1992-02-14

Mr. John Nunziata (York South-Weston) moved:: That this House condemn the government for its refusal to take action to alleviate the intolerably high levels of unemployment in Canada.
He said: Madam Speaker, this ought to be a happy day for Canadians. It is Valentine's Day. For millions of Canadians this day is like every other day has been over the last number of months and years.
Canada is facing its worst economic crisis since the thirties. There are 1.5 million Canadians unemployed and 2.2 million Canadians on welfare. While Canadians are suffering the anguish, the hardship, this government has taken a do-nothing, cross your fingers approach to dealing with the serious economic crisis that is facing Canadians.
At a time when Canadians are suffering this government has other priorities. Here we are on Valentine's Day, it is a Friday, debating the number one issue of concern to Canadians. This House has been back now for two weeks, and yet this House has not given priority to the issue of unemployment in the Canadian economy.
This House ought to be sitting today, tomorrow, Sunday, and every day and every evening to come up with ways to devise methods to put Canada back to work.
The Liberal Party put forward its plan for economic recovery, a modest plan. We recognize that there is a need to kick-start the economy, to put people back to work, to start creating jobs. So we presented a plan. Yet the government has refused to combat the high level of unemployment in Canada. The government has taken a do-nothing approach.
I am pleased to see the minister of employment in the House today. I look forward to hearing his remarks.
The biggest problem in Canada today is the Conservative government in Ottawa and the Bob White government at Queen's Park. Together these two governments-the NDP government at Queen's Park and the Conservative government in Ottawa-have destroyed the Canadian economy. They have shattered confidence. Time and time again Bob Rae and our Prime Minister say: "Well, it is a question of confidence; Canadians don't have confidence". Is it any wonder that Canadians do not have confidence when they have the likes of our Prime Minister and a labour led government at Queen's Park? The government at Queen's Park has totally turned off business and has created a climate or an atmosphere where business is afraid to expand, where business is afraid to invest in order to create the much needed jobs.
Is it any wonder that Canadians lack confidence in the future? That is a sad story.
The unemployment statistics were released last week. The rate was up again, 10.4 per cent. What does that mean in human terms? All too often we talk about percentages and we talk about rates. But let us try to think for a moment what that actually means to average people.
In the province of Ontario where I come from 504,000 people are unemployed; 504,000 people have to wait for their UI cheques in order to make their rental payments or make their mortgage payments. In the province of

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Quebec, 399,000 people. In the province of New Brunswick where the minister of employment comes from
42,000	are unemployed. These are those who are officially unemployed. On top of that, of course, we have thousands upon thousands of others who have simply given up because of the difficulty in seeking employment. Nearly 72,000 people in the province of New Brunswick are on welfare. That is a shame. It is a shame that the minister of employment has not done anything to help his own constituents in the province of New Brunswick.
A total of 1,429,000 Canadians are unemployed, out of work. Here we sat in the House of Commons with recession-proof jobs over the last number of years. Elected people, senators and public officials have not really had to worry about where the next paycheque was coming from.
I really wonder whether the minister of employment understands what it feels like not to know where the next cheque is coming from, whether he understands the uncertainty even in the minds of Canadians who are working in terms of whether there will be a job for them. Perhaps the minister can contemplate the thousands of Canadians today who instead of bringing flowers to their spouses, instead of bringing flowers home, will be bringing pink slips home, lay-off notices, termination notices. Can the minister of employment try to understand what it means to be unemployed and without work?
Canadians want to work. Those who are unemployed and those who are on welfare want the opportunity to be able to earn a living and to help other Canadians. Yet this minister and his government are doing absolutely nothing in order to kick-start the economy.
Perhaps the minister of employment and his government have yet to grasp the magnitude of the problem. They seem to be preoccupied with the Constitution. Yes, it is an important issue, but it is not the most important issue in the minds of Canadians. The most important issue in the economy is jobs.
I do not think that the minister of employment from New Brunswick understands the magnitude of the problem. I am sure his staff has briefed him on the violence that is erupting at employment centres across the country. It is that desperate.
Yesterday in Montreal violence erupted on the welfare lines. Yet this minister sits back and tells the House that he has a way of getting people back to work. He is going to train people. He is going to ensure there is long-term
prosperity. Little comfort that is to the millions of people who are either unemployed or on welfare.
The minister has stated time and time again that his government is committed to retraining. He said so in this House on a great number of occasions. The Prime Minister has said that his government is committed to retraining. We know that it not quite accurate.
An internal memo was released a few days ago. It was sent from directors general directly responsible to the minister of employment to all area managers across the country in Employment Canada, asking them to prepare contingency plans for three scenarios. The first was a 20 per cent reduction of regular funds for training. The second was a 35 per cent reduction of regular funds. The third was a 50 per cent reduction of regular funds. In effect it was slashing community based training right across the country.
A number of organizations in the riding of York South-Weston rely on this type of funding and will not be able to survive with these cuts.
What is at issue is the credibility of the minister. I know he prides himself on having some integrity. He stands and says that the government is committed to training and retraining. He says that in public, yet when he gets back to his comfortable office with his big desk, his comfortable chairs and his comfortable couch, with his recession-proof job, he tells his managers and directors to send out the word: "We are going to cut because I am responding to directions from my boss, the Prime Minister".
Shame on the minister of unemployment. He is not the minister of employment. He is the minister of unemployment. That is his responsibility. He has to assume and his government has to assume the responsibility. Because of its economic policies this country is facing the worst economic crisis since the thirties. Its high interest rate-high dollar policy has destroyed the manufacturing base in Ontario. It has destroyed hundreds of thousand of permanent jobs.
The memo goes out; they are cutting $100 million. The area manager in Toronto where I come from, Mr. Ron Crockford, says in a memorandum of January 10, 1992: "We will be forced to terminate projects due to budgetary reductions as opposed to performance related reasons if we reduce further".
That is the situation. Who are the people who will suffer? Will it be his friends in high places, his buddies on Bay Street, the guys he sips cocktails with? No. These
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cuts will affect those people most in need of training: immigrants, women, youth, disabled people, older workers, linguistic and racial minorities. These are the very sectors which have been designated equity groups by the recently formed Canadian Labour Force Development Board. These are the people who need the government's help, and the government is turning its back. That minister is turning his back on the people most in need, and a lot of those people are in his own province. He is turning his back on his own people.
I look forward to the minister standing in this House to tell his constituents and other Canadians what he intends to do to alleviate the suffering. I would like to know what advice the minister gives. Presumably he finds time to revisit his riding on occasion, to listen to the unemployed fishermen, to listen to the unemployed people in his riding. What does he say to people when they come into his office and say: "Mr. Valcourt, I am unemployed. I am desperate. I need money. I need work. I have to pay the rent. I have to make the mortgage payment. I have to buy food for my children''. What does the minister say to those people? What does he say? What advice does he give to those people who are desperate for help from this government?
What he says to them is: "Deficit reduction is important. We have to reduce the deficit. We have to control the debt". This government has had eight years to deal with the national debt, and what has it done? It has doubled the national debt. It has had eight years to deal with the deficit, and what has it done? It has increased the deficit. It has implemented the goods and services tax that has made the situation even worse.
There is one way to bring back confidence in Canada and that is for this government to resign. It has lost the moral authority to govern. It has no support. It has the legal right, yes. The Prime Minister will hang on by his fingernails; he will hang on to power to the last bitter moment. He has the legal authority to carry on, but he has absolutely no moral authority. There is no support for this government. It is at 12 per cent or 13 per cent in public opinion. Canadians want the opportunity.
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If they want confidence in this country, call an election. If the minister of unemployment is so sure of his economic plan, if he is so sure that he has the answer, if he is so confident that he will put people back to work, let him have the guts. Let the Prime Minister have the guts to issue the writ and let us go to the people of Canada. Let us present our platform and let us see who the people of Canada will put their trust in.
They will put their trust in the Liberal Party, in Jean Chretien and the Liberal Party, because they know our party has stood and will continually stand for the disadvantaged in our society. They know we will not allow the suffering that is taking place today. If the minister wants to instil a bit of confidence, let him have the courage to call an election.
Maybe that is what the Prime Minister is thinking. He is on his farewell tour. As a matter of fact, the T-shirts are at the printers. A number of communities will be listed on the back of these T-shirts. It is the Brian Mulroney farewell tour.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I have listened to the hon. gentleman and I think I have been patient. I have not interrupted him when he referred to other members by name, but this is maybe one too many. I would appreciate the hon. member following the rules of this House.


