record of this government over the last seven years it has been in office is one of decline. In 1984 Canada had a current account surplus with all nations in the world of $1.7 billion. Today Canada has a $26 billion deficit in its current account with other nations.
Our share of world trade over this period has fallen from 5 per cent to 4 per cent. We are falling behind other countries. In 1984 our trade surplus was $19.8 billion. Today it is $10.9 billion, 46 per cent of what it was when this government took office.
This government has continually told us: "Don't worry, the United States is coming out of its recession; it will take us out of the recession along with it. United States recovery will get Canada out of the worst recession it has experienced since the great depression of the 1930s".
This is not true. Let us look at what has happened over the past several years in Canada.
Since free trade came in, Canada has lost 325,000 or 15 per cent of all its manufacturing jobs. The government is going to say: "But the U.S. has lost manufacturing jobs too". Yes, but at only one-quarter of the rate that we have lost those jobs in Canada.
This time, in terms of plant closures, 65 per cent of the lost manufacturing jobs are due to actual plant closures. This is versus 22 per cent in the recession we had in the early 1980s. Those jobs are gone. They are not coming back.
We see the impact today. Quebec has lost 120,000 manufacturing jobs or 20 per cent of its manufacturing jobs. Ontario has lost 187,000 manufacturing jobs or 18 per cent.
Another factor which is going to make it difficult for us to recover, regardless of what happens in the United States, is interest rates. Yes, interest rates have come down from the high that the government drove them up to, the high of some 13 per cent to 14 per cent. Our bank rate is now down to 7.46 per cent, but the American rate is at 3.5 per cent. Their rate is less than half of ours. What is even more condemning is when you look at the real interest rate. When you take out from the interest rate the amount of inflation, the real rate in Canada is at 3.87 per cent, whereas in the United States it is .9 per cent. How are we going to compete when they have real interest rates that are so much lower than ours and when
February 17, 1992

ours is way beyond our historical spread of one to two percentage points?
This, of course, is keeping our dollar high. The government will say the dollar has come down from the high of 89 cents to 90 cents that its policies drove it up to. Yes, it is coming down, but the government in the last three weeks has bolstered it. The bank rate has gone up three times in a row in order to keep the dollar up. A lower dollar means more jobs in Canada and more exports. Yes, there is a price you have to pay for a lower dollar. Nothing in this economic climate is free or win win. When the dollar goes down it costs more for our imports and it costs Canadians more to travel abroad, but surely it is more important to have the jobs here in Canada and to be exporting.
Another reason that the American recovery is not going to be the panacea to Canada is that cross-border shopping still continues to drain billions of dollars out of our economy and will continue in spite of the fact that this government brought in half-hearted measures last week in an endeavour to deal with it.
The government did not touch the issue of fuel taxes. Our task force on deindustrialization and economic renewal heard testimony from all across the province. The single biggest factor in driving people across the border was fuel taxes. The cost of fuel in the United States is cheaper. One Canadian trucker said: "Mr. Peterson, I have not fuelled up my truck in Canada in the last six months". The government did not deal with that issue.
Another area that the government did not touch on in any effective way was the mail order business, a huge business which has lost over 200,000 jobs in the past two years. Under existing rules the Government of the United States imposes an $8.40 U.S. charge on Canadians who sell mail order goods in the United States. That is about $10 Canadian. It makes it very difficult for Canadians to compete in the United States vis-a-vis the Americans competing in Canada because we do not charge this. What does this government do? It imposes a $5 charge on American mail order houses which want to sell into Canada.
Why did the government not go all the way to give our mail order houses a level playing field? Why did it not
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charge them $10? It is still giving the Americans a leg up in terms of the North American market. This is just not fair. It is outright stupidity that it would not have the courage and the guts to impose at least the same charges on Americans that the Americans are imposing on Canadians.
Then the government tried to harmonize the GST with provincial sales taxes. It said: "We will collect your PST from cross-border shoppers, Canadians going to the U.S.; we will make sure we collect it at the border if you harmonize the PST with the GST". It wants people in Canada to start paying more taxes on children's clothing, shoes, books, food and other items that are not now taxed. In the midst of a recession, it is saying: "Tax Canadians more". This is a bad fiscal policy. The provinces are not going to be blackmailed into harmonizing their taxes with the abortive GST.
There is another reason we are having and will continue to have problems. Let us look at what we were promised under the free trade agreement, secure access to the American market. "The window is closing. If we do not jump through the window right now, the Americans will become protectionist. We will not have an opportunity to sell in the United States". What nonsense. What have we got? Absolutely no secure access to the United States. We have seen this with the disputes that have arisen: softwood, natural gas, pork, magnesium and now Honda. Our transplant auto industries are being threatened.
I ask Canadians to reflect on this. Did we have better access to the American market before the free trade deal came in, or today? We have a few other problems in terms of trying to attract jobs back to Canada. Where are they going to locate? Let us look at labour figures.
Look at days lost due to industrial disputes, including strikes and lockouts. We are looking at Canada compared to the G-7. Working days lost per 1,000 inhabitants, Canada is at the bottom of the list. We had 209 days average over that period lost. This was 403 times worse than the record of Germany, 99 times worse than Japan, 16 times worse than France, 4 times worse than in the U.K., and 3.4 times worse than in the United States, our competitor. We are even 2.7 times worse than Italy.

February 17, 1992
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If we are going to have a labour record like that, how can we compete in a global economy? How can we even compete in North America if we are tying our hands behind our backs because we cannot get our act together, business, labour and governments.
This government has set a precedent in terms of its inability to deal as an employer with its own employees, the public servants. Last summer, it tried to limit them to wage increases of 0 per cent, 0 per cent and 3 per cent over a three-year period at the same time as the upper echelon were getting very huge increases. The government was not fair. It forced PSAC into a strike. It knew what it was that it wanted because it was going to get tough with them and order them back to work. It was political opportunism of the worst order. What is even worse is that it sets that example of how business and labour are supposed to take the example from government of destroying a harmonious working relationship.
As a result, labour has not opted in to the government's prosperity agenda. Labour refuses to be part of this government's attempt to deal with the issues of long-term competitiveness in Canada. I must say it was a pretty meagre effort because this government has postponed all action while it studies this issue rather than getting on to the job dealing with the problems of our economy today. There are alternatives. I have painted a very dismal picture of what has happened to Canadians and where we are going. A number of reasons for this emanate from the government's lack of a coherent, long-term and short-term economic and industrial Strategy-
Unemployment is high in Canada today at 10.4 per cent. The United States has only 7.1 per cent and a Republican conservative administration there says that
7.1	per cent is too high, that it has to get it going, that it has to create jobs, and that the best social policy is a job.
What did President Bush do? He brought in a $150 billion transport bill, federal money amounting to $150 billion to go into creating roads and jobs immediately. If we translate that to Canada, that would be a $15 billion federal expenditure.
Our party has called for a $1 billion federal expenditure on municipal infrastructure, not only to give us sewers, roads and bridges but to create jobs immediately. This government refuses to do even that.
We brought in a request to stimulate housing. I am pleased that the government has dropped the down payment from 10 per cent to 5 per cent to get a home, but it has not gone the extra step in a way that will create meaningful jobs and meaningful activity in the housing industry. It has not yet accepted our proposal that if Canadians could take $7,500 out of their registered retirement savings plans and use it for housing we would have a proper stimulus. Why does the government not go further? It will not cost us any tax revenue. It will give us housing and it will create jobs.
Over the long term there are many things this government can do and should do in order to get our economy working. It should not be obsessed with the dollar that is at 84 cents and is falling. Our dollar should be lower. It was much lower when the government promised all the good things that would happen because of free trade. It was down around 75 to 76 cents.
Instead of cutting expenditures on education we should be investing in our human capital, our human resources, the only real source of wealth creation in the global economy today. If you think the cost of educating Canadians is high, Mr. Speaker, I ask you to think what is the cost of not educating them. It is the same with training. People who are unemployed in my riding today are being told that they have to wait until September to go to a community college to learn computer skills. Why can they not get those jobs immediately? Why can they not get that training immediately?
Turning to research, development, science and technology, again this government has cut back in all of these areas. In the human element, the creative element, the dynamic element of our economy, the government is cutting back and we are falling. We are now among the lowest of all the research and development countries in the OECD. We are falling. Our competitors are more than twice our level and they are increasing. Does this bode well for young people and the jobs they are going to have?
February 17, 1992

Our task force suggested a buy Canadian program. We believe we are in such difficulty economically that all Canadians could help if they would look at the goods they are buying and make a conscious effort where price and quality are comparable to ensure that they are buying Canadian and giving us Canadian jobs. This is critical to get us going.
We need amendments to our trade deal so that we can have in Canada our own industrial strategy. We need amendments so that our energy can be used as part of our industrial base. We have to make sure that our key industries, particularly smaller ones that have developed technology and those with government support in many cases, can remain Canadian and reinvest in this country.
Many Canadians have lost faith in this government but they have not lost faith in themselves. They have not lost faith in Canada. Let us get Canadians working again. Let us equip Canadians to meet the challenges of a global economy.
I believe we can be the best educated, the best trained, the best equipped and the most advanced economy in the western hemisphere. This is our Liberal vision for Canada. It is time we started to work toward it.


Hon. John McDermid (Minister of State (Finance and Privatization)):: Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my hon. friend's speech this morning.
He pointed out a number of problems that Canada is facing today. It is; there is no question about that. But I tend to be a little more optimistic about this country than he does.
Let us go back and talk a bit about what he was saying. He was talking about the lower dollar back in the mid-1980s and so on when we had a lower dollar. I think he will admit to me, if he has a moment to listen, that Canadian businesses frittered away a lot of that lower dollar in jacking up salaries. There were very generous salary increases during that period of time. They did not in fact reinvest in infrastructure and restructuring at that period of time and are now forced into it, which we are seeing on a daily basis. I think he would admit that when he takes a look at the statistics during that period of time.
The Economic Council of Canada came out with a report covering that end of things. There was an editorial in The Gazette of Montreal of February 17 headlined:
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"The Economic Enemy is Us". I do not think there is any question that we have had some economic problems over the last two years. Nobody is minimizing that, but so have other countries in the world. We are all in this together and we are all trying to get out of it the same way, by getting our basics right.
He was today bragging about the United States and the position it is in. Its deficit this year is going to be far greater than the Canadian deficit. It will be almost double per capita what it is here in Canada. That deficit has been growing rather dramatically over the last few years under President Reagan and President Bush.
The United States is now getting into some problems of servicing that debt. As the president said the other day, "maybe some of us should start paying attention to this thing called deficit and debt that we have in the United States" because we are.
The reason that Canada is projected to come out of this world-wide recession as a leader is that we have been getting our basics right, because we have battled the deficit. As a matter of fact, the deficit is now one-half what it was in the economy when we took over. It was a little over 8 per cent of the Canadian economy and now it is a little over 4 per cent. We have battled it.
It has been a tough fight with the spending pressures that come to any government. We have faced them and we are continuing to face them. We have been battling the deficit. We have been battling interest rates to get them down. I find it rather amusing when he says: "The government forced the interest rates up to some 14 per cent". It is not at the dizzying height when he was in government at 22 or 23 per cent.


James Scott (Jim) Peterson: I wasn't part of that.


John Horton McDermid: I know you were not proud of that; none of us were. You had to combat a problem at that time of high inflation. That was the way that you did it and we learned our lesson from the previous administration. When we saw inflationary pressures starting to be very significant in this country-we did not want it to get to 13 per cent like the previous administration did-we took some tough medicine. We put interest rates up to slow down that inflation rate. We have done that. We have done that. We have set inflation goals which are being met and in fact surpassed so the price stability which we need in this country is there. That is very important, and we are keeping interest rates down.

February 17, 1992
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My hon. friend talked about the rise in the bank rate in the last three weeks. That is right. He knows exactly why that was done. To put another image on that, he should read the speeches of his leader when he was finance minister. He very readily admitted at that time, and still does, I believe, because he gets these things quoted back to him from time to time, that one of the problems of being in government and then opposition was that you got these quotes coming back to you from time to time.
He said that the only time the Bank of Canada intervenes is to level out the peaks and valleys but that the dollar is at market level. He is right. The Leader of the Liberal Party is absolutely right. That is what is being done now and the hon. member knows that. The prime is still at 7.5 per cent, the lowest level in a decade-I guess in 20 years, almost-and is holding there at the present time.
Mortgage rates are down. Do we want to compare prime with prime? The American prime is 4.5 and ours is
7.5	per cent, a 3 per cent spread. It was 6 per cent and now it is 3 per cent. The spread has narrowed rather dramatically. It is getting very close to the traditional spreads we have had all along. The hon. member knows that too.
Another thing happened during the mid-1980s. I believe our government was as much at fault as any, by the way. I want to make that clear. In the mid-1980s we had golden opportunities in this country to trim down the size of government and to watch our spending. The federal government did not do a bad job. We maintained our spending increases to 3.7 per cent. That is not what the public is saying to us. It does not want increases; it wants reductions. We were holding our increases to 3.7 per cent during that period while at the same time increasing our payments to provinces at an average of 6 per cent.
I know my hon. friend has some familiarity with the province of Ontario because his brother was the premier for a period of time. During that time there was a 10 per cent increase a year on average. Spending was increased by 40 per cent over four years in that province because the money was coming in and the province was doing
extremely well. A tremendous number of jobs were created during that time. Both the premier of Ontario and the Prime Minister of Canada took credit for that, as politicians will.
We probably frittered away a lot of that time. We probably could have been a lot tougher federally. I know the provinces could have been. I think there was only one province that did not increase spending more rapidly than the federal government, and it was the province of Alberta. I think it maintained its spending at around 3.4 or 3.5 per cent a year and managed to hold it down.
What I saying here is that we are in a period of time where the basics are all coming together. Today the quarterly review in The Financial Post says that the recovery is now in sight. That is happening. We are seeing signs everywhere of that happening.
I am sure my hon. friend who has put this motion before us wants to see that recovery. I do not think he is one who takes great happiness in going through a recession. I hope not. If recovery did not come this year, he would probably politically like that because it would give him a better opportunity at the polls the next time.
Knowing the hon. member as I do, he would like to see a good recovery this year. We believe that we will have recovery this year. We have the basics in place which are extremely important because with high inflation and with high interest rates we cannot hope for recovery. We have those in position now and I feel very confident that in 1992 we will see increases in our growth here in Canada, to the betterment of all of Canada.
The hon. member talked about energy today. He touched on the energy situation. It seemed to me that he was ready to advocate another national energy program like the Liberals. I am not sure if I read that into what he said on energy.
If he looks at heating prices on natural gas and oil, the hon. member will see that the price of heating homes has gone down since the National Energy Program was wiped out, and has remained relatively constant or even lower now than it was. This has helped the economy. It has helped industry which is a great user of energy.

We cannot say the same for electricity because that has gone up. But when you see oil and natural gas prices, you will find that those prices are lower today than they were back in the days of the National Energy Program.
It all has to do with the cost of running businesses and competitiveness. I am sure my hon. friend understands that, coming from Edmonton.
The Libertal Party and the New Democratic Party rhyme off all these numbers about job losses, and it depends on whose speech you listen to. One will say that it is because of the free trade agreement that all these jobs have been lost. Another will say that it is because of the goods and services tax.
Yet business and industry are the ones that asked to do away with the manufacturers, sales tax and to bring in a consumption tax. They were the ones that recommended it over a very long period of time, as have royal commissions and so on.
They also were the ones that advocated a trade agreement. I debated the free trade agreement for a very long period of time across this country. Anybody who checks what I said or what my colleagues said on the free trade agreement will find that we said that the free trade agreement will not prevent trade disputes.


An hon. member:: Secure access is what you promised.


John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, I sat very patiently through their comments and I would expect the same-


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, if our hon. friend is correct, he said that if we had some things to say he would be prepared to sit down and relinquish the floor to members opposite.
I would like the floor because I would like to react very quickly to some of the points he has been making.


John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend will have an opportunity to debate later today. I would like to make my points and then I will listen patiently to what they have to say.
I sat very quietly and listened to my hon. friend from Willowdale and I expect no less from my hon. friend who stands up in the House, who is the House leader for the New Democratic Party and talks about the need for more civility in the place. Yet he is the one leading the heckling this morning. All I am saying is: Give me the
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opportunity to deliver my speech and I will listen to yours.
There is my hon. friend from Broadview-Greenwood. One of the things we have talked about recently in the House is trying to make it a more civil place.
People out there who are watching wonder about the heckling going on. To be fair, I can say that one of the biggest hecklers in this House has been me. I will tell you that I have not heckled once since the House resumed, not once. That was a commitment I made to try to make this place a little more civil. Now, why does the hon. member not do it? He is always the one saying that the House should be more civil.
Getting back to the subject of the debate today, when we discussed the free trade agreement we never said that there would not be disputes. We always said that there would be disputes, naturally. That is why we put in a dispute settlement mechanism. We have been very successful with the dispute settlement mechanism.
We believe we will be successful again with the Honda dispute because we think the figures that the Americans are using are flawed.
There is an election going on in the United States this year. Every congressman and one-third of the senators are up for re-election, as are the president and vicepresident of the United States and things heat up at that time.
My friends in the New Democratic Party know about the labour unions and how they put the pressure on at election time for this, that, or the other thing. That is going on in the United States today.
As a matter of fact, I would say that with the split of the United Auto Workers in the United States and the Canadian Auto Workers in Canada, we may be seeing some of that coming back to haunt us a little bit now because the American unions have no allegiance to their brothers in Canada any more.
They are putting the pressure on their congressmen to pull all kinds of stunts, and this one with Honda, as far as I am concerned, is just that. It is political harassment of the auto industry. With the dispute settlement mechanism, if it gets that far without being solved, it will be solved and it will be solved in our favour. I have no doubt about that whatsoever.

February 17, 1992
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I listened to my friend from Willowdale talk about his and the Liberal Party's solution to what is going on today. They say it is their idea for the RRSP money. It is not their idea at all. It came from the Canadian Real Estate Association.
The 5 per cent down payment came from the Canadian House Builders Association. It did not come from the Liberal government at all. It is not its idea at all.
The municipal infrastructure, which they are laying claim to now, did not come from them at all. The Association of Municipalities has been asking for that for four or five years. That is nothing new.
I get a big kick out of my friends across the way who take credit for these supposed solutions to our economic problems. I just think back to the old days when the Grits just threw money at things and that was the way we solved problems. We have proven that that is not the way to solve problems.
Better use of the resources available is the answer for governments today, to free up the private sector which creates the jobs. It is the private sector that makes things happen, not the Government of Canada or of Ontario or the municipalities.
We have to provide the proper basics for industry and small businesses to produce and to create the jobs and that is exactly what we are doing. We are getting their costs down with lower interest rates. We are getting inflation down so they do not have those pressures for higher salaries and higher prices and so on, so that they can continue to compete.
As a matter of fact, talking about competing, our inflation rates, which will be out very shortly for January, are going to show a dramatic improvement for Canada. That helps everybody. It helps the people on fixed incomes. It helps the people with small and large businesses. This is something that is very, very important. When people realize we are reaching our goals, they will be very, very pleased.
This government has lowered interest rates, got the inflation rate down, but we can sabotage the strides that we have made very easily. We cannot give in to the opposition's quick-fix solutions with its return to surging deficits and debt.
Their approach is no foundation for stable economic growth and real job opportunities. They talk about make-work projects, not long-term, real full-time jobs. Instead, it is like taking a pain killer to heal a broken leg. You may feel good for a while, but it does not do anything to cure the problem.
In closing, instead of the feeling of despair that the opposition gives today and instead of encouraging false solutions, the opposition should be working with us to bring Canada sustainable growth and prosperity. It should work with us to renew the confidence in Canadians to feel that we are on the right path to renewed recovery and job opportunities.
The United Nations said that we are the second most desirable country in the world in which to live. Let us all work together to get to number one.


Mr. Dennis Mills (Broadview-Greenwood):: Mr. Speaker, I listened attentively to the Minister of State for Finance and Privatization.
Some of his remarks I agree with. The approach of putting basics in place is one that all members of this House would agree on. We are all focused on deficit and debt. I have heard the minister say before that the government's inflation targets are ahead of schedule.
We on this side of the House are listening to people. I am sure the minister is also listening to people who are in the ranks of the unemployed, people on welfare, people whose businesses are in perilous conditions.
They are hearing this government boast of inflation targets ahead of schedule and the lowest interest rates in 20 years. There is a new statistic here today that the actual deficit in relation to the Canadian economy from 1984 to today was reduced from 8 per cent to 4 per cent. That is a new number for me. I take it that is what the minister said in his remarks. It is a new number for me. It is another signal to me that things are heading in the right direction.
The question I would like to ask the minister on behalf of the three million people who are out of work-and currently the government is funding that sector of our nation to the tune of almost $30 billion between UI funds and welfare-when is the government going to let up and realize that we cannot leave those three million people hanging forever?
February 17, 1992

We must institute immediately some measures that will get these people back to work. You cannot attack the deficit and debt of this nation when you have three million people not working.
When will the government relent on ratcheting down inflation and start focusing on putting people back to work?


John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member has not come up with any suggestions. Is he saying that now that we have got inflation down and now that we have interest rates down-we have the basics there-then the economy is going to start working? We see all kinds of signs of that now. Talk to people in business. They are now getting orders. They are getting calls for proposals and so on that they have not seen in the last year and a half. It is starting to happen.
My hon. friend brings up a figure of three million people out of work. I am not sure where that number comes from. We will not debate that. But the policy that the Liberals want is to borrow money-


An hon. member:: No.


John Horton McDermid: Oh, yes. You do not come up with a billion dollars just like that unless you increase taxes or borrow money.


Dennis Joseph Mills: You are spending $30 billion on unemployment and welfare now.


John Horton McDermid: Okay, now he wants us to raise taxes or borrow money. That is how government gets its income. Let us be frank about it. He says there are three million unemployed.
Admit that the proposals of the Liberal government would only create jobs for 70,000 people and only part-time, make-work projects that would run out in a short period of time.


An hon. member:: Like Katimavik.


John Horton McDermid: Like Katimavik, yes, exactly. That is exactly what the Liberals are saying today. I have unemployed people in my constituency who I am extremely concerned about. I have businesses that are failing, but I have businesses that are being created as well.
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I can tell the hon. member that we are poised to gain recovery. I am not saying this. The Economic Council is saying it. The OECD and individual think-tanks across this country that have the knowledge are saying it. It is not the government that is saying it. As a matter of fact we are more conservative in the projections we are making than some of the other organizations making projections. Every one of them says we are going to have a better recovery than any other country in the world going through this recession.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to my hon. colleague in his commentary. I heard a request for specific suggestions for steps that could be taken now to alleviate some of the suffering and pain people are experiencing as a result of the recession.
I want to ask my friend the following question. One of the programs we have found to be very successful in Kamloops comes under the umbrella of the Community Futures initiative whereby some individuals who are presently jobless and collecting unemployment insurance are able to get permission to start up a new small business. As a result, over 400 new enterprises have been initiated in the Kamloops area in the past number of months. Today they are small businesses and are thriving. They employ people who were previously on unemployment insurance, as well as a number of other people and of course that helps other businesses.
A second related initiative under the umbrella of Community Futures allows small businesses to borrow up to a maximum of about $70,000 to start a new venture, product line or some new initiative in the hope of expanding and diversifying the local economy. Again this has been very successful.
Considering the excellent track record and the long list of successes that have resulted from these two programs, and the fact that the government is continuing to fund these programs, would the minister not consider it to be the kind of initiative that ought to receive additional support? If we can start 400 small businesses in the Kamloops area alone over the last number of months with the existing limitations, why not open that up to allow more opportunities? Why not provide more funding? Again, these are not grants or gifts. These are loans that will all be repaid.

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Why can we not expand that program significantly because of the tremendous success it has experienced, particularly in the local economies?


John Horton McDermid: First of all I want to thank the hon. member for his compliments. The Community Futures program was brought in by the Minister of Employment and Immigration of the Conservative government. I am pleased to hear of its success. It is meeting success across the country in various areas.
I guess my answer to my hon friend is that we have a certain amount of money. The pie is there and we divide the pie up. If I am going to give more to that program, I will have to take it away from another program. I am going to have to make those decisions within my budget allocations. That is something the minister responsible for that area does, because he is also responsible for training and retraining.
We have heard how badly Canada trains and retrains its work force. The government tends to put all the money into these things, while the private sector is not doing the training and retraining it should. We do half of what they do in the United States, one-quarter of what they do in Japan and a one-fifth, I think, of what they do in Germany.
We put money into training and retraining, we put money into Community Futures and myriad programs within that ministry. All have met with success, some maybe more than others, and I am pleased to hear that compliment. I want to thank my hon. friend. When you put more money into a program, you have to keep it within the fiscal framework. You have to decide where they go when you make up your budgets. I am pleased to hear they have been successful, and I will pass that on to the minister. I know he will be very pleased to hear about that, and hopefully he may be able to find more money within his fiscal framework to help that program even further.
Thank you for the compliment. We appreciate it.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, my hon. friend must have misunderstood. He knows there is no government money in the unemployment insurance program when he says he will try to find additional funding. I am suggesting that he simply unleash some of those restrictions or shackles the small entrepreneur has as a result of government policy to
allow a more flexible use of the unemployment insurance program. I am not asking for any additional expenditures.


Mr. Ross Harvey (Edmonton East):: Just to begin, Mr. Speaker, I would like to advise you, and through you the House, that it is the intention of the New Democratic caucus, as its members come forward to speak, to split their speaking time in half. Instead of speaking for 20 minutes and following that with a 10 minute question and comment period, it is our intention to have two speakers per slot, with each speaker speaking for 10 minutes followed by a 5-minute question and comment period, with your kind indulgence.
I should start by regretting the fact that the good news, as the hon. minister took it from my esteemed colleague representing Kamloops, will unfortunately be the only good news he hears in the next little while. The fact of the matter is that the various economic and-I use the word advisedly-developmental policies pursued by this government for the last several years have proven to be little short of a complete and total disaster for the ordinary working people of this country.
It somewhat surprises me that the members of the government continue to evidence a complete lack of the
most basic understanding of the horrifyingly clear trends.
It is odd, to say the least, that they seem unable to detect the correlation between the maintenance of the high Canadian dollar and the record number of business bankruptcies.
It seems odd to me that they fail to detect the correlation between the implementation of the free trade agreement and the disappearance of hundreds of thousands of jobs.
It strikes me at least as odd that they apparently continue to be unable to perceive the correlation between the continued high interest rate relative to the United States and the blossoming array of personal bankruptcies in the provinces and territories across this country.
What would be painfully obvious to a child in grade school continues, through some bizarre alchemy, to elude the members of the government. I think it is for this reason more than anything else, that the Canadian people have been subjected to the wanton fiscal and monetary madness that has gripped this country in the service of the government for the last several years.
February 17, 1992

I would briefly like to tell you, because I represent the riding of Edmonton East, some of the things that have been going on in Edmonton and Alberta. I will start with the unemployment rate. That is easy enough to comprehend.
The unemployment rate for Edmonton, the capital of the oil province of Canada, for January 1992 hit 10.9 per cent. There are only six other cities of the 25 surveyed by Statistics Canada that have an unemployment rate higher than Edmonton. Edmonton has the seventh highest surveyed unemployment rate in the country. That includes all of the cities in the maritimes and most of the cities in Ontario and Quebec.
From January of 1990 to January of 1992, Edmonton's population increased by 3.4 per cent.
The number of people unemployed in Edmonton in that same period increased by 39 per cent. This is not an accident. This is not something that has happened totally by the will of God. This is a consequence of government policy, and it hurts people. It hurts them very, very badly. It kills some of them.
1991	was a bad year. Evidence of this can be found in the newspapers and other news media of Edmonton. I would just quote briefly from a story that appeared in The Edmonton Sun on January 12 of this year, entitled "A Year of Hardship". It says: "Alberta merchants suffered a $5 million drop in sales, the bulk of that in department stores from June to July according to StatsCan. By August, it dropped $11 million. In December, StatsCan reported retailers took a whopping $87 million hit to their bottom line, the biggest plunge in the country".
The story goes on: "The oil patch is headed for an even bleaker year", says Hans Marie, vice-president of the Canadian Petroleum Association. The article quotes Macie as saying: "1992 is going to be the toughest year but hopefully that will be the bottom". Indeed we are deeply hopeful that will be the bottom.
The article goes on: "At the close of 1991, thanks to seven years of low commodity prices, Alberta farm bankruptcies had already hit a six-year high".
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On February 5, just a couple of weeks ago, The Edmonton Sun published a story called: "Bankruptcy records busted". "These are the highest bankruptcy numbers we have ever seen", said Edmonton Consumer and Corporate Affairs spokesman John Proctor. "In Alberta, there were 6,814 bankruptcies recorded last year, up 39 per cent from 1990", Consumer and Corporate Affairs says.
"Edmonton suffered 2,575 consumer and business bankruptcies in 1991, also a record," the agency reported. "New Alberta records were set in both October and November. January is going to be the highest month ever in Alberta", said Mr. John Proctor.
The Edmonton Journal of February 6, from a story "Speaking of the oil patch" noted: "Total industry job loss over 10,000 people in three tough years". Roughly 90 per cent of the lost jobs were in Alberta.
As Gerry Protti, the executive director of the Independent Petroleum Association put it: "When drilling crews are not working, hotels, restaurants and truckers lose business along with every other service outfit involved with exploration".
Lastly, lest people be tempted to swallow the snake oil being vended in this Chamber this morning by people who insist that recovery is just around the corner, how long have we been hearing that? Six months? Nine months? A year? Sixteen months? How long has the recovery been just around the comer? That comer seems to have more sides than can be geometrically calculated.
The headline from The Edmonton Sun of February 14, last Friday, said: "Edmonton's Next Wave of lay-offs forecast". It notes that Murray Wade, a client services consultant with Right Associates, speaking to an overflow crowd at a Personnel Association of Edmonton luncheon said: "If the government lives up to its promises in financial cutbacks, you will see real jobs disappear. In our middle and large-scale industries here, I think there are punches that are coming there as well".

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The happy talk is due to be blown away, as has all the other happy talk of the last year and a half. The government remains fixated on elusive monetary goals and in pursuing them has harmed real people.
According to the 1986 census, and I have no doubt it has become worse since, mine is the 14th poorest riding in the country. When I go back to my riding and walk and drive through the streets, I see the unemployed in my neighbourhood. I know the unemployed. I get an unending stream of the unemployed in my office.
They are the casualties in this blind war against punitive inflation. As we wrestle inflation down, we crush the unemployed into the mat. The policies that this government has been pursuing must end. They must be reversed if for no other reason than it must be crystal clear by now to anybody that an economy exists to serve people. When you have better than 10 per cent of your work force out of work, thrown on to the street, your economy is not doing that. It is not serving people; it is harming them. That is what must stop.
If the government in all its assembled wisdom cannot figure out a way to do it, then it should step aside and let those with ideas who can get in and do it.


John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, I listened to 10 minutes of interesting statements, but I did not hear one solution come from the New Democratic Party, which is kind of interesting.
The hon. member talked about the high Canadian dollar. I want him to say to the House what level the dollar should be at, and is the New Democratic Party set to peg the dollar? Is that its policy?
The member talked about low commodity prices for products. I gather he was talking about grains and oilseeds. He was talking about natural gas, oil and so on. I want to ask the hon. member: Are these prices not set on a world basis? Do we in Canada not have to follow those world prices if we are going to sell our products? If we are going to get the drilling rigs back into the field they are going to need a market. As he knows, consumption has dropped rather dramatically. The hon. member's party has advocated less consumption. That is part of conservation. We all supported that. I think the hon.
member would do that. That had an awful lot to do with commodity prices dropping.
Therefore, are commodity prices not set on international prices? It really cannot lay that one on the Canadian government.
The third thing he talked about was bankruptcies. Personal bankruptcies are up in this country. There is no question about that. Most of the experts, people outside government, say that Canada went on a credit binge for that period time and it is now catching up to us.
Business bankruptcies, fortunately, were down 3 per cent in 1991. That is slowing down, and I am pleased to see that. I am concerned about the personal bankruptcies. Again, would the hon. member not admit that an awful lot of that had to do with a credit binge in a period of high inflation, high growth, the period in the mid-1980s when people spent a tremendous amount of money?
I will just ask those three questions because he only has a couple of minutes left.


Ross Harvey: Mr. Speaker, in fact there were four questions. I must apologize to the hon. minister in advance if I do not get through them all in the time remaining. However, I will take them each in turn.
First, on positive proposals for new policies, I do not see how anyone could have sat in this House for the last year and failed to note the array of policy proposals put forward by the New Democratic Party, most of which were repeated time and time again, everything from the taxation proposals made by the hon. member for Winnipeg-'Transcona to the economic development proposals made by the hon. the member for Essex-Windsor to a variety of others, including all those persistently advanced by the Leader of the New Democratic Party, the hon. member for Yukon.
For the hon. minister to stand in his place and say that he has not been able to see any proposals coming across the way from the New Democratic Party really confirms my belief that they have a great deal of trouble seeing all sorts of things that are right in front of their noses. By the way, some of these suggestions will be repeated in a similar form prior to the introduction of the budget. We are going to give you another chance. We hope you see it this time. We hope you act on it this time.
February 17, 1992

Mr. Speaker, I must apologize for not using the third person there. We are resigned to the possibility, nay the probability, that once again these proposals will be ignored. But this will not last forever. There is an election coming and changes will be made.
As to the dollar, the simplest thing to do, of course, is to unpeg the dollar, not to use the Bank of Canada and its Thursday spending spree to keep the interest rate high. Once you let the interest rate drop and indeed encourage it to drop to a level of perhaps a 1 to 1.5 percentage point spread above the American interest rate, which would still be sufficient to keep our paper more or less attractive, your dollar will fall. You bet it will fall. To where will it fall? Who knows? The best guess is somewhere between 75 cents and 80 cents. Is that going to make imported goods more expensive? You bet. It is also going to spur Canadian industry like virtually nothing else that could be done by any government.
If it comes to a choice for the Canadian people between paying another $100 for a VCR and having a job, my guess is that they will take the job and to hell with the VCR.


Dennis Joseph Mills: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to participate in debate on the motion of my colleague from Willowdale.
Members of the NDP were supposed to go again. They do not have a speaker, so I guess I should just continue. They are once again losing their sense of practicality.
This morning on my way to Ottawa, I got into a cab. The very first question I asked Joe Lally, the cab driver, was: "Joe, what is wrong with Canada?" He said: "Dennis, the problem is the politicians".


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBIois):: Order, please. I want to ask the hon. member if he has split his time or-


Dennis Joseph Mills: No.


Some hon. members:: Go ahead.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBIois):: For 20 minutes, the hon. member for Broadview-Greenwood.


Dennis Joseph Mills: Mr. Speaker, I am speaking for the Liberal Party. I am not speaking for the New Democratic Party today.


John Horton McDermid: Something new and different.
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Dennis Joseph Mills: The minister of state for finance has strong influence on my views.
As I was saying earlier, the cab driver this morning said: "The problem with this country is the politicians". He said: "They send out a signal that they do not care. They send out a signal that they are living up here in an ivory tower. They send out a signal that they are not listening to people and that they have no common sense". He also said: "And there is absolutely no sense of urgency".
This had an influence on me this morning because we are talking about a man who probably listens to 300 to 400 Canadians a week from all walks of life. A cab driver in a major urban centre like my city of Toronto will meet and service people around the clock from all walks of life. It could be senior citizens going to the grocery store. It could be rushing families to the hospital or a doctor's appointment. It could be businessmen rushing to a meeting or rushing to the airport. I have always had tremendous respect for the cab drivers of this country. I think they have a pretty good pulse as to what is going on in the nation.
As I reflected on Joe's words, I started to think about what has been going on here in this House since we came back after the Christmas recess where we were working in our ridings. Quite frankly, when you review the last two weeks, and this is the beginning of our third week, what have we done in this House of Commons to relieve the unemployment in this country? What action have we taken to show Canadians that we understand the sense of urgency, the sense of pain? If you have reflected on that over the last two weeks, you have had a tough time. What do we do in Question Period every day? What do we accomplish? This place is a mirror of the mood of this nation. It is not a very productive mood right now.
I listened to the Minister of State for Finance and Privatization. He gave some numbers which were sound numbers; inflation targets ahead of schedule, interest rates at the lowest in 20 years. I am not going to debate those numbers. I think those are hopeful numbers. At the same time, he did not add into his mix some specific initiatives that the government was going to take to get people going, to get people working again.