John V. Nunziata: There will be a T-shirt that reads the Prime Minister's farewell tour, his Alice in Wonderland tour. It started in Barrie. We saw the picture in the paper today. That young student had it right. He gave the Prime Minister a straight arm. The picture is in every newspaper in the country. That is what Canadians think of the Prime Minister of Canada and what he has done to this country. He can do everything he wants to do in terms of public relations, but the farewell tour is on, my friends. Whether it is next spring or next fall, your days are numbered.
If you have the courage and if you are so certain of what you are doing, then I say: "Go to the people".
The motion reads:
That this House condemn the government for its refusal to take
action to alleviate the intolerably high levels of unemployment in
Canada.
Members on the government side are at this point seriously contemplating their future. With every passing day, we pick up the paper and read about another Tory

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MP who has decided not to run again. We know why they are deciding not to run again because the writing is on the wall.
I encourage members on the government side to stand up for their constituents, to stand up for what they believe in instead of propping up a government that has absolutely no moral authority to govern this country, when there is so much suffering, when the unemployment rate is where it is at.
I call on the government to do the right and honourable thing. I call on the minister to do the right thing, and I ask him, in future, to tell it as it is because these leaked memos really tell it as it is. I would like to hear the minister's explanation.
In closing, let me say that the Liberal Party has as its policy a full employment strategy. As the Official Opposition, the government in waiting, we will not rest until every Canadian who wants to work has the opportunity to work.
Our strategy is full employment. The strategy of minister of unemployment is full unemployment. Throughout the day today, Liberal members will be criticizing the government and explaining the Liberal Party economic recovery program to put this country back to work.


Mr. Dennis Mills (Broadview-Greenwood):: Madam Speaker, I want to pick up on a constructive idea that my colleague put forward in the opening part of his remarks.
He put forward an idea which I think most Canadians would like to see implemented. His idea was a challenge to the government, as I understood it, to create a situation in this House where rather than have the short, six-hour debate on probably the most important issue concerning the country today, namely putting people back to work, we debate this issue right through the weekend.
I ask my colleague, he being an experienced member of this House being here for many years, how he would orchestrate that or how he could engineer it with the minister. Could he elaborate a little bit on that? I think it is a worth-while idea that Canadians would like to see implemented.


John V. Nunziata: Mr. Speaker, I believe with all the certainty that I can command, the people of Canada want parliamentarians to show some leadership.
They want to see parliamentarians and government understand what is relevant out there, what is happening at the grass roots level, what is happening at the street level. This is not the real world in this Chamber. This is not the Ritz.
It is a nice building, and we are very comfortable in it but we are too far removed from reality, especially when the government has decided, for example, that we should have, over the course of a number of evenings, special sittings of the House to debate the constitutional question. It is a very important question, the future of Canada, but people across the country do not think it ought to be the priority. Yet the government decided to set aside special time.
We are mired in a recession, yet no special time has been set aside by this government to deal with the question of unemployment. It was left up to us, the Liberal opposition, to take the first opportunity. We were allotted this day as an Opposition Day and we set the agenda according to what we believed to be the most important issue facing Canadians.
If the minister is ready, my colleagues and I are prepared to sit here all weekend long to talk about ideas, to talk about a recovery plan. We are prepared to debate, for example, the elements of the Liberal Party one-year emergency plan, whether it is the use of RRSPs to finance first- time homes, whether it is to debate the infrastructure program to accelerate capital projects in municipalities right across the country not only to improve the infrastructure but in order to create jobs. We are prepared to talk about training. We are prepared to talk about why Canada is still one of the lowest per capita investors in training among OECD countries.
I would like to hear from the minister when he has the opportunity. If he is really concerned about unemployment in Canada, I ask him to take me up on my challenge to him, the Liberal Party challenge, to sit here all weekend long to debate unemployment and the economy.


Mr. Arnold Malone (Crowfoot):: Madam Speaker, I just want to ask the hon. member for York South-Weston how he squares the fact that when he makes the statement that it is the Liberal Party that is in favour of full employment and the Progressive Conservatives who are in favour of unemployment with the reality that during those years leading up to 1984 the average job creation was short term, temporary and 80 per cent of all jobs created by the Liberals were short-term jobs and
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more than 80 per cent of all job creation under the present administration are permanent, full-time jobs. How does he square statistical fact with his assertion that the Liberals believe in full employment when all they created were part-time jobs?


John V. Nunziata: This is the kind of nonsense that we hear from Conservative members. They reach back to 1984 or to 1948 or to 1867. We are talking about today's reality.
Yes, governments past have made mistakes. I was not part of that government. I was a member of the party, but I was not part of the government. I am not taking John Diefenbaker to task for things that he did 20 or 30 years ago. We have a problem today. People are unemployed. They want to work. They want to get off the unemployment rolls. They are tired of relying on pogey.
Does the member know what pogey means? Does he know what it means to be unemployed? He is one of the members from Alberta. I have not seen him stand up in this House and go to bat for the disadvantaged in Alberta. Is it any wonder that the Tories in Alberta will be wiped out? Perhaps the member does not care any more because he knows he will not be returned to this House.
We are talking about today. This government has had eight years to get the country in order. What it has done is totally destroy it. It has dismantled it. We had three, four or five years of good solid growth in this country. What did it do? It frittered the opportunity away and has decimated a lot of good, well paying jobs in the country.
It behoves the hon. member from Alberta to stand up and reach back to the past to talk about job creation. A job is a job. People want to work. That is what they want to do. They want to put Canada back to work and that member is doing absolutely nothing to further that strategy of full employment.
I have not seen the minister of employment stand up and say: "It is the goal of this government to put every Canadian back to work". I have never, ever seen that member stand up and say that that is the policy of the Government of Canada.


Arnold John Malone: Madam Speaker, I just want the record to show that the hon. member, when he asserts that we
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reach back 20 or 30 years, he is wrong. We are talking about eight years ago. The hon. member for York South-Weston is not willing to stand on his party's record. His party's record was a dismal record. He is not willing to stand on the fact that the unemployment rate was 4 per cent higher then than it is today. He is not willing to stand on the fact that they created more part-time jobs by about 160 per cent differential between then and today, and he is not willing to stand on the fact that his party at that time put less money into retraining than we do today.
I think it is quite unfortunate that Canadians have to believe his promise about a new tomorrow when he will not even stand on a record of a government just eight years ago.


John V. Nunziata: The member persists. Forty thousand Canadians lost their jobs in January; 40,000 full-time jobs were lost in January. The bankruptcy rate is the highest ever. I do not know whether the hon. member has his head in the sand or he is just totally naive. We are in the worst-read my lips-economic crisis since the thirties. That is how bad it is out there.
Stores are being shut down, businesses are cutting back. Every day that you turn on the television or read the newspapers, you see that people are losing their jobs. Sears Canada has closed down its shop in Halifax. Eighteen hundred people are losing their jobs. General Motors is cutting back. Everyone is cutting back right across the country.
We are mired in this terrible recession and this member wants to go back to 1984. They have had the opportunity for eight solid years to do something about it. When we had a government 8 years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago, if we were so bad then surely they could have remedied the situation in eight years. Are they trying to tell us now that eight years was not enough that they did not have enough time to put the economic house in order, if it was so bad? Come on, that simply does not wash. That is nonsense. That is not logical.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: The period for questions and comments has now expired. Resuming debate, with the Minister of Employment and Immigration.

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Hon. Bernard Valcourt (Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Madam Speaker, I would like to start by saying that I am very tempted to respond to the comments made by the hon. member for York South-Weston in his speech.

I thought we were here this morning to listen to the Liberal Party of Canada and its members in this House telling us how deplorable the employment situation is in Canada, and then they would tell us their solutions and offer us ways to solve the problem.
That member of the Liberal Party spoke for 20 minutes and, I say with all due respect to my learned friend, I listened attentively for 20 minutes. His colleague said the one good constructive idea he heard was that we should sit all weekend and talk about it. This government will not only talk about it, it will keep on acting on solving it.
I have listened to the doom and gloom scenario of the hon. member. I think we have to put our current economic woes in perspective. I know it is of little comfort to Pitou Dumont or Maurice Cote in my own riding who may be looking for better economic opportunities. It is of little comfort to any unemployed Canadian or social welfare recipient to know that economies around the world are in the midst of difficulties, but I think they have to know about it.
Economies around the world are in the midst of transition under the pressures of economic globalization, recession, inflation and political restructuring. A full one-third of the OECD countries are faced with unemployment rates of 10 per cent or more. We are reminded by the OECD that there are, among its member countries, 28 million jobless people.
Yes, our unemployment rate is 10.4 per cent and, yes, we have over one million Canadians out of work, but recovery, although sluggish, is under way both here at home and in the United States. The OECD knows better than the Liberal Party and it predicts that our employment growth rate will be 1.2 per cent in 1992.
What does that 1.2 per cent mean to the Canadians listening to this? It is 150,000 new jobs this year. That is a rate twice as high as the OECD average of 0.6 per cent.
Even the United States is expecting only to see unemployment grow by 1 per cent.
Further, our growth in GDP is estimated to be the highest of all the OECD countries in both 1992 and 1993. Our economic situation is difficult, but our international standing as a country is a testament to the sound economic management of this government.
Why is it that for all these other industrialized countries in the world that have these problems Canada, though not to our liking and doing as well as we hoped we would, is to do better than all of these other countries in 1992 and 1993.
To the average, reasonable Canadian, not the partisan yappers and not the people who do not care, the people who are only interested in rising and stirring up the crowd, the kind of speech we heard here a few minutes ago does not even reasonably look at what the problem is.
They talk about their solutions. How can you stand up and ask the taxpayers all across Canada to pay more taxes? How can you ask Canadians from coast to coast to sustain more taxes? That is what they are calling for. If they are not calling for more taxes then they are calling on the government to increase the deficit. They are saying: "Government, go and mortgage further the future of the children, of your children. Do like the Liberals did, borrow and do not worry whether you can pay it back".
The hon. member was talking about my people back home in my riding of Madawaska.

He asked me whom I was trying to fool. I am not trying to fool anyone, but I think the hon. member should have considered the following problem. Out of every tax dollar our farm producers and potato growers send to Ottawa, 36 cents is spent on interest charges. I cannot use those 36 cents to provide certain services. I cannot use them to help people who need help. I have to pay the interest on a debt.


An hon. member:: His debt.


Bernard Valcourt: The Liberal Party's legacy to Canadians, and it has the nerve to tell us that we doubled the national debt since 1984. I agree the debt has doubled. But the hon. member did not say, because he does not want Canadians to understand-fortunately Canadians are intelligent people and they do understand-that the
February 14, 1992

debt doubled because of the interest charges compounding on that debt. That is why the debt doubled in eight years. That is what happened, and that is the truth, but it does not seem to interest the hon. member opposite. I wonder why.

The hon. member was talking about doing nothing. I want Canadians to know, those young Canadians, those men and women throughout Canada, that this government firmly believes that even in times of recession Canada cannot afford to further our already excessively high level of public debt as compared to other G-7 countries.
Rather, we must build upon the structural changes that we as a government have implemented in order to keep up with our competitors. It was nice in the old days when, without regard for the rest of the world, we could do it and go at it alone here. But Canadians know that the wealth of Canada is as a result of being able to trade on world markets, sell our goods and services around the world at competitive prices. We have to ensure that we are competitive in order to be successful.
The Liberals complain about the policies which are making Canadians competitive. I do not want to sound as if unemployment is unimportant but the fact remains, if you look at the picture that 90 per cent of the active labour force is at work in Canada and we have workers and companies doing very well on the world markets. Our companies are competitive as are the vast majority of people in this country.
We have a problem with the high rate of unemployment as do all OECD countries. What can we do about it? In the old Liberal days of throwing money at a problem, hoping it will go away, there would be shortterm make-work projects. That is what they are calling for again.
For the unemployed Canadian, the man or woman who is unemployed right now, we could probably have a make-work project and stand them up, give them 10 more weeks and that person may go on unemployment. That was the solution of the Liberal government and it is still the solution of the Liberal Party. This has the result of being no further advanced.
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Madam Speaker, you heard the member who spoke before me. He is offended that we have a rate of unemployment of 10.4 per cent in Canada. Is that not terrible? He does not like to refer to prior to 1984, but let us talk about 1984 when we came to office. In 1984 that hon. member and his party went across Canada asking Canadians to re-elect them to office when there was a rate of unemployment of 11.4 per cent or 11.6 per cent. But that was fine; it was the making of the Liberal Party of Canada.
You see we have a corner on everything, so it is all right.

It is all right for them. They can do that, but if you happen to belong to the Progressive Conservative Party, if you truly represent all Canada's regions and on top of that are committed to your principles and are not concerned about being a crowd pleaser but about the well-being of the people of this country, you take measures that may be Draconian but have to be taken all the same.
And that is the right approach.


An hon. member:: Oh, oh.


Bernard Valcourt: Madam Speaker, they present a motion before the House. They want it to be debated and they do not even have enough respect for this institution to accept and respect the fact that you have given me the floor. The hon. member keeps interrupting. He won't stop. What is the point? Is this going to do something for the unemployed in this country? I am trying to explain what we want to do to protect our country's competitive position and ensure that Canadians will have a better future. To hear these people talk, you would think all we want to do is make life tough for Canadians. It is not like that at all. When we talk about solutions-


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I know that heckling is something that is done in this House. The Speaker will not do anything unless the member who has the floor seems to be upset about it. The hon. member for York South-Weston was not interrupted during his presentation. I think he should allow the minister to keep on going.

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Does the hon. member have a question?


John V. Nunziata: I wanted to apologize, Madam Speaker, for breaking the minister's train of thought. I know it is rather easy to do that.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: The apology is accepted, I am sure.


Bernard Valcourt: Madam Speaker, I wish that all Canadians could see the spectacle of the rat pack back at it.
I was talking about the requirements to ensure that Canadians can get jobs. One of the factors is to improve the efficiency of the labour market.
The first factor in improving our competitiveness is in improving the efficiency of our labour market through skills upgrading. On the other side of the House the other political parties recommend short-term, make-work solutions, but make-work projects are band-aid solutions.
As I said earlier, it may have been the favourite approach during the seventies to remedy what were cyclical labour market difficulties, but the evidence today to anyone who really cares about the problem and tries to explain why and understand why is overwhelming that in the face of major structural changes to the economy more than band-aid solutions are required to respond to the labour market needs of the 1990s.
The Canadian economy of today has increased skill requirements and the nature and type of work has changed. If we are to be internationally competitive, we must respond appropriately to these changes through training. Make work is not the solution. We have structural problems, not cyclical problems.
Yesterday Speaker, I was meeting with the council of automotive and repair people and one garage owner here in Ottawa was telling me that he had put ads in the paper trying to get a qualified mechanic for his garage here in Ottawa and he could not find anyone qualified.
There is a shortage in Canada of skilled workers. Unemployed people have to tap these opportunities of training and retraining in order to get better qualifications in order to get into the jobs. In the long run training has benefits for both individuals and the country. We should consider that by the year 2000, and that is not far away, almost two-thirds of all new jobs will require at
least one year of educational training beyond high school.
Back in the 1970s it was easy to get a job with just a grade 9 education, but that is no longer the reality today. That is not the case any more. Training is also good from a macro-economic perspective, because a highly skilled work force attracts foreign investment in Canada.
Training raises productivity. Workers with higher skills are employed in higher productivity jobs, earning higher wages and making Canada more competitive. For that reason the government's priority has been the development of a skilled work force to accommodate economic and social change. For the unemployed there is no better time to train than during forced periods of unemployment.
When the economy recovers, human capital is improved and workers are prepared to take an active role in the labour force. However, more could be done with available resources to improve labour market efficiency by shifting priorities from passive income assistance and transfer to active measures, and from social treatment of unemployment to a more economic one.
In the OECD study of active versus passive program expenditures, Canada ranked 20th out of 23 member countries with only 24 per cent. Only 24 per cent of Canada's labour market program expenditures was spent on active measures. We began the transition toward more active policies with the labour force development strategy in 1989.
It became evident over the years that passive income generated significant disincentives to seeking employment. It certainly did nothing to develop the skills of the unemployed to make them more employable and more productive members of the labour force.
I see you indicating that I should conclude my remarks, Madam Speaker. The hon. member and his party vehemently opposed in this House and in the Senate the changes to the UI program we introduced two years ago. From 1990 to 1992 we have tripled the $600 million spent to train unemployed Canadians. This has gone up. In 1992 we will be spend $1.8 billion to train unemployed Canadians. I think that speaks louder than the yapping of the hon. member.
February 14, 1992