February 17, 1992
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One thing he did say in his speech is: "We want to put the onus on the private sector to rekindle job creation in this country". The private sector right now is not really hiring. Its members do not have the confidence. They do not feel that the direction that we are heading in is one of sustained economic growth. They do not see this recovery that the minister talks about. They are hoping that it is there but they do not feel it. As a result, we have 1.7 million businesses in this country which are not taking that leap of faith.
I have said repeatedly in this House of Commons that the entrepreneurs of this country are our greatest hope for new job creation. The minister is nodding in agreement. The entrepreneurs are saying to me: "We need more of an incentive. We need more of a boost". They are not responding to this government's policy initiatives.
The minister said earlier that we on this side of the House are promoting more taxes. That is categorically false. We are not promoting more taxes. We are asking for refinement of the current tax system so that it is fairer and simpler. No one on that side of the House will debate that is something achievable if we work harder at it together.
We are not suggesting on this side of the House that we should add more debt or more deficit. There are ideas that exist and have been presented by members of this House of Commons to the government where there has been absolutely no reaction to them.
Last week, on Friday, the member for York South- Weston put forward ideas. I put forward ideas that the hon. Minister of State for Finance and Privatization worked on when he was in opposition when he was on that task force on new job opportunities for the eighties, "Work For Tomorrow", with 184 recommendations from retraining to municipal infrastructure, you name it. The member for Brampton was a part of that committee. He is well acquainted with those 184 ideas that when he was in opposition he presented to the government when we were the government.
When we were the government we acted on a lot of those recommendations. I will be specific on one. The member for Winnipeg South Centre was the minister of employment.
At that time, the hon. member for Winnipeg South Centre had a specific idea called the NEED program, where we used money that was already going into unemployment insurance and welfare. We told the millions of entrepreneurs out there that if they took someone off UI, put them on their payroll and retrained them, we would subsidize their payroll equal to the disbursement we were already paying from the UI fund.
That was one of the most successful job creation programs this country has ever seen and was implemented at a time when people were crying out to be put back to work. Now we have 1,7 million entrepreneurs. Just imagine if each one of those companies hired one person. Just imagine if we could switch the $30 billion we pay out on UI and welfare from one side of the ledger to the other by putting it into the private sector. When we subsidize it for a year, at least people are working. When they are working they have their dignity back. When they are working they are paying taxes. They are buying food and clothes and the whole will of the country changes.
If the member were serious when he asked for ideas earlier, why not review his own task force he worked on when he was in opposition, with the 184 ideas? Why not put them before this House and let us go through them, recommendation by recommendation. Let us get this country back to work.


An hon. member:: Good point.


Dennis Joseph Mills: Why not review the NEED program which we know has a winning record because we tried it? I am not suggesting the government would not look at it because it was a Liberal plan. Who knows? Maybe it was not even a Liberal idea. Maybe it was the hon. member's. I do not know. I do not remember. The government has to understand that Canadians have the kind of feeling you have when you go into an emergency ward in deep pain. They do not want the doctor to tell them to come back in three months when the economy is recovering. They want service. They want attention. They want caring right now. We are begging this government to please listen to what Canadians are asking us to present to you. Please go back into your files, dust off some of those ideas and have the courage to implement them.


An hon. member:: Hear, hear.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: I want to be sure whether the opposition party is splitting its time.
February 17, 1992

['Translation\


Alfonso Gagliano: Mr. Speaker, as my colleague mentioned, from now on, members of the Official Opposition will share their time, ten minutes and five minutes for questions.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: We begin the five-minute period for questions and comments. The hon. Minister of State for Finance and Privatization.


John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, I do not want the hon. member to leave the impression that this government has done nothing to help individuals when it comes to the employment situation. Earlier we heard my hon. friend from Kamloops talk about the Community Futures program which gets people off unemployment and into businesses and encourages them to hire. There are programs available to do that.
The hon. member is entirely right. There were 184 recommendations. I am glad he could find one that the government acted on, because my colleague from Notre-Dame-de-Grace was the chairman of that particular committee and was very concerned about the lack of action taken. I would agree with the hon. member. I think it is still a propos today. Our committee was faced with a high unemployment rate at that particular time, yet we did not have the skilled people to fill all the available 300,000 skilled job openings last year.
That is exactly why that committee was set up. A lot of the recommendations were for the private sector to train and retrain. Now this was back in 1980, 1981 and 1982 when we did this study, and it is still pertinent today. I thank the hon. member for bringing it forward as a suggestion. I think there are some good opportunities there for the government to act. I suggest he be a little patient until the budget, which is not that far away, to see exactly what the government plans to do.


Dennis Joseph Mills: Mr. Speaker, the member just made a statement. He said to be patient until the budget. That is a tough thing to sell when people are really scraping. Let us just take the province of Newfoundland as an example, where things are in desperate shape. Colleagues in our caucus from Newfoundland told us recently that
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people are actually closing homes and moving in together to save on hydro and heating. They are sharing and trying to get through this crisis together. When my cab driver friend from downtown Toronto said that we live up here in an ivory tower, he was not just referring to situations in Toronto. He had heard from friends in disadvantaged regions of this country where the state of desperation is worse than any catastrophe that has ever happened in any emergency ward of any hospital. And they want us to act on it now.
Now, Now, Now, has to be the operative word. That is what we are humbly suggesting to the government. The minister says to wait for the budget. It better be good because he is hanging a lot on it.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Very briefly, the hon. member for Gatineau-La Lievre.


Mr. Mark Assad (Gatineau-La Lievre):: Mr. Speaker, I heard the minister say that more than 300,000 jobs were not filled because of a lack of technical or other skills, and in fact I am familiar with these figures. I would therefore ask the hon. member who just made a number of suggestions whether he would agree this is the right time to have a national service for young people who are 16 and over, have left school without finishing high school, have no trade, no jobs and as a result no future. Would the hon. member consider the concept of a national service, for two years at least, to give these young people a chance to acquire some kind of technical or other skills in order to fill the jobs to which the minister was referring?


Dennis Joseph Mills: Mr. Speaker, in a brief answer to that, respecting all of the concerns of deficit and debt, we in the Liberal side of the House share the view of many in this House-my colleague from York North has mentioned this before, as you have mentioned-that we should return to the idea of a Company of Young Canadians.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Dennis Joseph Mills: Now, listen here. You put an idea forward and look at the reaction.


An hon. member:: It didn't work.

February 17, 1992
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Dennis Joseph Mills: Of course it worked. It created some of the greatest leaders this country has ever produced. I would modify it and not have those projects, in terms of Company of Young Canadians, with a special environmental thrust. I would shoot those Canadians all over the world. We are missing opportunities all over the world in terms of trading advantage because this government has cut the PEMD funds and the training funds. We have to get back to basics.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Resuming debate, the hon. member for Saint-Leonard for 10 minutes.


Alfonso Gagliano: Mr. Speaker, the motion before the House today condemns the Conservative government for its economic incompetence. Its glaring incompetence is responsible for the current recession, and that is why I have no hesitation in supporting my colleague's motion. In fact, I would like to start by congratulating the hon. member for Willowdale, Ontario, for presenting this motion and leading off the debate this morning that will continue throughout the day. I realize that his province's economy has been seriously weakened by the Conservative government's unsound economic policies.
I understand why my colleague from Ontario is so frustrated, because Quebec is feeling the effects of this government's disastrous policies as well. In fact, the entire country is in the middle of one of the worst recessions in our history. The only difference between this recession and the depression in the thirties is that today we have social programs to help people in need, people who are unemployed and living in poverty.
In Canada tax increases, the GST, the free trade agreement with the United States, an absurd monetary policy and cuts in transfer payments to the provinces have depressed both supply and demand. The Tory Government is aiming for zero inflation. Inflation had to be brought down at any cost, and it is the fight against inflation and the means used to that end which are partly responsible for the present economic recession and for the many victims that have fallen along the wayside. The
victims to which I refer are the 62,227 consumers and 13,496 companies that went bankrupt in 1991.
I also said there were 1.5 million unemployed in this country, and this is not counting those who have given up looking for a job and are no longer part of our unemployment insurance statistics.
The government's economic incompetence and the government's policies have managed to substantially reduce the purchasing power of the consumer. The government has eroded the incomes of Canadians to such an extent that they are spending far less. There are many reasons why Canadians are no longer spending. In the current situation, people who are unemployed do not have money to spend, and those who still have money are no longer spending because they are afraid of losing their jobs.
That is why today-I know we all are faced with the same problems-when we walk down the street in our ridings we see signs saying "store for rent", "store vacant", "closed", and our riding offices are crowded with people standing in line, waiting for us to help find them a job. Unfortunately there are no jobs, and the government is doing nothing about it.
It is a vicious circle. Why do we have so many lay-offs and factory closings? Earlier the minister of state for finance told my colleague from Toronto to be patient and wait for the Budget. Incidentally, not quite a year ago, on February 26, the former Minister of Finance said in his budget speech that this Budget was designed for economic recovery, a confident recovery that would lead us to prosperity. Well, this is one year later. Where is our prosperity? Where is the economic recovery the Minister of Finance announced in his budget? A few weeks or days from now, when a new budget is brought down, will the minister tell the House and Canadians again: Yes, we are on the way to recovery, we will have a terrific year, and we will have the highest growth rate in the world. How is that going to provide jobs for unemployed Canadians? What kind of answers does he have for all those Canadians and small businesses that went bankrupt and are still going bankrupt, because the government is doing nothing except causing more and more plant closing and bankruptcies?
February 17, 1992

Yes, Canadians are prepared to be patient for a few more days or weeks. But I hope the Minister of Finance and his cabinet colleagues will realize that action is necessary. It is easy to tell Canadians; "Wait, things are bad all over, we cannot do anything". If Canadians cannot go to the banks, which refuse to lend them money because they have no assets, where are they going to go? They cannot trust the leader of the government to give them hope, to intervene, so that people who do have jobs renew their confidence in the future and start spending. The unemployed would be confident that jobs would be created, the economy would gradually recover and we would finally have a country where everyone could find a job and would have hope.
[English)
About one month ago I received a letter from a young Canadian. I had sent out my householder reflecting on the current constitutional situation, asking my constituents to be patriotic, to continue to believe in Canada and to work together to keep this country together.
She wrote- to me and said; "Yes, sir, I have been patriotic for so many years. I worked in the 1980 campaign for the referendum to keep this country together. It is two years since I graduated and I have been looking for a job. Yet I have not found a job". She asked me: "How do you expect me to be patriotic and to continue to believe in this country if after so many years of hard studies I cannot get a job?"
She told me of her experience going from one company to another and being asked whether she had any experience. After one year of searching she went back to the same company and was asked why after one year she could not get even six months of experience.
This is becoming kind of a vicious circle. We expect our young people when asking for a job to have experience. But if they do not start to work somewhere, how can they get experience? That is the issue we have to face today.
If we want to keep this country together, we have to give hope to Canadians, especially the young people.
In the next budget speech that the Minister of Finance will deliver in this House in a few days or a week or so, I
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hope that there will be that creation of hope, a real hope. Not like the hope his predecessor one year ago in this House on February 26 said the budget would create. He said it would stimulate the economy and would create prosperity the greatest prosperity we have ever had.
After one year we still have high unemployment, 1.5 million Canadians not working, a record number of bankruptcies, and every day we hear of closures of businesses and hundreds and hundreds of jobs lost. Canadians more and more are losing confidence.
Those who have no jobs, have no money to spend and those who have jobs, are afraid of losing their jobs. They are not spending and therefore stores and shops feel the effect. That is why in every commercial street that we go to, we see for rent and closed because of bankruptcy signs. That is very discouraging.
Mr. Speaker, you have signalled me that my time has expired. I want to say that I support the hon. member for Willowdale that now is the time, that the government has to act and to give hope to Canadians. I hope that the next budget which should be brought down as soon as possible gives hope to Canadians and, most of all, creates new jobs.


Mr. Gabriel Fontaine (Levis):: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the concern shown by the hon. member for Saint-Leonard for these important economic issues. In this connection I would be grateful for some clarification.
First of all, I may refer to the time when we were on our way out of a recession in 1981-82, when interest rates in this country as a result of major projects started at the time had risen to 23 per cent and inflation was around 13 per cent.
Today we are also at the end of a recessionary period. Interest rates are around 8 per cent or less and inflation is around 3.5 per cent. I notice that the members of his party, especially his leader, are promoting and defending a policy that favours major public works, including highway construction. They are also promoting the use of registered retirement savings plans to urge Canadians to spend more.

I have two specific questions about this policy of major works. First, some of his colleagues said that if Canadians could use their registered retirement savings plans, it would not create financial pressure because the funds would simply be transferred. But they forgot that these funds are already at the disposal of certain companies or trusts and are being used. If they withdraw them, these companies which are now using the funds will have to borrow elsewhere, so it will create financial pressure.
Second, concerning the major public works being advocated, I would like to know where the hon. member will get the money. Will it be from additional taxes? Or will it be by additional borrowing?


Alfonso Gagliano: First of all, Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question concerning interest rates and inflation and the period around 1983,1 suppose. I think if we look at interest rates today, because he talked about a rate of 8.5 per cent and 3 per cent inflation, that is the average interest rate now, but the rate varies depending on how good the customer is and the kind of loan. The average rate for an ordinary Canadian is about 12.5 per cent. We still have the same problem of the difference between current interest rates and inflation being 10 per cent. I just wanted to make that clarification.
In his two specific questions on registered retirement savings plans he talks about financial pressure. The problem we have today is that all financial institutions have tightened the screws because of the recession and many Canadians and companies are unable to obtain credit from the banks. There is no shortage of money, but because of the economic crisis they take fewer risks than when the economy is good. Allowing withdrawals up to a certain amount from RRSPs would encourage Canadians who have money tied up in such savings to go and buy a house and thus revive the economy and the construction industry. We know very well that the construction industry is a major driving force of our economy. Once the construction industry has revived and is doing well, the other parts of the economy will follow: labour and materials, 90 per cent of which are made in Canada.
Regarding infrastructure, I think my leader was clear when he announced this idea a couple of weeks ago. No, we do not want new taxes. Canadians are already taxed enough, but we even figured out that the money which
the government has to spend on welfare and unemployment insurance could instead finance such programs and revive the economy, thus putting people to work, creating demand for new materials and stimulating the building industry in Canada. In that way we could not only do work that must be done in any case since our roads and sewers are in bad shape and we have environmental problems, but we could revive the economy without the government having to spend more than it would have to spend on welfare and unemployment insurance.


Mr. J. W. Bud Bird (Fredericton-York-Sunbury):: Mr. Speaker, obviously I only have a couple of minutes barely to get started here. I guess in the time honoured fashion I would like to tell the hon. members what I am going to tell them after Question Period is over later on this afternoon.
What I am going to tell them is that there are very good signs about the economic recovery in Canada. I am going to elaborate on some of those statistics and those facts. Then I am also going to deal with the real competitive world that is out there and the stark realities that we have to face as a nation as we prepare for them.
Mr. Speaker, if I may anticipate two o'clock without moving more fully into my remarks, I would-


An hon. member:: Thlk a little slower.


John Williston (Bud) Bird: I will tiy. Would you like me to continue, Mr. Speaker, or would you like me to call it two o'clock at this time?


Mr. Speaker:: I want to thank the hon. member. It being two o'clock p.m., the House will now proceed to Statements by Members, pursuant to Standing Order 31.


STATEMENTS PURSUANT TO S. O. 31
John Williston (Bud) Bird: Mr. Speaker, today is Heritage Day, a day on which we as Canadians have an opportunity to celebrate those elements of our past that remind us of our roots and reflect the bonds which we hold in common as a society.
February 17, 1992

Our rich and diverse heritage, a veritable myriad of traditions, ideas, values, objects, historic places and natural landscapes, provides us with the means to know and understand ourselves better.
In this time of crisis for Canada, a crisis which is as much cultural as it is political in its origins, we should take time to reflect upon the common denominators of our heritage and to give thanks for having the opportunity to live in a nation so blessed by history, by geography and by the traditions and values which we share as a people.
It is a contemporary reality speaking to us of shared experiences and values, whether these are rooted in the rich history and culture of our aboriginal peoples, the traditions of Canadians of English and French speaking origins, or the distinctive cultural contributions of the many citizens of other ethnic origins who have willingly chosen to make Canada their home.
It is this heritage which will be the source of knowledge and inspiration for the successful development and evolution of Canadian society.


GENERAL AGREEMENT ON TARIFFS AND TRADE
Mr. Guy H. Arseneault (Restigouche-Chaleur):: Mr. Speaker, at a critical time at the GATT negotiations, the government must recall that supply management has provided Canadian consumers with plentiful supplies of high quality food at affordable prices and helped preserve the family farm as a way of life.

Furthermore, supply management has proven itself to be a rational method of matching domestic production to domestic requirements. It is also a much more humane and efficient system than the free market, since resources are not wasted on overproduction and surpluses do not rot in warehouses.

The future of our $10.2 billion dairy, poultry and egg producing sector and its 98,000 jobs is at stake. In Atlantic Canada the elimination of supply management would seriously jeopardize an industry which is worth some $642 million and which provides nearly 6,300 jobs in the region.

Finally, I urge the government to spare no effort in its GATT negotiations to ensure the preservation of viable and effective supply management programs.


CANADIAN UNITY
David Bjornson: Mr. Speaker, I stand today to commend the efforts of the architectural students of the University of Manitoba. These students created a large Valentine's card to be sent to all Canadians.
Along with the signatures of the university students, the card became highly visible at the Festival de Voya-geur and in other parts of Winnipeg.
The efforts of Mr. Jim Laidlaw and his colleagues have brought out the silent majority of Canadians who love their country.
In the future I hope more of the silent majority step forward to show their love for Canada.
Mr. Speaker, keep your eyes open. The Kinsmen "Proud to be Canadian" tour is on its way to Ottawa.


DEBRIS CONTROL BOARD
Right Hon. John N. Thrner (Vancouver Quadra):: Mr. Speaker, in 1979 the Debris Control Board was formed due to widespread concern over debris in the Fraser and Harrison Rivers, the Gulf of Georgia and Howe Sound. This will be of particular interest to you, Mr. Speaker, as your constituency overlooks this particular waterway. Debris was choking the wildlife habitat in the Fraser delta and posed a hazard to fishermen and pleasure boaters. The board has received praise for its programs which remove over 80 per cent of waterway debris and have improved the habitat for juvenile salmon in the Fraser estuary.
For 12 years, the Government of British Columbia and the B.C. Council of Forest Industries have funded this important body, contingent on equal federal participation through the Departments of Forestry, Fisheries and Oceans and Transport. Fisheries and Oceans terminated its contribution in March 1991 and Forestry and Transport will follow suit this March.

February 17, 1992
The much touted green plan of the Government of Canada has earmarked $100 million for the clean-up of the Fraser River basin. As the Debris Control Board's work is directly tied to this goal, it is logical to continue funding the board from this source.
I urge the Government of Canada to reaffirm its support and reinstate funding, which is only $180,000, to permit this critical environmental control board to continue in the Fraser delta.


HERITAGE DAY
Mrs. Edna Anderson (Simcoe Centre):: Mr. Speaker, Heritage Day will be celebrated across the country today, February 17.
Canadians will participate in community activities including poster contests and heritage fairs. Schools will offer students special Heritage Day lessons in such varied subject areas as English, social studies and drama.
Community and classroom events are an excellent way to celebrate our rich and varied heritage. What better way to instil pride in our national heritage than to start each school day with the singing of our national anthem, O Canada, and I would like to add with feeling.
We have much for which we can be proud and grateful. Reminding ourselves of our good fortune on a daily basis could not hurt, and I think it will surely help. Let's celebrate our heritage.



Mr. Brian L. Gardiner (Prince George -Bulkley Valley):: Mr. Speaker, today is Heritage Day, a day when we celebrate our country's grass roots commitment to the elements that make up this great country.
Our culture, our environment, our architecture, our people are all part of Canada from coast to coast to coast. The third Monday in February is a day for all Canadians to reflect on what it means to be a Canadian.
It should also give all of us that necessary break during the long stretch from New Year's to Easter. Let us hope that we will have a country to celebrate on the next Heritage Day, February 15, 1993. Let's hope for Canada.


THE ECONOMY
Mr. Doug Fee (Red Deer):: Mr. Speaker, through you, I have a short message for the Minister of Finance from my constituents. We know that he has a tough job and difficult decisions to make.
Everybody seems to have their own solution as to our economic problems. Unfortunately many of the solutions are in conflict with one another, and some are too simplistic to use.
There is a common message that they have, that there is a need to restore consumer confidence and control government spending.
We ask that he hold the line on taxes. There should be no new spending and every nickel from the GST should be applied to the deficit and debt. We do want to compliment him because interest rates are going in the right direction.
There are some people hurting and looking for a recovery, but we agree that the government should not buy us out of the recession. Everyone has what they think are the answers, but he is the one who has to make the decisions. We wish him good luck with the budget.


HERITAGE DAY
Mrs. Sheila Finestone (Mount Royal):: Mr. Speaker, today is Heritage Day and Canadians from coast to coast to coast celebrate Canada's diverse cultural peoples, environment, history and traditions, but unfortunately federal heritage policy has not yet had the attention it duly deserves.
In the fall of 1990 the government raised expectations by convening a conference of over 200 heritage experts to identify and discuss issues and options for actions for the development of a comprehensive heritage strategy.
After much discussion and thousands of dollars spent, a team of government officials were brought together to produce a discussion paper on heritage policy. However, nearly two years have passed, the team has been disbanded and while a paper has been written, this government's, lack of political will is gathering dust on government shelves.
February 17, 1992

As well, today it narrowly defeated a bill to declare this third Monday a national heritage day holiday. In the midst of uncertainty of our national futures, Canadians need more symbols of our common heritage and national identity.
I ask the government to get on with the job and release its discussion paper on national heritage, a step of respect toward our people and our country.


CANADIAN OLYMPIC ASSOCIATION
Mr. Guy Saint-Julien (Abitibi):: Mr. Speaker, in his column on the Albertville Winter Games, journalist Rejean Tremblay writes in La Presse of February 13,1992 that all the freeloaders from the Canadian Olympic Association travel at government expense and have made the association into a travel agency.
Mr. Tremblay, you say that you have already collected quite a file on the doings of the top people at the Canadian Olympic Association, so write another article on it and on behalf of Canadian taxpayers ask the Canadian Olympic Association to open its books on its detailed income and expenses, as I do as member of Parliament for Abitibi.
Mr. Tremblay, you were afraid to write what percentage the Canadian government contributes: It is less than 7 per cent of the total budget of the Canadian Olympic Association. Go ahead don't be afraid; tell the truth.


OLYMPIC GAMES
John F. Brewin: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of our members, I would like to join with all members in the House and congratulate Kerrin Lee-Gartner on her tremendous performance on Saturday.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


John F. Brewin: I note for the record that members on all sides are applauding that statement.
Kerrin showed skill, stamina and just great enthusiasm in her win. It was a great win for her, for her family and for Canadian athletes, especially women. It is noteworthy that all four Canadian gold medals in skiing over the years have been won by women: Nancy Greene, Ann Heggtveit, Kathy Kreiner and now Kerrin Lee-Gartner. It is a tremendous victory for her.
We should also congratulate Phillipe Laroche and Nicholas Fontaine for their show and say one final word to those who did not win medals. Kurt Browning, in particular, deserves the congratulations of this House for his showing over the years in all kinds of events. We were disappointed for him but not for ourselves in his performance.
We congratulate all young athletes who are performing so well for Canada in the Olympics.


FORESTRY
Mr. Stan Wilbee (Delta):: Mr. Speaker, in the northwestern United States up to 14 per cent of all timber is being exported as round logs. This is mostly from private land owned by the large integrated forest companies. Large profits from the export of raw logs then allows these companies to bid up the price of timber at auction from the public lands. This forces the smaller, independent loggers and sawmills out of business.
The net effect is that the American consumer pays unnecessarily high prices. Many small American companies are forced out of business and Canadian companies are being asked to pay unfair tariffs.
Canadian sawmills and logging operations are also out of business or being shut down, and thousands of Canadian workers are out of work because of the ridiculous policies and strong lobbies in the U.S.
I would encourage the Canadian government to resist any attempts by the U.S. to impose countervail duties asked for by these greedy American companies due to mismanagement of their forest resources by the American government and industry.

February 17, 1992


PRAIRIE ECONOMY
Hon. Lloyd Axworthy (Winnipeg South Centre):: Mr. Speaker, this last weekend 150 people came together in Winnipeg to prepare a blueprint for the economic and social integration of the prairies.
There was a call to overcome the fragmentation and duplication which in the past held back economic growth and development. Many constructive recommendations emerged, notably the restructuring of post-secondary education, the pooling of capital for regional development, and the co-ordination of environmental and agricultural policies.
Many of these proposals to reinvigorate the prairie economy require strong federal leadership. The Western Economic Diversification Fund should be restructured and targeted to specific priorities for the region in conjunction with research institutes and the private sector.
There needs to be new regulatory systems in transportation and telecommunications so that they can be co-ordinated to ensure better service, lower cost joint research projects, and to meet regional priorities.
Immigration and manpower training programs should be tailored to meet the needs of the region. There was a call for the federal government to champion more actively the work for Canadian prairie entrepreneurs abroad.
I would like to urge the federal government to pursue the constructive proposals of the Prairie Integration Conference and show its commitment as the participants did to building a strong, united and prosperous prairie region as part of a renewed Canada.


TOBACCO
Mr. Jim Karpoff (Surrey North):: Mr. Speaker, who speaks for health in the Liberal Party?
When the government announced an export tax on cigarettes health conscious Canadians applauded. So did the Liberal health critic who said in this House: "For the sake of health, hurrah for yesterday's proposed new one dollar per pack export tax on cigarettes".
But the Liberal revenue critic, the member for Tbron-to-Eglinton-Lawrence, said in Sunday's Ottawa Sun that the campaign against smoking in Canada amounts to "outrageous taxes" and government plunder.
Does the hon. member have any concern for the
38,000	Canadians who die each year from tobacco related causes?
This Liberal position is exactly what the tobacco lobby wants: abandon cigarette taxation, abandon enforcement and thereby abandon Canada's highly successful antismoking strategy.
Does the Liberal Party speak for health or does it speak for the tobacco lobby? Canadians deserve a clear answer to this question.


GASOLINE ADDITIVES
Hon. Ralph Ferguson (Lambton-Middlesex):: Mr. Speaker, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has again rejected the use of methylcyclopentadienyl manganese tricarbonyl in its gasolines. The U.S. application was for only half the level currently being used in Canada.
The Canadian government must act now to protect Canadian's health and our environment and ban MMT.
The EPA notes in its decision that five car manufacturers, as well as three manufacturing associations, all recommended denial of Ethyl Corporation's request and expressed major concern with regard to the addition of MMT to unleaded gasolines. They were concerned that MMT would increase the hydrocarbon emissions and plug catalytic converters in automobiles.
There is an environmentally friendly alternative to MMT. Ethanol blended fuels would reduce carbon monoxide by 25 per cent, carbon dioxide by 5.9 per cent, nitrous oxide by 5.7 per cent and ground level ozone by
5.3	per cent.
I call on the government to ban MMT, to remove the excise tax from the ethanol portion of that fuel, providing a much needed spark to move this industry off the shelf and into reality.
February 17, 1992

Oral Questions


KERRIN LEE-GARTNER
Mr. A1 Johnson (Calgary North):: Mr. Speaker, Canadians and westerners in particular, are extraordinarily proud of Kerrin Lee-Gartner. Kerrin, who lives in Calgary, captured Olympic gold on Saturday in the women's downhill with a magnificent run down the world's most difficult course.
We celebrate with Kerrin her victory, her encouragement to the whole Canadian Olympic team and the honour that she and all her teammates have brought to Canada.
As this is family day in Alberta, I would like to make particular mention of the significant role played by Kerrin's family. The love, commitment and support expressed to Kerrin by her family were essential in making her a winner. The deep expression of love and mutual support between Kerrin and her husband, Max, as we saw on the CBC interview on Saturday night, is an example to all Canadians of family values. Good families are winners.
Kerrin and Max, thank you for your hard work, your example and your victory for Canada.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD

['Hear, hear.\nFebruary 17, 1992']
Hon. Jean Chretien (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I have a number of questions for the Prime Minister regarding the ability of his government to speak for all Canadians.
Last week, U.S. Customs decided to put a tariff on Honda cars built in Canada. Everyone knows this decision by the Americans is aimed at attracting foreign investors away from Canada to the United States.
My question to the Prime Minister is this: What steps does his government intend to take in response to this unfair decision? We know that a reference to the special binational panel will take months or even years. What does the government intend to do now to counter a decision that is so patently unfair to Canada?


Hon. Michael Wilson (Minister of Industry, Science and Technology and Minister for International Trade):: Mr. Speaker, I met with Carla Hills on this a week ago today. The ambassador has met on a number of occasions with various members of the U.S. administration.
As I said in the House last week, we take this matter very seriously. We believe that there are some changes that must be made in the way the rules of origin are administered. We have made these views known to the Americans and, as I said in the House last week, we are prepared to take this to the dispute settlement mechanism, but our intent is to try to resolve this matter as quickly and as effectively as possible, for some of the very reasons to which my hon. friend refers.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask a question of the Prime Minister.
When the Prime Minister was in Ontario last week he told workers who had lost their jobs because of the free trade deal that they were "crackpots".


Some hon. members:: Shame, shame.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, unemployed Canadians are not crackpots. They are honest people who want jobs, who want to earn their living honestly in Canada. They do not deserve to be insulted by their Prime Minister.
William Merton, one of the U.S. free trade negotiators, was bragging last week that "the U.S. is doing quite nicely under the free trade agreement. That is a comment on how well we did". The United States is doing quite well under the free trade agreement but Canada is not doing well at all.
I would like to know from the Prime Minister: When will he learn that friendship is friendship and business is business and when will he stand up for the workers of Canada?


Right Hon. Brian Mulroney (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, under the free trade agreement our exports to the United States are now up by approximately $8 billion over the high prior to the coming into effect of the free trade agreement. August was a record month. As we come out of the recession, as the recovery continues to build, we hope the numbers will be even more impressive.

February 17, 1992
Oral Questions
My hon. friend ought not to be surprised at the kind of criticisms he is indulging in because after the auto pact was signed by a previous Liberal government in 1965, criticisms of this kind were made. People were calling for the abrogation of the auto pact in 1966 and 1967. The auto pact went on to provide great benefits for Ontario and Canada, as will the free trade agreement.
My hon. friend says that I referred to unemployed workers in Ontario as crackpots. That statement is of course completely false. I made no such statement.
When I saw PSAC organizers and NDP organizers with abusive and offensive signs, I referred to them, but I veiy carefully segregated the workers whom I met with throughout my trip in very productive meetings; farmers, ordinary workers, regional media. We worked very closely with them trying to bring about solutions. I must say their response was very encouraging.
For that very tiny minority of people who want to abuse public leaders, thereby thinking they are going to make a point, when all they are interested in is a shot on the nightly news, I say to them, work constructively, set aside the tactics of malice, join the co-operative effort in Canada and we will all be better off.



Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, I am happy to hear the Prime Minister referring to the auto pact because in that deal we made the necessary provision to have safeguards to maintain a level of jobs for Canadians, something that the government is afraid to do in the free trade agreement.
It is not only on trade with the United States that this country is having problems and the government is not standing by the Canadian workers. Overfishing by foreign countries has demolished completely the cod stocks of Atlantic Canada. There is a report that the minister of fisheries will announce today that the total allowable catch for next season will be diminished again and hundreds and thousands of fishermen and plant workers will lose their jobs.
What will the government do to defend the interests of the fishing industry in Atlantic Canada to make sure there is dignity for the fishermen and the fish plant workers in Atlantic Canada?


Hon. John C. Crosbie (Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and Minister for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency):: Mr. Speaker, the government has already done far more than has been done by any previous government. I note for the record that in an agreement entered into in 1981 with the European community, the hon. Leader of the Opposition gave away 77,500 metric tons of codfish and in 1972 his government gave away 300 metric tons of codfish to France.
When it comes to protecting Canadian fishermen they know where to look and it is not in the direction of the hon. gentleman or the government that he will never form.
With reference to what we are doing with respect to these questions, we have had a vigorous campaign under way with the European community and with non-NAFO countries that are fishing outside the Canadian 200-mile limit on the nose and tail of the banks, where unfortunately we have no authority at this time.
We look to other members of the House to help us to impress upon the European community that it is despoiling a common resource of humanity by its callous continuance of overfishing on the nose and tail of the banks and that it should cease immediately if it is at all interested in the future of fishermen in Canada or elsewhere in the world.


Mr. George S. Baker (Gander-Grand Falls):: Mr. Speaker, this is a black Monday in the history of the Atlantic fishery, a black Monday in a black year.
During this year this government has given to foreign nations in fishing zone 2G and 2H, 11,000 tonnes of cod while Canada got 9,000 tonnes. Now we learn that imports of processed Atlantic codfish from those very same nations have doubled to $37 million a year. Does the minister not agree that it is sheer insanity to give foreign nations cod quotas inside our 200-mile zone, then buy the codfish back from them while our own Canadian fish plant workers and fishermen are suffering the consequences of drastic quota cuts?
February 17, 1992


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, I agree with the hon. gentleman that it is sheer insanity for Canada to give any cod inside its 200-mile economic zone to foreign countries.
I wonder then why Canada in 1972 committed such insanity by signing a treaty with the French under which they took 300,000 tonnes of cod in the gulf. That is only the start. They are taking 4,000 tonnes more this year because of that treaty which has no termination date. I tell the hon. gentlemen it was sheer insanity in 1981 when the treaty was signed with the European community. The hon. gentleman was a member of the government that gave away 75,000 more tonnes of fish in 2G-H, the very 2G-H that he now brings up, Mr. Speaker, in 1981 together with 2J-3KL. For shame, yes, it was sheer insanity.


George Baker: I gather the minister is saying now that he is going to cancel those foreign licences after the fish is gone-our minister, "the hon. Johnny-come-too-lately".
We import fish from several nations, including South Korea, that illegally fish outside the 200-mile zone. How does an Atlantic cod get to Korea? They do not drive there in Hyundais.
Will this government ban the importation of processed Atlantic codfish from those nations that are illegally fishing outside the 200-mile zone? How can we convince them that it is illegal if we are paying top dollar for the contraband?


John Carnell Crosbie: It is always a pleasure to see an old actor return to the stage, Mr. Speaker. I may be a Johnny-co-me-lately, but the Lewisport Pilot of February 5 said this: "The people of George Baker's district have been wondering lately where their elected member of Parliament has been keeping himself". Could it be that it is Georgie-gone-lately or come-lately?
With reference to the question, in the year 1992, one boat from South Korea has been seen on the nose or the tail of the Banks. It could not have been seen on both, not at least at the same moment. In 1991, four South
Oral Questions
Korean vessels were seen to be on the nose or tail of the Grand Banks outside 200 miles. So if we are going to depend upon South Korean for our cod, we will be pretty codless.
With respect to 2-GH, in five years in 2-GH, the foreign catch of cod, not the total allowable catch, what they actually caught, was: 1991, zero metric tons; 1990, one metric ton; 1989, no metric tons; 1988, one metric ton; 1987, 162 metric tons; average over five years, 33 metric tons. The hon. gentleman should refurbish his encyclopaedic knowledge of fishing on the banks.


FREE TRADE AGREEMENT
Mr. David Barrett (Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca):: Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Official Opposition in this House visited the President of the United States to discuss a number of subjects, including the free trade agreement.
I would like to ask the Prime Minister if the Leader of the Opposition was accompanied by a Canadian ambassador and if the Prime Minister can tell us exactly what position the Liberal leader took vis-a-vis the free trade agreement.


Mr. Speaker:: Part of that question may be in order, but there seems to be some objection to the latter part of it.


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, that is a very, very tough question. We have been working on this all weekend. By Thursday or Friday I will have a complete answer for the hon. member.


An hon. member:: If you are lucky.


David Barrett: Mr. Speaker, my second question is also for the Prime Minister.
At a time in Canada when there are very serious problems such as those people are having with their own livelihood, paying their mortgages, looking for jobs and desperately seeking answers to important political questions, does it serve any useful purpose to call demonstrators crackpots and to use political labels against those people?

February 17, 1992
Oral Questions


Mr. Speaker:: Probably the question is out of order. The hon. minister may want to deal with it, but I think it is out of order.


David Barrett: Mr. Speaker, on that point of order, the Prime Minister in his own answer earlier referred to those people as a narrow group. He said the NDP-


Mr. Speaker:: I think it is out of order. The hon. member may want to put another question.