Mr. David Kilgour (Edmonton Southeast):: Madam Speaker, I have a question for the minister. On February 8, an economist demonstrated, based on unemployment statistics, that Canada would seem to be one of the worse among the OECD nations. I think that only in Spain, Italy and Australia is unemployment worse than here. On the retail sales tax, for instance, we are the worse among the OECD nations, second only to Australia and England I believe. In light of these figures about the OECD nations, can the minister honestly tell us that this government has a sound economic policy?


Bernard Valcourt: Madam Speaker, for the sake of comparing Canada's economic performance to that of the other OECD nations, the hon. member can of course look at some statistics, but I would encourage him to consider the OECD projections as well, to look at them and admit what they say. It is anticipated that out of 23 member nations-


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I am sorry to have to interrupt the minister. I will give him the floor as soon as we resume debate.

It being eleven o'clock a.m., pursuant to Standing Order 30(5), the House will now proceed to Statements by Members pursuant to Standing Order 31.


STATEMENTS PURSUANT TO S. O. 31
[Stage Direction]
Mr. Gilbert Parent (Welland -St. Catharines-Tho-rold: Madam Speaker, I would like to draw to the attention of the House a series of honours which have been bestowed on. Canadian wines.
With a great deal of pride I point out that my constituency, Welland-St. Catharines-Thorold, is in the grape growing area of Ontario.
The president of Inniskillin Wines, Mr. Donald Ziral-do, who is also a former student of mine, has been named to the Royal Order of the Grape. This honour is
awarded annually to an individual who has performed outstanding services for Ontario's grape and wine industry.
Bright's Wines took gold and silver medals at the 1991 International Monde Selection competition held recently in Spain.
In all, I know that all members will be very happy to know that Canadian wines took 18 of the 60 awards at The Cellars of the World wine competition.
Mr. Ken Atkinson (St. Catharines):: Madam Speaker, I want to tell the House today about some alarming statistics concerning Canadian youth and about the unique and innovative project being funded by Health and Welfare Canada to address some of these problems.
Nearly 50 per cent of Canadian teens are sexually active by grade 12. Each year 35,000 teenagers become pregnant, and 79 per cent of teen mothers are single. Sexual abuse is also prevalent among youth in Canada today. One in two females and one in three males are exposed to unwanted sexual acts by the age of 18, and 28 per cent of sex offenders were abused at one time in their lives.
There is a great number of programs available to address these situations. I would like to commend Health and Welfare Canada and the cast and crew of the Degrassi High television series for addressing issues such as sex, sexuality and abuse in a realistic upfront youth based manner. These shows are targeted to youth between the ages of 12 and 17.
I encourage all Canadian youth and their parents to watch these programs.


OCEAN RANGER
Mr. A. H. Harry Brightwell (Perth-Wellington-Waterloo):: Madam Speaker, I rise before the House in memory of the men and women who died on February 15, 1982 as the result of the sinking of the Ocean Ranger drilling unit during a severe Atlantic storm. We must not forget as well the families and friends of these men and women who have had to endure the memory of this tragedy.

February 14, 1992
After 10 years, the Government of Canada will close the last chapter of this tragedy when it tables shortly its final response to the recommendations of the royal commission on the Ocean Ranger marine disaster. This response is a result of extensive consultations with national and international oil and gas stakeholders and will ensure a consistent regulatory regime throughout the frontier lands.
In order to enhance the safety of offshore personnel who work in a very perilous area, namely the Atlantic Ocean, the strengthening of Canada's regulatory regime became of utmost importance to the government. Canada's safety requirements are now one of the most stringent in the world and have been of interest to other countries including the Soviet Union and China.

[Translation}


TAXATION
Mrs. Shirley Maheu (Saint-Laurent-Cartierville):: Madam Speaker, I would like to bring to your attention the case of a couple from my riding. Because they are both retired, they are not entitled to child care expense deductions under the Income Thx Act.
I think it would be important that exception provisions be included in this act to avoid penalizing seniors who, for personal reasons, have a young child.
I would appreciate it if the Minister of Revenue would consider including such an exception in the Income Tax Act as soon as possible.


HEART MONTH
Mr. Jim Karpoff (Surrey North):: Madam Speaker, February is Heart Month. Heart disease and strokes are responsible for more than 40 per cent of deaths in Canada and cost an estimated $17 billion annually.
The Heart and Stroke Foundation has taken a leading role in fighting the causes of heart disease. The foundation has joined other health agencies to campaign against tobacco which kills more than 38,000 Canadians annually and causes more than 30 per cent of heart disease deaths. We have accomplished much in this area, but
much remains to be done with regard to cigarette package health warnings, helping smokers to quit and finding alternative crops for tobacco farmers.
Let us mark Heart Month with more progress toward making a smoke-free Canada. Let us mark Heart Month with support for the Heart and Stroke Foundation.


OLYMPIC GAMES
Mr. Rene Soetens (Ontario):: Madam Speaker, I rise to express sentiments that I am sure all Canadians share with me today, our deepest pride in Canada's athletes competing at the Albertville Olympics, and my most sincere congratulations on their performances over the last few days.
Most of us are aware of the bronze medal won by Isabelle Brasseur and Lloyd Eisler from Boucherville, Quebec, in the figure skating pairs competition. This is not only Canada's first medal at these games, but also the first medal win for Canada in this event since 1964.
I would also like to draw the attention of the House to Canadian athletes who have achieved a best ever performance by a Canadian at the Olympics, Rob Crossan of Barrie, Ontario, who finished 12th in the men's alpine combined and Steve Cyr of Val-Belair, Quebec, who finished 8th in the men's 10-km biathlon.
Another source of great pleasure and admiration to Canadians everywhere is our hockey team which remains undefeated after three games.
I know you will join me in applauding the achievements of our athletes today, as well as wishing all the best to the many others who will be competing at these prestigious games in the next few days.


DOMESTIC WORKERS
Mr. David Berger (Saint-Henri-Westmount):: Madam Speaker, I want to condemn, in the strongest terms, recent changes to the foreign domestic program which the immigration minister has called "improvements designed to address the concerns of domestic workers and employers". What garbage. Both domestic workers and employers are opposed to these so-called improvements.
February 14, 1992

The minister is taking away the right of workers to be assessed as potential landed immigrants before coming to Canada on work permits and the right to apply for such status from within Canada after two years of service as live-in domestic workers.
This will subject workers to the pre-1981 scenario of exploitation by employers, discrimination and the denial of human rights.
Further, educational standards that the minister is now asking for will effectively close the door to women from many poorer countries. This is blatant discrimination.
This policy is another blow to Canadian families. The reality is that the two-parent working family has become the norm. When both parents work, they need help in the home.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I am sorry, but your time is up.


THE DEFICIT
Mr. Garth Turner (Halton-Peel):: Madam Speaker, in an effort to pursue their own agenda of high government spending, the Public Service Alliance of Canada and the National Union of Provincial Government Employees have just published a comic book on the national deficit.
But this comic book does not contain any laughs. Instead, it is an attempt to con Canadians into believing that deficits are good and that Ottawa should spend more money, especially on its own employees.
I am amazed at the contradictions this booklet contains. On one page the unions complain about high taxes and on another page they say that there is nothing wrong with deficits.
The union brothers and sisters forget one economic fact. Deficits are deferred taxes. Yesterday's deficits are today's taxes.
Tkxes are high today because governments spent more than they earned in previous years. For unions to suggest that we continue doing that will only further enslave Canadians.
I suggest that if anybody wants proof, they should go and talk to Ontario premier and deficit fighter, Bob Rae.