David Barrett: Mr. Speaker, my final question is for the Prime Minister.
Last week again we saw another industry in this country hit negatively by the free trade agreement and that, of course, was the magnesium producers in Quebec.
How many assaults on Canadian jobs, how many attacks on Canadian industries and how many losses of jobs and investment in this country does it take to get the Prime Minister to understand what Simon Reisman is finally beginning to say, that we are not being treated fairly by the free trade agreement? When is the government prepared to give notice to cancel that agreement because of the way the Americans are treating it?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, on that particular issue, on the magnesium countervail or anti-duping-anti-dumping-


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Pass the marbles please, Mr. Speaker.
Let me start again. On those particular issues, we have indicated to the company that we fully support the position of the Canadian company and we fully support the position in challenging and fighting the particular action with the United States.
Let me just go to the heart of the question that my hon. friend is posing. He is suggesting that the Americans should not have the right to initiate anti-dumping actions.
I believe in the last year Canada initiated 16 of the 22 anti-dumping actions. If we went the route that my hon. friend is referring to, we would lose the opportunity to protect Canadian industry against actions taken by American industry that undermine the position of Canadian companies. That is why we still have the right, within the free trade agreement, to challenge actions taken by American companies.


FISHERIES
Mr. Brian Tobin (Humber-St. Barbe-Baie Verte):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans.
The destruction of the northern cod stock referred to by my friend from Gander-Grand Falls is not only cruel in its effect on the people of Atlantic Canada, but it is criminal. It is criminal because it could have been avoided. It was man, not nature, who was the author of this disaster and it occurred despite repeated warnings to this minister and to this government that the fish were being overfished in the northern cod zones.
I ask the minister of fisheries: What alternative are this minister and this government prepared to offer to the thousands of Atlantic Canadians, and in particular those in Newfoundland and Labrador whose livelihoods have been wiped out because of the mismanagement of the fish stock by this minister and by this government?


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, as everyone in the House knows, there have been difficulties in the Atlantic fishery for several years. I do not agree, by the way, that these difficulties are all man-made. Certainly in part they may be due to errors by persons but, for example, last year it was due in large part to environmental conditions, ice, unusually cold water. We do not know exactly what all the reasons are.
It is also due, of course, to callous overfishing by Spain, Portugal and countries of the European community. Spain and Portugal have vessels registered in Panama under flags of convenience, et cetera, overfishing outside the nose and tail of the Grand Banks. The fishing inside is controlled absolutely and carefully by us.
We have attempted to do what we can to assist, and we are going to continue. We have had the Atlantic Fisheries Adjustment Program which still goes forward with additional tens of millions being spent on scientific research.

We have the community programs to help the communities where fish plants have closed. We have Community Futures, ice compensation, Atlantic catch failure-


Ms. Copps:: You better wave that yellow flag.


John Carnell Crosbie: You do not want to hear what is being done to help people when they are in trouble. You only want to make an opera out of Question Period in the House of Commons.


Brian Vincent Tobin: Mr. Speaker, there are 10 provincial governments in Canada, two territorial governments and a national government. There are ministers of fisheries in most of the provinces, but only one government, the national government, and only one minister, this minister, has constitutional authority for the management of the cod stocks; only one government, this one. This government is responsible for the failure.
It is reasonable to ask on behalf of thousands of displaced Atlantic Canadians whose livelihood and whose traditional way of life have been squandered what compensation, if any, is available for those people and their families.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, this government will continue to bring forward programs and assistance to the people affected by closures.
Of course, the closure announced by Fisheries Products at the plant at Catalina was tragic enough in itself. Hopefully, it will only be temporary and the whole unemployment insurance program will apply.
This government has nothing to be ashamed of in its assistance to Newfoundlanders. Last year there was $6,142 worth of per capita annual federal expenditures in Newfoundland under various programs including programs to assist the fishery: $3.15 in expenditures for every $1 in revenue. Most of this has gone to help people get employment and/or keep employment through the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, the Fisheries Adjustment Program and all of the other programs we have introduced to help people in need.
Oral Questions
We are going to continue, despite the raucous sounds that anyone might make or the feeble attempts to blame someone.


THE ECONOMY
Hon. Herb Gray (Windsor West):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Finance.
Today, The Globe and Mail reported that its latest survey of major companies said that profits in this country collapsed by 87 per cent in the last three months of 1991 compared to the same period last year, a time when the minister was saying that his government's policies were bringing about a recovery.
Will the minister commit now to a new, effective, economic recovery program to restore corporate earnings and, above all, to restore wages and jobs for Canadian workers?


Hon. Don Mazankowski (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to advise the hon. member that The Globe and Mail survey is not indicative of the over-all corporate profits performance.
Statistics Canada reported a 52.3 per cent increase over the period of the second and third quarters. This would certainly draw into question the assessment made by The Globe and Mail. I think the hon. member should rely upon the figures of Statistics Canada rather than presumptions taken by The Globe and Mail article.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister delight in quoting The Globe and Mail when they think it suits their purpose.
They cannot ignore it today because this survey also says that "Canadian corporate pre-tax profits as a proportion of Gross Domestic Product fell to a level not seen since 1932".
Why will the Minister of Finance not commit now to a new meaningful economic recovery program in his next budget to prevent the current economic weakness, recession, from dragging on for another seven years, as happened during the depths of the Great Depression until the beginning of the Second World War? Why will he not commit to more jobs for Canadians today?

February 17, 1992
Oral Questions


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, the fact of the matter is that this government is committing to more jobs and we are addressing specific sectors of the economy that are in trouble. I recognize that there have been serious difficulties in the manufacturing sector. Part of that is due to the recession. Part of it is due to the restructuring that has to take place.
I think the hon. member should be encouraged by the fact that the Conference Board of Canada in its recent survey indicated that businesses are much more optimistic about 1992 than they were in 1991 and that their investment plans are very positive. I think, in spite of the fact that the hon. member tries to paint the gloomiest picture, there are some positive signs on the horizon.


FISHERIES
Brian L. Gardiner: Mr. Speaker, there are thousands of people in hundreds of fishing communities on the east coast who do not have a future because of problems in the fishery. Today is not the time for Liberals and Conservatives to blame each other for the problems of the past. The people of the east coast want solutions and assurances from the Government of Canada that their concerns and future will be taken care of.
Given the dependence of these communities on the fisheries resource, can the minister offer a future for these communities? What future do they have?


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, I believe that these communities have a future and any difficulties in connection with fish stocks are difficulties that will be overcome over a period of time. During the time that these difficulties are being overcome, of course government has to support the people who are having difficulties during that period.
This is not the only area of the world that has had trouble with fish stocks. There is trouble with fish stocks everywhere where mankind is allowed to exercise its rapacious methods and desires upon a common property stock. This has happened in the Barents Sea. This happened in a number of areas around the world and is happening here in part because outside our 200-mile limit are countries, supposedly civilized, that will not pay any attention to just sensible rules to deal with conservation and sustainable development. I mean in particular Spain, Portugal and others that have been named before.
What can be done? Already the town of Gaultois has been assisted to get back into the fishery business. Already, as a result-I do not want to claim all the credit, but certainly some of it is my efforts-the town of Grand Bank has a fish plant that is starting up in a different aspect of the fishery and we are going to continue with those efforts.
We had a failure with the shrimp plant in St. John's recently, but we are not discouraged. We are going to keep going, going, going. That is our nature and we are going to keep at it.


Brian L. Gardiner: Mr. Speaker, given the non-answer from the minister, maybe we do have to attribute some blame to this government.
The minister has called an emergency meeting of Atlantic fisheries ministers to deal with the massive lay-offs in Newfoundland. An internal government document dated June 1990 revealed that the government has known for some time that there were going to be long-term problems in the fishery resource and that several thousand workers were going to face permanent lay-off.
Given the problems with fishery communities dependent on that resource, what specific steps can the minister take to ensure that those communities do have a future and that he can take some specific action to stop the foreign overfishing of our fishery stock?


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, I welcome the hon. gentleman's interest in this issue. I am glad that he is representing his party's Atlantic caucus.
With respect to the question that he asked, I can enumerate the programs that we have in place to help. We have a community assistance fund to help towns where their fish plant has closed. We have a Community Futures program covering many of these same areas. We have the industrial adjustment service. We have an Atlantic fisheries adjustment program to help, if they want to diversify within the fishery or to diversify outside the fishery. We have helped hundreds of projects to start up as a result of those programs. We are going to continue. The meeting this afternoon is to discuss with the trade, the union and those involved, the stockholders in the Canadian east coast fishery, what should be done
February 17, 1992

as a result of new information and advice in connection with fish stocks. After that we will decide.


EMPLOYMENT
Ms. Mary Clancy (Halifax):: Mr. Speaker, on Thursday Sears announced the closing of its catalogue warehouse in Halifax, throwing 800 people, mostly women, out of work. The reasons: the recession, the GST and crossborder shopping.
When will the Minister of Finance recognize that his policies have devastated Atlantic Canada, particularly in the retail sector, and when will he institute new economic measures that will help?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, my understanding is that this is a restructuring of the organization and that the jobs are being transferred to Belleville. This is not something unusual. I note that the Sears Corporation, since the fall of 1990, has laid off some 40,500 people in its effort to restructure and rearrange its activities.


Sheila Maureen Copps: You are bragging about that?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, no, I am not bragging about that. I am simply stating a matter of fact.


An hon. member:: She has a great big smile on her face.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: That has occurred in the United States of America. We are confronted with the same kinds of adjustments and restructuring. While it is very unfortunate, I think the action taken by the Minister of National Revenue in terms of dealing with the crossborder shopping issue will, in fact, alleviate some of that problem. If the hon. member has any other positive suggestions I would certainly be glad to entertain them.


Mary Catherine Clancy: Mr. Speaker, the minister says it is not unusual but it is unfortunate. Well, it is very unfortunate for the 800 people, mostly women, who cannot take the opportunity to move to Belleville.
Oral Questions
This government deliberately created the GST. This government deliberately exacerbated matters, particularly with regard to the Sears closing and cross-border shopping.
What will the Minister of Finance do, deliberately I hope, to help the 800 Sears workers in Halifax who are faced with a choice of moving or starving?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I certainly do not want to minimize the difficulty that has been inflicted upon the people who are being asked to move. I simply want to remind the hon. member that she blames all the difficulties on the free trade and the GST.
We all know that General Motors of America has announced lay-offs of some 75,000 people; Mercedes-Benz Corporation is announcing lay-offs of some 20,000 people; IBM has announced lay-offs of some 20,000 people. I am trying to point out to the hon. member that this is part of the restructuring and the globalization that is going on. It is not due to the GST and it is not due to the free trade agreement.
The Minister of National Revenue announced measures that will take effect immediately that will be helpful. We will continue to deal with the specific sectors that need help and the government will be announcing programs and policies in due course.


Mr. Sergio Marchi (York West):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister.
Following the efforts in Ontario last week to present the Prime Minister as a kinder, gentler person in his capacity as head of government, he quickly dismissed thousands of Canadians who came out to meet him in Peterborough, who are devastated by this economic recession, as crackpots.
Why does the Prime Minister call John Taylor, a 69-year old pensioner who is concerned about his future and 32-year old Rob Curry, an unemployed plastic employee who must rely on welfare for the very first time, crackpots, when these two Canadians came out to meet the Prime Minister in search of economic hope and economic solutions?

February 17, 1992
Oral Questions


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I had occasion to meet with unemployed workers, farmers, people of various kinds. I met with Mrs. Milgaard on the streets of Winnipeg. She presented a problem to me. I do this on a regular basis. Any time I have the occasion of a civil dialogue with people who have difficulties, I come back and try to respond to it immediately. The ministry can tell you that this is done on a very regular basis.
I have already said that the statement made by the Leader of the Opposition was false. The statement is also false, now that it is made by my hon. friend. I referred to the people, and I said it very specifically, who were organizing a demonstration. They did not want dialogue. They did not want assistance from me or from the Leader of the Opposition. What they wanted was to provoke a political spectacle, using abusive language that could only achieve the ultimate objective of getting their faces on television that night.
I tell my hon. friend that the member of Parliament and the mayor had indicated their availability to meet with some of the people. That was turned down. I indicated my intention to meet with some of the people. That was declined. We had indicated our availability. I had constant meetings ranging from families with cystic fibrosis all the way to the leaders of the Dairy Product Council of Ontario, just immediately preceding that.
We were available, but clearly they were not. The Government of Canada and I are ready at any time, on a regular basis, to meet with people who have problems, who want to sit down and look for a solution.
I think my hon. friend would agree it is pretty difficult to meet with somebody who is not seeking a solution. A small group of people organized this thing specifically for political purposes, using tactics and methods that should have gone out many years ago, that are counterproductive and unhelpful to the people they purport to serve.


Sergio Marchi: Mr. Speaker, the simple truth is there were 1,000 Canadians in Peterborough and whether the Prime Minister likes it or not, he referred not only once, but twice, to Canadians as crackpots and he should apologize to whomever he was directing that adjective.
I return to the Prime Minister. When will the Prime Minister and the government recognize and respond to the deep economic anxieties among Canadians that simply push that pensioner and that 32 year old unemployed persons to ask of their national government for a better deal for themselves and a better deal for Canada? What is so wrong with that response, Mr. Leader, and what will you and your government be doing to reduce those economic hardships?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, in regard to the very legitimate question that my hon. friend now asks, if he thinks that anybody in this country is subject to unlimited abuse and personal invective and is expected immediately after to sit down with these people in a constructive dialogue when they have clearly indicated they do not want to, then my hon. friend is obviously off base in regard to that.
With regard to the more important matter he raises. The Financial Post indicated on the weekend that its survey indicates there is widespread evidence of a stronger economy by mid-year. By year end, most of the current nightmares should be fading. The jobless rate will likely be below 10 per cent and corporate profits will show significant gains. Already there has been improvement. Earnings of non-resource companies in the postfourth quarter early bird profit round-ups rose by an average of 19 per cent.
The Post is forecasting recovery is now in sight and two and one-half per cent growth this year. The IMF, the OECD are forecasting growth in the neighbourhood of
3.1	per cent. They indicate that we are going to lead the G-7 countries. My hon. friend should take some encouragement and some pleasure at these good signs that are starting to be forecast in respect of a strong economy.


INTERNATIONAL JOINT COMMISSION
Mr. Steven W. Langdon (Essex-Windsor):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Secretary of State for External Affairs. Great Lakes pollution problems are getting worse, yet the International Joint Commission has just closed its expert library in Windsor as part of cutting back its regional office. Windsor IJC staff this morning bluntly said that they had been told money was not a factor in this shutdown.
Feb in ary 17, 1992

I want to ask the minister why this key source of information for IJC staff and for environmental groups has been shut. Is this just the first step to shutting the whole regional office itself?


Hon. Barbara McDougall (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, the work of the International Joint Commission has made a real contribution to the cleaning up of the Great Lakes.
There are, of course, other means by which we are approaching this issue. It is a very important one for Canada, as it is for the United States. We have been working closely with the governors of some of that region too.
I do not think the location or the size of the office is what makes the International Joint Commission effective, and we intend to continue its effectiveness as we go through further discussions with the U.S. on Great Lakes pollution.


Mr. Howard McCurdy (Windsor-St. Clair):: Mr. Speaker, I hope that the Secretary of State for External Affairs will note that the character of her answer quite confuses the impression earlier given that the IJC regional office in Windsor would be maintained. I would ask her to review the matter because in order to work effectively they need a regional office.
I want to ask a specific question about the libraiy. The president of the University of Windsor has offered to accommodate the library at the university. I would ask the secretary of state if she would use her good offices to arrange that the library at the IJC office in Windsor be transferred to the University of Windsor so that it can be maintained in the district and remain an effective resource for environmental groups in that area to ensure that the IJC and this government do their job with respect to the environment.


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, I do not think there is anything confusing about it, although the hon. member may find it so.
The source of information in the library is clearly an important part of what the IJC does. My own view would be that it is important that that material stay with the people who are working directly on environmental issues in this connection, and that would be with the IJC.
Oral Questions JUSTICE


Godfrey Stanley (Stan) Wilbee: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the Minister of Justice my question is for the Solicitor General.
This morning in The Ottawa Citizen there was an article that said: "Many men who kill their wives are getting away with murder". That particular report stated that between 1982 and 1986, 44 men were charged with killing their wives. In those 44 cases none of the husbands were found guilty of first degree murder and most were convicted of lesser charges such as manslaughter, in spite of many of them being very brutal and mutilating murders.
My question for the minister is this. Does this study accurately depict the situation for all of Canada and is the Canadian legal system letting these murderers off too easily? If so, what does the government intend to do about it?


Hon. Doug Lewis (Solicitor General of Canada):: Mr. Speaker, my friend raises an issue which is of interest to all members of the House. I am not in a position to confirm or deny the results of the study, nor am I in a position to speculate as to whether or not this particular situation exists throughout Canada.
I would say to my hon. friend that the concerns of all of us were one of the reasons that the government commissioned the national panel on violence against women. One aspect of that panel's work will be to develop proposals for action which will improve the response of the justice system to the problems of male violence against women, including wife assault.


IMMIGRATION
Mrs. Marlene Catterall (Ottawa West):: Mr. Speaker, given the urgency of the subject matter I have given notice of my question to the Deputy Prime Minister. It concerns the International Convention on the Rights of the Child and Canada's obligations under that convention to respect a child's right to both its nationality and its family. Yet within days a Canadian bom seven-month old child will have to leave her country.

February 17, 1992
Presence in the Gallery
Will the Deputy Prime Minister immediately announce that we will respect the convention rights of Agatha Zujewski and will he announce that she and her parents will be allowed to stay in Canada?


Hon. Gerry Weiner (Minister of Multiculturalism and Citizenship):: Mr. Speaker, the minister is away from the House today but the member will know that we have put into place a very fair and generous refugee determination process.
There is a backlog that is now being processed. We have some very generous rules. It is not a fast-track immigration process and all I can tell her is that each individual case is reviewed on humanitarian and compassionate grounds. If it has been refused, it has been in that spirit. Certainly this family will have every opportunity to apply as immigrants, which many people would like to do in growing numbers.


Mrs. Shirley Maheu (Saint-Laurent-Cartierville):: Mr. Speaker, because of its urgent nature, I too gave notice of my question to the Deputy Prime Minister's office. I think it is incredible that the government should acknowledge that Mr. and Mrs. Mirzad's five children, ranging from 19 months to 14 years old, have a bona fide claim to refugee status, and then turn around and deny that status to their parents, which creates an intolerable situation. Are we going to make orphans of these children?
I raised this matter in July 1991, and the minister did not even answer my question. What does the minister intend to do to remedy this serious injustice? When will he make the necessary changes to prevent similar occurrences?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I am told that the minister gave an initial reply last Friday. I was not in the House, so I will check on this.
I am not for familiar with the particular context of these two cases. I will ask the minister for further information as soon as possible, and we will report back to the two members concerned. Normally there is a procedure that is quite equitable, with right of appeal, which provides that claimants are treated fairly, in accordance with the usual criteria. However, there may be exceptions. We
will look into this very carefully, and I will report back to you.


IMMIGRATION AND REFUGEE BOARD
Mr. Joe Comuzzi (Thunder Bay-Nipigon):: Mr. Speaker, as a result of a terrible incident last week, two quasi-judges of the refugee board were suspended with pay.
For the benefit of the House, I wonder whether the Deputy Prime Minister could provide us with information as to how these people are picked. Do they have a mandatory training period? Is there a trial period? Do they have training in multicultural issues? Do they know what the fundamentals are of natural justice? Do they understand what due process or doctrine of fairness means?
Could the Deputy Prime Minister explain what process is used to hire these judges?


Gérard (Gerry) Weiner: Mr. Speaker, the minister spoke to the chairman of the Immigration and Refugee Board at the end of last week.
Mr. Fairweather acted very quickly. He is investigating the entire allegation. I can just tell you that Mr. Fairweather's reputation, which is world-wide, is one that certainly precedes him in the area of human rights. He has a complete and implicit knowledge of the diversity of this nation, how we have been enriched and how we celebrate that diversity.
Certainly I am very comfortable and confident that the independence and impartiality of that board is giving everyone the fairest and most generous hearing possible.


PRESENCE IN THE GALLERY
Mr. Speaker:: I wish to draw to the attention of hon. members the presence in the gallery of His Excellency Askar Akayev, President of Kyrgyzstan.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Mr. Speaker:: I wish also to draw to the attention of hon. members the presence in the gallery of Drs. Roberta Bondar and Ken Money, members of the Canadian astronaut team.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.
February 17, 1992



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Gérard (Gerry) Weiner: Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to table today, in both official languages, the first annual report of the Canadian Multicultural Advisory Committee.

This report is for the 1990-91 fiscal year.
[Editor's note: See today's Votes and Proceedings.]


POINTS OF ORDER
Mr. David Dingwall (Cape Breton-East Richmond):: Mr. Speaker, in view of the comments made earlier this day by the hon. Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, I wonder if we can anticipate from the minister, either this day or later this week, some form of ministerial statement with regard to the situation of the Atlantic fishery in view of the importance that all members have attached to this matter.


Hon. Harvie Andre (Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons):: I just want to make the obvious point that Question Period is over.


THE BUDGET
Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, just before the government House leader leaves, last week he indicated that as soon as the date was known he would announce to the House of Commons when budget day would be. We are getting very close to the day we have been anticipating. Does he have any news for us today?


Harvie Andre: Mr. Speak-
Routine Proceedings
er, as the House leader of the New Democratic Party just said, we are getting very close to it.


CANADA HEALTH ACT
Ms. Joy Langan (Mission-Coquitlam) moved: for leave to introduce Bill C-333, an act to amend the Canada Health Act.


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


Joy Langan: Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to introduce this bill which amends several sections of the Canada Health Act and has, as its purpose, the safeguarding of the health and safety of emergency response personnel.
The bill adds to the list of hospital services contained in the act such as the requirement for hospitals to disclose to workers who have provided emergency care the name and nature of contagious disease that may have been passed on to them in the course of their duties. Workers involved in emergency response, including police, fire-fighters and paramedics as well as volunteers, routinely provide emergency medical treatment in unsanitary conditions on patients they know nothing about.
The result is that these workers and their families can be exposed to contagious or infectious diseases. These workers need to know what they may have been exposed to if they are to continue their jobs in the future.
It is not about involuntary testing. It simply requires that hospitals share information they have so that those who may have been exposed to a possible health threat are protected.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Ms. Langan 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.

Routine Proceedings


DANGEROUS GOODS IDENTIFICATION ACT
Joy Langan: for leave to introduce Bill C-334, an act respecting the identification of dangerous goods and to amend the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act.


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


Joy Langan: The purpose of this bill is to enable certain persons such as fire-fighters to obtain, instantaneously, accurate information at the scene of an incident involving dangerous materials that will allow them to deal appropriately with those materials.
The bill calls on the Minister of Transport to establish a computerized registry of dangerous goods, saying where they are manufactured and stored and describing the nature of the substance. This type of right to know legislation will greatly enhance the ability of emergency response teams to quickly assess the nature of any accident involving hazardous materials. Accurate and accessible information is crucial for saving lives and properties as well as for taking the appropriate measures in dealing with a hazardous substance. The development of such a system would enable emergency response personnel to learn the exact nature of hazardous materials present at any location and provide guidance on responding to the specific incident, particularly guidance for the safety of those responding.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Ms. Langan 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.


PETITIONS
Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, it is an honour and a privilege once again to present a petition on behalf of a number of petitioners from central British Columbia who are concerned about the possibility of a major river diversion, namely the North Thompson
River. They are asking that steps be taken to ensure our fresh waters would not be dammed in Canada in an effort to divert all or part of them into the United States of America.


Mr. Jim Jordan (Leeds -Grenville):: Mr. Speaker, I have a couple of petitions containing several hundred names from my riding protesting a legal system which would allow an obviously sick and dangerous person to be at large who caused the death of Nina de Villiers last August in an area not too far from my riding where her body was found.


Dennis Joseph Mills: Mr. Speaker, I also have the honour and privilege of presenting some petitions to the House pursuant to Standing Order 36. These petitions are signed by members of my riding of Broadview-Greenwood and they are humbly calling upon the government to begin its action plan for reclaiming the most polluted river in Canada, the Don River. They repeat their request on a daily basis.


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk)
Mr. Albert Cooper (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House
of Commons): Mr. Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: Nos. 50 and 229.
Mr. Skelly (North Island-Powell River): With respect to registered and special delivery mail (a) what is the present service (b) although the public pays a premium price for these services, is this mail handled any differently than other mail, such as unsolicited third-class mail?


Harvie Andre: (a) Registred mail and special delivery mail are both premium products/services provided by Canada Post. Modification to the processing and products have improved service to the customer while at the same time reducing costs to the corporation.
February 17, 1992

In the case of registered mail changes to the processing streams have resulted in faster delivery while holding product prices constant for two years. These new enhancements also enable customers to access an automatic inquiry system giving them delivery information on their mail piece.
Special delivery provides its customers with delivery standards which are faster than regular letter mail (1 day local; 2-3 days to major centres). Also, these standards are guaranteed with either a special letter/special occasion replacement or postage refunded. This product is handled and processed separately from letter mail.
(b)	Special delivery and registered mail are delivered with regular letter carrier delivery.
In the case of registered the bar coded item is computer scanned at delivery time and recorded on the articles delivered bill. Also, a recipient signature is obtained upon delivery by the letter carrier. If a signature is not obtained, the mail piece is returned to the nearest postal outlet to await addressee pick-up.
Special delivery receives its priority handling prior to the letter carrier delivery.


Mr. Thorkelson: For the period December 4, 1991 to February 4, 1992, what has
been the (a) total cost (b) cost per question (c) cost for this question,
to the government for answering Order Paper Questions?


Mr. Albert Cooper (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons):: (a)	and (b) Questions answered during the period of December 4, 1991 to February 4, 1991:
Question No.	Approximate Cost	Question No.	Approximate Cost52	$125	165	$21587	4,280	167	10895	215	168	21699	179	169	52107	275	170	66119	250	171	128121	315	172	74122	100	174	42125	168	178	99
Routine Proceedings
Question No.	Approximate Cost	Question No.	Approxin Cost127	108	179	101134	85	180	270137	300	181	133138	7,936	183	148142	93	184	79144	300	185	69145	382	186	106154	80	188	25155	335	189	145156	238	190	238159	72	191	125160	110	197	45162	140	200	195163	60	201	184
TOTAL COST: $19,009
(c)	$30.
* *
*


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, if Questions Nos. 123 and 133 could be made Orders for Return, these returns would be tabled immediately.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Is it the pleasure of the House that Questions Nos. 123 and 133 be deemed to have been made Orders for Return?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Mrs. Stewart: Since its opening, have any departments used the facilities at the Dome Stadium hotel, in Toronto, for training and operational functions, and, if so, (a) which departments (6) what was the (i) cost (ii) function (iii) total expenditure for each department (c) how many of the participants worked and/or resided in the Toronto area (d) which of the departments using the hotel did not have training rooms available to them through federal facilities?
Return tabled.

Supply

Question No. 133-Mr. MacAulay:
With respect to the Small Craft Harbours program and related programs of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, for each federal constituency, how much money has been spent during the last 5 fiscal years, including the present year, and, in each case, (a) which projects received funding (b) how much funding (c) what are the names and addresses of each contractor or department that performed the work?
Return tabled.


David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, I direct a question or a representation to the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader.
I posed a question earlier this day with regard to ministerial statements. I am wondering if the parliamentary secretary, in view of the importance of the subject matter, namely the Atlantic fishery, could consult with the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans to ascertain whether we can expect later this week some form of ministerial statement on the status of the Atlantic fishery and, in particular, the number of jobs which would be affected by what is taking place as a result of the meeting this afternoon in Ottawa.
Can the parliamentary secretary give us some assurances with regard to that particular representation?


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, I think my hon. friend has made his representation twice now. I am sure that the department and the minister are aware of it and will do all in their power to address the concerns of the fishery.
I ask, Mr. Speaker, that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.


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


Some hon. members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Peterson (p. 7108).
The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: The hon. member for Fredericton-York-Sunbury has 18 minutes left.


John Williston (Bud) Bird: Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned in my few brief remarks before Question Period, there are some excellent signals pointing toward a moderate and slowly developing economic recovery in Canada. I would just like to make some of those points for the record before I begin the main substance of my remarks.
New motor vehicles have risen 9 per cent from December 1991 to January 1992. The sales of existing homes rebounded sharply in December. The real GDP at factor cost advanced 0.1 per cent in November. The Statistic Canada composite leading indicator continued to grow in November by 0.4 per cent. The prime lending rate at banks was lowered to 7.5 per cent in January and is down by one-half from its peak of 14.75 per cent in May 1990. It is the lowest rate we have seen since May 1973.
Significantly, the prime rate differential with the United States has fallen 229 basis points since May 1990, and now the differential is only 100 basis points, down from 475 in July 1990.
The Canadian dollar is trading at 84.3 U.S. cents, its lowest level since February 1990. Inflation is clearly coming very much under control. Wage settlements in the third quarter averaged 3.3 per cent, down from 3.4 per cent in the second quarter and down from 6.1 per cent in the first quarter of last year.
Over the past six months the seasonally adjusted CPI has increased only 0.5 per cent. At an annual rate, excluding food and energy, the increase would have been
1.9	per cent.
On top of those statistics we have predictions by some of the world's foremost economic forecasters. The OECD September 1991 survey of Canada notes that fiscal actions and planning in Canada will leave our country well placed to maintain its traditional role as one of the most prosperous and fastest growing economies in the OECD area.
February 17, 1992

The British magazine, The Economist, in January said that Canada could expect the second strongest growth and the second lowest inflation among G-7 countries in the coming year. In our own Conference Board's 1992 world outlook, it was stated that the Canadian economy is expected to expand by 3.2 per cent compared with 3 per cent for Japan, 2.3 per cent for France and 2.1 per cent for the United States. Those are good signals and signs.
There is a strong competitive world out there and we do have to realistically take stock of our future potential and the actions we have to take to realize it. I want to talk today about changes we must make in the 1990s so that our country will keep up with world competition. We must change and change soon and over the long term hold our position as one of the world's leading economies and maintain our high standard of living.
The brutal fact is that we are not keeping up with the changing global economy. Canada is a trading nation. Few industrialized countries export more than 25 per cent of everything they produce as we do, but we are losing ground. While world trade has doubled in the past eight years, our share has slipped to 4.2 per cent from 5.1 per cent. It is the steepest decline of any market share in the group of seven nations. We have put our economic faith in our natural resources for too long. Our share in the world's resource dependent trade almost doubled to
9.5	per cent in 1989 from 5 per cent in 1978.
At the same time, our share of the world trade in non-resources actually fell. In 1985, for example, nearly half of Canada's exports were not resources, and that gave us a 3.4 per cent share of the world's non-resources trade. By 1989, only one-third of our exports were non-resource commodities and they only had a 2.7 per cent share of the world's non-resource trade market.
We cannot continue to rely on our natural resources for prosperity. Our main road to future prosperity must clearly be with the non-resource trading area. Too few companies are exporters. Harvard professor Michael Porter's study of Canadian competitiveness, released in October, found that Canada's top 50 industries produced more than one-fifth of all Canada's exports. Of these 50 companies, 35 produce unprocessed or modestly processed natural resources.
Of the 40,000 Canadian manufacturers, only about one-third export at all, even though the Canada-United
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States Free Trade Agreement has secured the biggest two-way trading opportunity for us in world history.
For those who export and work at developing export markets, success follows. Many successful Canadian companies are finding that establishing strategic alliances, adapting new technologies and using partners to expand into foreign markets are all critical to keeping up with the competition. But are we keeping up with the competition? The World Economic Forum reports that Canada ranks fifth in competitiveness among the 24 OECD countries, up from 11th place in 1986. We have a well educated work force. We have plentiful natural resources. We have excellent telecommunications and transportation networks. We have a competitive tax regime. These pluses are not guarantees of future prosperity. While Canada's over-all ranking appears very good at first glance, our ranking in other areas, which are critical contributors to our future competitiveness, is troubling.
In the 1980s, while other nations made significant gains, Canada's productivity growth stalled, despite strong investments over the past six years. According to the World Economic Forum, Canada ranks 12th in productivity performance with the U.S., Japan and much of Europe ahead of us. Canada is a trading nation, yet we are slow in meeting the challenges of a global marketplace. We rank 16th in terms of international orientation. Few other countries in the industrialized world are as dependent on trade as Canada, so our products should be among the best in the world. Yet in product quality, design and packaging, which are all critical to expanding markets, we rank 13th.
The prosperity initiative launched by the government last fall is intended to give Canadians the opportunity to build a plan which will secure a prosperous future for us. To build a competitive economy, I believe we need a new spirit, new partnerships and new approaches to competitiveness. That is what people are saying in the prosperity initiatives community talks. People are looking for more co-operation among the stakeholders in our economy. They especially want more co-operation among all levels of government, and more partnerships between management and labour for the competitive advantage of everyone. They are saying we must change our attitudes toward work, organization, workers, learning, skills and competition if we are to capitalize on our strengths. Clearly we have to take a good hard look at ourselves.

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The prosperity initiative is that good hard look. It takes a good hard look at the underpinnings of Canadian competitiveness: skills training, science and technology, capital and investment, the nature of the internal economic union and international business.
I would like to talk about learning, and science and technology for a few more moments this afternoon.
Just two weeks ago the second international assessment of educational progress was released. The results were not encouraging for Canada, particularly when we rank third in education spending. Canadian 13-year-olds placed ninth out of 20 countries in a comparison of math and science knowledge, and Canadian 9-year-olds placed eighth out of 14 countries in a comparison of math knowledge.
We have one of the world's highest drop-out rates. At least 30 of every 100 youngsters entering Grade 9 drops out before graduation. That means there will be more than one million drop-outs in the 1990s if we do nothing. Many of those one million Canadians will joint the nearly 38 per cent of adults in Canada today who lack the literacy skills needed to be part of a labour force for knowledge based industries.
This problem is already evident today. A recent survey found that even in the midst of this recession, there are
300,000	jobs going begging because Canadian employers cannot find people with the right skills today to fill those positions. If it is a problem today when only 23 per cent of new jobs require more than 16 years of education, just imagine what the situation will be like in the year 2000, when 40 out of every 100 new jobs will require 16 more years of schooling and 63 per cent of all new jobs will require at least 12 years of education, or high school graduation. Yet in 1986 fewer than 50 per cent of adults beyond school age had high school diplomas.
Where are we going to find the people for these new jobs? It will not be from youngsters in school today. Since the 1970s, young people have made up an ever smaller proportion of the population and there is no sign this will change in the nineties. The most obvious source of trainable people is from those who are already working. So how will we go about training those workers?
We are not doing very well. For every dollar American companies spend in training, Canadian companies spend 50 cents. For every dollar that Japanese companies spend in training, we spend 20 cents, and for every dollar
German companies spend in training, we spend 12.5 cents.
The federal government's concern about learning is shared by all Canadians. People are telling us in the community talks that we should focus on developing brain power, not raw materials, by improving the quality of education and providing continuous training. Higher national standards are needed to improve educational performance.
Canadians are looking for more and better partnerships between the business community and educational institutions. More effort must be put into developing training skills that will be useful throughout life and ensuring that workers are retrainable.
These are some of the dimensions of our learning challenge. In science and technology, only three out of every 100 Canadian companies do any research. Nearly 30 per cent of private sector research and development training is done by just four companies in Canada. Canadian firms invest only half as much in research as their German, American and Japanese counterparts. The rate of application of new technology to industrial processes in Canada is alarmingly low. According to a 1989 survey, fewer than half of Canadian manufacturers had implemented even one of the 22 leading manufacturing technologies such as robotics or laser technologies which are keys to productivity growth in the nineties.
These are the bright spots. Canada's research and development spending runs ahead of OECD averages in high tech sectors such as electronics, aerospace and computers. Private sector R and D in Canada has grown by 6.5 per cent a year in spite of the recession.
Companies investing in research and development get good returns, but many of our small and medium sized businesses find it difficult to fund research and development, whether related to products or processes. The federal government has therefore developed two approaches to deal with this problem.
The first is the university based network of 15 centres of excellence which provide business access to research facilities that could not otherwise be afforded by small businesses in Canada. The Research and Productivity Council facility in Fredericton is one such centre of excellence that does provide great service to New Brunswick.
February 17, 1992

The second is through the Department of Industry, Science and Technology where businesses will have access to the 200 federal labs.
This should lead to the development of more extensive alliances between the private and public sectors in the fields of research and development. We are creating chairs rapidly at many of our Canadian universities in these very important areas of science and technology.
Our productivity growth has stalled since 1980 and our real wages have not increased in nearly 20 years. It is clear from the recent report of the Economic Council of Canada that the key to changing our standard of living is to become more competitive in higher value products. This sort of change will not be affected by short-term quick fixes like interest or exchange rate fluctuations. On the contrary, depending on those kinds of approaches has left us ill-prepared for the global marketplace of the 1990s. Our economic situation cries out for fundamental long-term change and not for the quick fix.
One of our biggest challenges is to begin to change the attitudes of all Canadians: employers, parents, students, employees and every other stakeholder, toward the changes we need to make to keep up with world competition. Attitudes will not change overnight. It is going to take hard work to break down the barriers of suspicion and distrust built up over many years.
I am not pretending that finding ways to cultivate partnerships between schools and the business community, for example, is going to be effortless. It is going to take a lot of effort. Nor do I expect the tradition of confrontation between unions and management to suddenly disappear. But we have to start securing our future to prosperity, and the starting point is finding out new ways of working together. The prosperity initiative is about winning the commitment of Canadians to making those changes, to ensure that we produce nothing but quality products and services. With a commitment to new competitiveness, grounded in the traditional Canadian values of co-operation and team work in tackling and solving problems together, Canadians can compete successfully.
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In conclusion, I would like to say that the prosperity initiative is aimed at increasing our competitiveness on a world scale, but not in order to meet some arbitrary economic target. We must remain competitive because there is an ever-increasing and competitive world. Increasing our competitiveness means a higher standard of living. This, in turn, will provide us with the means to a caring society that can secure the social programs we see as being essential to our lives as Canadians; a society that can continue to support the arts and culture which help us to understand ourselves; a society with the means and the will to make our education and technology second to none in all the world.
The global challenges we face constitute a race without a finish line. Let us show that we do have the strength and quality to be a leader in that race and to stay in that race indefinitely. Mr. Speaker, we can do it in Canada.


Guy H. Arseneault: Mr. Speaker, first of all I would like to congratulate my colleague from New Brunswick on his speech here today. I noticed at the beginning of his text he mentioned there seemed to be signs of a turnaround.
I would like to apprise him of the situation as it now exists in my riding. Then maybe I could ask him for a commentary on some of the solutions as I see them, and see if he agrees with me.
First of all, he is quite aware that the Atholville mill has closed down. It was a producer of chlorine-free pulp and its closure has put about 300 people directly out of work, and roughly another 600 or 700 indirectly out of work. N.B. Forest Products in Dalhousie has just announced the closing down of 50 per cent of its operations, putting another 400 people directly out of work.
The federal government is also in the same process. There are rumours circulating right now that there is a possibility of job losses at the Chaleur airport. Canada Post is doing the same thing throughout the riding by reducing hours of work, closing post offices and not replacing postmasters or postmistresses.

February 17, 1992
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After meeting with the farmers in my riding on Friday morning, I can say that they are concerned at the direction of the GATT negotiations. I am also led to believe that this summer there will be a reduction in funding for student employment programs. On top of all this there is roughly an 18 per cent unemployment rate in my riding and another 20 per cent on social assistance.
Having said all that, I would ask the hon. member whether he would agree with me that solutions are needed now, not tomorrow. We need them today. It is an urgent situation and we cannot afford to wait for the budget. We have waited for budgets before and quite often it has been negative news.
The hon. member, coming from New Brunswick, is quite aware that the provinces asked for the twinning of the Trans-Canada Highway. I would suggest that would be a viable project, but more specifically with reference to my riding and Atholville and Dalhousie mills, we need a specific agreement in place, a diversification agreement to help the economy in northern New Brunswick.
I ask the hon. member if he agrees with that diversification project. Quite often we hear about training and training and training, but what my people are telling me is: "Yes, training is fine but there are no jobs after the training". Where are the jobs? These people want to work.	.


John Williston (Bud) Bird: Mr. Speaker, I would like to acknowledge the extremely difficult economic circumstances that exist in the hon. member's riding of Restigouche, an area that I know very well. In my former responsibilities as minister of natural resources in New Brunswick, I personally had a great deal to do with the Atholville mill and the Dalhousie mill and the assignment of forest resources in support of those mills.
For openers I would say that it is a very difficult and serious current circumstance for which there really is not a quick and easy solution. As I said in my text, there are no quick fixes. We are into a very intense world economic competitive situation. For example, in the case of the Atholville mill, the technology of that mill has not been able to keep up on an economic basis producing a product that the world requires at competitive prices.
There has been an immense effort made over the years by the company that owned that mill and by the
employees who worked in that mill to master a technology that would make it competitive. In these extremely difficult days of 1992 it simply is not working.
There are some bright spots on the horizon in New Brunswick. I would say those bright spots pertain to the hon. member's riding, potentially at least. I would have to compliment the Government of New Brunswick for demonstrating the kind of innovation to which I referred. By taking advantage of New Brunswick's capabilities, as The Globe and Mail expressed in a long article today, New Brunswick has commenced to attract a diversity of industries such as Federal Express, a sound systems manufacturer in Edmonston-I have forgotten the name of the firm-Canadian Pacific Express and others based on its ability to serve Canadians in two official languages. Here is an application of the linguistic duality of Canada in an economic way that is making great sense for New Brunswick. I hope it will be an example to all of Canada. It is also an example of the kind of innovative approach that we can take to help to bolster our economic capabilities and our economic opportunities.
Through training, through skills development, through science and technology, and through research and development, in the long run I am confident that we can address the concerns of all areas of this country including the very difficult circumstances that presently exist in the hon. member's riding.
In closing, I would just like to say: Let us not forget that the forest resources of northern New Brunswick remain there. It is extremely important that we continue to manage them well to ensure that they continue to be available to produce the yields of the future that I believe will be the foundation for the rebirth of those industries which now find themselves in such difficult circumstances.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to my hon. friend's comments. As usual, I found them to be informative and thoughtful. He mentioned forestry and the need not to forget an important natural resource which provides us with more financial support for the country than virtually almost all other exports combined. It is very critical in terms of jobs and economic development. One of the points he makes is that we have to generate more valued added from our natural resources, forestry being a good case in point.
February 17, 1992

My question is: Would he not agree that compared to most other countries the products that we derive from a cubic metre of wood from our forests is significantly less than we would find in virtually all other forest producing nations? Would he not agree that a good investment-and I emphasize the term investment-would be for the federal government in combination with provincial governments to invest more effort and resources in funding research and development, particularly in those areas pertaining to value added, for our forest industry?


John Williston (Bud) Bird: Mr. Speaker, yes, I think that our resource areas and the opportunities to create value added products and value added economic activity in areas such as forestry agriculture, mining and so on are obvious areas of application.
As I said in my remarks, Canada has too long relied on its resource industries. Our resource industry activity doubled in the late seventies and eighties, whereas our productivity in non-resource commodities has deteriorated and diminished. We stand in a very poor state of progress with respect to our OECD colleagues and competitors.
We cannot rely only on the resource area. In fact, a great deal can be said for increasing our investment in areas of non-resource products. Fortunately we are doing that in such areas, for example, as telecommunications and electronics. I was struck the other day by a figure of $700 billion in new service materials that the GATT negotiations are going to open up if they are concluded successfully.
The short answer to that question is that yes, we have to continue to pay attention to our resource areas, but we have to quit relying on our resource areas to the degree that we have in the past and direct our investments in other non-resource areas as well.


Mr. David Walker (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to join in this debate on the economy. The motion put forward by the member for Willowdale is a very straightforward one which deserves the support of the House. He states:
That this House condemn the government for its economic
mishandling and incompetence.
This is the type of of straightforward thinking the House should convey to the Canadian public, that in fact the economy is in terrible shape and it is a direct result of mismanagement by this government.
Through the work of our critic on industrial development, through the member for Willowdale, this side of
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the House has spent many hours talking to Canadians from coast to coast and developing our own approach to it. I think the time has come in this country for a new approach on the economy.
I might start out by reflecting on my own constituency. I am sure we all have this experience. We heard the exchange between the members from New Brunswick. The reality is that there are high levels of unemployment and lack of opportunity now permeates the total provincial economies from coast to coast. It is now something that is on the front burners which we have to deal with.
When I went for a Monday morning ceremony at a school run by the aboriginal community in the inner city of Winnipeg in my constituency, I was struck by the seriousness of the students standing around and talking. I listened carefully during a pipe ceremony. I said to myself: "If I were leading this pipe ceremony and if I were their spiritual leader, how would I offer them hope in this economy?"
To have hope one has to have a vision. To have a vision one must be able to gather people together, to talk with the people and to instil in them a sense of confidence. In many respects, this quiet session among aboriginal youth represented the country in that nobody is there to give them hope, nobody is there willing to resource that hope, nobody is willing to push the country to the limit to rebuild the economy.
Instead of instilling hope, instead of making people understand there is a reason to have confidence, there is a reason to reinvest, there is a reason to build, this government has sold nothing but bad news for the last eight years. The result of this accumulation of bad news is a country which feels bad about itself and is without hope.
I was also struck by what was said in conversations with my nephew who was here visiting, a Trent University student. We were speaking about the economy. I asked myself, if I was in his situation would I have the confidence to keep going to university, to keep investing, to ask my family for money in order to build up the credentials to go into this job market? I think it is a testimony to hundreds of thousands of students across this country that they keep going despite the bleak news on the front pages of the newspapers. If you are a student in Winnipeg and read the headline on Saturday, February 8: "Unemployment takes leap. Even with shrunken Manitoba work force, unemployment up 2.1 per cent", would it give you any reason for hope to continue on in university or continue on at community college?

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Listen to the report prepared by Employment and Immigration Canada, the government's own spokespeo-ple, in a document entitled "Manitoba Labour Market Highlights for January 1992". In this document the writers state: "January's employment scene paints a chilly and foreboding picture. Figures released today from Statistics Canada in its monthly labour force survey show that on a seasonally adjusted basis, Manitoba's jobless rate jumped 1.7 percentage points to 9.9 per cent, while the labour force edged down only slightly by 1,000. Seasonally adjusted employment fell sharply by 10,000 to 484,000. Most of the job decline was felt by males whose employment dropped by 7,000. The Manitoba seasonally adjusted jobless rate ranks fourth lowest behind Saskatchewan, Alberta and Ontario. The labour force is down 1,000, employment is down 10,000, participation rate is down 1 per cent, unemployment rate up 1.7 per cent".
Given these statistics and given as evidence of the decline of the Manitoba economy, it is no longer sufficient to stand around and say: "Things will be better in the fall. The fourth quarter is looking great. Things will be better in the first quarter in 1993. The economy will be better for your family. It is just around the comer, just hang in there. Forget about the fact that you did not have any UI as of December. Forget about the fact that your city is going broke because of welfare. Forget all that. We promise you that some day in the future, even though we are planning to do absolutely nothing to help you, things are going to be better for you".
The economy needs a plan, a vision, and it needs assistance. As I noted at the beginning of my speech, the Liberal Party has spent several months preparing itself to present to the Canadian people a plan of action which makes sense and is fiscally responsible. We are not only doing this on a national level but we are also doing this on a regional and local level.
In January we announced what we called a five-point, one-year emergency plan. This was also an extension of what we said in our minority report for the subcommittee on poverty, where the Conservative majority refused to deal with the issue of the immediacy of the problem of child poverty. The government must act now and we give the following five suggestions as to how the economy can be kick-started.
(1)	A 5 per cent minimum down payment for first-time home buyers. Ever since World War II housing has been the key to kick-starting the economy and to giving people a product they can use literally for generations after.
(2)	Allow the use of RRSPs to finance first-time homes. Again, get that housing market started.
(3)	A shared cost infrastructure program. This government fails to recognize that every municipality in this country, even the smallest of cities, needs infrastructure and improvements.
It is an investment that Canadians are willing to make. It creates jobs. It creates a product that everybody can use. It is something worth fighting for.
(4)	Intensified training initiatives. The previous speaker from the government side noted the need for training. While we have all noted the need for training, those of us who have spent our life in education could have told the government that 20 years ago.
It has been told year after year since it became the government that training is important. What do we have? The end product is cutbacks on the UI program which costs thousands of young Canadians the opportunity to properly train. How can you stand up and talk about training without putting the resources in it so that those who need it understand that they also have some support?
(5)	Emergency funding for the food banks. Prices are so expensive this year that we must offer cash assistance to prop them up during 1992.
We also need plans for different cities. In Winnipeg, after several consultations, we have come forward with an eight-point program for an economic plan to help new Canadians get the proper education, to help new Canadians get English as a second language so they can get better jobs, to improve the minimum wage so that new Canadians do not get stuck in jobs that pay $4.50 to $5 an hour because this government now has the lowest minimum wage jurisdiction in the country, to make sure that immigration policy does support family reunification because through families, new Canadians create wealth.
February 17, 1992

The government's policies are totally counterproductive to job creation.
We must find ways to get new Canadians involved in the planning of the economy. When we talk about Asian markets, why are we not dealing with new Canadians from the Asian countries and giving them opportunities to participate in government decision making and in developing trade programs by using their language skills?
There are many ways to get the economy going. The only way that does not work for sure is the way this government is approaching it. We on this side can only hope that the budget produces new ideas and new hopes in Canadians, a new focus for the budget process and an opportunity to get this economy going in 1992 for all of Canada and for Winnipeg where we definitely need the help of the federal government.


Mr. Maurizio Bevilacqua (York North):: Mr. Speaker, I would like at the outset to congratulate the hon. member from Winnipeg for his speech.
Everywhere I go throughout Canada when speaking with young people, one of their major concerns is that there seems to be an absence in government policy. The youth issue is exactly what they are referring to.
In an era when the government speaks a great deal about global competitiveness, statistics and facts show that the youth element of this strategy is absent. If the government plans to indeed compete at the global level, it must realize that we must train young Canadians. We must give them opportunities.
We have approximately 400,000 young people in Canada who are presently unemployed. That does not include the number of young people who are on the welfare rolls.
I wonder if the member from Winnipeg can comment on the importance of having an all-embracing youth strategy in place for this nation to prosper and meet the challenges of the 21st century.


David Walker: Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for York North for bringing this to the attention of all Canadians.
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We do need a youth strategy. I would like to respond quickly by pointing out three areas of concern. First, with aboriginal youth, there are almost no support systems in urban Canada. When they talk in western Canada about having one in four entrants to the labour market being aboriginal youth, there could be a total destruction of the capacity of that economy to grow because we have not trained and provided for job readiness.
Second, changes in the UI legislation which I referred to in my speech make it almost impossible for people to re-enter or to enter training programs because they do not have a history in the job market. With employment rates among young people sometimes three times as high as the national average, how can you get started in the system to get properly trained if you cannot get that first job to get into it.
We have a vicious circle with people sitting at home saying: "I wish I could be trained for something". The first question they get asked is: "Are you unemployed?" "Yes". "Do you have UI?" "No, I have not worked enough". "Sorry, we cannot help you to get out of that". The frustration that is building up behind the scenes on this issue is something to be listened to.
When our critic goes from campus to campus and talks to students, he understands that they too are the third priority group that we have to deal with. Students need summer jobs. They need hundreds of thousands of summer jobs.
How can you get trained to prepare for the job market if you cannot get a job during the summer? How can we ask this generation to begin to form families, to even think about buying a house when they start their life with $20,000 to $30,000 of debt because we have been incompetent at the national level in financing universities, financing education and financing summer jobs?
I think this is the biggest tragedy about to face young Canadians. Again, we await the budget because if the government passes up this opportunity to help young people, it really is losing a golden opportunity to extend a welcome hand.

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Sergio Marchi: Mr. Speaker, I too join my colleague, the member for York North in commending the comments made by our colleague, the member for Winnipeg North Centre.
The hon. member for York North talked quite rightly about one end of the spectrum, that is to say young Canadians, tomorrow's future. Certainly those individuals want to play a role and a part, not tomorrow but today.
I am wondering if the member could also address the other end of the spectrum where I think there is an equally big problem. I see it in my riding every day, that is to say the older workers, those who are not chronologically old but age 50 to 55.
They wish to continue to put perhaps another five years in the work place to pay off the mortgage or to put children through school. As soon as they are laid off I am also finding that these are the individuals who our firms and our business community are not willing to reinvest in, perhaps because of their age and perhaps because they can find cheaper labour with less experience.
I am just wondering how we also address the other end of the spectrum.


David Walker: We will need another debate to bring to the attention of the government all the problems related to the older worker.
Nothing is more tragic than to be age 50 to 55 and to see a company pick up and move to the southern United States because of free trade, because of the dollar, for whatever reason it may want to give, to leave. You have no job, your UI runs out and there you are, after all these years in the labour force going for welfare.
This problem deserves a much longer debate. We must impress upon the government the need to help these people.


Sergio Marchi: Mr. Speaker, I would like to start by saying that I find the motion put forth by my colleague, the member for Willowdale, quite timely.
I say timely and accurately because I cannot engage in any discussion in my riding-and I would assume it is the same in the other 294 ridings in the country-whether it is over dinner, whether it is in a cafe, whether it is in a library, whether it is addressing students in schools, or
whether it is talking with parishioners after mass on a Sunday at the local church, without talking about the poor health, the frail health of our economy.
The face of that economy takes different strands which when quilted together offer an economic blanket that clearly is not providing neither comfort nor cover for Canadians across the country.
When we look at statistics in terms of an uncompetitive and overvalued dollar, when we look at manufacturing jobs lost, in the area of almost 100,000 for last year alone, when we look at unemployment rates of over 10 per cent across the country including metropolitan Toronto and my riding, when we consider that means some 2.2 million people on welfare with over 1 million kids living under the poverty line, when we talk about the question that taxation on all three levels, particularly the federal income tax slice, aggravated by the GST, it is impossible for many Canadians to make ends meet at the end of the month.
I was in my riding on Thursday evening conducting a public meeting, as I do every month. That was the greatest thread of evidence that came through, that we are killing Canadians through taxation. They get a sense that they are working more for different levels of government, particularly the national level, than they are for their own future and the future of their own families.
There were over 50,000 bankruptcies in 1991 alone which was almost a 50 per cent increase from 1990. Look at the number of people lining up at food banks, numbering two million nation-wide. Of them 700,000 are children.
It is one thing to quote statistics as I have. We also need to recognize those statistics first and then respond to them. This government has had a difficult time in recognizing them when our Prime Minister goes on tour in southern Ontario to show the kinder or gentler version of our Prime Minister.
He was met stop after stop after stop by Canadians who are not propelled into simply protesting the office of the Prime Minister for which all of us, including members on this side, need to have some regard and some respect.
February 17, 1992

Those people who come out, whether it is to my public meeting at St. Gerard Magella on a Thursday night, or whether it is to meet the Prime Minister in Peterborough on a Friday night, are largely propelled by the economic anxiety that they feel in their gut. That anxiety is defined by either not having a job or by having a job that has gone from full time to part time or defined by the fact that a wife or spouse has to look for a job because you cannot make a go of it any more.
That is what is fuelling Canadians to seek answers from a Prime Minister who responds by offensive platitudes like the word "crackpot" rather than recognizing the need for those people to have economic hope and economic certainty.
We have two opportunities to respond, two opportunities to propose a recovery package to this economic recession, this economic draught. It is either going to be consumer led or there will have to be some leadership, some stimulus from the national level.
Let us look at the first option. Do we believe that Canadians today are going to lead us out of a recession by consumer spending? Let us be honest about it. They will not. What are Canadians telling us? I know they are telling me that if they have a few dollars they will put them either under their mattresses or in their savings accounts for an even rainier day.
They are telling me that rather than buying that new car they are going to put up with the 1984 car for another couple of years. They will change some parts but they will keep it going. They are telling me that rather than buying the second television set they are going to force their kids and the family to watch the same program on the first one. What they are telling me is that they do not have the confidence nor the faith to invest and to spend. They are holding back.
We are not going to see great retail sales. We are not going to see great sales of cars, fridges and commodities because Canadians are not encouraged enough, not inspired enough, not confident enough to spend in our Canadian economy. Therefore there will be no spinner effect nor multiplier effect to get us out of this economic pit.
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Whether we like it or not, we have to take a look at the second option which is a nationally stimulated, leadership driven recovery. The government has been telling members on this side: "We can't. We have a deficit. We have a large deficit. We can't spend".
I am trying to be responsible along with my colleagues. I recognize the vast and great debt load. What we also have to recognize is if there is no induced leadership or stimulus, the recovery will be very long. If the recovery is very long in coming, many people will get hurt and many more people will go under. That is something we are not prepared to accept or condone.
I say to the government on the other side that we have a large deficit, but for every unemployed Canadian, we are paying $14,000 for that person to stay at home and stay unemployed. When they are finished unemployment insurance, we tell Canadians: "Now that you are finished unemployment, go collect another $14,000 a year on welfare". The person stays at home again. Where is the dignity? Where is the productivity? Where are the revenues to come back to the government from those Canadians who actually are paid to stay at home? It is not training them, not putting them back to work, but paying them to stay at home.
On the one hand you have many unemployed Canadians robbed of their dignity and on the other you have a few other fortunate Canadians who are working, saying: "Most of my taxes are going to support people who do not work and cannot work". You have two sectors of society that are pitted against each other.
If we are spending $30 billion a year on unemployment and welfare payments alone, does it not make sense to take portions of that $30 billion and tiy to stimulate it responsibly wherever you can?
We have suggested a five-point program. It is not exhaustive; it does not have all the answers. There is room for other initiatives. We have offered in good faith, after some well thought out debate in our caucus and party, that these five points would to a certain degree ignite the economic engine again. The government can support some of them or say no to some. If it says no, hopefully it will replace it with its own.

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This government simply cannot hide solely behind the deficit. I have a deficit. It is called a mortgage; the bank owns my house. I borrow that house from the bank because I did not have enough money to put down. I have a deficit that I am carrying. That deficit does not preclude me from having a car. It does not preclude me the odd time from going with my spouse to a movie or to dinner, but within my means.
All Canadians are carrying their own personal deficits, whether you define that as a mortgage or other debts. This country is as well but it should not preclude any action that would put people back to work. If we do put people back to work through stimulus, it would give dignity to those people. It would eliminate $14,000 per person from the public purse which we are supporting through unemployment insurance and welfare. The person working is creating revenues and, therefore, is creating taxes for the government. The person earning an income can maybe find the confidence within himself or herself then to spend in the economy again. Maybe, just maybe, we will get this economy humming again as many Canadians hope.
Those people who came out to Peterborough to meet the Prime Minister were not doing so out of any irresponsible act toward the government or the Prime Minister, notwithstanding the fact that many people might have some very strong opinions about the Prime Minister. The message there and the message at my public meeting on Thursday and to the kids I visited at St. Angela's on Friday morning was very clear: put people back to work.
There is a role for government to play. Not all government action is bad action. Some of it is called leadership, some of it is called responsibility. In today's debate our message to this government is to have a bit of a quiet awakening and to get Canadians and this country back to work again, which means you need to risk and spend something if you want something in return. Otherwise you get nothing.


Mr. Mac Harb (Ottawa Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I want to start by congratulating my colleague from York West on a very well done presentation. In his presentation he not only criticized the actions of the government but made some legitimate proposals reflecting a progressive proposal made by the Leader of the Opposition some time ago.
Surely my colleague would agree with me that the federal government is washing its hands of the whole question of getting the economy moving, whether through further reducing interest rates so that they would be in parity with the interest rates of the United States, or through easing the pressure on the dollar so it will fall to a reasonable level so our industry can compete internationally.
Surely my colleague can see a role for the provincial government to play. I would like him to share with me any concerns or any suggestions he might like to make to the Government of Ontario because, as a representative from an urban centre, surely he is faced with the same pressure as all of our colleagues from all of the urban centres in Ontario are faced with: the need for progressive actions. All we have been hearing from our leaders, both provincially and federally, are tough economic times. Frankly you do not need to elect a politician and pay him $80,000 or $60,000 or $40,000 a year to tell you there are tough times out there. Any one of my constituents can perform that job very eloquently.
I was pleased with my colleague's presentation. He came up with some sort of tangible proposal. Would my colleague from York West share with us his suggestions for or his comments on the performance of the provincial government when it comes to economic renewal?


Sergio Marchi: Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Ottawa Centre who raises a very important point concerning the role of the province.
My colleague quite rightly pointed to the lack of leadership to a certain degree being offered by the Premier of Ontario, who created expectations when he said, two or three weeks before his TV appearance that he was going to go on television to address Ontarians. Legitimately there were a number of expectations generated as to what he was going to tell Canadians living in the province of Ontario; perhaps announce some new proposals and new programs that will stimulate the economy. Instead, he was bankrupt of ideas. It was more an opportunity to tune in to Ontarians in their living rooms and almost play a bit of the Pontius Pilate role and suggest that it is the federal role.
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No doubt the federal role is a very large one. I think each of us should look to our own constituencies and to ourselves for leadership as we have done. We have not only criticized as an opposition. We have advanced an agenda, if you will, that the government should adopt and run with. The only thing the premier advanced in that television commercial was the offer that if Ottawa were to give the Ontario government a dollar for public works it would match it. He did this knowing full well what Ottawa has said to him repeatedly about not providing any extra dollars. The rest was academic. He said: "We are in tough times. It is very rough. Good luck and good night".
What is Ontario doing for the small business sector? He suggests that Ed Phillip, the minister of industry, is the point man to have a dialogue with the small businesses. There is nothing there for the small businessman. What is he doing with the municipalities rather than talking to the federal government? Why does he not talk to the city of North York and the city of Toronto and ask, if the federal government does not want to participate, what we can do to put people back to work? What is Ontario government doing for summer jobs that my colleagues from York North and Winnipeg North Centre talked about earlier? What about people at Ontario universities and Ontario colleges and Ontario youth? What is the summer program for them?
I am saying that people in positions of authority and in governments, whether they be provincial or federal, should not pass the ball but take it and run with it.


Mr. Pierre H. Vincent (Parliamentary Secretary to Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, I had prepared a very specific speech on small and medium sized businesses for today's debate and I must tell you that after hearing what has been said here in this House since this morning, I feel like giving some background information.
To be honest, some stupid things have been said here today, many by the people opposite. I am just thinking of all the comments we had on the value of the dollar and on interest rates. I am also thinking of what opposition members said about lowering the value of the dollar, that
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they could do it and that the government should do it and so on. Those listening to us know that the federal government has something to do with setting the value of the dollar. They also know that the Canadian dollar is traded around the world and fluctuates as a result of decisions made outside the country. I think that we must be realistic. The Bank of Canada is supposed to have some idea of what the dollar should be worth and to prevent it from rising or falling too quickly, but the fact remains that foreign investments in our dollar automatically influence its value and the government by itself cannot set the rate. It can help, but it cannot decide alone. I think that must be emphasized.
I did not hear the opposition thank or congratulate the government because interest rates are falling and the lowest in 15 years. I did not hear opposition members say that they meet their constituents every weekend to deal with these various problems. In the riding of Trois-Ri-vieres, some people thank me because their rent or mortgage payments are less as a result of lower interest rates. People have pointed this out to me and I am sure that they have pointed it out to opposition members, who unfortunately forget to repeat it here. The cost of borrowing is important, especially when it has dropped drastically in the past few months; for example, car payments are lower. I think that must be mentioned because it is part of this government's overall economic policy and part of a country's economic foundation. If people have to pay less to borrow, they have more money to spend and that will help revive the economy, but that is not pointed out.
Neither have they mentioned that this government has managed to control inflation. You know as I do that in 1981 and 1982 inflation was 12 per cent. As you will remember, Mr. Speaker, even though you are very young, the government at that time, which is now on the opposition benches, had let interest rates rise to 24 per cent; that was its way of lowering inflation, because no one and no country can survive 12 per cent inflation. Do you think that brought inflation down? Of course, but it was pretty strong medicine. We saw what interest rates of 24 per cent did in 1981-82. When we talk about economics and read the opposition motion today, we must keep in mind what happened in 1981-82.

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Allow me, Mr. Speaker, to return to the subject of small and medium sized businesses in Canada and Quebec. It must be mentioned that they created 80 per cent of permanent jobs in recent years. That must be pointed out because businesses of this size are in the midst of restructuring in 1992. They must adjust to the world economy. There are no more barriers, no more frontiers for them now. They must compete not only in Quebec, not only in the St. Maurice region where I come from, but they must compete in Canada and abroad. If they are to compete, their costs must be low and their production of excellent quality. They must have modem technology and that is why our small and medium sized businesses are now undergoing changes. They must move from a regional or provincial economy to a world economy if they are to progress.
Our government has taken action to help our small and medium sized businesses such as technology initiatives, international marketing and education for small-business people. Free trade has removed barriers, thus enabling many companies to go abroad for new markets. Courses are given to the staff of small and medium sized businesses and these businesses are offered financial assistance. In addition, regional development programs in various regions of the country also help our small businesses.
Mr. Speaker, you know that Canadians are being consulted on the prosperity initiative. The report on this consultation will probably be presented in June and we will see what people throughout the country said and what they expect the Canadian government to do to help our companies, mainly our small and medium sized ones, not only survive but also grow in Canada, in North America and internationally. We must also think of the unified European common market, which is now a reality; our people must also go there. Indeed they must compete almost everywhere.
On that score I think that we all have ideas on what should be done, and our productivity in Quebec and in Canada must improve. If we want to be able to compete with countries whose technology is very advanced and whose productivity is very high, we here in Quebec and in Canada must do our homework. Here again, programs are available for companies, but Canadians in every region must really think that they are the best and that
they will produce the best product, which will be sold and recognized as such. We have some work to do there.
Small and medium sized businesses include tourism. Canada now offers 4,000 different products and services to all those in Europe, Japan and many other places who wish to visit Canada. Tourism is an industry, maybe the one with the highest concentration of small and medium sized businesses. It is a very profitable industry and again must be able to provide outstanding service. Whenever outsiders come to our region, I tell them that they will be well received. Because of the quality of the region's facilities, it is a pleasure to invite people to visit us. It should be like this everywhere in Canada. We ought to be able to say that our tourist industry is the best in the world. To be the best, service is what counts. When you are on a vacation, you want good service. That is why we must put the emphasis on service and on the quality of our facilities. We have excellent facilities of all kinds across Canada that are attractive to visitors. We must stress that.
There is also the Federal Business Development Bank, a federal agency that plays a part in helping small businesses. Many courses are given annually by FBDB people to help entrepreneurs, both people who are starting a business and those who want to expand.
I was talking earlier about financing. The Small Businesses Loans Act guarantees 85 per cent of the amount borrowed by a company that is starting a business. Because of the risk involved, a company in this situation which asks a financial institution for a loan might be turned down, but under the small businesses loans system, the loan will normally be approved, because the potential liability for the financial institution is not more than 15 per cent. This excellent funding mechanism adds up to a total investment of $1.5 billion annually by the federal government to help small businesses.
Mr. Speaker, as you know, our exports represent 25 per cent of our total production. Twenty-five per cent of what we produce in Canada is exported, which means it is important, even where free trade is concerned, to ensure that we have a high quality product, because we have nothing to lose and everything to gain, and as a result, these companies will grow and expand. To be able to export more, we must prove we can produce quality. Our workers must concentrate on producing high quality products at the lowest possible cost.
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In concluding perhaps I may say a few words, especially for the benefit of our colleagues opposite, about the free trade agreement. Between 1988 and 1990 our exports to the United States increased by $5 billion. Five billion dollars more in sales between 1988 and 1990, which means that free trade has been highly profitable for Canada and will continue to be profitable, despite the fact that our dollar is not as low as we might want it to be.
Perhaps I may say in concluding that the motion presented today by the hon. member for Willowdale does not represent current economic reality and is certainly not the kind of message that politicians should give Canadians. I think Canadians are sick and tired of hearing the opposition criticize without ever producing realistic and practical solutions or giving this government recognition for what it has achieved, which includes substantial savings in a number of sectors.
The motion before the House today does not reflect what is happening and what is expected to happen in the future, and therefore the hon. member for Willowdale should realize what has been done and start taking a positive attitude, in the best interest of Canada as a whole.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: The hon. member for Resti-gouche-Chaleur-Education; the hon. member for Algoma-General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade; the hon. member for Dartmouth-Atlantic Economy; the hon. member for Sault Ste. Marie- Algoma Steel; the hon. member for Okanagan-Shuswap-Nuclear Industry.
I have received written notice from the hon. member for Kitchener, that he will be unable to move his item under Private Members' Business on February 18, 1992. Since it has proven impossible to exchange positions in the order of precedence, pursuant to Standing Order 94(2)(a) I will ask the clerk to drop this item to the bottom of the order of precedence on the Order Paper.
Pursuant to Standing Order 94(2)(b), Private Member's Business will be suspended and the House will continue with the business before it at the time.


Howard Douglas McCurdy: Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to have an opportunity to say a few words in respect to this Liberal opposition motion;
That this House condemn the government for its economic
mishandling and incompetence.
I am sure it would reflect with a great deal of accuracy the feelings of many Canadians if I were to take the time available to me to criticize and only criticize the government for its policies which have hurt so many Canadians so badly. It seems to me it would be better for me to take an opportunity to look at what the government has called its competitiveness agenda and make the point that what we are really talking about if we are going to be a successful Canadian economy is that we are going to have to create an opportunity economy.
I would like to make a rather more positively oriented contribution this afternoon by saying the following. All sectors of our economy, whether they be services, manufacturing or resources, will increasingly depend upon our ability to use research, technology, skills and knowledge to increase the value of goods and services that we export internationally. In fact, if one looks at value added, what we are really saying is that we must invest more of human creativity in what we sell, and what we sell must be what people will want because they have that value.
The target of success therefore lies in the production of high value added tradable goods and services, and this will require the implementation of a number of policy initiatives, in particular in the building of a trained and educated work force that not only can cope in a high-tech environment but can bring creativity to the workplace in a way that enhances a company's ability to find and satisfy market demand.
This must be the motive of an opportunity economy. That Canada must switch from a resource based branch plant economy to one based on technology and knowledge is something that all have now recognized. There are so many things that have been done that impede our ability to make this reorientation.