IMMIGRATION AND REFUGEE BOARD
Mr. Dan Heap (THnity-Spadina):: Madam Speaker, on Monday, while an Iranian refugee claimant was telling how he was tortured, the two IRB refugee division commissioners judging his claim were sniggering and passing derisive notes to each other according to The Globe and Mail today.
The Minister of Employment and Immigration and the chairman of the IRB have said such conduct is unacceptable and that these excellent commissioners have flipped. They instructed assistant deputy chair Anna Ker to have these members apologize.
That is not enough. Do not just make scapegoats out of Mr. Snow and Ms. Goldie to hide the real scandal that could drive them to flip.
The commissioners are supposed to be independent decision makers, but a former commissioner has told me that they were being pressured to make more and more negative decisions, sending possible refugees back to persecution. The refusal rate has risen to 36 per cent.
I challenge this government to appoint an independent inquiry into the hidden pressures on commissioners directed by Ms. Anna Ker.


THE CONSTITUTION
Mr. Ken James (Sarnia-Lambton):: Madam Speaker, the Government of Canada proposes an amendment to the Constitution to entrench a general justiciable right to aboriginal self-government in order to recognize the autonomy of aboriginal peoples over their own affairs within the Canadian federation.
In my riding the Sarnia-Lambton Constituents Assembly Committee was sympathetic to the demands of our native people for the right to govern their own affairs. It is unacceptable that our native people who were the first people to live on this land are subjected at times to social and economic disadvantages.

February 14, 1992
Now is the time for our aboriginal people to be included in these discussions. The majority of Canadians feel this is the time to close the circle of Confederation and ensure that aboriginal people in Canada can creatively and positively pursue their economic, political, social and cultural objectives within Canada.
This is the Canada round. Canada's first people must not be left out in the cold.


SOMALIA
Mr. John Manley (Ottawa South):: Madam Speaker, I want to bring to the attention of House the critical situation in Somalia.
According to a report issued last week by the Red Cross, people are starving as no major food distribution has been able to occur since mid-November. A further
250,000	displaced people in and around Mogadishu are estimated to be at risk and the weakest are already dying.
The conflict in Somalia has assumed the proportions of a devastating war and Somalia now lies in ruins. Mogadishu has been shelled and looted. Electricity and telephone lines are cut and armed gangs speed through the streets. Relatives of many Somalian families living in Canada have suffered rape and slaughter.
With food extremely scarce and no work, the population is in despair. As indiscriminate killing has resulted in widespread panic there has been the displacement of thousands of people, even whole towns.
Human suffering should evoke a human response wherever and whenever it occurs. Let us not overlook the intense suffering of our brothers and sisters in the land of Somalia merely because the international news-


Madam Deputy Speaker:: The hon. member's time has expired.


OCEAN RANGER
Mr. Greg Thompson (Carleton-Charlotte):: Madam Speaker, the Hickman Royal Commission was established by the federal and Newfoundland governments in February 1982 in response to the Ocean Ranger disaster.
This tragedy occurred on February 15, 1982 off the coast of Newfoundland and resulted in the loss of 84 lives.
The commission was charged with the responsibility to investigate the loss of the Ocean Ranger and all the members of its crew and to examine the safety of offshore drilling operations. Numerous recommendations have been acted upon.
Commissioner Alexander Hickman wrote two reports, one in 1984 and a second one in 1985. A total of 136 recommendations were developed relating to safety, training and government regulation of activity.
It should be noted that the majority of the recommendations have been addressed. The Hickman reports were released and the recommendations were addressed between the years 1985 and 1991.


THE CONSTITUTION
Mr. Robert E. Skelly (Comox-Alberni):: Madam Speaker, Canadians do not need to accept the constitutional tradeoff being proposed in some quarters.
Some say we must support either Quebec's aspirations to be recognized as a distinct society, or the aspirations of aboriginal people to have their own distinctiveness acknowledged. I recognize both.
But aboriginal demands for this recognition are not new. A prominent Quebecer referred to them last summer when he said: "As a Quebecer calling myself different I have some kind of sympathy for those who express their differences. They are really distinct people and we have never said we would never accept the concept itself. Inuit and native people are not special interest groups; they are nations, they are societies, they are different and they will be treated as such".
That prominent Quebecer was the Minister of National Health and Welfare, speaking last August 15 as co-chair of the unity committee of cabinet.
I hope the constitutional conference in Vancouver this weekend will take heed of his other comment at that time: "We should not be afraid of words," he said. "Distinct and self-determination are not things that a country should break up over".
February 14, 1992


THE PRIME MINISTER
Mr. Don Boudria (Glengarry-Prescott-Russell):: Madam Speaker, this is Valentine's Day, a day of love and friendship. Let us take the opportunity to offer heartfelt congratulations to the Prime Minister for his lovely message to Canadians yesterday.
The boy wonder from Baie Comeau while on tour in southwestern Ontario passionately declared: "If you don't like me, don't vote for me". I love it, Madam Speaker. Such honesty, courage and piercing insight are applauded by the Liberal Party and all Canadians.
However, 84 per cent of us had thought of that already. Only 16 per cent had any intention of voting for him and his party. Now even die-hard Tories have been relieved of this tremendous burden. Thanks to the Prime Minister's remarks, all Canadians will now be able to do the right thing in the next election: defeat the Tories and elect a Liberal government which will have the interest of Canadians at heart.
What a heart-warming thought for Valentine's Day.


OCEAN RANGER
Mr. John A. MacDougall (Timiskaming):: Madam Speaker, tomorrow marks the 10th anniversary of the Ocean Ranger tragedy off the shores of Newfoundland. This day 10 years ago was a sad day for all Canadians, particularly for the people of Newfoundland.
A royal commission was established to inquire into the loss of the Ocean Ranger and to make recommendations to the federal government with respect to both the marine and drilling aspects of offshore drilling operations. To date, over 90 per cent of the recommendations from the Hickman royal commission have been addressed.
After extensive consultations with other federal departments, provincial and territorial governments, offshore petroleum boards, the National Energy Board, and the industry, I am pleased to inform that the government's response to the remaining recommendations is being finalized into legislation and that the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources will be introducing it shortly into the House.
Oral Questions



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Mr. Paul Martin (LaSalle-Emard):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Deputy Prime Minister. U.S. tariffs imposed on Hondas made in Canada show how amateurishly the free trade agreement was negotiated.
Why did the government sign this agreement before it had even agreed on the definition of North American content for cars made in Canada? Why has the government sat on its hands, as it were, for three years before acting?


Hon. Tom Hockin (Minister of State (Small Businesses and Tourism)):: Madam Speaker, the hon. member knows that the definition of content has been in place for many decades. It was there while the negotiation was held for the FTA. The auto pact was not part of the FTA. If anything the FTA, by putting in place a dispute settlement mechanism which was not there before, enhances the auto pact, helps protect harassment against our automotive exports, and helps to secure the FTA itself.


Paul Edgar Philippe Martin: Madam Speaker, surely the minister knows that the auto pact dealt with the big three automotive companies and did not deal with new investments like the Japanese companies coming in. That is what the free trade agreement was supposed to protect.
The minister then went on to talk about the dispute settlement mechanism. The time delay, the uncertainty while we wait for a decision from that flawed mechanism, simply means the U.S. can use it to send a signal to divert new investment from Canada to the United States.
I will tell you what is happening here, Madam Speaker. We are being subjected to economic arson by the United States, and this government has supplied the kerosene and the match.
What is the government going to do to erase the tremendous obstacle to new investment that has been caused by the fact that the dispute settlement mecha-

February 14, 1992
Oral Questions
nism itself is being used as a stall to frustrate the creation of new jobs in this country?