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The free trade agreement, for example, deprives Canada not only of our traditional economic advantages and natural resources and energy, but of the basic tools and protections that virtually every other industrial country has used to convert itself to a successful high-tech, high value added economy. Under the free trade agreement already toothless investment rules have been made worse, and it allows Canadian capital and taxpayer footed R and D to slip away from us just as some of our best R and D performers are swallowed up by foreign ownership; this in spite of the fact that we all recognize now that foreign ownership goes hand in hand with R and D underperformance and, too often, job losses.
The subsidy and procurement roles, for example, deprive Canada of the mechanisms that in the United States particularly have been so effectively used to create industrial growth. Far from running from past mistakes, the Conservatives are now going to negotiate a free trade deal that will involve Mexico. Jobs in the auto parts industry have already been lost to Mexico, yet does anyone think that $1.68 a day Mexican labour is going to buy a $15,000 car?
But the free trade agreement and the potential NAFTA are only a part of a battery of Tory economic policies or potential policies that have blasted the economy into a recession and have wrecked our resource and development potential. High interest rates and the high dollar are like two barrels in a shotgun. The auto parts industry, for example, is so heavily squeezed by declining profit margins caused by the high dollar that there is virtually no money left to do the research and development that they need to do to compete.
Last year Ontario alone lost 10 per cent of its manufacturing jobs, many of them to Mexico's cheap labour and low standards. Quebec lost 85,000 manufacturing jobs, while B.C.'s resource industries were savaged by declining commodity prices and an overvalued Canadian dollar, not to speak of American trade barriers.
The creation of a knowledge based economy depends not only on scientists and engineers, which all too often have been overemphasized in this House, but upon enlightened social policies that will enable Canadian
workers to use their talents and their intelligence and creativity. We cannot succeed when 20 per cent of our population is functionally illiterate and innumerate. We cannot succeed without the industrial training and apprenticeship available in other countries but which have been so long neglected by both governments and industry.
As we make these significant economic changes, we must not forget that there will be an abundant need for adjustment programs for workers who have been shifted from one sector of the economy to the other.
So far the Tory vision of competitiveness has been represented to us as a kind of cut-throat metabolism that has so far wreaked havoc on the economy and too many people's lives. We should instead blend economic efficiency and compassion in an opportunity economy that aims for equal economic and social citizenship in this country.
An economy is only successful if it empowers all people to take full advantage of their economic potential, their talent and their creativity through education, training and the development of skills. We cannot expect any Canadians to contribute productively unless they are first adequately clothed, housed and fed.
Social justice, in short, therefore is a foundation upon which a strong economy is built. It is the path to wealth creation, highways, jobs and greater security, as well as the ability to sustain social programs themselves in a virtuous circle of ever greater equity and efficiency.
The alternative to a high-tech economy based on an educated, trained work force will be a destructive competition with Third World countries for the lowest wages, the worst social programs, and the most poorly protected environment. It would be a menu for failure.
The notion that economic growth must be traded off for greater fairness is a fallacy. Many policies which promote equity are also fundamental to an increase in economic growth. Countries that have moved toward greater economic equity in the 1980s-Japan, Sweden and Belgium, for example-have achieved a greater level of productivity than those countries that have paid little attention to the significance of equity such as the United States, Australia and tragically Canada as well.
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Industrial policy is not simply moving factories around like marbles in a shell game or being number one in every industry. Environmentally sustainable knowledge based economies have to find technological niches that match local and regional strengths, for example, with respect to the location of national resources, geographic location and existing industrial infrastructure.
Government, business and labour must co-operate in order to respond to customers in terms of quality and cost, in order to develop products and processes that satisfy market demand. As such the federal government should help regions and municipalities accentuate their advantages and should encourage them to work with local businesses and labour groups in forging economic development strategies which will serve their municipalities and their regions. Substantial investment in infrastructure, for example, would not only produce jobs over the short run. They will represent the fundamental assets necessary in Canada to attract and maintain new industries where that has been made possible.
Instead of depending upon branch plants of the multinational foreign companies, we should push for indigenous industries that have local management, local production, marketing, and resource and development centred in our country. In particular, we should help the home grown small and medium sized firms. The SMEs create most of the jobs that are produced in this country. They do most of their research and development here and reflect the creativity of Canadians, a level of creativity that we must enhance.
However, the free trade agreement that we have and the potential free trade agreement being negotiated have and will jeopardize their markets. As well high interest rates would make it harder to get seed money. The high dollar makes their products more expensive abroad and makes investment in R and D and new technology almost impossible.
Thus, buffeted by so much that this government has imposed upon them, many of our small and medium sized enterprises are threatened by multinationals with deep pockets or which put a squeeze on profits that the small and medium sized enterprises cannot afford, such that they cannot afford the R and D that they need to stay competitive.
The small and medium sized enterprises, therefore, should be a target of whatever federal supports there
should be, of strategic procurement, of technology networks, and of other support which will enhance our technology and resource and development.
The government should help train managers and encourage both basic research and research consortia. Instead of tax bonanzas for mergers and real estate speculation, the tax system should encourage industrial investment in research and development and in value added process in product technology.
In the longer term we need to be careful to re-evaluate our tax system in an attempt to reconcile tax fairness which we insist must be accomplished with a tax regime that will stimulate investment in our indigenous, small and medium sized enterprises.
There is nothing we have not heard before in the prosperity papers the government now has circulating across the country for discussion and workshops. Much of it has come from us on this side of the House, from groups of scientists, educators and academic industrialists familiar with what economic growth is all about.
This government already knows the route to prosperity. That route is, as I said, through the imagination and creativity of our people. Canadians recognize that, and that recognition we hope will ultimately be contained in the Constitution of our country because most Canadians now are aware of what happened in Montreal when we were discussing the economic union.
Tom Kierans stood before that group of people trying to consider Canada's future and said that we cannot have economic efficiency without equity. That was supported subsequently by Mr. Castonguay who said there must be for all Canadians a social charter that will guarantee that equity. He too recognized that the fundamental underpinning of economic success is the empowerment of Canadians.
We should not be talking about the competitive economy or any of those things as much as we should be talking about opportunity economy. Canada will thrive. Canada will prosper. Canada will be successful economically on that day when all Canadians have had the opportunity to use their native talents in terms of the skills and education provided to them. Whether they are the worker on the plant floor, the supervisor, the engineer or the research scientist in the laboratory, all of them represent a necessary interconnection with those who want to see the kinds of goods and services Canada can provide which are appropriate to the Canadian economy and which reflect those talents.

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I plead not for the competition economy but for the opportunity economy. That kind of economic policy, I think most Canadians would support. Let the greatest strength of Canada, its commitment to social justice, be the basis for economic success and we will be true to ourselves and just as competitive as we need to be.


Maurizio Bevilacqua: Mr. Speaker, I listened very attentively to the hon. member from Windsor who eloquently stated his vision for the nation and indeed his economic outlook for this country.
The underlying theme in today's debate above and beyond the numbers that we are dealing with is indeed the issue of a crisis in confidence. Canadian people are deeply concerned about the direction in which this country is going.
It should not be surprising, because Canadians feel cheated. In the 1988 election Canadians were offered a free trade deal which was going to give them jobs. That did not work out. Canadians were offered a tax reform package that was going to put more money back into their pockets. That did not work out. As a matter of fact since 1984 the tax changes have increased the tax burden on the average family by over $1,500.
These two elections were also matched by the election of the New Democratic Party in the province of Ontario. The hon. member for Windsor-St. Clair must know by now that if the unemployment situation continues to rise as it has in Canada and particularly in Ontario, some of the concerns that he has could have easily been adopted through that provincial legislature.
When we speak about training, for example, for young people, when we talk about workers readjustment programs, every single level of government has a stake.
I have a question for the hon. member. Is he going to relay or has he relayed some of his deep thoughts, some of his visionary economic outlook for this country, to his colleague, the premier of the province of Ontario, who has not done many of the things he promised he would do during the provincial election?
At the end of the day we must realize that the problems of the nation know no boundaries. It does not matter which legislature. It does not matter which level
of government. We have a serious crisis on our hands. We are faced with a crisis in confidence. We are faced with a crisis in leadership in this country. I must say as a member of Parliament from the province of Ontario, as I speak to many people at my regularly held town hall meetings, that the election of the New Democratic government in the province of Ontario has not bestowed any confidence, particularly in the business sector and particularly among workers who thought they would have a government that was going to address the many inequities and injustices that have existed.


Howard Douglas McCurdy: Mr. Speaker, one of the things that has always concerned me is the tendency for politicians to provide and too many to demand quick and easy answers.
What I said today I have said in one way or another since 1984 when I was first elected. I brought a different perspective to this House. I understood the importance before I came here of science and technology and research and development. I understood that when the Liberal Party held power before this government it had shown a notable lack of understanding of the importance of technology and research and development and consequently education in our future economic prospects.
This is not something about which to attach exclusive blame to the Liberal Party, because too many Canadians, too many politicians did not understand that. I thought that this government perhaps could be pushed, cajoled, urged, to understand that there would have to be some dramatic changes. I would have hoped that the Peterson government would have understood that it would have to make some dramatic changes. But the Peterson government did not in fact focus on those necessary structural changes of which his government should have been a part. At a time of great economic growth, however short that period might have been, there was the opportunity to make choices to provide narrowly directed stimuli in areas which would have helped the economy. But instead, in response to the same divergent and various political demands on the province, there was an expenditure of money in ways which were not focused on the long-term question of how one is going to accomplish economic structural change as was needed in Ontario and as was needed in the rest of the country.
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Now, the consequences of the free trade agreement and federal policies with respect to the value of the dollar and the GST have created absolute economic chaos in this country and have caused the loss in Ontario of something like 350,000 jobs, 200,000 of them permanently through plant closures, when profit margins have gone to nothing, when people can hardly afford to pay their taxes, it makes it extremely difficult for any government to take on appropriate initiatives.
Mr. Rae has suggested this, and we agree, that the federal government and his government should, through matching funds, start an initiative on infrastructure and reconstruction in co-operation with the municipalities to inject into the economy immediately some money that will have a fivefold effect on the economy generally, to put some people back to work. We should begin immediately to do something about training and education.
I am as sorry as my colleague in the Liberal benches that the same kind of priority has not been given to training, either by governments, and maybe even to some degree the Ontario government, or industry, which has failed as well in what has needed to be done. I think it is tragic that there have not been sufficient resources provided to education generally and post-secondary education in particular. That is the result not only of governments but of Canadian attitudes as well, and those have to change.
I hope that in the coming months this government and the Ontario government and other governments in this country will agree on an approach to economic development and meeting the economic crisis in the short term that will be in the interests of Canadians. But I hope it will not be upon the 'recommendation of Mr. McKenna, to attack social programs such as medicare, which, as I said in my speech, are as necessary as anything else to ensure that our people will be able to take advantage of those training and educational opportunities that are necessary for economic growth.


Hon. William C. Winegard (Minister for Science):: Mr. Speaker, the motion of the hon. member for Willowdale asks this House to condemn the government for its economic policy. Instead, this House should be congratulating the government for responding with long-term policies to the economic challenges that this country
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faces. We must accept the challenge of helping the economy face the demands of a highly competitive global marketplace. Almost everyone who has talked in this House today has talked about a global competitive marketplace.
Hon. members opposite have many suggestions as to how we should spend money to help Canadians adjust to
hard times. What they ignore are the reasons why we cannot spend money, why we cannot spend our way out of this current recession.
First of all, the country is in debt to the tune of over $400 billion. Hon. members opposite seem to think that it is all right to rack up these debts, although they will cripple the ability of future generations to manage this economy.
That brings me to the second reason why we should not take their advice and spend our way out of the recession. It has been tried before and it does not work. The Liberals tried to spend their way out of the recession in the early 1980s. The result was clear for all to see: we are left with an enormous debt that this government is trying to contain. At the same time, many Canadian companies failed to make the adjustments they needed in the early 1980s. They were propped up by government handouts, government bailouts, coddled by oil prices that were artificially low. We hid behind tariff barriers and did not need to improve our productivity to keep up with the rest of the world.
That seems to be the kind of economic policy that some hon. members in this House would like to implement again. It is a policy to spend the inheritance of our children and grandchildren, all in an effort to prevent Canadian industry from becoming world competitive.
I agree with many in this House who have said that in order to become competitive, we must improve in five areas. I particularly agree with the last speaker: learning, science and technology, investment, domestic markets, and trade. We have to do it in the right way. I would like to make some comments on how one department of this government is tackling those particular issues, both with resources and with the comments and the influence that we are able to bring to bear in the government as a whole. That department is of course my own: Industry, Science and Technology Canada.

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In the area of learning, ISTC promotes the education of highly qualified scientists and engineers, management skills training, and raising the profile of science and technology as exciting career options. The Canada Scholarship Program-one instance-launched in 1988 with a five-year $80 million budget, recognizes and promotes the best students in science and technology right across this country and offers them scholarships to the tune of $2,000 a year for the four-year period. You will note that just last Friday in Peterborough the Prime Minister announced that this highly successful program would be extended through to 1996 and that start ing in 1993-94, the value of the scholarship would rise from $2,000 to $2,500 to ensure that it was maintained as a prestige scholarship. That means that over the four-year period, engineering students and others will receive $10,000 from the Government of Canada. That is a significant amount of money.
We also provide public awareness campaign funds to promote science and technology right across Canada. The initiative there has a particular focus on young people. We all know that we are not going to be able to work our way out of the recession we are in; we are not going to be able to compete in the world unless we have the scientists and the engineers to take us forward. What the Government of Canada can do, the Government of Canada is doing through the scholarship program, the public awareness programs and other things.
We have heard comments today about research and development. Some of the comments appear to indicate that people feel the Government of Canada is not spending enough money on research and development. If you look at the figures, and they are readily available, the Government of Canada spends as much and sometimes more than its competitors on research and development, as a government.
What is lacking in this country, and we know it, is that industry generally in Canada does not spend the money on R and D that our competitors do. Part of our whole policy must be to encourage that kind of R and D spending so industry can promote itself and become globally competitive. What we have done is to try to fill in some of the holes that exist. We know that we do not do well as a country on pre-competitive research. That is
the research that is needed before you move into the product design area. That is why the $240 million networks of Centres of Excellence Program was initiated. That program is going very well indeed.
Interestingly enough, over the last two years we have had three major discoveries in the genetic area. Each of the three discoverers belongs to and is part of the genetic disease network funded by the networks of centres program. We have also launched the strategic technologies program, where we know there are horizontal technologies that this country must be aware of and must be active in: the biotechnologies, communication technologies, and the advanced industrial materials. We work with companies, with consortia to try to promote those concepts right across the country.
The Advanced Manufacturing Technology Applications Program is another instance where our department goes out to industry and says: "Do you know what technology you need? Can we help you find out what technology you need?" People go in and advise the company on what technologies are required. That, by the way, is a relatively modest cost program, but we have all kinds of people and all kinds of industry taking advantage of it.
My hon. friend across the way, who may not know much about the economy of the country from the motion that he has put forward here, certainly does understand IRAP, and that is a very good program. The Industrial Research Assistance Program of the National Research Council has been a leading light in this area. It is kind of an industry extension program and it works extraordinarily well. We are going to continue to support it in every way we possibly can. We particularly like the concept that the council has put forward of moving IRAP even more strongly into the regions of this country so everyone can share in the prosperity.
On trade of course we have External Affairs and International Trade. Those offices are often shared with a trade group in terms of ISTC, and that has worked out very well, because you have trade, you have the industry people and you have the science and technology people all working for one objective: the prosperity of Canadians.
February 17, 1992

The last example of ISTC I would like to give you is to look at the sector campaign initiatives that we have, the various industrial sectors ranging from automobiles to micro-electronics, forest products to the fashion apparel, advanced manufacturing technologies to emerging environmental industries. We help those industries begin to focus on their difficulties. Sometimes it is research and development that they need. Often it is technology inflow that is required. We are prepared to help in either way.
We also have some programs in the business centres that we run across the country. We try to provide one-stop shopping for our Canadian industry. If they come to our business centres, 11 of them across Canada, we then hook them up with the appropriate people in industry, in trade, in science and technology, and so on. As you know, we are working very actively in trying to promote trade across Canada that will help us be competitive in the rest of the world.
I know my time is running out. Let me conclude by saying that what we are trying to do is to design our programs to target and help industry as a whole. We are not trying to pick winners and losers. We are not throwing money at fading companies in a vain attempt to save jobs. That approach has been tried in this country over and over and it does not work. We cannot prop up individual companies. We can set long-term policies and we are: the free trade agreement, getting rid of the old manufacturers' sales tax. I know our colleagues on the other side do not like those policies, but they are the right policies for the long-term health of Canadian industry, and in their hearts they know that. They just do not want to admit it at the present time, but they will.
Our government has its eye on the long term. Is it not interesting that people always come up to you and say: "The trouble with you politicians is that you always think short term; you cannot think beyond four years?" This is a government that has never thought short term. It is a government that has always had its eye on the long-term competitive nature of Canada, and it is a government that will remain focused on the long term and the short term will be someone else's difficulty. We know where we want to go and it is the right way for this country.
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Maurizio Bevilacqua: Mr. Speaker, I paid attention to what the minister had to say, but there are certain problems with the logic of his argument.
Here in Canada, as we stand in this Chamber, there are almost 400,000 young people who remain unemployed. We are indeed creating a generation of chronically unemployed young Canadians. The minister correctly addresses the point of his prosperity agenda and global competitiveness. But any report that his government or any institution or organization that is deeply concerned about global competitiveness will tell you that you need a skilled work force. Above and beyond that, they also point out that a youth employment policy is absolutely necessary for future prosperity.
Given those essential truths, I would like to ask the minister how he can, on the one hand, tell us that education and training are vital to our prosperity agenda and, on the other hand, as we have seen time and time again, there are cuts in those particular areas. Obviously there is a contradiction in terms, and unfortunately the people who will pay the price for this unbelievable government policy will be Canada's youth.
I would like the minister to address this particular point because young people approach me on it everywhere I go throughout Canada.


William C. Winegard: Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to respond to that particular comment. I remind hon. members that it was this government which for the first time raised the whole issue of education and training to a level of discussion that this country had not seen before. It is this government that has placed significant funding and changed the focus of the unemployment insurance program to training, rather than simply paying people. It is this government that has focused on the high quality people that you need to work in the modern kind of industry that we are trying to build. It is this government that is bringing all of the players together for the first time to talk about what kind of long-term policy is needed in this country and whose responsibility it is to help keep young men and women in school so they do not drop out; whose responsibility it is to see that it is made easier for them to move into the community colleges, into the universities, to have training, trades training.

February 17, 1992
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We have not had that kind of discussion in this country before. While I agree with the comments that conditions now are very difficult, at least give the government credit for moving this whole thing from almost a sort of subterranean talk up on to the front burner where we can all address the problem.


Mac Harb: Mr. Speaker, I do not know whether I should laugh or cry, but probably I should do both at the same time. The minister must have read the report of the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada. At page 8 of that report it says clearly: "Canadian expenditures on research and development over the last 15 years show a decline, followed by a recovery to the 1971 level, and virtually no growth in real expenditure over the last five years".
Who is the minister kidding when he says that research and development has been a priority of the government?
If there has been a true commitment to education, why have we seen cut after cut on an annual basis in transfer payments for education to the provinces?
On top of that, if the minister is right in what he is saying, why did we not put in some sort of a requirement that money the federal government put toward education and gave to the provinces for education should be really going toward education and not toward roads or social services or other programs?
I cannot for the life of me sit back and watch the minister make those statements and the public at large hearing the minister make those statements and saying: "Well, look, we have all of the fundamentals in place". The reality is that we do not have the fundamentals in place. Interest rates are still high. The dollar is still extremely high and we cannot compete internationally with this kind of monetary policy. Our investment in research and development is not there and our investment in education is not there either. If the minister is telling me that the industry is not investing in research and development, what is he doing about it, in order to make sure our industry is investing in research and development?


William C. Winegard: Mr. Speaker, I must say I am absolutely delighted to respond to the question on Established
Programs Financing. It is very clear to anyone who studies this subject that Government of Canada funding has not been used for post-secondary education; it has been used by the provinces for other purposes.
The hon. member asks why we do not do something about it. Once the decision was made in 1977 to go the route we are now going, no government could intercede and no government can change the way EPF funding is transferred because control was lost entirely, absolutely, over that EPF funding. If you look at the figures provided by the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada or the Canadian Association of University Teachers, they will show you that the Government of Canada is still funding on average almost 70 per cent of the government costs of post-secondary education and there is no way, sir, that you can really avoid this.
Let me come to some of his other comments about the funding for research. The funding he is talking about does not include the funding for the network of centres of excellence. It does not include the funding for the environmental sciences. It does not include the funding for technology for solutions.


David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. I have been listening attentively to the hon. minister opposite who has great experience and has distinguished himself as an educator prior to coming to this particular Parliament. He has made a major statement on the floor of the House indicating that money going to the provincial governments is not being used for post-secondary education.
I wonder if the minister would table in the House the figures substantiating his claim. How much money is each province spending for education in terms of the money they receive from the Government of Canada? It would be nice if the minister would provide that information to the House so we could fully understand what provincial governments, as he says, are doing with the money they receive under the block funding. It was a request made of the government of the day by the first ministers, led by none other than the premier of the province of Alberta, the Hon. Peter Lougheed.
February 17, 1992


William C. Winegard: Mr. Speaker, I did not attempt to say it was not a good deal for the provinces. Of course it was a good deal for the provinces because they had the funding and could do whatever they wanted with it.


An hon. member:: Are you going to table it?


William C. Winegard: I would certainly be happy, sir, to get the hon. member opposite the figures for the amount of funding that is now provided by the Government of Canada in terms of the total government funding going to post-secondary education.


David Charles Dingwall: On a point of order. Mr. Speaker, I am not very articulate, but let it be said very clearly so that I can specify for the hon. minister opposite. What he said in the House is that provincial governments in receipt of federal dollars are not spending it on post-secondary education. Those are the figures that we on this side of the House would ask the hon. minister, a distinguished person in post-secondary education himself, to provide to the House forthwith.


William C. Winegard: Mr. Speaker, we will be absolutely delighted to provide that kind of information. It is readily available.


Joseph R. (Joe) Comuzzi: Mr. Speaker, I want to compliment the Minister for Science on two things that he noted in his speech. First was the credit he paid to our critic of industry and trade, the member for Willowdale who has structured the Opposition Day today and the kind words that he said on behalf of our member for Willowdale. I want to thank the minister very much.
The other comment I would like to make follows up on the point of order that our House leader just raised with respect to the amount of money that is being spent-as I gather from what was said-outside the jurisdiction of what was originally intended to be spent within the provinces. That would be valuable information as we try to get through this terrible dilemma of finding ways to get out of this economic recession that all Canadians find themselves in.
I want to address this problem from the perspective of the area I represent, northern Ontario, an area that we at all times feel receives far too little attention from the government of the day. I appreciate this opportunity to make my comments.
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The Ontario economy is probably the greatest challenge in Canada today. Ontario is often referred to as the engine that drives the national economy. The engine has ground to a halt and nowhere on the other side of the House do we see the leadership that we so desperately need if we are to get this economy back on its feet.
In my own riding of Thunder Bay-Nipigon, just this past week there was another blow to a vital industry with the announcement that the Domtar paper mill will be closing down in May and 400 additional people will be thrown out of work.
As we review the economy of northwestern Ontario, indeed the whole economy of Canada, almost weekly we see in local newspapers in the north descriptions of plant closures, descriptions of government assisted programs with respect to unemployment, the sawmill closures because of the export tax, the terrible bankruptcies of small businesses and the endless litany of despair and the waste of human resources that all of these unfortunate economic matters control in this country.
It is tremendously sad at this particular time in the heart of winter. It is a depressing commentary on the state of our region, our province and our country. We ask ourselves how we got into this mess. How did we get here and where do we go from here?
From this point on I want to take a little different tack. I want to talk about where we are and where this country can go. We have had enough talk about doom and gloom. We should assure all Canadians that we do have hope. We have hope because Canadians are a resilient people. Canadians are an industrious people and Canadians are extremely capable.
If it were not for the qualities that I have just mentioned in all Canadian workers, Canada would be in far worse shape today than we see it. The Canadian people themselves will bring us out of this recession. It will not be the government across the floor that will bring us out of the recession. It certainly will not be the government that represents the province of Ontario that in its short history, 18 months, has truly lost its way. We doubt on this side of the House whether the NDP government in Ontario can ever find its way to bring back the economy of Ontario and because Ontario is the spark plug of the economy of Canada, ever getting it back to where it once was.

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The only people who can bring us out of the recession is the Liberal Party. We need a Liberal government in Canada to lead us out of this terrible economic recession that we find ourselves in.
For some reason we try to avoid the issue that Canada is truly a resource based country.
It is a little known fact that beyond the 25 square miles of Ottawa is the reality of the rest of Canada. The reality is that the forestry industry is the largest single industry in Canada.
It is larger than any other industry that we have. It is larger than the automobile industry, any of the petroleum sectors, mining and manufacturing.
Forestry in Canada today provides employment to 8 per cent of the Canadian labour force. It supported almost 900,000 forestry, manufacturing and service jobs until recently. One out of seven manufacturing dollars in Canada is related directly to the forestry industry. This industry contributes more than $17 billion to Canada's net trade balance and exceeds the net trade balance from agriculture, fisheries and mining combined.
Forestry accounts for close to $2.5 billion in trade within our country alone. The policy of this government does not reflect the importance of this industry to over 300 communities in Canada that are dependent upon forestry as their sole means of survival. Several of those communities are in my own riding.
It does not reflect this industry's contribution to the national economy in its treatment toward more than 30 single industry towns in northern Ontario alone which are reliant on the 17 pulp and paper mills and over 375 sawmills throughout our region.
Perhaps this government is ashamed of the fact that Canada has a resource based economy. Until that fact changes, which is not likely in this session, it better start focusing on the engines of our economy that are so vital to our future.
Let me just say that we on this side of the House are not going to get up here and chastize the government without giving alternatives as to how we think this economy in Canada should be started.
Let me quote from a release today by our leader: "This plan is not without cost, but the cost of an action of
washing your hands of this suffering as the government is doing is far greater than what this government is performing. We are levelling with the Canadian people, telling them where the funding would come from, unlike the NDP and the Reform Party that offer simplistic and irresponsible quick fixes to our economy".
In the one-year emergency economic plan we have proposed is the 5 per cent down payment for first-time home buyers which was implemented last week after much urging from this side of the House and is now in place.
We also want to use the $7,500 RRSP contributions for first-time home buyers. That will also add to the quick start the housing industry throughout all of Canada needs. When the housing industry prospers, the softwood lumber industry also prospers. It is essential for the lumber industries of every region of this country.
We have a plan in place that is called shared cost infrastructure improvement. Every community in this country realizes that it has vital infrastructure responsibilities that most municipalities in this country cannot afford.
As a case in point, we have in our area-we heard about the Great Lakes clean-up system today-the need for a secondary treatment plant. This is a $60 million or $70 million project. This infrastructure plan would assist all communities in this country. It is an infrastructure plan that would be financed by the federal, provincial, and municipal governments and would go a long way not only in our community but in every community in this country.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for allowing me the opportunity to make those comments on the economy of Ontario.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, I listened with a great deal of interest during my hon. friend's comments and I thought they were very instructive.
I just have two questions. During its term of office in Ontario the Liberal government did a great deal for employment of public servants by increasing the number of public servants in Ontario by some 9,000 employees from 1985 through to 1990.
February 17, 1992

I was wondering if it would be part of a policy of the federal Liberal Party, if it were ever to face the electorate, to increase the levels of the federal Public Service back to the levels they were in 1984, given that during our mandate we have reduced the rolls of the Public Service by some 12,000 people. I just wonder if that is one of my hon. friend's alternatives.
The other matter is that during the terrible recession of 1981-82, in which my hon. friend from Willowdale participated and who actually framed the motion here today, he was part of the government that dumped the infrastructure contribution that the federal government used to make. Now my hon. friend and the Liberal Party are revisiting policies of the 1980s which they abandoned.
We appreciate that most of the Liberal Party policy these days, with its leader, is back in the 1960s. This infrastructure suggestion that my hon. friend makes was dumped in the terrible recession of 1981-82 and my hon. friend from Willowdale assisted. Are we going to bring back the infrastructure contribution that was dumped by the Liberals in 1981-82? Is that my hon. friend's suggestion?


Joseph R. (Joe) Comuzzi: Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend opposite for those very incisive questions. I hope he realizes that during the years to which he refers I was not in this House nor in the provincial Government of Ontario. But I will try to take the two questions that he has posed and relate them as we go into the 21st century, 1990 and
1991.
What we are experiencing today is something that this country has never experienced before. This is the first time that we do not have the wherewithal and the resources within our country to come out of the recession that we find ourselves in today.
We have a deficit today that we cannot seem to contain at less than $30 billion, $31 billion or $32 billion, as we are told this year. We have a debt that since 1984, when my hon. friend's government took office, has increased from approximately $160 billion a year to something now like $420 billion.


Mr. Foster:: Billions?


Joseph R. (Joe) Comuzzi: Billions. Yes, that is with a B and not an M. It is billion dollars.
What that means simply is that for the first time in our history we spend 36 cents to 37 cents of every dollar we bring in in tax dollars and it does not buy one hospital bed.
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Thirty-seven cents does not buy one school classroom space for any child in this country. It does not buy one meal in our food lines in this country. It does not buy one road. It does not provide infrastructure for any of the small communities within this country. It buys absolutely nothing. That 37 cents of every tax dollar we collect buys absolutely nothing. It goes to pay interest.
Given that horrendous problem, there is very little that we can do in this House in order to get out of this recession other than to use the things that we already have and own within this country. Things that I mentioned last week, like using fine paper made only by Canadian mills. Use those facilities that Canadians have already bought and paid for, for example the St. Lawrence Seaway, and maybe suspend tolls for a year in order to get that viable waterway working again.
There are so many other areas and I can see time does not allow me, but I thank my friend for those questions and I hope that I have been able to answer them to his satisfaction.


Mr. Ron MacDonald (Dartmouth):: Mr. Speaker, first of all I want to commend my colleague from Willowdale for coming forward with a resolution at this particular point in time.
It is a very constructive resolution. The people of Canada are focused on what this government is going to do, or more precisely what it is not doing, to try to assist Canadians who have been driven straight over the brink, many into bankruptcy, most into a period of uncertainty in their lives by this government's economic policies.
Most days I think people watch and they might think that not much of what we do in here has a great deal of relevancy. But today we have an opportunity because of this extremely well-worded motion to come in here and to talk about the Mulroney government record, the Tory record, and where it has got us to date.
Before I start, I want to tell you that this morning when I got on the plane in Halifax there were two members of the Newfoundland provincial legislature flying up here to Ottawa. They were not coming here because they thought the weather was going to be better. They knew they would get more hot air certainly than they were going to get down in Newfoundland, but the reason was because of the state of the fishery in Newfoundland.

February 17, 1992
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As my colleague from Newfoundland at Question Period today clearly said the fisheries in Canada is a federal responsibility. It is not a municipal responsibility. It is not a provincial responsibility. It is a federal responsibility.
We have seen in the last few years, particularly since the last election, this government go in with the primary resource industry in Newfoundland which is the fisheries and the national resource, a renewable resource when it is properly managed, and because of the actions of this government cozying up to the Europeans, it gives away our fishstocks. It does not listen to the evidence of the scientists at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography and other places. It has completely mismanaged a resource industry that is responsible in Atlantic Canada for over
100,000	jobs. It is bigger than the auto industry in Ontario.
We are down in Atlantic Canada with an economy that at the best of times is just pulling its butt out of a recession. We are the first to go into a recession; we are the last to come out. Here we have a renewable resource industry in Atlantic Canada, the fisheries. It is like these guys have gone from the frying pan into the fire in the fisheries.
We have a Minister of Fisheries and Oceans from St. John's, Newfoundland. He took over and some even on this side said: "Well, you know he is a hometown boy; maybe he will be able to look after the interests of the Newfoundland fisheries, the Atlantic fishermen, and the fish plant workers a little better than the other guys from the other coast have been doing". Well, boy, were we ever fooled.
Friday in Newfoundland, a province that has an official unemployment rate of over 18 per cent, there were 1,000 fish plant workers laid off in a place called Catalina. At the best part of the fishing season 1,000 people were laid off. What is it going to be like in a few months down the road when they would normally be facing less fish to process through their plants?
I was also told on the plane today that because of this government's action and neglect in the fisheries industry, an industry that in good years would be worth over $750 million to that battered economy in Newfoundland, it has been reduced by more than 50 per cent in the net revenue impact on Newfoundland. This is because of this government's economic disaster plan that it has foisted upon the good souls in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. That is what it has done.
I watched on television one of the Tory ministers getting up and saying: "Well, things are looking better. The rate of bankruptcies is slowing".
Tell the 60,000 men and women in Canada who in the last 12 months have been forced to declare personal bankruptcy or who have lost their small unincorporated business that things are going to get better. Tell that to the 17,000-plus businesses in Canada many of which were passed down from generation to generation. Tell them: "Don't worry". The members opposite say: "You know, it is going to get better". This is after they have lost a lifetime of earning and investment and asset building.
Last Monday, the devastating bankruptcy figures came out, and they are devastating, and the minister just talked about the 1981-82 recession. I should read the comments of the superintendent of bankruptcy. What he said, if you are listening, is that this recession is much worse than the 1981-82 recession and takes the form of a depression in some sectors of the economy.
What do the members opposite say? They tell you not to worry, that things are going to get better and that economic indicators are looking up. What about the thousands of people who have lost their jobs in the forestry industry? My colleague for Restigouche-Cha-leur has lost well over 1,000 jobs in his riding.


An hon. member:: Yes.


Ronald MacDonald: Yes, well over 1,000 direct jobs. Those guys opposite twiddle their thumbs, and the carnage that has been left from one end of this country to the other. I do not know what in the name of goodness they want to do with the economy.
February 17, 1992

The government is taking the livelihoods and the futures of Canadians and it is flushing them down the toilet. It has no concept about how to get out of the recession it pushed us into.
They talk about interest rates. They say: "Have a look at the interest rates". I remember, and this will haunt many of the Tory members opposite during the next election campaign, it was this very government that pushed the interest rates through the ceiling. It was trying to cool inflation. It was trying to keep inflation down in Ontario because growth was running rampant in Ontario. What it did is it overmedicated and killed the patient. The patient is the Canadian economy.
Now that it got the interest rates down to an acceptable level nobody has any confidence left in the economy. They certainly lost all confidence in the government opposite. Even with the lower interest rates that we finally have the carnage is so severe that the economy is not picking itself up.
Economically, the casualties are all over the place. Businesses are not borrowing. There is a report which came out last week. People in the manufacturing sector were asked: "How do you think things are going to go?" They said: "We do not have a great deal of faith that things are going to get better quickly". What this government has done is it has taken an economy that was expanding during the periods of 1986 to 1989, mismanaged it and drove it into recession and some of it into a depression.
This government talks about how things are going to get better. People out there watching right now who have lost their jobs in the manufacturing sector and who have seen the plant, machines and all, truck south of the border to Buffalo-shuffle off to Buffalo-do not think there will be any great future for them.
Because of this government's free trade deal, because of its high interest rate policy, because of its ridiculously high dollar policy, what it has done is that it has lost the jobs those people were trained for. Yes, this government has done a great deal to improve economic performance and create wealth. Unfortunately it is not in this country.
It has created a great deal of wealth with the Portuguese, the Spanish, and the French fleets for stealing our fish in Atlantic Canada. It will not lift its finger to stop it. It is throwing thousands of fish plant workers out of work.
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This government has created all kinds of wealth in the border states. There has been a boom in the manufacturing business there because companies have left southwestern Ontario for good. It has done a great job. This is stimulating an economy, but it ain't ours and that's the problem.
We have to look at all of the things that are happening. Look at what the government does to healthy industries in Canada, like the oil and gas industry, and haven't we had some wonderful economic news out of that sector. That has just been peachy. Over 10,000 individuals some of whom are sole proprietorships in small gas stations across Canada will lose their jobs because there are over 2,500 stations closing.
In the shipbuilding industry it gives a contract to HTIL in my riding for the coastal patrol vessels. It is now floating the rumour that it is going to cancel it and jeopardize 1,200 jobs. Regarding the Dartmouth marine slips in my riding, part of that little cozy back room deal, it was going to rationalize it and throw 187 people out of work.
The Imperial Oil refinery in Dartmouth employs over $350 people. It probably will not be able to survive in this recession battered economy and it is looking to the workers to effect 30 per cent greater efficiency without any investment.
These people over here do not care about jobs at all. They have completely lost direction and that is why this motion that is put forward today is very appropriate. I join with my colleagues here and with over 20 million Canadians in condemning this government's economic policies.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend talked about interest rates going through the ceiling. Given that during the 1981-82 recession interest rates hit 22 per cent, I wonder if my hon. friend could compare that with where interest rates went in the last couple of years.


Ronald MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, these guys opposite like to play a numbers game.
We are dealing with a recession second only to the depression in Canada. The best that they can do to answer for their own policies is to try and dip back into the recession that was around in 1981-82 which was a world-wide recession.

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We did not have free trade then, and I want to speak to this issue. These guys get away with this all too often. In 1981-82 we had a recession in this country. Because of Liberal policies and Liberal programs, we did not throw people out on the scrap heap. We did not do that, and the minister should know that.
It costs money and it is added to the deficit, but we in the Liberal Party believe in investing in people. When that recession was ravaging this land, we were not up on our hind legs, like some members opposite, baying at the moon and blaming it on somebody else. We recognized that we had a responsibility to put Canadians back to work.
My colleague from Broadview-Greenwood talked about the NEED program. We took $400,000 and we invested in people. We gave them their integrity back. We gave them some confidence that they had a government that cared about their future.
He talks about speaking in a normal tone of voice. My voice may be raised, but it is because there are thousands of workers in my riding who have become the victims of this government's kamikaze economic policies. It may be fine for us to be up here in our ivory tower, like the minister is most days, and talk about what it was like in 1936. I do not know what it was like.
What I know is that the casualties are real. They are out there in the community and this government is completely bankrupt of any ideas. If Canadians had their druthers, they would kick these guys out. They would kick them out today and they would put a party in that understands what it means to govern this country and understands what it means to have trust. It would be a Liberal government.


Mr. Jim Edwards (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs and Minister of State (Agriculture)):: Mr. Speaker, I have listened to my friend with great interest.
He does not think that the current recession is a world-wide recession even though conveniently the 1981-82 recession according to him was. I would agree with him on that point.
Does he not feel that the United States, Australia and other western countries are in a recession today? He says that in 1981-82 the Liberal government did not throw people on the scrap heap. Perhaps it did not. What it did was borrow money so that people are threatened with the scrap heap today.
Would the hon. member not acknowledge that the expenditures, the attention and the care given to training and retraining programs today are infinitely better than in 1981-82 when money was simply borrowed in order to postpone the inevitable restructuring of Canadian industry?