Thomas Hockin: Madam Speaker, the only credible incendiary activity that I could vouch for is the suggestion by the leader of the Liberal Party that they will rip up the free trade agreement and therefore burn up the whole dispute settlement mechanism, which, as the Prime Minister made clear yesterday, is in fact an insurance policy that we have in place to deal with harassment from American companies.
By the way, my hon. friend imputes the current dispute to the American government. As he knows, these are private sector initiated efforts. We do not agree with those efforts. I am not too sure the American administration does. Therefore we are pursuing our influence in every way we can with the American administration. If that does not work to our satisfaction, we will pursue our rights under chapters 18 and 19 of the free trade agreement.


Paul Edgar Philippe Martin: Madam Speaker, to the best of my knowledge U.S. Customs is part of the U.S. government.
The minister shakes his head. Boy, it shows what these guys know about government. Section 18, by the way, is non-binding. You ought to begin to learn that.
In terms of shredding the agreement, the U.S. is shredding the free trade agreement and this government is letting it happen.
It is doing so because this government talks big and it acts small. The only way to protect Canadian jobs is to tell the U.S. now what we will do if it does not stop harassing us immediately. We are its largest trading partner, and the only way we are going to stop an eventual trade war is if we show firm resolve at this very crucial moment.
We know what the U.S. is doing to us. The issue is: Does this government have the guts to respond? Will this government tell the House today what specific measures of retaliation it is prepared to take against the United States in the case of Honda?


Thomas Hockin: Madam Speaker, I suppose the hon. member wants to send in the troops as well. The Liberal policy toward trade with the United States when there is
any provocation is in fact to retaliate in some sort of absurd way.
What we have in place is a structure which allows us to deal with this in a way that we did not have before the free trade agreement. The hon. member knows that.
Let me just address his allegation that the U.S. Customs Service is part of the U.S. government's tariff and trade stance. It is not. Independent private sector operators ask for audits. Audits are conducted by U.S. Customs. What eventually happens will be decided by negotiation. Also it will be subject, for the first time ever since the free trade agreement, to the dispute settlement mechanism which we now have in place.
The dispute settlement mechanism gives us equality when we have a dispute, something that was never there before the free trade agreement. The hon. member is against the free trade. What would he put in place for settling disputes?


HIBERNIA
Mr. Brian Tobin (Humber-St. Barbe-Baie Verte):: Madam Speaker, 10 days ago in the wake of Gulf Canada's announced pull-out from the Hibernia project, the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources told the House, and through the House told Canadians, that it was business as usual, that the Hibernia project would proceed on schedule.
This morning, in a devastating blow to Newfoundland and Labrador, the pace of Hibernia development was cut in half and over 600 workers were given their lay-off notices.
What assurances, if any, can the Deputy Prime Minister on behalf of this government give to the remaining
1,000	workers whose livelihood depends on the continuance of the Hibernia oil and gas project?


Hon. Don Mazankowski (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance):: Madam Speaker, as the hon. member knows, the decision of Gulf to pull out of the Hibernia consortium was a commercial decision and that triggered a number of events.
It is important to ensure that the project does go forward. Obviously the withdrawal of one member of the consortium does have an impact upon the financial operations and the cash flow. It is encouraging that the consortium is regrouping and restructuring its efforts to
February 14, 1992

see that the project does go ahead. Of course in that regard the Government of Canada will co-operate.


Brian Vincent Tobin: Madam Speaker, the people of Newfoundland and Labrador find it frightening that only 10 days ago they were told: "Don't worry, this project is proceeding", and this morning 600 of their fellow Newfoundlanders and Labradorians are without work.
Can the Deputy Prime Minister tell the House, and through the House the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, what specifically the government is doing to assist the remaining members of the consortium to find a new investor or investors to ensure that the Hibernia project does not go the way of so many other projects and jobs in this Canadian economy during a time of recession?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Madam Speaker, that is a fair and valid question.
The Government of Canada has been involved from the very outset in the promotion of this project and it is still involved today. The Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources has been in Newfoundland, meeting with the members of the consortium. I think the most encouraging words were those words spoken by the Hibernia executive committee chairman, Norman McIntyre, when he said: "Our planned actions are being taken to ensure every effort is being made to maintain reasonable progress on the development of Hibernia". I think that is key, that is critical. The government is involved in that exercise with the members of the consortium and I can assure the hon. member of that.


ATLANTIC ECONOMY
Mr. Steven W. Langdon (Essex-Windsor):: Madam Speaker, it is a very sombre day for Atlantic Canada, not just because of the 650 lay-offs which have been announced in the case of Hibernia but because we just heard word that Fishery Products International is laying off 1,000 workers in Newfoundland.
We have also had word today that 810 workers were having their jobs shifted from Halifax to Ontario by Sears
Oral Questions
Canada. That is a total loss of almost 2,500 jobs hitting Atlantic Canada in one day. That is not just tragic; that is devastating for this region.
I want to ask a question of the Deputy Prime Minister. In view of this series of catastrophic blows announced today, what assurances can the Deputy Prime Minister give to Atlantic Canadians that there is going to be action by this government to replace these jobs and give opportunities to Atlantic Canada to be part of future growth in this country?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Madam Speaker, as I indicated in response to an earlier question, the Government of Canada is very much involved and has been involved in the promotion of the Hibernia project. We are there today, as we have been in the past in the original development of this very important initiative.
I am sure the hon. member will be aware that the Government of Canada awarded to the Saint John Shipbuilding organization one of the largest defence contracts ever undertaken, ever issued in Canadian history. That work is taking place in Saint John, New Brunswick.
The hon. member will also be aware that Halifax-Dar-mouth Industries received the contract for the building and development of the mine sweepers. He will also know that we are actively engaged in promotion of the Prince Edward Island fixed link, which would be a very important capital project. I am sure he is also aware of my recent announcement wherein we undertook to increase equalization payments to the have not provinces, and the Atlantic provinces particularly have been the major beneficiary of that action.
While I agree that there are some unfortunate developments, I think it is fair to say, in fairness, that the Government of Canada is responding.


Steven W. Langdon: Madam Speaker, I have a supplementary question.
The minister has listed a series of past actions by this government. What I am talking about today is 2,500 jobs that have been lost in Atlantic Canada in one day.
I say to the Minister of Finance that it is not good enough to get up and recite the past to try to respond to this devastation of today.

February 14, 1992
Oral Questions
What is the Deputy Prime Minister prepared to do to respond to the loss in one day of 650 jobs in the Hibernia case, 1,000 lay-offs from Fisheries Products International, and the loss of 810 jobs shifted to Ontario? What is he prepared to do today to give assurances to Atlantic Canada that there is going to be-


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


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Madam Speaker, with regard to the problems in the fisheries, I am sure the hon. member is aware that the total allowable catch has been adjusted downward because of the lack of cod stocks.
My understanding is that still remains a very serious problem and it is deteriorating day by day. We have an Atlantic Fisheries Adjustment Program in place of something close to $600 million that provides for transition and assistance for those particular workers. The hon. member suggests that we have lost x number of jobs in one day. I remember when the government was promoting the Hibernia project. One of the reasons we had difficulty getting that bill through was because the New Democratic Party was opposed to it. Now he stands up and talks about how good it was. Where were you then when we needed you?


Madam Deputy Speaker:: The hon. member for Essex-Windsor has been presenting very long questions. It would be appreciated if we could have shorter questions and then we could have shorter answers.


Steven W. Langdon: I would simply say that this is an extremely serious situation. It is not something for partisan point scoring. I say to the Minister of Finance that when 2,500 jobs are lost in a single day-


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Does the hon. member have a question, please?


Steven W. Langdon: When 2,500 jobs are lost in a day, it is something that requires immediate government assurances.
I ask this government and I ask this Minister of Finance: What is he prepared to do for Atlantic Canada to give the people some hope in the face of this devastating news? What is he prepared to do now?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Madam Speaker, as my hon. friends across the way in the Liberal Party reminded me, the New Democratic Party opposed the Hibernia project. I thank them for reminding me of that because we hear now a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth, and tears falling from the eyes of the New Democratic Party. But I do not underestimate the seriousness of it.
My colleague, the Minister of State for Grains and Oilseeds, has just handed me a document from Statistics Canada which reveals that the food and beverage industry for the Atlantic region has increased its employment base by 5 per cent or 1,900 workers in the last few months.
That is the kind of encouragement, that is the kind of adjustment that needs to take place. It is reflective of the globalization and the fact that we have to change from a resource based society to a more processing, knowledge based and technology based society. The government has in place a number of programs that, indeed, encourages that.
He asks me what I am going to do today. We are continuing to work at promoting the Prince Edward Island fixed link. We hope that it will become a reality and will provide needed access to the province of Prince Edward Island, plus jobs.