Ronald MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, it is interesting for this member to talk about what we are going to do.
I will give my personal opinion. My opinion is that an expenditure of $1 billion, as proposed by the leader of my party, to go and work at municipal infrastructure to put people back to work is a wise investment.
If momentarily or for a year or forever the deficit goes up by $1 billion, I am prepared to take any flack that will come for it.
It is fine for your friends on Bay Street in Toronto to talk about the deficit. They do not have to worry about putting bread and butter on their tables. They do not have to worry about whether they have enough money to feed their children nutritious food.
There are over 1 million Canadians currently going to food banks. There are over 1.5 million Canadians unemployed. The government asks: "Would you add to the deficit?" If it means putting this country back to work, we would invest in people. If it means reinstilling consumer confidence that things are going to get better, yes we would.
I would also say to the member that one of the things we would not do with very limited resources is what this government did. It spent hundreds of millions of dollars in the last three months when our economy was in recession trying to buy provincial elections in western Canada with projects that even in the scientific community, and he knows the one of which I speak, were questionable.
February 17, 1992

The government can find the money, $250 million here and $300 million there, when its Tory friends are in trouble. When Canadians need help it comes up with this straw dog called the deficit.
Would the Liberal Party be different? It would be a heck of a lot different. People would know that they had a future because we would invest in it.


James (Jim) Stewart Edwards: Mr. Speaker, I found that an interesting exchange. I would invite my hon. friend to some day visit Alberta and see whether even those in food lines and going to food banks are not concerned about the deficit. They know where today's debt came from and they will never forgive those who created it prior to 1984.
When the hon. member for Willowdale criticizes the government for its economic policy, I wonder if he has taken into account the government's efforts to improve Canada's competitiveness in the international marketplace. If he considered this government's success over the past eight years in encouraging business to trade more and trade smarter, he would not condemn its economic policy; he would congratulate it.
Canada is 31st in the world in terms of population, and yet we have the world's seventh largest economy. Over the past 30 years Canada has achieved the second highest rate of growth among the G-7 nations and the seventh fastest in the OECD nations. We have enjoyed the second highest rate of investment growth among the G-7 nations in the last 30 years and the highest rate of job creation within the OECD.
Much of that prosperity has been based on trade. We earn 25 per cent of our output from trade, and that is two and one-half times the comparable figure for the United States. It is one and one-half times the figure for Japan. Among the G-7 countries, only in Germany does trade account for a larger proportion of GDP than Canada's.
Since 1984 the government's agenda for economic renewal has guided the economic policy aimed at helping Canada maintain its position as one of the world's great trading nations. The agenda consists of a number of wide ranging strategies which, taken together, help create the environment in which business can grow and prosper.
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Deficit control has been a major part of the agenda. Government operations now run well in the black. Only the interest on the national debt contributes to the deficit now. It can be truthfully said that this government of which I am proud to be a member has not contributed one nickel to the national debt since 1984.
The agenda for economic renewal has also included privatization of 20 Crown corporations and the down-sizing of the Public Service. There are some 90,000 fewer employees on the public payroll now than there were in 1984. The agenda includes regulatory reform, including major changes to the regulations governing the transportation, energy and communications industries. Since 1986 the government's regulatory reform strategy has ensured that business is a partner in creating the regulations that will affect it.
The agenda for economic renewal also includes modernizing and streamlining Canada's intellectual property laws, establishing Investment Canada, which encourages foreign investment that will be of net benefit to Canada, and reforming our tax system, including the elimination of the federal sales tax on manufacturing.
Perhaps one of the best known elements of the agenda for economic renewal has been the implementation of measures to open international markets for Canadian business. Canada's number one trade priority is a successful conclusion of the Uruguay round of multilateral trade negotiations, the largest and the most complex ever undertaken by the GATT.
The agenda also included the free trade agreement with the United States and is now expanding its horizons to include a possible North American free trade agreement. The combined North American market will consist of 360 million people, with an economic product of $7 trillion. That is bigger than Europe. As with the FTA, this market will allow us to achieve new economies of scale and specialization.
The free trade agreement has helped Canada's trade position. Since the FTA was implemented, Canada's trade surplus with the U.S. jumped from $11.4 billion to $17.3 billion, a rise of almost 50 per cent. In the last three years the value of all Canadian exports to the U.S. has increased by almost $8 billion.

Supply
The FTA has also had an impact on investment from abroad. In 1988, just before the implementation of the FTA, Canada had a direct investment outflow of $2.4 billion. In 1990 we recorded a net inflow of $5.1 billion. That was the first time in more than 16 years that Canada enjoyed an inflow of net direct investment.
Taken together, the measures of the government's agenda for economic renewal have provided for an environment in which the private sector can be the engine of growth in the Canadian economy.
Canadians must do more to take advantage of the opportunities for growth. In particular, Canadian business must capitalize on the growing importance of international trade. Earlier I mentioned how important trade was to the Canadian economy. Only about 100 companies account for half of our exports. Only 32 per cent of Canada's manufacturing firms export at all, in spite of the unsurpassed opportunities presented by the free trade agreement.
Only about 13 per cent of Canadian-owned manufacturers are exporters. Small and medium-sized firms account for less than 7 per cent of our exports. The challenge is to get more companies to trade. At the same time, we must recognize that international business is no longer merely the export of goods. More and more, international business is measured by the growing volume and variety of services. It is measured in investment, both inward and outward. It is also measured in the ability to attract, to develop and to employ new technology. Above all, international business today is characterized by the growth of strategic alliances and partnerships.
The government recognizes these new realities. One can see how this government has responded when one observes how the role of our trade commissioners abroad has changed to meet the new demands. Back when the party of the hon. member for Willowdale was in office, the trade commissioners were primarily concerned with developing markets for Canadian goods. Today that is only part of their job. They must deal with market access issues, they must provide market intelligence that is increasingly sophisticated. They promote investment in Canada and they play a key role in helping companies acquire technology and find partners for strategic alliances. They help companies enter strategic alliances, joint ventures and subsupplier agreements with foreign
companies, to share a technology or to build a market share.
Outward investment through acquisition or the formation of joint venture companies, back-to-back deals offering exchanges of market expertise, and access to technology have become part of export strategy.
Canada's trade commissioners are important players in helping to build these collaborations, and their changing role demonstrates the changing realities of international trade. The government has been quick to respond to those realities. The government has created a number of programs to help build a trade culture in Canada, to help Canadians obtain the information they need to open markets for their goods and services, and to help business acquire the technology it needs to tap export markets.
In the area of building a trade culture, the government helps sponsor seven centres for international business studies at universities across Canada. In addition, there is a trade policy and law project jointly undertaken with Carleton University and the University of Ottawa. The government sponsors the annual Canada International Trade Month and the Canada Export Award Program. It publishes and distributes a wide range of trade publications.
The government has also introduced services to introduce new exporters or potential exporters to the American market and to markets in Europe.
One such service is called NEBS: New Exporters to Border States. Its objective is to provide assistance to Canadian companies hoping to export to the United States for the first time. NEBS specializes in helping to crack the northern states. A similar program called NEXOS has been custom designed for companies hoping to sell to the southern United States. Finally the NEXOS program encourages companies to pursue the dynamic markets of western Europe.
The most popular program of all has been the program for Export Market Development known as PEMD. This program helps Canadian business to develop, increase and sustain activities by sharing with them specific export marketing efforts. The program encourages businesses that have not exported previously to begin export marketing, and it encourages established exporters to expand their activities in the new markets.
February 17, 1992

PEMD provides assistance with some of the costs incurred by a company in its exploration of new markets. These contributions are repayable if sales are made to those markets.
There has been such a heavy demand for PEMD assistance that last November it became fully committed. The House will be well aware that funding for PEMD has now been increased, allowing market identification trips and participation in trade fairs to continue for the balance of this fiscal year.
The need to increase PEMD's funding for the remaining weeks of the fiscal year is a sign of its success. We can ask the business men and women who have used this program and others like this program to score export sales whether they agree with the motion of the hon. member for Willowdale.
The business community values these programs. It knows that the government has done an excellent job in helping Canadian business to respond to the challenge of the global marketplace.
As an indication of how these programs are appreciated by Canadian business, I would remind the House that the Conference Board of Canada found that 88 per cent of the businesses it surveyed had used some kind of government export assistance.
The Institute for Research in Public Policy confirmed that 85 per cent of the small businesses it had canvassed had been helped by the government's programs to develop our international trade.
That is a vote of confidence in the programs this government has introduced. It is a vote of confidence by the business community in this government's economic policy. I maintain that the House should demonstrate its confidence in that policy and vote down the motion by the member for Willowdale.


Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, I was very interested in the comments by the hon. member from Alberta, but it seems to me that he has really glossed over the tremendous downturn that we have seen in almost every sector of Canadian manufacturing in the past three years.
Clearly the interest rates that the government has had have been very high. In many cases they have run as much as 7 per cent to 8 per cent above those of the
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United States. Certainly in the summer of 1990 that was the case. They have not only brought on a very violent recession in this country, the worst that most Canadians can remember certainly since the 1930s, but our exports have been devastated. It does not matter much whether we talk about softwood lumber where we had the export tax of 15 per cent on top of a dollar that had appreciated from 75 cents to 86 cents or 87 cents. The impact of all of those programs designed for exports the hon. member has talked about is totally negated by the incapacity of Canadian manufacturers to cope and compete with American industry, whether it is in the steel sector or in forestry products or in mining or whatever. We are paying 5 or 6 per cent higher interest rates and we are climbing up over that higher Canadian dollar. The softwood lumber industry saw the 15 per cent export tax as a major problem to overcome. Likewise with the higher dollar its competitive position was reduced not just by 15 per cent but probably closer to 30 per cent.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: It being six o'clock p.m., it is my duty to inform the House that pursuant to Standing Order 81(17) proceedings on the motion have expired.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

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

Guy H. Arseneault: Mr. Speaker, on October 23, 1991, I asked the Minister of Finance why his government was shirking its obligations in the area of education. As you know, Mr. Speaker, 30 per cent of Canadian students, nationally, drop out of high school, and the percentage is as high as 70 per cent in some regions. The Prime Minister keeps telling us that getting a good education is so important, while his government is slashing mercilessly education and training budgets, which were cut by 7.6 per cent last year.

February 17, 1992
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Although the federal government supports education in a number of ways, since 1986 it has continually reduced its contributions to post-secondary education.
By 1994 the federal government will have slashed $9.5 billion in transfer payments to the provinces. In last February's budget it cut spending on education by $485 million. Obviously the government's lack of commitment to education will have dire consequences for our country if no solutions are devised.
Foremost among problems related to education is that of illiteracy. Without a population having adequate reading and writing skills, Canada risks losing its competitive edge internationally in the long run. The costs of this problem are staggering. A 1988 report by the Canadian business task force estimated that the direct cost of illiteracy to business each year to be about $4 billion and the total cost to society to be about $10 billion. What has the government done to resolve this problem? Little, save to impose a 7 per cent tax on reading materials, a direct blow to the literacy movement.
Another point I would like to touch on is that of accessibility to education. Obviously this factor has been one of the lowest priorities of the federal government. In fact the maximum level for the Canadian Student Loans Program has not risen since 1984. Moreover, the inequality of opportunity for young Canadians will be exacerbated by three measures recently announced by the federal government.
The first is a 3 per cent administrative fee on student loans which effectively taxes those who can least afford it. Interesting. Those who do not have to borrow will not be taxed but the larger the loan, that is the greater the need, the greater the tax.
Second, the goods and services tax will apply to books and other learning resources, to clothes and to a number of other supplies required by students.
Third, recent cuts to the Summer Employment Experience Program have diminished students' ability to support themselves through their educational career.
Spending on education, research and development are investments in the future. In the long run a properly educated populace, a training system that operates with efficiency, sensitivity and responsiveness to labour market needs, and increased research and development will only increase the wealth of our country and opportunities for further social development.
Finally I must urge the Conservative government to put its money where its mouth is and to provide the resources needed by our educational system to help our country achieve its full potential.


Pierre H. Vincent: Mr. Speaker, you will understand that I do not agree with what the hon. member said and I think that if you could speak on it, you would not agree either. He says that the government does not support education. This government did more for education in 1984 than the party which my colleague represents did when it governed in the years before that.
The government spends $11 billion a year on education. The only point on which I agree with the hon. member is that the results are not great. I agree with that. If you compare with other countries, he is right. In Canada, most young people who could go to university do not, and that is unfortunate.
That does not mean we should spend more money; it means that we should reallocate our resources so that young Canadians receive academic training. Even if we spent $2 billion more, if young people do not want to get an education money will not make them do so.
I would like to point out that in 1991-92 we are spending $5.7 billion on education not including unemployment insurance funds which amount to $1.8 billion in 1992, up from $1.4 billion in 1991. Nor does it include another program on which we spent $2.3 billion in
1990-91 and will spend $3.1 billion in 1991-92. You will understand, Mr. Speaker, that enough money is there for young Canadians to receive the education to which they are entitled. But it is necessary-


GENERAL AGREEMENT ON TARIFFS AND TRADE
Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, on February 5, I put a question to the Prime Minister about the very serious concern of Canadian farmers in the supply management sectors of dairy, poultry and egg production.

There are serious implications for Canadian producers with the proposals put forward by Arthur Dunkel, Secretary-General of the GATT negotiations, involving almost 95,000 jobs in that industry of not only the 38,000 farmers themselves but 22,000 people who work on farms, as well as the many thousands who work in the food processing industry relating to dairy, egg and poultry production.
I asked the Prime Minister if he was willing to meet with the heads of state of the five other countries which support Canada's position for a strengthened and clarified article IX in the GATT negotiations and to prepare a joint declaration, not just of the ambassadors but of the heads of government, saying that our bottom line is to maintain article XI, to strengthen it and to clarify it so that it applies not only to raw fresh farm products but to those commodities that include more than 50 per cent.
I suggested this because it seems to me that if it is a joint declaration by the heads of government of Japan, Israel, Norway, Switzerland, Korea and Canada then the rest of the countries in the GATT negotiations will know that this is the bottom line, that we are serious, and that we are determined to secure our position to maintain a strengthened and clarified article XI which is absolutely essential to the supply managed sectors in the Canadian agricultural industry.
In the second question I asked if the Prime Minister would meet with the President of the United States and President Delors of the European community in order to secure their support for our position.
Fortunately the House of Commons a day or two after that accepted a resolution on which I put forward a subamendment which read: "This House calls upon the Prime Minister to involve himself personally in the GATT negotiations in the interests of Canada's diary, egg, and poultry producers by meeting with the President of the United States and the President of the European community in order to secure their support and do so in co-operation with the other countries that agree with Canada's position for a strengthened and clarified GATT article XI".
It is not only a question that I put to the Prime Minister in the House of Commons, it is a resolution
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unanimously accepted by the House of Commons calling on the Prime Minister to become personally involved in these negotiations, take action, and get a joint resolution from the countries that support our position. This resolution should not be from the countries' individual ambassadors, but from the heads of government of those states. The Prime Minister should then meet with the two Presidents from the United States and the European community to secure their support.
It would be impossible to describe the economic carnage if the Government of Canada, and specifically the Prime Minister, does not put its shoulder to the wheel and ensure that we get that support in the final weeks of the negotiations of the Uruguay round of the GATT agreement.


Mr. Murray Cardiff (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to have the opportunity to set the record straight on the government's long-standing commitment to support Canada's agrifood industry at the GATT negotiations. Canada like other countries has accepted the Dunkel tax as a basis for those negotiations, and I say has accepted them as a basis for those negotiations.
To our disappointment, the proposal does not call for the strengthening and clarification of article XI. That is the section of the GATT agreement that provides for the control of imports and for us to manage our products much better. As I said a minute ago, the Dunkel paper is the basis for negotiations and nothing more. It is not a final agreement. I want to make sure we all understand that.
Canada is continuing to fight for the clarification and strengthening of article XI as the negotiations progress. We remain committed to a stronger article XI and have been from the beginning of the trade talks. The Prime Minister has raised this issue at the highest levels with the heads of government of the major trading nations. I have explained Canada's position and the determination directly to United States Agriculture Secretary, Ed Madigan and EC Commissioner Ray McSharry. In the meantime Canada's negotiators in Geneva continue to press the case with countries that support our stand and those that do not. It is very important we make sure we have that consultative process with all of those people.

February 17, 1992
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Our position today is the same as it has always been. It is one that was agreed to by all the stakeholders in the agricultural industry, and we will continue to defend that balanced Canadian position.


ATLANTIC ECONOMY
Ronald MacDonald: On October 23, I rose in the House to ask a question of the Minister of Finance. The question I asked dealt specifically with reduced payments under the equalization program to the Atlantic provinces. At that point those reduced payments amounted to over $170 million. Keep in mind this was a time of great recession when the Atlantic provinces, which are traditionally the least well off provinces of the country, were grappling with reduced revenues coming in and increasing expenditures. There were increasing expenditures because the government decided not to fund various cost shared programs at the same level with the provincial governments.
This came at the very time when more and more Canadians in Atlantic Canada were being driven out of the work place and into the unemployment lines. Because of this government's changes to Bill C-20, the Unemployment Insurance Act, last year those same Atlantic Canadians found themselves going very quickly from unemployment to welfare to food bank lines outside churches. They came to rely on food banks for the very necessities of life such as food for their children.
On that date I asked the Minister of Finance to indicate clearly that this government was still committed to a level of equalization to maintain the ability of the poorest provinces in Canada to deliver a national program at national standards.
We know this government is cash starved because it has mismanaged the days of plenty that it had in the mid-1980s. We know that it has mismanaged the debt and that it has grown. We also know that when it comes time to share the gain it is not equal across this country, but when it comes time to share the pain it seems that we in Atlantic Canada are more equal and we get a little more of the pain than we ever get when the gain plate comes along.
I simply asked the minister that day what assurances he could give me that the equalization payments would never fall to a level below which the provincial premiers in Atlantic Canada would be unable to provide programs of national service in health care and education and social programs.
Today I get a chance to sort of flesh that question out a bit and to ask the parliamentary secretary if perhaps he could give me a level of assurance that we in the Atlantic once again are not going to be derailed, that we in the Atlantic are not going to be asked to be second-class citizens, and that this government, even with its cash shortage position and even with the escalator clauses in the equalization formula, which is enshrined in the Constitution, by the way, will take whatever measures, however extraordinary, to ensure that the level of equalization payment will never drop below a level at which it will affect the standards of national programs delivered by the provinces.
Things are no better today. They are probably a little worse off than when I first rose. Those same concerns are still there. I know full well that there was a bit of a surprise last week when the Minister of Finance announced that some of the provinces would be getting up to $70 million in additional equalization payments because they have adjusted some of the inputs into the formula, but that still leaves us well over $100 million short. Hospital beds are closing. Tuitions are rising. Atlantic Canadians need more than a slight assurance. We need a commitment from this government that it has the best interest of Canadians at heart in ensuring that those in the have not provinces will be not driven further into despair.


Pierre H. Vincent: Mr. Speaker, what really bothers me is when a member who is supposed to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth -


An hon. member:: And who is a Liberal.


Pierre H. Vincent: -manages to say not one word that makes sense. It bothers me because anyone who knows how the federal government's system of transfer payments to the provinces works-and the hon. member has been here long enough, so he ought to know-is aware that certain calculations have to be made before the federal government sends money to the provinces. These calculations are made on a per capita basis and on the basis of a lot of data that are not immediately available, and it can take up to 39 months and seven calculations before getting the final figure for the amount of money the federal government will transfer to the provinces.
February 17, 1992

On the very first day we cannot reach a final decision on what the amount will be because seven more calculations will have to be made. That was my first point, and it is too bad I do not have more time because I would have a lot more to say about this.
My second point is this: In 1984-85 the federal government gave the provinces $25.6 billion in transfer and equalization payments. In 1991-92 it will give $37 billion, which means an increase of nearly $12 billion in five or six years. The figures are self-explanatory. They demonstrate this government's interest in the well-being of Canadians in all provinces, whether they are poor, not so poor, or rich. The amounts have been raised annually and will continue to be raised.
When I hear members say that this was frozen and that was cut, it just is not true. There has been a substantial increase annually, and this substantial increase will continue. I see my time has expired.


ALGOMA STEEL
Mr. Steve Butland (Sault Ste. Marie):: Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to elaborate upon a question I asked the Minister of Industry, Science and Technology on October 23 about the restructuring of Algoma Steel.
I will quote directly what the minister said at that time:
I think it would be premature for me to indicate with any precision because it is very difficult to do at this stage of the discussions when we do not have the final answers from all the players around the table.
I will say that the minister and the government have been very consistent in their answers. We have asked good questions and they have been consistent, but the answers are always nebulous, ambiguous, and really do not promise us anything.
To show the consistency, on May 27 I asked the same minister a question and he suggested that it was a very positive element; he liked this question of employee ownership, but I had better ask the Minister of Finance. I asked the Minister of Finance, and he said: "I think it is a
Adjournment Debate
great idea and we will attempt to co-operate and work in a co-operative fashion to see what we can do to facilitate the kind of objective that the hon. member has in mind".
I have a letter dated August 19 from the same minister, the Minister of Industry, Science and Technology: "I look forward to reviewing the new plan once it has been fully developed in order that we can give consideration to options for securing Algoma's longer term future within the existing framework of existing policies and programs".
To continue, November 21, I have a letter again from the same minister: "As of this moment, a definitive restructuring proposal has not been presented to Algoma stakeholders, nor has there been a definitive request made of the federal government to participate in the restructuring proposal. The federal government cannot make a definitive response until it knows what it is being asked to do".
We now know, and I am sure the parliamentary secretary knows on behalf of the minister, that on January 27, Justice James Farley accepted a plan from all stakeholders. Now all of the stakeholders will have an opportunity to respond to that plan. Tb this point, the only totally silent partner in this scenario has been the federal government. Now they have run out of excuses. It is time to put their cards on the table. The Ontario government, I would like to say, has been very, very forthcoming in this exercise.
The unions at Dofasco and Algoma Steel want the federal government to come forward at this point in time. The excuses have run out now that the restructuring proposal is on the table. Rumours have it-mind you, they are only rumours-that the federal government has made some sort of offer of concrete assistance. I hope that is correct. This is an opportunity to dispel those rumours and make them a reality.
My questions perhaps are a little bit more than what I asked on October 25, but I think now they are in order. Will the minister agree to meet with the stakeholders? Up to this point in time, he has been stonewalling the union. Probably all of the stakeholders have been stonewalled.

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Is the federal government prepared to say yes to any of our specific requests, the bridge pensions, 50 on up, or 55, which is the present POWA program? Is there any flexibility in POWA? The Minister of Labour says no. He says it is up to the Minister of Industry, Science and Technology.
Are there any tax credits to facilitate employee ownership? Are there any funds for the training institute? Are there more moneys for training and retraining of steelworkers and non-steelworkers? It is up to the government to say yes so that the rest of us can-


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


Mr. Charles A. Langlois (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Industry, Science and Technology):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to inform the member for Sault Ste. Marie that the federal government remains committed to using its existing program in practice to alleviate the hardship for workers and the people of Sault Ste. Marie, which could result in a substantial reduction in Algoma's work force.
The older worker adjustment proposal put forward by Algoma in its plan of arrangement dated January 21, 1992 goes well beyond the bounds of existing federal programs and practice and would set a precedent, the cost and implications of which are simply untenable. This would certainly not be fair to companies and employees who have found themselves in similar positions in the past. It would also be an obligation that the Government of Canada could not assume into the future because of the financial cost.
For these reasons the proposal as presented cannot be accepted. In its place, the federal government is prepared to offer assistance to older workers in a form that is more consistent with existing legislation and practices. Assistance would take the form of a special program, the cost of which would be shared equally with the province of Ontario, which would offer an income supplement to employees who are 55 years of age or older at the time the restructuring plan was implemented.
With respect to employee training and adjustment measures, the Canada Employment and Immigration Commission is currently negotiating a package with the Canadian Steel Trade and Employment Congress that would provide adjustment services responding to the needs of workers who may be laid off at Algoma and other places.


NUCLEAR INDUSTRY
Mr. Lyle Dean MacWilliam (Okanagan -Shuswap):: Mr. Speaker, last October I raised the issue of possible atmospheric radioactive releases into Canadian air space from the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington State south of the B.C. border and the possibility of future contamination.
Just 300 kilometres, as the wind blows from the Canada-U.S. border lies one of the most lethally contaminated spots on the face of the earth. The 1,450 square kilometre Hanford Nuclear Reservation site near Richland, Washington is a child of the Manhattan project. In 1943 the U.S. military constructed three production reactors to process high-grade plutonium, and afterward Hanford became a keystone in the cold war race against the Soviet Union for nuclear superiority-
Hanford is home to 63 per cent of all the high-level nuclear waste produced in the United States, some of which can kill or maim for thousands of years. Below the desert lies a hidden nuclear graveyard, which contains a bizarre collection of irradiated nuclear junk. Bulldozers, dump trucks, freight trains, spent nuclear reactor housings, and other radioactive debris were buried there when they became too contaminated for use.
Some of the radioactive plutonium stored on the site has a half-life of some 24,000 years, the time it takes to decay to one-half of its original volume. Conceivably, Hanford could become one of the last artefacts of our civilization, a legacy to our nuclear age.
In addition to the billions of litres of high-level waste and radioactive sludge that are stored in underground tanks, buried in tank farms in Hanford, is a literal plethora of other radioactive nuclear waste. Swimming pools temporarily house some 2,100 tonnes of nuclear reactor fuel that was due to be processed into plutonium before the facilities were shut down.
But what is most startling about the Hanford story is what until recently has been left untold. Through recent access to previously classified military information, evidence is now emerging that portions of the Pacific northwest, possibly including areas of southeastern British Columbia and Alberta, may have been extensively contaminated by atmospheric releases, both accidental and deliberate, from the Hanford Reservation. In 1986 the U.S. Centre for Disease Control reviewed some
19,000	pages of previously classified documents and concluded that atmospheric releases of radioactive iodine 131 from Hanford were the largest documented in any U.S. nuclear facility to date.
February 17, 1992

Based on the preliminary findings, two U.S. studies are now being conducted: a thyroid cancer study of
20,000	children who were under the age of 19 between the years 1944 and 1953, as well as a radioactive dose reconstruction project.
But here in Canada, B.C. medical authorities and the Canadian Medical Association have urged the federal government to become involved in these studies in order to determine the levels of exposure. I am asking this government to involve itself in these studies. There is a group of members of Parliament from B.C. who will be touring the Hanford facility, and hopefully we will be able to bring back more information that will convince this government of the need to determine whether or not there has been accidental exposure of Canadian residents to these radioactive wastes.


Murray Cardiff: Mr. Speaker, I just want to inform the member that in 1988 the Department of External Affairs raised concerns about the impact of historic releases of radioactive material from nuclear facilities at Hanford, Washington and Fernald, Ohio. The investigation was made by the AECB to provide a factual account and assessment of the issue and to avoid unwarranted alarming of the public by any undue expression of and concern about emissions from nuclear facilities.
At the time this was of importance because there were news media reports about leaks occurring at the Hanford facility and its possible effect on Canadians.
The AECB study included reconstructing the radiation doses possibly received by Canadians from atmospheric releases from these and other American facilities. Also calculated were the doses that Americans could have received from border area Canadian facilities such as the uranium refinery at Port Hope, Ontario.
I would like to state very clearly that in assessing the history of atmospheric releases from nuclear facilities in both countries, the AECB determined that the maximum dose to an individual at the border between the U.S.A. and Canada would not have been higher than one-fifth of one per cent-0.2 per cent of the AECB dose limit for members of the public.
The Constitution
In other words, as you have been assured previously, the atmospheric releases of radioactive contaminants from the Hanford and Fernald nuclear facilities pose no negative impact to Canada.
The AECB report issued in 1989 also concluded that the radiological effect of the then current radioactive releases from selected American and Canadian nuclear facilities close to the border was very small on individuals of the other country-a small effect in this instance being between 100,000 to 400ths of one per cent.
I am very pleased to have the opportunity just to have given a bit of credit to the Atomic Energy Control Board for acting in a very responsible and professional manner.


SPECIAL DEBATE
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Pursuant to order made on Friday, February 14, 1992, the House will continue to debate on the adjournment motion for the sole purpose of allowing members to make presentations on the results of discussions they have had with their constituents on the constitutional issue.
When we left the debate, the hon. member for Carleton-Charlotte had five minutes remaining in his speech.


Mr. Greg Thompson (Carleton-Charlotte):: Mr. Speaker, thank you very much for the opportunity to finish my portion of this debate.
As I mentioned last Thursday evening, February 13, the process that we used in my riding of Carleton-Charlotte was, to say the least, a lengthy process. We had 20 individual meetings-I called them round table constitutional discussions-within my riding and from all parts of my riding we conducted these meetings. I think we had some common themes throughout the course of those 20 meetings. But I think far and above the most common of all of those themes would be the sense that the status quo is no longer tenable and that indeed we need some fundamental changes to Canada's Constitution. I think that would be the theme that ran throughout these 20 meetings.

February 17, 1992
The Constitution
It was also the theme I heard when I had the opportunity to speak before some of our service clubs, schools and other interested organizations, that they indeed want this country to work, but certain things have to change.
If we can go through some of the 28 proposals and some of what my constituents were telling me, to start with the Canada clause, which is the beginning of the 28 proposals, I think the feeling in my riding is that most Canadians like the idea of the inclusion of a Canada clause so that we, for the first time, really explain what we are as Canadians.
The other one that was mentioned very, very frequently was Senate reform. We did not get too much into a Triple-E Senate or what form the Senate would take, other than saying that we in Carleton-Charlotte felt that senators should be elected. I think that was the common thread in the Senate discussions.
On aboriginal rights, the figure was thrown out in just about all 20 meetings that as a federal government we allocate something in the order of $4.4 billion per year to the Indian community and it is not working. So aboriginal reform, aboriginal right to self-government is something that we support in Carleton-Charlotte, knowing that what we have done up to this point in the history of our country has not worked.
Taking a look at Parliament itself, I have no hesitation at all in telling you that my constituents, again probably reflecting just about every constituency across this nation, feel that we need some reform here in the House of Commons itself, that indeed we can make it better so that members of Parliament have a little more latitude in how they represent their constituents and possibly not be so confined or restrained by party lines.
We also talked about the notwithstanding clause. Many constituents are upset with the fact that while we have a charter of rights, at the same time the notwithstanding clause can take away the rights within that charter. The suggestion there should be some changes or the complete elimination of the notwithstanding clause seemed to be a common theme throughout these talks.
Because the province of New Brunswick is the only officially bilingual province in the country, we had usually a lengthy discussion every night on distinct society with the understanding that in fact it was nothing
new, but was something we have recognized in this country for the last 200 or more years, but always differing views on it. However, at the end of the evening, most of us accepted the fact that it is a reality that has to be dealt with, that has to be stated and that we can accept as Canadians.
Finally, because my time is running by very quickly, I want to table a brief that was submitted by Heartland Branch No. 24, Royal Canadian Legion. It was sent to me by Fred Hatfield and Percy Toft, chairmen of the unity committee of Heartland Branch 24, Royal Canadian Legion. I want to conclude on this, if I may. One of the things they suggest which is very interesting, very new and I suppose innovative, is that we balance off the guarantees made to us as citizens or groups of citizens in the charter of rights with a charter of responsibilities.
They go on to tell us that these would not be legally enforceable but would express our recognition that democratic governments work by us and through us and not just for us and upon us. Such a charter might include a number of features and they go on to tell us what they are. I do want to table that brief.
I think the underlying concern in my constituency is that we do have a great Canada. We want to continue to have a great Canada, a unified Canada, and we want to do everything possible to make it even better as years go on.


Mr. Lawrence MacAulay (Cardigan):: Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to participate in the debate tonight on the Constitution on behalf of the people of Cardigan, Prince Edward Island. Last fall the government tabled its proposals on the Constitution and the special joint committee started its hearings in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. This was only appropriate because most people are aware that Charlottetown is the cradle of Confederation.
Islanders from all walks of life have followed the constitutional debate closely. At the public meetings in the small towns across P.E.I., Islanders expressed their desire to keep this country together. When you look at the small population of Prince Edward Island, a great number of people came out to the meetings. I certainly wish to congratulate the constituents of Cardigan for showing their great concern for the Constitution and also for showing their great concern for the people of Canada.
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In Prince Edward Island we have our own way of doing things. Being an Islander has always fostered a strong sense of community and sharing. When Islanders do something, they do it together. They believe in working as a team in a spirit of co-operation and trust. Islanders proved last fall they were willing to co-operate. Now it is the government's opportunity to show that it is going to co-operate too and listen to the people from my constituency of Cardigan.
These are some of the concerns that Islanders have been telling me about over the last few months. Islanders do not want property rights in the Constitution. Some people have said the measure is only intended to protect home owners from government expropriation of their homes. Property rights entail much more than real estate.
In P.E.I. we have special legislation regarding the ownership of land, restriction on the development of beach front property and other measures. Such measures might not be possible if property rights are entrenched in the Constitution.
The federal government has proposed to transfer a number of responsibilities to the provincial government. Some of the responsibilities include job training, drug prosecution, ferry services, small craft harbours and inspection services.
Some provinces want to take over full responsibility for job training and some other provinces do not want the burden. Many of my constituents feel that for those provinces which want control over job training, they should have that control.
However, my constituents in P.E.I. would like the federal government to keep a presence and to continue receiving help from the Department of Employment and Immigration. In eastern P.E.I., a partnership was worked out between the provincial department of social services, Justice, RCMP and others.
We set up the discovery program. This program was a tremendous success, and it is an example of what can happen when all people work co-operatively. The discovery program was designed to meet the needs of the people. Too often, we design a program and people must
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meet the criteria of the program. This discovery program, because of the way it was designed, has become a great success.
In other areas, my constituents would prefer to see the federal government keep the responsibility simply because they think Ottawa is best able to deal with the issue.
Drug prosecution should remain the responsibility of the federal government. If it were put in the hands of the provinces, we would end up with a patchwork approach to a serious criminal activity. Stopping the drug trade requires a national effort, not measures that are different in P.E.I., New Brunswick, Alberta or British Columbia.
Ferry services must remain the responsibility of the federal government. As it stands right now, the federal government has the constitutional duty to maintain a link between Prince Edward Island and the mainland. We are well aware of the possibility of the fixed link, but beyond the fixed link responsibility, my constituency is very concerned about the ferry service in eastern P.E.I., the Wood Islands-Caribou ferry service. This must be maintained also.
Ottawa states that it wants to give to the provinces authority over small craft harbours. This is simply not acceptable. Unfortunately the infrastructure of small craft harbours is in a deplorable state and it would cost millions of dollars to put it back in shape.
Islanders feel that it is the constitutional duty of the federal government to do this and at the moment, it would be fiscally impossible for the provincial government in Prince Edward Island to put the infrastructure back in place because of the poor situation it is in.
Inspection programs would be another example. It is important for inspection programs to ensure that the standards for agricultural products remain the same across the country.
Issues like distinct society, Senate reform and aboriginal self-government receive most of the media attention during these constitutional talks. Islanders recognize that these are probably the most important constitutional issues facing the country and they must be dealt with.