FISHERIES
Hon. Roger C. Simmons (Burin-St. George's):: Madam Speaker, it is not all bad; the NDP have found Atlantic Canada.
More seriously, the Hibernia bombshell today-and it has to be categorized as such-plus the lay-off at Fishery Products International, those 1,000 people in Catalina, together constitute a very big kick in the guts on what is now a very bleak Valentine's Day for those people.
I want to go to the fisheries issue and ask the Deputy Prime Minister: Does he not recognize the increasing
February 14, 1992

importance of preserving the traditional jobs now that some of the more high-tech jobs are slipping through our fingers, it would seem?
In that context, could he tell us what the government has done fairly recently, because he knows his own minister of fisheries has said that traipsing around Europe trying to convince that crowd to stop overfishing is a wasted effort.
What, in particular, is the government going to do to address the problem that he himself identified a moment ago to reduce quotas, caused directly and principally by foreign overfishing?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Madam Speaker, I want to tell the hon. member that I discussed this issue with the minister of fisheries by telephone yesterday. He was in Newfoundland and reminded me of the urgency and the gravity of the situation and the need to step up our campaign with respect to foreign fishing outside the 200-mile limit. That still is a very serious problem and he has an action plan to deal with that more effectively.
The Atlantic Fisheries Adjustment Program is a program that is administered both by my colleague, the Minister of Employment and Immigration, and the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. There are programs in place to ensure that adjustment and that transition can be looked after. We certainly will be examining that program to ensure that it is sufficient to deal with the problem at hand. I can assure the hon. member we recognize the seriousness of it and we will be dealing with it in a specific way as soon as the hon. member returns from Newfoundland.


Roger Simmons: Madam Speaker, I thank the Deputy Prime Minister. He is obviously focusing on this issue but there is another possibility. What if all the talk does not work with the Europeans, as it has not thus far?
Is he, or is the government, then prepared to go the next step and do what follows quite naturally from the 1977 Law of the Sea agreement? Is the government prepared, after due notice and after a fairly reasonable deadline, to extend the continental shelf to embrace the nose and tail of the Grand Bank and the Flemish Cap and by extension to protect those fish stocks and put them within Canadian control rather than the hands of a toothless wonder called NAPO?
Oral Questions


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Madam Speaker, the hon. member poses a hypothetical situation and I think it would be inappropriate for me to speculate except I can assure the hon. member that we recognize the seriousness of the problem.
We have in place the framework of programs that can be utilized. We will ensure that there are adequate resources provided to ensure that assistance is provided to the fishermen.
In terms of the broader question, the hon. minister of fisheries has some new approaches and ideas with respect to this and I would like to discuss those with him and other cabinet colleagues before speculating on the what-ifs that the hon. members has raised. Obviously he considers it to be a very serious problem. I can assure him that we do too and we will be doing our level best to deal with it.


INTEREST RATES
Mrs. Diane Marleau (Sudbury):: Madam Speaker, this government keeps saying that the cure to our recessionary woes is a lower interest rate. Yet for the third week in a row the government has allowed the Bank of Canada rate to go up.
I ask the Minister of Finance, if this government is so interested in getting the economy moving again, why is this government allowing the cancellation of its own
remedy?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Madam Speaker, as I indicated in the House yesterday, we have experienced a fair amount of volatility in the exchange markets over the last three weeks and what we are seeing are the market forces at work.
I think the hon. member realizes that these kinds of ups and downs have occurred in the past and will probably occur in the future. The fact of the matter is the trend line on lower interest rates has been real. The easing of monetary conditions, both at the interest rate level and the exchange rate level, has been real and that has, as I noted in the newspaper today, made home ownership at one of the lowest levels it has been for quite some time. All of these things, particularly those sectors that are interest rate sensitive, have been helped a great deal.

February 14, 1992
Oral Questions
I can assure the hon. member that this is the market forces at play and it is the market that is causing this to occur.


Diane Marleau: Madam Speaker, is this minister imagining that the recession is over? Could he also be imagining that Canadians are all back at work after everything we have heard this morning?
Can the minister today tell Canadians that this three-week increase in the Bank of Canada rate is just an adjustment and not a long-term trend?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Madam Speaker, there are no quick or magic fixes. The hon. member knows that.
There is no Minister of Finance who can-


John V. Nunziata: You are going to allow interest rates to go up.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: The hon. member says I am going to let interest rates go up. The fact of the matter is that interest rates have come down by 7.5 percentage points since the high of 1990.


UNEMPLOYMENT
Mr. David Barrett (Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca):: Madam Speaker, more than 461,000 jobs in the manufacturing sector have disappeared.
I want to ask the Minister of State for Small Businesses and Tourism about the 461,000 jobs that have disappeared. It is a 23 per cent drop compared to only a 6 per cent drop in the United States. It is the worst drop in manufacturing jobs in Canada since the depression of 1929-1930, the late lamented history. Does the minister not agree that this is low-level politics on the Honda issue along with these statistics by the United States administration?


Thomas Hockin: Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question. I have to agree with him. I think it is low-level politics and the Prime Minister of Canada made that clear in his interview yesterday.
The Americans are caught in a protectionist fever as a result of manufacturing job losses in the United States and they are lashing out, primarily against the Japanese, and we are being side-swiped.
Thank heavens we have processes to deal with this. We have a process in place that was not there before the free trade agreement which is the dispute settlement mechanism. Before that has to be invoked, and perhaps it will have to be invoked very soon, we are pursuing aggressively all of our avenues.
I want to speak about the hon. member's statistics. He mentioned 461,000 manufacturing jobs. The NDP does this all the time. It keeps mentioning that number. It is not accurate. There is a lot of double counting involved in it. Manufacturing job loss in Canada has been substantial and it has been real. It has been very similar in proportion to job loss in the United States.


David Barrett: Madam Speaker, I want to confirm that the figures I used are from StatsCanada, January 1992 and also the U.S. department of labour. They are government agencies.
The minister seems to be confused about government agencies and the U.S. Customs. In an earlier reply to a member in this House, He said that the assault on Honda was not politics and had to be reminded that it was his own Prime Minister who said that it was low-level politics. The minister cannot have it both ways. He cannot deny that there are low-level politics in the United States.
Now that the minister has admitted there are low-level politics, when are we going to get some high-level politics, some leadership from this government and cancel the Canada-U.S. FTA and get out of talks with Mexico? If that is not a request, then what is he doing about the low-level politics?


Thomas Hockin: Madam Speaker, the hon. member is not shedding any light at all on this issue by taking the word politics and interchanging what it means. What he is alleging is that the American administration is pressing the U.S. Customs department to pursue these audits. In fact this is not happening; it is congressmen, independent of the administration, plus industrial groups doing it.
February 14, 1992

However, we look to the administration of the United States to correct this, to see the lack of wisdom in such actions. If it does not we will revert with confidence to the dispute settlement mechanism.


HOUSING
Mrs. Louise Feltham (Wild Rose):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the minister responsible for housing.
A 1990 evaluation conducted by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation has shown co-op housing to be highly successful in creating healthy mixed income communities.
Since the index linked mortgage introduced in Canada by the co-op housing sector has substantially reduced the cost to the government of producing non-profit co-op housing, would the minister please tell the House the status of this program?


Hon. John McDermid (Minister of State (Finance and Privatization)):: Madam Speaker, the minister responsible for CMHC is away from the House on government business today.
I can quote from a press release of the minister's of December 17, 1991, when he said program funding for 1992 is $6.1 million and is based on last year's level adjusted .for inflation.


GENERAL AGREEMENT ON TARIFFS AND TRADE
Mr. Mark Assad (Gatineau-La Lievre):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Agriculture or the Minister of State for Agriculture. Since this House passed a resolution concerning GATT on Wednesday, February 12 and our party's amendment requires the Prime Minister to meet personally with the President of the United States and the President of the European Economic Community, at what point in the GATT negotiations will the Prime Minister hold these meetings in order to demand that article XI of GATT be strengthened?