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However, things like small craft harbours, food inspections and ferry services are jurisdictional issues in the proposals that affect the daily lives of my constituents. These are the nuts and bolts of the Constitution and the thoughts of my constituents should be considered, not as a bottom line but as a recognition that they affect the lives of people.
Cardigan constituents want the federal government to remain strong, a government that is capable of overseeing Canada's needs in the international field. It is important that we have a federal government that is able to set national standards across the country.
We also need to draw on representation from the provinces. It is important to have people from all regions involved in the process. As I said, the people of Prince Edward Island have a strong interest in the Constitution.
I am veiy pleased to speak as the member of Parliament for Cardigan, Prince Edward Island. I am also pleased that the members of the House saw fit to allow us the opportunity to put forward the views of the people we have the honour to represent. It is here in the House of Commons that we should make those views known to all Canadians. On behalf of those we represent, I urge all hon. members to listen to the views not only of their constituents but also for the views of my constituents as well.
The issues affecting the people of Cardigan might not be major, but they are certainly very major for the people in Cardigan. It is very important that small craft harbours, when they get in the deplorable state they are in now, remain under the authority of the federal government.
As I stated before, it is very important that ferry services remain under the authority of the federal government. Also we must have inspection services across Canada that are the same for agricultural products so we can put a quality product on the market. Of course the major issues are a very great concern too.
Before I end, I would like to read from the lyrics of a sang called Sea to Sea written by two Islanders, Steve Sharratt and Rolie MacKinnon. The chorus of the song makes a statement about how many Canadians feel about this great country of ours and I think it is a good way to end. The chorus goes like this:
Am I standing alone for this land and its pride Are there none who will stand here with me?
Will I not hear a voice call for hearts joined in trust,
Can we not be as one, sea to sea?
I would like to table the full lyrics of this song. [Translation]


Guy St-Julien: Mr. Speaker, I would like to present the submission prepared by Mr. Jean-Pierre Brunet on February 8 1992. Mr. Brunet is an engineer and he is president of the engineering and business consulting firm Bioptic Vision Inc. in Val d'Or.
It is my pleasure to inform you of Mr. Brunet's thoughts concerning the most recent constitutional proposals made by the federal government. I might also mention that Mr. Brunet is president of the Order of Engineers of Quebec, which has a membership of 35 000 engineers. However, it is not in that capacity that Mr. Brunet shares his ideas with us, but rather as a young head of a small business in a remote area. Mr. Brunet lives in my riding, which is the largest one in all 10 provinces.
The economic union in Canada is viable; it is doing well but it could do better if we got rid of the policies that stifle it. Here is, in my opinion, the best alternative, the one I propose, as well as the spirit with which I examined the constitutional proposals of the Canadian government.
The Constitutional Act of 1867 no longer meets the new needs generated by the social, economic and political evolution. The time has come to make important changes to our Constitution, in particular as regards the following topics, which are of special concern to me, since I live in what is called a remote area, the Abitibi region, which also has several aboriginal communities.
It seems to me there are very few proposals which can be accepted or rejected in full as presented originally. That is why I make some suggestions which I hope will improve the Canadian government's proposals.
Let us first talk about property rights. The first federal proposal to amend the Constitution Act of 1982 in the document entitled Shaping Canada's Future Together, proposes to amend the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to guarantee property rights. I believe that this a fundamental natural right. Indeed it is from nature than men and women received property rights so that everyone could support themselves and their family, and so that the goods are indeed used for their intended purpose.
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Property rights also entail duties. For instance, in the case of property rights as regards production goods such as machines and businesses, there are moral duties with regard to social purposes. That is why this right must be subordinated to the common good. Therefore, the public acquisition of goods intended for public works such as highways or a hydro electric project, could be done in the interest of the public good, while at the same time respecting the owner's right who, if need be, would be reasonably compensated. The same applies to the ability of governments to make decisions on, for instance, the economy, industrial strategy and regional development in the interest of all citizens.
However, this right is not merely a social function, even if it does imply certain social obligations. This right is part of our human dignity. In fact, it would be useless to demand the right to personal, independent initiative in economic matters, unless that initiative is based on free access to the resources needed for its expression. History and experience have shown that under a political system that does not recognize the right to private ownership of production goods, basic freedoms are restricted or practically non-existent. In my opinion the charter must identify the duties that accompany property rights.
However, it is not enough to stress the natural aspect of property rights. We must also emphasize that property rights should be granted to everyone, as much as possible. Property rights include the right to use the fruits of the earth to survive. These rights must be followed by a political, economic and social right that encourages and facilitates broader access to private ownership of durable goods: a house, a piece of land, a craftsman's tools, the equipment necessary on a family farm, shares in medium size or large companies, and this would apply to all Canadians including aboriginal people.
I think that enshrining the right to private property should be done in such a way as to allow for these considerations.
On the right to work and the right to knowledge, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms provides for
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the right to take up residence and pursue the gaining of a livelihood anywhere in Canada. However, I feel that the right to work and the right to knowledge should be more specifically identified in the charter.
I have skipped here and there, because his brief is fairly long and we only have 10 minutes. For the first time in our history we will have an economy based not only on renewable resources but on resources that can generate themselves and which may overwhelm us by their variety. Information is everywhere but is not available to all on the same terms. It seems to me it is important to ensure that all Canadians have access to this information, which will be a source of power in the years to come. Access to information could also have a very positive impact on relations between the people of this country.
That is why I suggest that the right to work and to knowledge also be enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Tbrning to the status of native peoples, this was ignored in the Constitution Act of 1867 and only touched on in the Constitution Act of 1982. This question can no longer be postponed. Native peoples' awareness of it requires us today to deal frankly with the issue in the discussions that must be held on the country's constitutional future. Throughout the land, there seems to be a lack of understanding of this issue and also a broad consensus on the need to deal with the recognition of native peoples' inherent rights. It may be because people want to be done with this thorny question once and for all, but they also want to feel that all the inhabitants of this country are treated fairly.
I think that this matter should be the subject of a major concentrated effort so that it can be dealt with in at most five years instead of ten. Native people are ready to negotiate the terms of a renewed agreement. It is important that they stop being subject to the paternalistic Indian Act, which in many cases prevents them from looking after their own economic affairs. That is the case with the Algonquins, the Inuit and the Crees who live in Abitibi. The constitutional process on native issues must be speeded up and made a priority for all the governments concerned.

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I also believe that the proposal to guarantee representation for natives in the Senate and in Parliament is a good thing and it should be implemented soon, even if Senate reform is delayed for any reason.
On equal opportunities and regional development; the objective of ensuring equal opportunities in economic and social matters must be the first of our constitutional objectives. However, this objective must be reflected in programs that should often be less ambitious but more in line with reality. It is also important that those programs be designed through a greater joint effort of the central government and the provinces.
To this end, we must stop giving Canadians the impression that the federal government's objective is to ensure that some day everybody will enjoy the same wealth. We must not aim for equality but rather for equal opportunities.
It is the non-tangible investments such as information, training and retraining that will dictate the survival of the best industries. Therefore, it is at that level efforts must be made to ensure equal opportunities for everyone.
The federal proposals do not deal with the issue of regional development. Yet this is a very important issue which, for a long time, served to justify the very existence of the federation.
In the past the government made commitments regarding numerous regional economic development projects. Most of these projects did not produce the positive results that were expected, given the amount of public moneys invested. However, this exercise was not as negative as claimed by some. For instance, in Abitibi the impression is that the federal presence in regional development has stimulated the provincial government's interest in our region's development. In fact, in recent years the federal has fulfilled its commitments whereas the provincial government has needed a lot of persuading and has not yet contributed its full share under the Canada-Quebec agreement.
It is now obvious that the authority for regional development must be in the regions and that the tools and the required flexibility must also be within the reach of regional developers. Several federal projects are good examples of concrete efforts made to give responsibilities to local communities as regards their development. The creation by Employment and Immigration Canada of Community Futures committees is a good example of federal intervention in the regions. This initiative ensured a joint effort and the setting up of 62 centres to
help businesses in Quebec. Through these centres assets totalling $100 million are being managed. Those assets are used to finance business projects that generated investments of $356 million, created 4,000 jobs and preserved 5,800 other jobs in 5,000 businesses.
In spite of that success, I feel that responsibility for regional development should be given to levels of government as close to the regions as possible, to local levels of government and especially to the regional communities.
The distance separating them from the training centres represents, for people in the regions, an obstacle to learning which must be abolished. Statistics show that someone who is trained locally tends to stay there. If I may, and I know my time is running out, I would like to give a similar example by saying that we should draw government closer to the population and closer to the regions.
Finally, for the most demanding, for those Canadians who are never satisfied with mediocrity, for those who want full accomplishment and who are not satisfied with an average result, Canada's performance to date according to Volaskakis must be considered as unsatisfactory, if not right out altogether unacceptable for a country so richly endowed by nature.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I am sorry to have to interrupt the hon. member, but his time is up. I recognize the hon. member for Kamloops.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, it is [DOT]indeed a privilege and an honour to present, on behalf of literally many thousands of constituents from Kamloops, British Columbia, the following report based on a number of constituent assemblies held throughout the constituency as well as a number of formal and informal meetings and sessions with constituents.
I want to say simply that the following constituent assemblies were held in Blue River, Clearwater, Bar-riere, Logan Lake, Savona, Pritchard, Chase, WestSyde, South Kamloops as well as three continuous nights on Cable 10 television so people could participate from the comforts of their own homes. There were also meetings with the councils of Logan Lake, Chase, and Kamloops. There were visits to Caribou College, Clearwater Secondary School, Barriere Secondary School, Logan Lake Secondary School, Chase Secondary School, a number of junior secondary schools and some elementary schools. There were also presentations to service clubs, ethnic organizations and community groups.
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Having received a large number of briefs and letters I am able today to attempt to synthesize at this stage what the people of Kamloops are saying about the 28 proposals presently being studied by the parliamentary joint committee and will soon be making recommendations for the provincial governments and Canadians in general to see and respond to.
It became very clear that almost all of the constituents wanted more free votes in the House of Commons and a significant reduction in party discipline. When it comes to voting, not only do all the constituents feel strongly about it, but members of the House of Commons also feel strongly in terms of seeing an early introduction to this change.
There is certainly an interest in an elected Senate. A number of people indicated that perhaps we should just abolish the Senate, but recognizing that we are the largest federal country in the world, the second largest geographically, the feeling that there was a role for the regions of Canada in national decision making prompted most people to actually support a Triple-E Senate and, if that is not possible, certainly an elected Senate with significant powers.
The matter of property rights was supported by almost everyone, assuming that property rights meant the right to own your own home, farm or small business.
If it meant giving exclusive or longer term exclusive rights to multinational drug companies, if it meant disrupting the dispersal of assets in a marriage break-up and so on, this is not something that people want to see entrenched in the Constitution.
There was general agreement on a reduction of provincial trade barriers, but not an exclusive rejection of some barriers, particularly if it meant that we could implement the buying of British Columbia products or the use of British Columbia services, if it meant the utilization of pension funds to provide funding for economic development, or if it meant the use of government programs like auto insurance.
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This is something that people did not want to see necessarily changed but they certainly wanted an opening up in a liberalization of provincial trade barriers as they presently stand.
There was major concern with the notwithstanding clause as it refers to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I would say that we were equally balanced. Half the constituents held that the notwithstanding clause should be dropped so that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms remains as is presented.
If we are going to have a notwithstanding clause, and many people saw the wisdom of that, people suggested that it should be increased to a 66 and two-thirds vote to enable the provincial legislatures to override the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The inherent right to aboriginal self-government was endorsed by all, with some trepidation reflected by those people asking what self-government actually meant. It is fair to say that there was a lot of doubt as to what the implications might mean, particularly when we recognize that the settlement of land claims had to go with aboriginal self-government. There was some uncertainty and some concern.
The recognition of Quebec as a distinct society was accepted by most people once the definition proposed was understood, and that definition is that a distinct society in relation to Quebec would include a Frenchspeaking majority, a unique culture and a civil law tradition as we have known for many years.
If that is what it meant, there was general agreement that it could be supported. If it means a significant increase in powers and privileges, this is something that most people felt very uncomfortable with and would not be prepared to support.
The constituents wanted to retain strong but not exclusive federal jurisdiction over training, immigration, culture and broadcasting. They felt that some provincial involvement would be appropriate but by and large wanted to see a significant federal involvement.

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They say that the federal government should be concerned with drug prosecution, wildlife conservation and protection, the transportation of dangerous goods, aspects of federal financial regulations and various inspection programs. These areas should remain under federal jurisdiction. Others should be considered for provincial jurisdiction, such as tourism, forestry, mining, recreation, soil and water conservation, dairy services, small craft harbour programs, and some aspects of unfair trade practice law. Those could be provincial jurisdiction almost exclusively.
When it came to programs like health care and post-secondary education, there was a feeling by almost all of the constituents participating that the federal government ought to continue to play a significant role in those two areas to ensure that all Canadians have access to proper health care and proper post-secondary education.
The inclusion of a social charter was supported by most, but not all. The guarantees of health care, education, a clean environment, jobs and housing are things that people would like to see in the Constitution as a general guideline and goal to which the country and citizens would aspire.
The matter of a council of federation was almost exclusively rejected. People thought that another layer of government was completely unnecessary and that any residual power in the future ought to reside under federal jurisdiction as it presently exists. People felt quite comfortable with that, and they liked the idea of more democratization when it came to Supreme Court appointments.
There were many other concerns raised, but these were of primary concern. When it came to encouraging the settlement of aboriginal self-government, there was almost exclusive support that this should be done as quickly as possible, and also to get on with the settlement of land claims to bring more stability to the country.
I want to emphasize the matter of the Senate. Most people felt very strongly that if we were going to have an elected Senate, it ought to have some significant powers. As I said earlier, the feeling was that it should be a Triple-E Senate with equal representation from the provinces.
They recognized however that if there is a hesitation on behalf of Ontario and Quebec to follow through, then
certainly we should do our best to make it as equitable as possible so that the regions of Canada, and in our case particularly western Canada, would have significant and useful roles in national decision making in the future.
I want to say that all of the participants, and there were literally thousands of participants when you add up all of the different gatherings, assemblies and meetings, wanted the country to stay unified. They wanted Canada to be maintained as the dynamic country that it is.
There was some concern over the role of multicultur-alism in the country until it was recognized that one of the things that distinguishes Canada from most countries is the multicultural nature of our country and the fact that some of our population is made up of folks who come from other areas of the world, with the exception of the First Nations. Even then, I suppose a case could be made that they too, thousands of years ago, came from another part of the world.
In closing, the gatherings were excellent. People were very positive and upbeat and very hopeful that once this matter was turned over to the politicians of the country we would find ways and means through hard work to ensure that Canada stays a unified nation.


Mr. Howard Crosby (Halifax West):: Mr. Speaker, the time allocated for debate of constitutional issues does not permit a review of all the elements involved in the process of constitutional change or the consideration of all the proposals for reform and amendment discussed by constituents in Halifax West and others in Nova Scotia.
For this reason, I will confine my presentation to an overview of the need for constitutional revision. Then I intend to review some of the proposals for constitutional change that have particular interest and relevance to my constituents and to other Nova Scotians whose concerns I respect.
First, let me consider the recent history of constitutional evolution in Canada. In doing so, I am reminded of a wise sage of the past who said that those who do not examine the events of the past endanger the future because they are likely to repeat the errors and mistakes that have been made in the past.
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We should ask ourselves why we have this current initiative for constitutional change. In reviewing that question I want to make a special reference to an article that appeared in The Toronto Globe and Mail on January 17, 1992 by Michael Bliss. That article is so bereft of intelligence and understanding of the situation that it almost borders on sedition. This man heads his article: "Let's shut up and keep the status quo".
He goes on to construct a situation where we had constitutional changes in 1982, promoted by the then Prime Minister of Canada, Mr. Pierre Trudeau, with the consent and concurrence of the Parliament of Canada and many of the premiers. That was only after a very difficult process in which the Prime Minister attempted to unilaterally change the Constitution.
The matter was reviewed by the Supreme Court, the process of change was objected to by many of the premiers, particularly the premier of Quebec. It was only after a great deal of difficulty that constitutional changes were made.
Mr. Bliss writes that there was a referendum in Quebec, that the people of Quebec were represented by members of Parliament, the Liberal Party held 74 of 75 seats at the time and it was speaking for the people of Quebec.
But what Mr. Bliss does not recognize is that in 1984 the same Liberal Party suffered the worst political defeat in the history of Canada. Most of those members who sat in this Chamber and refused to acknowledge the interests of the Government of Quebec, represented by the premier of Quebec, were defeated.
It was essential that the new government review the whole situation and take up the challenge of constitutional change and attempt to obtain the concurrence of all the provinces including the province of Quebec.
I would not have minded his article so much had it not been repeated almost verbatim in the Halifax Daily News on January 27, 1992. Are these people not expected to know history? Are these people not expected to examine events of the past so that they will not make the same mistakes in the future?
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They have shown an irresponsibility in their editorials that goes beyond any understanding that I could give to the writers of those editorials. They echoed the view that there was no need for constitutional change.
Imagine a responsible editorial writer in 1992, in Canada, saying and writing and committing to the historic record that there is no need to pursue constitutional change in Canada, that we should "keep the status quo", as Mr. Bliss says and as the Halifax Daily News says.
I want to disagree with that because if we do not move to make constitutional changes we will indeed repeat the mistakes of the past and it will have disastrous effects on Canada and Canadians.
Let me deal with some of the specific matters involved in the proposals for constitutional change. First, I should remind everyone that the Government of Canada has documented 28 propositions and proposals for reforming and amending the Constitution in the document Shaping Canada's Future Together.
It is also worth noting that the government had many of those proposals vetted before a series of conferences which were completed in Vancouver this past weekend. I do not have an opportunity nor time to review all of those proposals but I will, as I said, review some that have particular relevance and concern in Nova Scotia.
I should mention a second procedural point, that is in the province of Nova Scotia the proposals for constitutional change were reviewed by the Nova Scotia Working Committee on the Constitution. That was a body which was established with the consent and concurrence of the leaders of the political parties in Nova Scotia and the members of the Legislative Assembly of Nova Scotia. It was chaired by Eric Kierans.
This working committee claimed to have travelled Nova Scotia. It sought the opinions of a wide segment of the Nova Scotia community and formed a consensus around a number of the propositions and recommendations they made to the government.

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What is more important is that the premier of Nova Scotia along with the opposition leaders appeared before the special joint committee of the Senate and House of Commons on a renewed Canada and made presentations that were based on the findings of the working committee. I will talk about some of the findings at the review of the specific items I want to deal with in this short presentation.
First, let me deal with the matter of the distinct society. Fortunately for elected representatives from Nova Scotia the working committee found that there was support from the people of Nova Scotia for a distinct society in relation to the province of Quebec.
I was gratified to have that finding because I must say in all honesty it was not my impression that there was wide support for the concept of distinct society. The recommendation for such a change was endorsed by the working committee and by the political leaders in Nova Scotia.
The area of difficulty, because there was not wide support for this proposition at the time of the Meech Lake Accord, is that it was not limited to language, culture and the civil code. Suffice to say there are some words of limitation in the current proposals.
Personally I stand in support of the concept of the distinct society. I regard the province and people of Quebec as distinct and I do not want to confuse that with anybody else's distinctiveness. I think we all know what the province of Quebec and the leaders of the community desire in the constitutional framework.
I am pleased that Nova Scotians through the government and through the working committee have endorsed that concept.
There are those who would object. To them I simply say that it is in the interest of all Canada that we recognize the legitimate concerns and desires of the people of Quebec.
Second, I would like to talk about the division of power. I attended the constitutional conference that was held in Halifax. While there was strong support, particularly in Nova Scotia and throughout the maritimes, for a central government that has the full power and authority to govern in Canada and create a strong economy for the benefit of all Canadians, there is a recognition that you can have what has come to be called asymmetrical federalism; that is to say, it is not essential to a strong
central government that each and every province has exactly the same power. So there is some possibility of concurrence.
I was going to speak on the matter of aboriginal rights. I hope that subject will not be used to delay, diminish or even demolish constitutional change. I can say the same about Senate reform. I had the opportunity to be on a committee that considered Senate reform, and in some sense it is really a constitutional impossibility. It goes to the root of our system. Again, I hope that failure to reach agreement on Senate reform will not wreck the constitutional initiative.
As I understand it, I have only a short time remaining. Let me say to all who might hear that I think history will show that the Prime Minister of Canada accomplished a great deal when he got all the provinces to agree on the propositions contained in the Meech Lake Accord. I trust all members join me in the expression of the hope that we can reach the same kind of accord, because what is essential in the process is not the specifics of constitutional change so much as the accomplishment of agreement and accord among all the constituent elements of Canada and with the support of all Canadians.


Mr. Peter Milliken (Kingston and the Islands):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to participate in this discussion this evening. I do so not because I have had a particular meeting in my constituency to deal with the Constitution in recent past, but I did have one on February 12, 1991 at the City Hall in Kingston, Ontario.
A considerable number of interested citizens, several hundred in fact, showed up at City Hall to discuss the Constitution at that time, but that was prior to the government's tabling of its 28 proposals, which it has made public and which have received a great deal of attention across Canada in recent months.
The meeting was an interesting one. I had many what I could call ordinary interested citizens there. I had various constitutional experts who have since participated extensively in the public discussions on the Constitution, and I had representatives of various groups who appeared and expressed interest and concern.
Subsequent to those meetings, some of the groups contacted me and asked me to listen to the views they had to express. I met with various smaller groups and discussed ways they might approach the government to make known their views and feelings on the subject of the Constitution.
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I decided that in presenting views tonight I would quote from a few of the briefs and documents that some of these groups have submitted and see if they do not give some indication of the views that are held in my constituency on this subject.
I must say that the constituents who have expressed opinions have done so forcefully, vigorously and well. I know that their remarks, comments and briefs have been directed to the government primarily, and, where appropriate, I have forwarded those to the government, but in most cases I have received copies.
I also canvassed the views of my constituents in a questionnaire in one of my recent householders, a householder of last autumn. Unfortunately the results have just become available because of the lengthy period required to compile the results; 738 questionnaires were returned. While I do not want to cite these figures as authoritative because I think there is a serious imbalance in them, and I will explain that in a moment, they nevertheless indicate the views of some of the people in Kingston and the Islands.
Of the 738 questionnaires that were returned, 64 per cent of the responses were identified as males, 26 per cent females, and 10 per cent gave no answer to the question on gender. Forty-four per cent of those returned were returned by persons aged 60 and over.
So again there is a significant imbalance because, of course, 44 per cent of the riding is not 60 years of age or over.
Nevertheless, in answers to a few of the questions, a constitutional statement on the nature of Canada should include four items. The four items that were listed were: our attachment to two official languages, 51 per cent said yes; the diversity of the cultural heritage, 64 per cent said yes; the distinct character of Quebec society, 31 per cent said yes; and the recognition of the role of the aboriginal people, 78 per cent said yes. The figures do not include the persons who did not answer each of those questions. They are taken out so that in calculating the noes, you have to take those into account. In other words, the no is not the exact inverse of the other figure. However, those are the kinds of questions that were put in this questionnaire and those are the answers I received.
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Do you favour a reformed Senate in which senators would be elected? Eighty-one per cent said yes.
Do you favour the free circulation of people, goods and capital within Canada? Ninety-four per cent said yes.
On the elimination of interprovincial restrictions on trade, 86 per cent said yes.
When legislation is passed in the House of Commons, do you believe the Senate should have the right to amend legislation? Forty-five per cent said yes. The right to reject it? Twenty-nine per cent apparently said no to that.
Do you believe in the creation of new provinces? The answer there was mostly unsure.
Those were the kinds of questions that were asked and those were the kinds of answers I received.
However, there was another group called the Committee for a Rational Canada, which was formed in my riding. It was a group of concerned citizens, most of whom had lived and worked in the province of Quebec. They submitted an extensive brief to the special joint committee outlining their views on the government's proposal. I wanted to quote from the conclusions of the brief they submitted: "The Committee for a Rational Canada was agreeably surprised with the government's proposals for shaping Canada's future together. We recognize it is extremely difficult to produce a document which will please a majority of the governments and others with vested interests.
"We undertook this review of the current constitutional crisis before the government's document was produced because we believe strongly in Canada and believe it is individuals like us who must get involved. There are too many hidden agendas among those who make the most noise in the media, and unfortunately the average is not heard. No wonder the electorate are turned off by this process.
"The over-all feeling of the members of this committee is that we must tiy to keep Canada together, but not at any cost. A separated Canada will result in two parts which are each poorer than if together. However, the continual bickering and perceived blackmail by both sides we have endured over the past 20 years cannot continue.

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The rest of Canada must be prepared to accept Quebec as it is, different. Quebec must be prepared to accept that the rest of Canada wants a strong, unifying government. We hope most sincerely that good sense will prevail".
I think it is an excellent indication of the support that exists and the goodwill that exists throughout the community in an effort to resolve this difficulty we are facing at the present time.
The other quotation I thought might be of interest to hon. members is one from The Whig Standard, the local newspaper, for those who are unfamiliar with it, on Tuesday, Februaiy 11 of this year. The article is written by John Whyte, Dean of the Faculty of Law at Queen's University and a recognized constitutional expert. He suggests that the government's proposals are simply more than we can manage and that they go beyond what are necessary to resolve the current constitutional crisis in that they propose too much and they put too much on the table.
He gives three reasons for this, and I would like to quote from the article. He says:
"First, the federal government's reform agenda is far too extensive. Some might believe that it is essential to focus on reform of the Senate, for instance, because the west must be satisfied about its needs before it will even think about Quebec. Still it is not necessary to deal with both the Senate and a host of other issues-economic integration, reform of Parliament, constitutional standards for social welfare, aboriginal self-government and so on, in an effort to resolve the current crisis".
He says: "Second, the proposals relating to economic integration are not only not responsive to Quebec's primary interests but are also hostile to them and hence counterproductive to the current objective of national accommodation".
Also he says: "Third, the present process is obscure. The federal proposals disguise the very significant concessions made to Quebec autonomy in two proposals. The distinct society portion of the Canada clause could well lead to judicial recognition of special legislative powers for Quebec. The federal government has chosen not to disclose the precise language of the Canada clause, although that would help us understand the
clause's significance. Furthermore, it has downplayed any real impact of the clause. Although I do not think it is unacceptable to include a distinct society clause that will impact on legislative powers, it is foolhardy to cover up this possibility and thereby postpone a controversy that must be faced and debated. Likewise the federal proposal with respect to legislative interdelegation represents a singularly unfortunate form for creating special status for Quebec. The centrality of this proposal is not being disclosed and consequently the inevitable debate over its acceptability is not being held in a timely way".
Those views by Professor White are ones that I think the government might well consider. I think that in presenting its proposals it has tried to be all things to all people. It has tried to throw something to everybody to try to make Canadians feel that the debate is either more important for everybody or that everybody is going to get something out of it.
The federal government does not have something that it can give away to everybody. As we near the closing time on this debate, when the committee will be reporting and will be considering what recommendations to make to the government, it must bear in mind comments like these where 28 proposals must be whittled down to something that is manageable, something that will prove acceptable to the vast majority of the people of this country, and not try to provide something for everyone where there are other proposals that will be unacceptable to a large number.


Mr. Guy Ricard (Laval-Ouest):: Mr. Speaker, I am grateful for the opportunity given me to participate in this crucial debate in the House today.
Up to now we have heard all sorts of comments during this debate. For example, we heard "too much power to provinces"'and "not enough power to provinces". I also had an opportunity to talk with the people, with persons involved in each of the ridings and, at least in my riding it is the case, what we hear generally is: "We do not want to hear about this any more; we have had enough."
Mr. Speaker, I think these people are right. You will recall that we were first elected in 1984 under the banner
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of national unity and that from 1984 to 1987 we tried to realize national unity. It is certainly not the Prime Minister who is at fault; you know all that he did to bring Quebec back into the Canadian fold. Neither is it the fault of ministers of this government. But, some people, in order maybe to get more votes, decided to change the fundamentals of the discussion and to kill the Meech Lake Accord.
If we really go to the people and ask them the following question: "Do you wish, yes or no, to belong to a country", the answer will be clear. It will be yes. Then you can ask: "To which country do you want to belong?" People will answer: "I want to belong to a rich country, where life is easy and where there is peace and harmony". How can we get such a country? By using one word only: tolerance. I believe Canadians would be unanimous on the matter. If everybody from Halifax to Vancouver uses that word and lives through its meaning, we will get somewhere. In spite of all the possible and imaginable studies, reports, committees, discussions and consultations, if we refuse to show tolerance in our requests and in our offers, we will never attain unity in this beautiful country of ours.
We now live in Canada as we would in a large family, where tensions emerge. You know as well as I do, Mr. Speaker, that one can hardly raise a family of four or five children and give them a decent standard of living, without having to make decisions. Sometimes one child might disagree with his father's or his mother's decision, but as hard as it is we must make decisions.
One must also recall that time is against us. We talk about economy, and I personally think that we cannot give a boosting to the economy until we settle our family dispute. Right now we are like a dog chasing its tail. On the one hand, we say we need investments but investors do not come here because they are scared to invest in Canada. The country is not stable enough. On the other hand, we say if we had a stable country people could make investments here. It is a vicious circle. Why do we not try to do both at the same time?
It is easy to discuss while on a full stomach. But it is a lot more difficult while hungry. And now, with unem-
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ployment, with an economic turnaround that is late, I think that everyone must do his share; everyone must take into account the fact that we must all work to boost the economy. I would really like that if the Europeans, the Japanese or the Americans invested billions of dollars in Canada. You will tell me: "Yes, but they are caught in the same problem as we are: they are in a recession". Yes, but is the recession not artificially created, using pure demagogy to make us believe that in this country like others all is not well. Have the media not a positive role to play in the economic renewal? We will be told that the media report the facts, but I think they have a tendency to dwell more on negative facts than on positive ones. If you read the morning papers, you do not find many of the good things our government did. However, you will find the scandal on the next street comer.
Are politicians doing their jobs when they try to make the best decisions for the country? Or, are they trying to play politics? I met people from the Bloc Quebecois in my riding. It is impossible to talk with those people. It is absolutely impossible. Nobody else but them is right. We have to erase everything and start again from scratch. But we already have a country. We have a foundation. We have all that. Why not sit down together and try to talk? Why all that demagogy? Even here, in the House, I heard some pretty spicy things. I even received phone calls in my office from people asking me: "Why don't you stand up and give so-and-so what he deserves?" But that is not the way to have a discussion. I mentioned the word "tolerance" earlier. We have to listen to what the others want. We have to negotiate with them. We have to be sensitive to their needs. That way we will all be in the same boat and work toward the same cause.
I know my time is running out. To conclude, I hope that in the next few days and weeks the final proposals Canada and this government will make to the provinces will be well received, with no show of intolerance and bad taste, and that everyone will take into account what has been said since 1984.1 hope we will be able to weigh the pros and cons and reach a consensus for our children's and our grandchildren's sake. Time is running short for both of us, but our children and grandchildren are the future of this country and by working together we can give them a bright future.

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David Walker: Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the leadership in the House and all parties for providing members with the opportunity to participate in this debate. It is a very important time in the country. It has to be reiterated that all members of Parliament are committed to seeing that the constitutional process is not hindered by past positions and prejudices but in fact takes a giant step forward in the coming weeks.
It is not generally known, but before I began this life as a member of Parliament I was a university professor and I taught political science. Many people ask why I left the pleasant sanctity of the university ivory tower to take on a job as a politician. I say somewhat drily: "Because I was tired of talking about the Constitution all the time". I became a member of Parliament, and what are we doing in the House and across the country day in and day out? We are talking about the Constitution. I think it has caught Canadians somewhat by surprise, certainly people in my own constituency, just how dramatically the crisis in the Constitution has sneaked up on us.
Perhaps we had all been lulled to sleep by the fact that for years-and I think it is not unfair to say generations-we have heard of the threat on the Constitution. We have seen first ministers meet. We have seen private meetings over the years. We have seen public meetings. We have had royal commissions. All of them have talked about the crisis in Confederation. The fact is that there is a well-known book in the political science field by that name. At the same time everything seemed to settle down.
At this time we are facing the wall. We realize that if we do not make some breakthrough, if we do not change some things in this country, the crisis will become a reality. I say that not to add any hyperbole to the already highly fractious environment but to state with some sadness that in fact we have to make some adjustments and we have to make some changes.
This does not come easy for us. There are those of us, for example, who grew up in relatively easy times, being able to get a university degree, to enjoy Canada, to travel throughout the country and throughout the world and to hear about Canada. We are just a little shell-shocked to
think that this in fact is a crisis and there may be in fact a real difficulty in our land.
It is time for us who have lived so well in this country to put in the hours to see that in fact it remains and can be passed on to future generations.
Because of poverty and because of the way people have to work very hard every day to make ends meet, my constituents are not ones who articulate in long speeches or letters to their member of Parliament how they feel. I would be exaggerating to the House to say that I have had many representations on the Constitution. Particularly among new Canadians I think the House should be aware of the mood of people who come to this country knowing what it means to be in a real civil battle, knowing what it means to have things fall apart. They have a sense of total disbelief that this country with so many resources and so much space has come to this.
I congratulate those on the national scene who have tried to design new ways for us to tackle the Constitution, whether it be in the five constitutional meetings that we have just seen from coast to coast or whether it be in the plans for a national referendum. There are several ways that we have all tried to be innovative and tried to attract the interest of Canadians who do not normally have access to the constitutional process.
People who spend eight, ten or twelve hours a day at $5 to $7 an hour do not have the luxury of participating in this debate. They turn to members of Parliament, not for any final solutions that are going to last forever and ever but for some semblance of order in the discussion and some semblance of goodwill toward the creation of solutions.
Some of the areas on which the people of Winnipeg North Centre have reached a consensus and would like to see people move forward are the following areas. This is the framework for reform that I personally work within in talking about the Constitution. First, an inspiring declaration on the nature of Canada. I think we need a Canada clause. I think we need to state explicitly what we believe in and what we would like to see in this country. Several people have come forward. Professor Earl Mendes has produced a very inspiring document on what a Canada clause would look like. I would encourage all members of Parliament to take a minute out and see the ideas that he presented to the constitutional committee for some insight into a Canada clause.
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I think a Canada clause could also be part of a statement dealing with our social obligations as a nation. There are two engines that drive and keep us together. One engine drives us economically and the other one drives us socially. We need both of them, going at full tilt. We need the full commitment of people to make sure that we have an economic agenda. We need to create wealth. We need to put aside some barriers, but we also need to have a social purpose to look after each other, to care for each other. That has to be part of our package. It can be stated in part in the Canada clause.
We need to renew our commitment to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. No matter what rights are obtained by one province or by all the provinces, the heart of the country rests on the protection of the individual. We have developed a number of democratic institutions to protect the individual.
Canadians and people in my constituency do not want to see that charter in any way, shape or form, weakened by a set of negotiations taking place in 1992.
Third, as I said, we have to strengthen our capacity on the economic side and whether the present proposals have to be put aside for more realistic ones, those who have specific interests have to put their interests aside and acknowledge the fact that we need a more effective economy. Although that language is seen by many to be code words for a different agenda, let us also put on the table that we have been very unsuccessful in the last 20 years in producing the sort of wealth traditionally associated with Canada.
All three parties have tried their hands at governing the country in their own way, or a province in their own way, and I say to each and every one of us that it has not been that successful. Perhaps the rules of the game have to be changed.
We have to deal with institutional reform. I have spoken in the House before about the need for all of us to try to reform Parliament. There is now a royal commission on the electoral process and that has to be reformed. On a number of fronts there is every reason to expect constitutionally and by legislation that we can clean up the way politics is organized in this country and attract new people into the political process.
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The division of powers has to be re-established and a number of provinces have different ideas and we heard ideas at the constitutional conference. I think the division of powers has to be settled.
There are issues dealing with the spending power on immigration, on the Supreme Court and on the amending formula. We are heading toward a consensus in these areas.
Let me spend a minute talking about some of the areas which my constituents find difficult and would need to be put forward to the Parliament of Canada so they understand that their words have been listened to and have been presented fairly. There is still a great deal of reservation in western Canada in dealing with a distinct society. There has been an enormous shift in support toward a distinct society for Quebec, but people have reservations because they do not want, by inference, their lives to be considered the opposite of distinct, i.e. ordinary.
We as parliamentarians have an obligation to tell people what is distinct about their lives and what is distinct about Quebec life and why there needs to be a constitutional arrangement to protect those features of Quebec. It is quite possible to do this and I look forward to the resolution of this.
Finally, particularly in Winnipeg North Centre, there is a tremendous concern with the role of aboriginal peoples in the future of this country. The time has come to recognize and support the inherent right to self-government. This is not only dealing with those who have signed treaties with Canada, that is relatively straightforward, but also the more perplexing and difficult questions of how to reorganize urban governments to accommodate aboriginal groups from all backgrounds and from all status which need the support of Canadians elsewhere to develop the institutional support system in order to enhance their lives and to make sure their children have a better life than they had.
The constitutional issue is linked to economic success and economic success is related to social justice. We will bring a better life for all Canadians when we manage to settle the constitutional problems and begin to work on the economic and social agendas which are so dear in the hearts of all parliamentarians.

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Mr. Ross Stevenson (Durham):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to participate in this special debate because I believe we are addressing the fundamental reason why most of us are here as members of Parliament.
The stated topics for this debate are the constitutional issues and the views of our respective constituents on how they should be resolved. However, it goes much deeper than that. Unless the constitutional questions are settled in a way that is acceptable to most Canadians, there will be some very real doubt about the continuing future of Canada as we know it.
While it may sound unduly sentimental or even mawkish to some, I am not ashamed to state that I wanted to be a member of this Parliament because I love this country, every part of it. I believe in its future and in its enormous potential. In saying that, I believe I am expressing the basic feelings of the great majority of my constituents in Durham and of most Canadians.
Over the past several weeks I have been holding a number of informal discussions with groups of constituents. The Constitution certainly was a topic they raised with me, but by no means the only one. The main concern in Durham is the economy, most particularly jobs. People are worried about employment generally, and about their own job security in particular.
That is not to say that people are not concerned about the Constitution. They are, but they want those who are more knowledgeable about these matters to get the job done so that we can concentrate on bread and butter issues such as the economy, jobs and working toward a society in which we all can enjoy fruitful and prosperous lives.
Like other concerned Canadians, I was encouraged by the Angus-Reid Southam News poll just last weekend. It showed Canadians are moderating their positions on constitutional issues so that national compromise or even a consensus may well be within reach. That poll indicates that die-hard opposition to Quebec's being a distinct society has dwindled to 17 per cent.
That is substantially in line with what I have heard in my own area. Most people accept that Quebec is and always has been different because of the province's language and culture. However, there are some who,
while recognizing and wanting to accommodate the difference, are strongly opposed to the phrase distinct society and wish it could be expressed in some other way or in different words.
To constitutional authorities that may seem like a minor difference. However, I must stress that it is an important concern of these people and something I trust the authorities will try to address. The great majority of my constituents in Durham are proud to be Canadians.
It is a constituency with a multi-racial mix, not unlike many other parts of Canada. Some of us have family roots going back prior to Confederation, while others have just become citizens. All generally work together in harmony. I have been greatly impressed by several of the letters sent to me which reflect the considerable thought that these average Canadians have devoted to the Constitution.
I would like to quote a few, not because I necessarily agree with the comments, but because we as parliamentarians should be prepared to convey the wide range of views existing on some issues within our constituencies.
One letter stated: "We must abolish the entire political machinery which at present is destroying the structure of our society". On this same theme, another correspondent argued: "The time of one party winning the election and another party being the opposition belongs in the past".
In his view, we could have six or seven national parties working together for the common good. More than one writer questioned the need for a Senate and asked why it could not be abolished.
On the topic of special status for Quebec, I received this refreshing comment: "What is the big deal? For that matter, give other provinces a wish list too. The most important thing is to stay united as a Canada with 10 provinces and two territories".
It should not surprise you that I also got more than one critical comment about the way that this House conducts its business. One writer put it quite bluntly: "I also believe that the majority of MPs should grow up and behave like adults. If parents were interpreted at home by their children in the same manner as some MPs act in Ottawa, they would be stomped on".


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To that quotation I can only add "Amen".
Speaking personally, one aspect of the constitutional discussions I find especially distressing is the me, me, me attitude of many of the groups and organizations that are demanding special deals to serve their own particular interests. While these interests may be legitimate and stem from long-standing grievances, Canadians would be more impressed if their spokespersons displayed a greater desire to serve the common good in preserving our country as a national entity.
On the other hand, it is encouraging that the number appears to be dwindling of those who would welcome Quebec's departure from Confederation, despite the open and covert encouragement this idea receives from certain political groups. Some of these groups are active in my own part of Ontario. These elements suddenly imply that without Quebec the rest of Canada would be one big happy family.
This ignores the fact of Canadian history. Western political protest movements usually stem from a resentment of central domination, and central in such cases translates into Ontario, not Quebec. Without Quebec as part of Canada that resentment would only worsen. We would then have a country in which one province, Ontario, possessed half the population and a major share of the economic power and political clout. How long do you suppose other provinces would tolerate a situation like that?
The people who espouse these arguments offer a dangerously, if not sinisterly, simplistic view of Canada; one that could only lead to further fragmentation and the eventual total elimination of this country that we love.
The people I represent in Durham constituency are proud Canadians. Quebec has always been a part of their country and they want it to remain so. They want the issues before us to be resolved in a way that will make the continuing presence of Quebec possible for now and for all time.
We need a firmly united Canada with a strong central government capable of maintaining the national standards and programs that we cherish, a government which speaks with one voice internationally for the people from all regions and vast territories of this country, and one which will do so for at least another 125 years.
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Lyle Dean MacWilliam: Mr. Speaker, over the past couple of weeks I have had the opportunity to attend a number of community meetings which I held in my riding of Okanagan-Shuswap on the issue of the constitutional debate and the future of Canada.
I found these meetings to be particularly inspiring. It was really encouraging to see the turn out, even on a meeting held in Sicamous on a Friday night. Many people came to listen to the issues, debate the various aspects of the proposals and to lend their opinions to the discussions.
I held four meetings over the past little while: one in Falkland, one in Celista, one in Blind Bay and, as I said, one in the town of Sicamous. I am hoping to follow these up with meetings in other communities throughout the riding, as time permits, in Enderby, Armstrong and Cherryville, and hopefully two summary meetings later on in March in Vernon and Salmon Arm.
I want to say that the feeling I have from the meetings and from the discussions that took place was certainly a feeling that seems to have demonstrated or manifested itself in the national polls. There is no question that people throughout the Okanagan-Shuswap, as have all Canadians, have shown an increasing restlessness about the constitutional debate. They have grown weary with what they perceive as being Ottawa's constitutional obsession. They want to move on with their lives, they want to get on with the job at hand, and they want this dilemma, this crisis that we seem to be forever facing, to be resolved one way or the other.
They also want the government to turn its attention to what they see as the most pressing issue nationally, and that is the worsening economy. They want the government to involve ordinary people in the process of governing. In essence, people are seeking a process of empowerment, of change, in this parliamentary and democratic process. There has been a call-certainly it was registered in the meetings I was at-for a more effective Parliament, a more responsible and effective Senate, a more direct voice in the affairs of this nation.
I guess, in short, you could summarize it by saying that people in the Okanagan-Shuswap, and I would suggest most Canadians, have lost faith in the status quo, have lost faith not only in this government but perhaps even in the process of government itself.

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I want to add that the problem, as I perceive it, has not been so much the failure of Parliament-Parliament trundles along doing its best in the democratic framework that it has been built from-but rather it has been the failure of this very government to rebuild the trust of the Canadian people. I see time and time again evidence that trust was shattered in the midst of the Meech Lake fiasco. The Prime Minister's admission that he had chosen to roll the dice with the future of this nation was in fact for many Canadians, and I would suggest many people in my riding, the last straw. It caused a real shattering in their belief not only in this Prime Minister and this government but in the system itself.
Meech Lake failed not because of any dislike for Quebec whatsoever-I would suggest that would be the last of any reasons-but rather it failed because of a repudiation of a process that excluded the fundamental involvement of the Canadian people. People rejected this kind of executive federalism. They wanted to become involved in a very fundamental way in the process of resolving the issues that the Meech Lake Accord was attempting to address.
Largely as a result of the Prime Minister's handling of Meech Lake, there has been a loss of faith in this government and there has been a loss of faith in the very political foundations of Canada.
I think there is a widespread opinion that the Prime Minister opened a constitutional can of worms with his belief, his dream if you like, that he could finish the work that former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau could not accomplish, and that was to get Quebec's signature as a full partner of our Canadian family. The current Prime Minister's failure at achieving that process has in essence left this nation paralysed while he attempts to undo the very damage that he has done. Through this endless flurry of commissions, of studies, of parliamentary committees, of more debate, he attempts to correct that damage.
Some of these, like the Spicer commission, I think people have recognized have done some very good work. The recent national forums have also proven to be successful. But the result has been that this concentration, this focusing on the singular issue facing Canadians
has essentially paralysed the parliamentary process and has left an utter failure of the government to recognize other serious problems, such as our failing economy.
I think that probably summarizes some of the real concerns. I see my time is very limited and I had a lot more to say on it. It summarizes some of the concerns that people have with regard to the national unity debate.
The 28 proposals are very wide-ranging indeed, and I think that is one of the real difficulties with the proposals. The fact is that there is simply too much on our constitutional plate.
What we are dealing with here when you look at the whole ball of wax is a massive revamping of our socioeconomic structure, the consequences of which are anything but clear. Perhaps the Prime Minister wants Canadians once again to take another leap of faith, as he called it, as we did with free trade. But there are simply too many unknowns.
Speaking on behalf of my constituents, the 28-point proposal is too unwieldy to be resolved within the timeframe we have left. In the final analysis the package is too complex. There are simply too many proposals on the table. The timeframe is too short to resolve all the issues. Forcing Canada to abide by this timeframe, which is dictated by Quebec's call for a referendum on sovereignty, will be to ensure failure.
I think it was the general consensus in the meetings that I held that the government should try to condense the proposals into something that is workable, something that is doable. After all, what is the use in fighting to save the future of Canada? If we do not resolve our economic dilemma, we may not have a Canada left.
Certainly a pared down version of a core set of proposals would stand a much greater chance, I suggest, of acceptance by both English and French Canada. The discussion of the distinct society has to be included as one of those pillars in a pared down proposal; addressing the concerns of our aboriginal people and certainly the question of Senate reform. I think a pared down version of these three pillars would make a lot of sense, something we might actually be able to handle.
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In the final analysis, if Quebec really wants to be independent, to establish its own nationhood, in the end that really is for it to decide. Sooner or later Quebec must have its rendezvous with independence. I think it is simply a mark of respect for that choice to permit Quebec to make that decision without English Canada essentially wringing its hands over the fact.
In concluding, if Quebecers want to stand at the brink to get a good look at the economic consequences of independence, I suggest they may well decide to re-examine that possibility. The protection of their language and culture is better assured within Canada than without.


Al Johnson: Mr. Speaker, this is one of the most important opportunities for me to speak in this House. It is not only because I am speaking on a critical issue, the Constitution, but because it is an opportunity for me to convey to this House directly the recommendations, the concerns, and the aspirations of my constituents regarding this country and its Constitution.
Over the past couple of months I have held three town hall meetings. I have held small home-style group discussions with constituents. I have spoken to constituents individually, and I have done a survey to which more than 1,500 of my constituents responded on issues related to constitutional renewal.
My constituents have often expressed their frustration and anger, but they have been frank, determined and hopeful as they have contributed to the national discussion. I might add that a constituent of mine, Mr. Wilfrid Posehn, attended all of my three town hall meetings and I am pleased that he has made his own, unbiased report to the special joint committee on a renewed Canada. Mr. Posehn is to be congratulated, and I also thank him for the interest that he has shown in this subject and in our country.
I should begin by saying that for most of my constituents the priority issue at this time is that of the economy. They want economic security and jobs that will allow them to be full participants in Canadian society. The Constitution is for most of them a secondary issue. However, there is a grudging understanding of the connection between the stability of this nation and its economic well-being. Consequently, they acknowledge the Constitution must be at the top of our list of priorities.
There is a strong feeling in my constituency that Canadian identity is a real issue in the present constitutional discussions. A sense of identity is crucial if we are
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to be a fulfilled and prosperous nation. For people in Calgary North, Quebec is very much a part of this national identity. Frustration, however, exists over the concept of distinct society. There is general acceptance that Quebec is distinct and should be considered so on the condition that it does not mean that Quebec is given special privileges that are not granted to others. The general sense is that Quebec has its distinctiveness but Alberta has its distinctiveness too. My constituents believe that Quebec should be given the opportunity to live according to its culture but-and this is the key-this should not mean additional powers. All provinces are distinct and obviously Quebec is most distinct. My constituents are frustrated at the thought that granting Quebec its distinctiveness might mean that it has greater powers at the expense of other provinces. My constituents believe that the principles of fairness and equality should be our guide in renewing our Constitution.
As I mentioned earlier, I conducted a survey of my constituents and was pleased to receive over 1,500 responses. A good part of this survey dealt with the division of powers between the federal and provincial governments. I asked my constituents their views on who should provide social services in general and who should provide particular services, such as pensions and medicare.
My Calgary North constituents were fairly evenly divided on social issues generally, considering for the most part that they should be provided through shared jurisdictions. This applied to medicare. However, 75 per cent of them felt that pensions should be federally administered. Only 15 per cent saw medicare as a totally provincial responsibility and 22 per cent thought it should be an exclusive federal jurisdiction.
Immigration is an area in which a number of people expressed strong views. Some 70 per cent of respondents feel that there should be strong federal control in this area.
One of the most difficult areas that my questionnaire touched on was that of aboriginal rights. From the questionnaire, from written comments and from my public meetings it is clear that my constituents want this issue resolved fairly and justly. Most, some 85 per cent, believe that the aboriginal people should have some form of sovereignty or nationhood within Canada, be it in the form of municipal-like government or at the level of provinces or even more. This having been said, there is also an overwhelming sense that we must make a settlement and get on living together as equal citizens. My constituents want the aboriginal people to be full participants in Canadian society. They do not want them

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to be continually ghettoized on reserves or condemned to lives on the welfare rolls.
My constituents have also expressed themselves on natural resources and environmental jurisdictions. Not surprisingly 70 per cent believe the jurisdiction over natural resources should be mostly or exclusively provincial. On the other hand, most, some 75 per cent, believe that environment should either be a joint responsibility or it should be in the exclusive hands of the federal government. This is clearly an indication that my constituents in Calgary North, at least, want the federal and provincial governments to come to a clear understanding on the sharing of responsibility for the environment.
When it comes to agriculture, my constituents see that largely as a provincial responsibility. Some 86 per cent want to see agriculture as either an exclusive provincial responsibility or as a joint federal-provincial responsibility.
I also asked my constituents about the justice system. Although many of the comments did not relate to the constitutional issue but to the Young Offenders Act and extradition, I am pleased to report to my constituents that the Solicitor General and the Minister of Justice have already taken action on their concerns by proposing dramatic changes to the Extradition Act and significant improvements to the Young Offenders Act. In the constitutional area, my constituents were largely in favour of the status quo of shared responsibilities for the justice system and law enforcement.
On the all important issue of structural reform, that is reform of the Senate, my constituents are firm in their demand that all provinces be treated equally. They are aware that our constituency has 140,000 people and only one member of Parliament, compared to Prince Edward Island with some 100,000 people and four members of Parliament and four senators. While they may feel that members of Parliament should be distributed as nearly as possible on a population basis, they also feel strongly that each province must be equally represented in the Senate or at least have similar authority through other means
such as the changes in the rules for passage of items through the Senate.
On the over-all issue of constitutional relationships some 70 per cent of my constituents really do not want to change things very much. They would like federal-provincial relationships to be left much the same as they are, or they want them to be moderately shifted toward either a more centralized or more decentralized system.
We like Canada the way it is. Only 9.5 per cent of my constituents want a federation of sovereign states and
12.5	per cent want a stronger or unitary state.
There is also a very real desire within the constituency to see the federal government continue to focus on streamlining its operations, to cut the cost of federal services, and by so doing contribute to the competitiveness of this country. This translates to support for economic union within Canada.
Calgary North is a constituency made up largely of families. This community, as do many communities in Canada, sees the family as a fundamental building block of society. It is the foundation of social structure and organization. It is in the family that values and traditions we as a nation hold dear are nurtured.
Given the significance of the family to my constituents, it is important that the family be recognized within the Constitution as an essential part of the make-up of our society. This recognition will ensure that future governments will consider and protect families in all their objectives and endeavours.
The over-all impression I get from the people of Calgary North is that they are Canadian first and foremost. They want all their fellow Canadians to celebrate with them the joy that they find in this great land. They want to live and let live and in this regard they do not mind if others of their fellow Canadians preserve and rejoice in other traditions, languages or cultures. Above all, they want a Canada in which every citizen feels at home and equal.
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Mr. George Proud (Hillsborough):: Mr. Speaker, it is an honour for me to rise this evening to speak on this very great issue that we are talking about these last number of months.
Canadians face many challenges on many fronts today: the economy, the environment and the Constitution. At no time has the need for national unity and consensus on Canada's future been greater.
127 years ago the Fathers of Confederation gathered in Charlottetown to transform their shared values, ideas and dreams into a vision and that vision into the framework for a country, a country that is the envy of many nations throughout the world.
We now face a new challenge: that of reforming our Constitution to ensure the responsiveness of our institutions of government to the social, the economic and the political realities of Canada as we approach the 21st century. I feel it is important that we keep apprised of issues at hand and of the ideas advanced by our constituents in order to strengthen national unity through a framework of constitutional reform.
My constituents' vision for the future is inspired by a number of practical realities about the nature of Canada. They believe that all Canadians share a desire to live together in a federal state based on common values and principles. Let us not throw away those things that we have been able to achieve.
Let us continue to pay heed to the different languages and the ethnic groups in this countiy. My constituents have a strong attachment to the preservation and the strengthening of fundamental rights and freedoms. While remaining sensitive to the issue of collective rights, my constituents believe that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms must continue to have primacy over all federal and provincial legislation.
Constitutional amendments should not reduce the primacy of the charter. The people of Hillsborough believe that we must strengthen our economic union. It is essential to Canada's existence as a federal state that the full benefits of unrestricted mobility of people, goods and capital be assured by the basic laws governing the country.
We must continue to develop internationally competitive products, services, technologies and strategies responsive to the demands of globalization. I have heard repeatedly that we must achieve practical measures which fully integrate Canada's regions and the decision and policy making processes at the national level.
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A reformed Senate which is elected, which is effective and has a more equitable distribution of seats is an essential element of constitutional reform and a mechanism to ensure that the aspirations of Atlantic Canada and of western Canada are given the fullest consideration.
Such a Senate could have the power to examine appointments to important federal institutions and agencies and it could protect the rights of minority language groups.
As we talk about the reform of the Senate, we must talk about the changes in it that we would like to see happen. I also believe that this Chamber, the House of Commons, is in need of reform. This institution, which is the highest court in the land, must play a vital role in all aspects of our society. I believe this institution must work, that every member of this Parliament must have a say in the way that legislation proceeds, in the way that legislation starts out and in the way that legislation ends up.
It is time that this institution becomes the institution that I envisaged many years ago, that we are law-makers and that the laws are not just passed down from the executive branch, but also come from this part of the Parliament as well. I believe there is room and it is needed in this day and age. I certainly believe that we must change this House so that it becomes a greater working institution. If it has to become more like the U.S. Congress then so be it, but this will make it a better institution for all Canadians.
Of course, constitutional renewal means a realignment of powers. The fundamental principle guiding the process of renewal must be that legislative powers reside with the level of government that can handle them best. We must adopt a functional approach. The essential focus must be an arrangement which best serves the needs not of governments, not of bureaucrats, not of politicians, but of the people. Any new arrangement must ensure the flexibility to meet the changing demands and the challenges of the future.
In many areas the federal and the provincial governments should be able to legislate in a complementary manner. For example, in the area of the environment the federal government should be able to pass framework legislation stipulating national standards, leaving it up to the provinces to adapt these national standards to regional and provincial realities, and a similar approach where the federal government enacts national framework legislation so that the provinces have operational and administrative flexibility. This could resolve current

February 17, 1992
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problems with manpower training and regional development.
This functional approach would significantly reduce duplication and would provide for efficient public administration.
There must also be restrictions on the use of federal spending power within the areas of exclusive provincial jurisdiction.
The problem in the past has been how to reconcile the limitation of the spending power with the need for national standards. With a functional realignment of powers, it becomes possible to achieve a constitutional limitation of the federal spending power without compromising national standards.
With respect to immigration, an administrative agreement now exists between the two levels of government and that arrangement should now be constitutionalized.
As the Supreme Court of Canada is becoming increasingly a constitutional court of law, it is reasonable that the provinces have greater involvement in the appointment of judges to that court. We should be able to develop a mechanism to break deadlocks in the future.
Any framework for reform must address outstanding native issues. There is a broad consensus and understanding in Canada of the need to deal with the status, the rights and the claims of aboriginal peoples. The process for amending the Constitution must also be addressed.
An enshrined amending formula would enable Canada to get on with the problems with the economy and other issues affecting it. Furthermore, I strongly believe these proposals for constitutional changes must be brought to the Canadian people for their consent and approval.
For this purpose the Liberal Party proposes a national referendum comprising two questions. The first would be on the substantive elements of the constitutional reform package and the second would deal specifically with the amending formula.
In conclusion, my constituents feel that it is now incumbent upon the government to table a detailed and concrete proposal. They also feel this country is big enough for all Canadians and we look forward to the day this Constitution and the amendments become a reality.


Mr. Blaine A. Thacker (Lethbridge):: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate this brief 10-minute time slot to set out on the public record what the majority of the people in the Lethbridge federal riding have told me concerning the constitutional resolution in Canada in general.
I am sorry it is only 10 minutes but after the government caucus and cabinet have put forward the final resolution for consideration in this House I hope to speak for a much longer period, setting out my personal views.
Like other members I have received many hundreds of letters and telephone calls and have spoken to many dozens of people concerning the issue that is before us today and has been for the past few months.
Prior to Christmas 1991 the Lethbridge Chamber of Commerce sponsored a public meeting in the city of Lethbridge and many people participated. I published before Christmas a full householder on the federal proposals and got many worth-while and useful replies. As well I have spoken to many groups: church groups, Kiwanis Clubs, Rotary clubs, and other service clubs throughout the riding.
What can I safely report? There is a a minority out there which tends to believe the myths and the halftruths that are fed to them by special interest groups and certain parts of the media in Alberta. Tonight I speak for the vast majority and they speak very loudly and clearly on a number of points.
First, they understand far more than we generally give them credit for and while many of them admitted they did not know all of the details about our history and details about complex issues that you and I deal with every day, I am satisfied that they know the effect of globalization. They understand the implications of Europe and its coming together. They understand the implications of Asia and its coming together. They understand the impact of the yearly deficit and the national debt. They understand clearly and are very
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much agitated by the continual tug of war between the federal level and the provincial level.
Second, Canadians are ready, willing and able to face the reality of our problems. They want, indeed they demand that we people in public office, whether municipal, provincial or federal, and that business and labour stop this stupid fighting that we get ourselves into, this tug of war for turf, and that we settle down to some very serious problem solving.
Third, they know very well that they together have created one of the most prosperous, peaceful, tolerant and stable nations in the entire world. We did this in spite of a very harsh climate, with an incredibly small, diverse population spread over 8,000 kilometres. They also know from talking to other people that others around the world see us as being an absolutely first rate model on which to base their own societies as they try to balance the cultural, historic, ethnic, and religious differences.
Fourth, they understand very well that as the world becomes more integrated and competitive we must speak with one clear voice or we will be lost among that host of small ineffectual nations in the world.
Fifth, they understand that Canada depends upon world trade more than almost any other industrialized nation. I have since learned from other reading that we are second to Germany in that respect, and that if we split up we will have no meaningful voice to promote sensible international rules and dispute resolution mechanisms.
They understand very well the law of the jungle and they do not want to have any part of it.
In the time remaining, I would like to read into our Hansard certain parts of an address given at the annual Royal Bank shareholders meeting by Mr. Allan R. Taylor, its chairman and CEO. His address is entitled" "March of Folly" in recognition of the eminent U.S. Historian, Barbara Tuchman.
On page 2 he states:
Marches of folly are made possible by fhe existence of dangerous
delusions. It is the delusion that a national break-up would involve
only minimal costs that risks sending Canada down this road of
irreversible folly.
And on page 3 he continues:
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Most lethal of all is the assumption that the departure of Quebec would resolve our difficulties. That it would solve the challenges facing Canada; that it would solve the problems of Quebec; that it would solve the problems of west; that it would redress the wrongs done to our First People.
This is only one of the dangerous delusions that beckon Canadians down the march of historic folly.
What Canadians should be asking themselves first and very explicitly, is whether disunity is the answer to the challenges we face.
Do we really need to blow Canada apart to meet Quebec's historic concerns? Quebec is a unique cultural island of 6 million Frenchspeaking people in an ocean of 270 million people working and living in English. Quebec is a distinct society. Do we really need to destroy Canada to recognize and protect that reality? I say no.
Do we really need to blow Canada apart to understand and address a deep alienation in the west where many people believe that our national institutions are dominated by a deaf and unfeeling eastern majority? Do we really need to destroy Canada to recognize and correct that concern? I say no.
Do we really need to blow Canada apart to meet the deep-felt concerns of people in Atlantic Canada? Do we have to destroy Canada to solve their very real structural economic problems? I say no.
Do we really need to blow Canada apart to give the First Nations the powers to participate directly in determining their own destiny within Canada, rights they have been denied for too long? Again, I say no.
Do we really need to blow Canada apart to address the vital need for greater harmonization of federal and provincial policies and cutting the wasteful duplication of costs?
That separation would be relatively easy and without cost is not just a dangerous delusion; it is a real world impossibility.
It is my estimation that, the costs of a break-up would be huge and long-term and paid by everyone in Canada, here in Quebec and in every other province and territory. No one would escape lightly; no one would fair well.
I could go on for many minutes on this, but I think just in closing I would say, again from Mr. Taylor, and I quote:
In this anniversary year we should be celebrating our achievements. Canada which has so much promise is 125 years old. Montreal, a living example of how people of different cultures can live together in peace is 350 years old.
Canada's accomplishments are widely recognized, at least by others.
I point to the report of the UN Development Program and it rates countries in terms of economic prosperity, longevity, living standards, gender equality, racial equality, distribution of income and human freedom.
In 1991 Canada ranked second from the top in the whole world on this global scale of the quality of life. That is what is threatened by separation.
That is what we stand to lose by separation.

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Are we perfect on all of these? By no means. But we are so high on all
that observers abroad can only shake their heads and ask: Do
Canadians not realize what they are risking? What they could lose. If
this Canada is not worth saving, what country is?
Well here is one Canadian, a son of Saskatchewan who cares passionately about keeping Canada together from British Columbia to Newfoundland, and Quebec is part of my Canada.
On a personal note, I would say with the brevity of a business leader he summarized exactly how I feel. As a third generation Albertan, I must say I agree with him 100 per cent.


Maurizio Bevilacqua: Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to rise today to give this House a report of the discussions I have had with my constituents on the subject of the Constitution.
Throughout 19911 was able to consult the residents of my riding on several occasions. The initial consultation involved a constitutional questionnaire which was distributed to each of the approximately 80,000 households in York North. I am pleased to table the results of that questionnaire in this House.
This was followed by town hall meetings held in Aurora, Richmond Hill, Oak Ridges, Maple, Wood-bridge, Thornhill, Nobleton, Kleinburg and King City, all communities in my riding.
The Constitution was discussed during my visits to the homes of the constituents, and finally a special constitutional forum was held where the guest speaker was the Official Opposition constitutional critic, the hon. member for Papineau-Saint-Michel. Throughout this process, whether it was in response to the questionnaire or at the different community meetings and town hall meetings, I found that the citizens of York North cared deeply about their nation and wanted to play a role in reforming their Constitution. The reaction at all levels was enthusiastic. If there is one fact that impressed me more than any other, it is that the people participated in such great numbers.
My constituents spoke out strongly on many different elements of the Constitution. Their views revealed a patriotic love for their country and a determination to preserve it for their children.
The picture painted by the results of my consultation with the people of Canada's most populous riding contains a number of striking characteristics, namely, a
strong endorsement of our bilingual, culturally diverse and aboriginal heritages; a reformed, elected Senate; free economic trade between provinces and territories; and the preservation of a strong national government with shared powers for the provinces.
In discussions I held people came forward with strong opinions but also with open minds. That openness gave many of my constituents the chance to better understand the special needs of Quebec, the western provinces, aboriginal Canadians and other groups. As a result we all have a greater understanding of ou r Canadian reality.
The need for communication is ever present in the current debate. As the government's regional conferences on the Constitution have indicated, face to face exchanges between people from different regions is the most effective remedy for the ills of parochialism and stereotyping.
Throughout the constitutional consultation process, the residents of York North demonstrated that they are understanding and generous people, that then are willing to compromise to advance their principles but will never compromise their principles. They are guided by a set of high moral standards. For them, the eventual constitutional package must fairly reflect and address the concerns and preoccupations of Canadians from coast to coast to coast.
My constituents understand that to build a harmonious nation, we must all co-operate and subscribe to the politics of accommodation.
The residents of York North are excited by the possibility of a new constitutional contract and hope that we will be able to arrive at a meaningful and responsible accord in the very near future. I say in the very near future because there is no question in my mind that the people of York North, like most other Canadians, are suffering from constitutional fatigue. They want the constitutional issue resolved so that governments can turn their attention to other challenges which potentially threaten the long-term health of this nation.
The citizens of my riding realize that over the last decade the Constitution has occupied centre stage in this nation's political discourse. In that time our competitors around the world have been forging partnerships, developing markets for their goods, adopting visionary training policies, and investing in their infrastructure and the environment.
February 17, 1992

The people of York North understand how fast the world is changing and are ready to deal with that change. They realize that trade barriers are coming down all around the world and they expect Canada to follow suit. Support for the principle of free movement of people, goods and capital was, for all intents and purposes, unanimous. My constituents know that Canadians will not win any trade wars outside our borders until we stop fighting trade wars inside our borders.
When we finally complete our constitutional puzzle, we will have a lot of ground to make up. We must realize that we will only make it up through concrete action.
York North residents are eagerly awaiting the challenge. Through our discussions, we all agree that a constitution must be supported by a government with vision. What this nation needs now more than ever is a government that has a realistic plan for improving the quality of life for its citizens and the political will to carry it out.
In the end, a Constitution tells us what we can be. Only men and women with imagination and conviction can bring that ultimate goal to reality and to fruition.
York North residents realize that Canada was founded on compromise. In 125 years, that has always been the source of our greatest strength. Now more than ever it is important for Canadians everywhere to put the demands of their specific interest groups in proper perspective and think of the common good.
It is extremely important to defend the needs of women, aboriginals, visible minorities, the disabled, youth, and every single Canadian. We all realize that the ultimate interest group in this constitutional talk to which we all belong is Canada.
In the present debate, groups and individuals must realize that sometimes it is necessary to sacrifice a little in order to gain a lot. The preservation of this great nation is something worth fighting for.
In conclusion, I would like to say once again how pleased I am to stand here today and share the opinions of my constituents with this House. I, like them, am
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confident that we are approaching the long hoped for solution to the constitutional puzzle.
There is optimism in York North, and I know that Canadians everywhere are counting on this Parliament to come up with constitutional proposals that will reflect the aspirations of the nation. When we look at other nations, we cannot help but be grateful to live in this peaceful, prosperous country.
The realization that we are blessed teaches us to respect the opinions of others and to make allowances for the special needs. The land is strong, and its people have big hearts. Our history shows us that there is room for everyone here as long as everyone respects each other and gives each other a chance to prosper.
It is with that thought, it is with that progressiveness and fairness that I am convinced that we will guarantee the survival of this nation.


Mr. Bruce Halliday (Oxford):: Mr. Speaker, I do not know how much longer we will have to keep talking to convince you that you have heard all of the arguments that are possible regarding the Constitution.
I want to take this time to thank the government for giving us this privilege over a series of evenings to talk about what has happened in our ridings. I want to report to you, Mr. Speaker, and to my colleagues a meeting we held in Woodstock in the constituency of Oxford two weeks ago tonight, February 3. My provincial counterpart, who belongs to a different political persuasion than I do, and I agreed that this was an issue that should be non-partisan and we agreed to work together on this. Kimble Sutherland, the local MPP for Oxford, and I approached the president of the Woodstock Chamber of Commerce, Mr. Robert White, a lawyer in Woodstock, who was very interested in recommending to his colleagues that they sponsor a public meeting where people from all across the riding could be heard. They in turn approached the recently arrived publisher of the Woodstock Daily Sentinel Review, the local daily newspaper, to see if he would chair the meeting. He agreed and did a superb job, bringing to it a kind of fellowship and jovialism that was very helpful in keeping people working together and on the subject.

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Interestingly enough, he is a new Canadian, having achieved his Canadian citizenship in 1967. In his opening comments he said: "I think Canada is the number one place to be", which set the stage for the evening.
There were some general impressions which I would like to report to the House at this time. First of all, we thought we might get somewhere between 30, 40 or 50 people to that meeting. Instead we had a full house of somewhere over 130 people. There was standing room only in the room that we had acquired for that purpose. These people included students and senior citizens, business leaders, labour leaders, farmers, housewives, professionals, a cross-section of our society in our area.
I have to report also that there was an obvious sense of change in the mood, which we see across the country as well. People were softening from some of their hard positions. There was a willingness to compromise and to recognize the distinct nature of the Quebec society and so on. Without a doubt, the majority of those who were in attendance wanted to see Quebec stay in Confederation.
Just a word about who spoke and what they had to say at that meeting. Let me begin by repeating for you what Susan de Ryke, who was reporting for the Woodstock Daily Sentinel Review, said as she observed about how the meeting went. She said: "They spoke from prepared speeches, notes jotted down on envelopes and from the heart." That sort of gave you a good feeling of how people approached the subject.
Many issues were touched upon, a few of which were somewhat remote to the constitutional subject at hand, but one expected that to happen. Virtually everybody who attended that meeting was able to speak. In fact, 29 did speak and the meeting went on until nobody else indicated that they wanted to say a few words. The meeting went on for somewhere over two hours.
Bob White, whom I mentioned before, is the president of the Chamber of Commerce and also a lawyer. When he gave his remarks he said: "You fear what you do not know and we do not know Quebec". I think he expressed the views that we have come to realize, that when you do not know about something, you do not know about a people, you have reservations and apprehensions. I think those are beginning to break down as we hear each other talk more and more.
One gentleman who spoke was Mr. Earl Shea who was born in Quebec and married a French speaking girl whose history goes back to 1556 in Quebec. He is a local businessman in Woodstock. He is also the past president
of the Woodstock Business Improvement Association and he is currently the president of the Rotary Club of Woodstock. He felt that there was a real need to keep Canada together, that there was a need to understand each other, and that those are some of the requirements of having the kind of unity that we want to have.
Another interesting speaker among the 29 was Mr. Les Cook, a retired postal worker and a former mayor of the city of Woodstock. He thought some of the malaise in the country with respect to the Constitution was probably due to the lack of confidence in both levels of government brought on by a weakening of some of our traditional values. He went on to say: "No one has the right to advocate break-up of their country".
Joan Denew, president of the National Council of Women in Canada, with a long history in this country, expressed some concern that Canadian women are worried about the fate of their social programs, and that was a comment we heard from two or three people.
A number of the witnesses wanted recognition of the rights of self-government for our aboriginal community. Matthew White who is a part-time student said: "I just don't think natives are getting a fair shake in Canada". He also agreed with the need to recognize the distinct society in Quebec.
A small number of people expressed concern about official bilingualism and the sign law. Within a large group we can expect to have a few that indicate those concerns as well.
With respect to the Senate there were a lot of views brought to the meeting regarding how the Senate should be changed, reforms in the Senate. The odd person wanted to have it abolished. Some wanted special seats for the aboriginals. Others wanted special seats for certain groups of people, sectors of society. I felt very sympathetic myself with David Irving of the town of Norwich who expressed the fact that we needed to have regional representation in the House. Personally I would support that.
Indeed I am a bit of a maverick. I would feel that we should keep the Senate the way it is now, only have it more regionally represented but by appointment so we have representation from all political parties that are governing in the provinces. At one time a few years back we had five different political parties in power in the provinces, only two of which were represented in the House of Commons.
We also heard from Graham Hart, a leader in the agricultural community. He expressed some disappointment in the fact that the Meech Lake Accord was not adopted. He wants to see us go ahead and not be
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side-tracked by too many other issues such as the social charter.
Toward the end of the two-hour session, a student by the name of Matt Brown offered a very interesting perspective on the national dilemma which we have here. I am quoting from his comments. He said: "Canada did not come together because it wanted to but because it needed to. The provinces came together to protect themselves from the states. If we keep bickering we will be all by ourselves again".
There were several others, including Peter Hayes, a high school student and president of the student council at the Huron Park Secondary School in Woodstock, who felt that too many minority groups were hoping to have their views carry the day, as it were, and suggested that those who yell the most sometimes are not the ones who come out to vote when the time comes for elections.
In summary, I say that there was an over-all plea for more awareness and a better understanding among all of us that was voiced at this meeting we had in Woodstock, something that I think we all need to heed.
We are having another meeting later this week in the town of Tillsonburg which will be the same. I will be
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interested to report to the committee following that meeting.
Just in conclusion may I say that I cannot sum up what happened at this meeting we had in my constituency of Oxford any better than was done by Cheryl Clark-Cowan from Woodstock who wrote in the Norwich Gazette, one of the weekly newspapers in the constituency. I am quoting her comments when she said:
The end of the meeting brought a group hug of sorts from the capacity crowd. For as one speaker noted, although nothing concrete was accomplished from the two-hour session, it did bring those Canadians present a little bit closer together.
If there was one thing these meetings across the country have done, it is to bring Canadians closer together, help them to understand and be aware of other people's feelings. Hopefully that will lead to an understanding that will translate into the proposals that will be emanating from the government in the near future as far as our future Constitution is concerned.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: There being no further members rising for debate, pursuant to order made Friday, February 14, 1992, this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at ten o'clock a.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 8.48 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Tuesday, February 18,1992