Hon. Pierre Blais (Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs and Minister of State (Agriculture)):: Madam
Oral Questions
Speaker, as the Prime Minister said yesterday, I believe, he personally invited the agricultural leaders to meet with him next Tuesday, in a few days-the agenda still has to be finalized-as the Prime Minister has done many, many times before. Indeed, the Prime Minister has met Canadian farm leaders dozens of times since 1984 when we took power, and he will meet them again. I will remind my hon. colleague that he was not there then, but the previous Prime Minister, in the previous government never found the time in 16 years to meet the farm leaders. This shows the Prime Minister's interest and he has always respected farm leaders. I think that the Canadian people have shown their trust in us before.


Mark Joseph Assad: Madam Speaker, you noticed that my question was very clear. This House passed a very clear resolution. Canadian farmers and members of this House would just like to know when the Prime Minister will personally meet the President of the United States and the President of the European Economic Community on this issue of article XI, which is extremely important for agriculture in Canada.


Pierre Blais: Madam
Speaker, the Prime Minister will meet the farm leaders on Tuesday. Obviously we will discuss strategy at that meeting. As the Prime Minister said yesterday, there is a clear intention to meet with the countries that support us throughout the world, in Europe and elsewhere. Neither the Prime Minister nor we have ruled out any possible meeting with the leaders in the United States or Europe. I think that the Prime Minister will have an opportunity to discuss this strategy with the farm leaders, and when the time comes next Tuesday we will know more on this side. I think it is normal and shows respect for the farm leaders who will be here on Thesday that we can discuss this strategy with them and do what is best to defend the producers' interests.


BOOK PUBLISHING INDUSTRY
Mrs. Sheila Finestone (Mount Royal):: Madam Speaker, before the free trade agreement, this government undertook to Canadianize our book publishing industry. Since free trade, there has not been any will and no concrete action to enforce this policy' made by Canadians and for Canadians.

February 14, 1992
Oral Questions
Is the government going to permit the foreign takeover of Canadian publishing subsidiaries like Harper-Collins, Collier-Macmillan and Grolier which are presently before Investment Canada? Is it going to sell off $150 million of our book publishing industry to foreigners?


Hon. Perrin Beatty (Minister of Communications):: Madam Speaker, what the government is doing is announcing and enforcing a policy designed to help us Canadianize the book publishing industry in Canada.
That is why the Canadian book publishing industry is so enthusiastic about the new policy. Our determination is to ensure that more Canadian titles are published, that more Canadian authors have the opportunity to have their books sold and that more Canadians read more Canadian books.


Sheila Finestone: Madam Speaker, it is an excellent objective. It is too bad it cannot be reached by the kind of policy put forth by this government.
Now that the Minister of Communications has effectively lost control of the Canadian book publishing industry, when will this minister act to ensure that in accepting the foreign takeovers his government will, at the minimum, require the distribution of foreign titles through Canadian controlled book publishers?


Henry Perrin Beatty: Madam Speaker, the hon, member is essentially elaborating on a column that was written by a left wing anti-American writer of fiction in today's newspaper. It is indeed an example of fiction.


Sheila Finestone: Why don't you read The Globe and Main


Henry Perrin Beatty: That is where I saw it.
The conspiracy theory which is being propounded here is that there is a grand conspiracy between Canada and the United States that in anticipation of the possibility-


Sheila Finestone: There is.


Henry Perrin Beatty: -in anticipation of the Americans being critical as part of the free trade negotiations that Canada, in advance, decided to hand the whole of the Canadian book publishing industry to the Americans.
The only problem with this particular conspiracy theory is that the very first people we heard from after the new policy was announced was the Americans complaining. If there is a conspiracy with the Americans, it must be such a secret conspiracy that even the Americans could not be allowed into it.


CROSS-BORDER SHOPPING
Kenneth Albert James: Madam Speaker, I would like to direct a question to the Minister of National Revenue. As he knows, the cross-border shopping phenomenon is a multi-faceted problem. He should also know that the retailers and consumers in my area want to thank him for the recent initiatives he has announced. It is helping to level out the playing field, but we need a little more levelling because there are some other problems.
Today I would like to ask the minister whether he is supportive of the recently requested increased number of Customs officers required for the Blue Water Bridge so that they can do proper inspections and collect the appropriate duties and taxes at the border.


Hon. Otto Jelinek (Minister of National Revenue):: Madam Speaker, the hon. member will know that in the last fiscal year we have increased personnel at Blue Water by some 10 person-years. We are in the process of negotiating an agreement which will increase the number of toll booths at Blue Water. Obviously, if we are going to increase toll booths, we are going to increase personnel to man those toll booths.
Let me point out to hon. members that it is my belief and my hope that as a result of the announcements made earlier and the initiatives announced earlier this week the reduction of cross-border shopping will continue to escalate as we move into 1992. Hopefully the provinces will move toward harmonization, and specifically the province of Ontario toward Sunday shopping which would help the situation even further.
February 14, 1992


COASTAL PATROL VESSELS
Mr. John Brewin (Victoria):: Madam Speaker, my question is for whoever is answering on behalf of the Minister of National Defence or the Associate Minister of National Defence. In answering an earlier question, the Minister of Finance listed the coastal patrol vessel project as one of the government's accomplishments for Atlantic Canada. Yet, precisely because of the actions of this government, this project is now in jeopardy.
After announcing the contract, the government has now proposed a condition of a $100 million guarantee performance bond. That is higher than it has asked in any other similar project. Will the government assure this House that this belated move is not just a ploy to permit the government to get out of this project and blame the contractor and the provincial government for its demise.


Hon. Harvie Andre (Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons):: Madam Speaker, I can assure the hon. member that it is no ploy and it is not belated. In fact, standard procedure was part of it in the first instance and there has been nothing untoward, nothing out of the ordinary. It is common practice when committing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars of the taxpayers money that we have some assurance that the taxpayer gets value for it. That is all that is involved.


John F. Brewin: Madam Speaker, in the case of the frigate program the requirement of Saint John Shipyard was a $60 million loan guarantee for a $6 billion project.
In Nova Scotia, the requirement of a $100 million performance guarantee was asked after the fact on a $450 million project, $250 million of which is for Halifax. The provincial government has now said that it is too high. I would assume this government talks to its provincial counterparts before it makes this kind of deal. Is the government simply incompetent or negligent? What is going on in this project? Will the government assure the House that this project is going ahead?


Harvie Andre: I guess the answer is none of the above. One thing this government is, in distinction to the members of the New Democratic
Oral Questions
Party, concerned about the taxpayers getting value for their money.


REFUGEES
Mrs. Marlene Catterall (Ottawa West):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Employment and Immigration concerning Peter Zujewsky, Marzena To-mala and their seven-month old Canadian bom daughter, Agatha. This family faces a deportation hearing next week if they do not leave Canada this weekend, even though they have been models of good citizenship, working three jobs, putting down roots and learning both official languages on their own.
Will the minister personally intervene today and grant a minister's permit to allow this couple to stay in Canada with their Canadian born daughter?


Bernard Valcourt: Madam Speaker, I have had the chance to speak personally with the hon. member about this case. I indicated to her that I have reviewed this case personally and I am satisfied that our refugee determination process has been fair.
Again, we cannot and we should not forget that the primary role of the refugee determination process is to protect genuine refugees and not a fast track immigration process.


Marlene Catterall: Madam Speaker, my supplementary question is for the same minister.
Clearly a four-year delay has changed substantially the situation. I have here the minutes of the review board hearing the minister just referred to. The board took the highly unusual step in this case of requesting the minister to give full compassionate and humanitarian consideration to this couple and even gave the minister helpful comments on their character and commitment to Canada.
In light of this, I ask again: Will he please give his personal consideration to these favourable comments, use the discretion he clearly has and allow this couple and their daughter to stay?


Bernard Valcourt: Madam Speaker, as I indicated yesterday to the hon. member, in order to protect the integrity of the refugee determination process, this cannot be a fast-track immigration process.

February 14, 1992
Oral Questions
I have indicated to the hon. member that this family can apply for immigration from outside Canada like everyone else and will be given consideration.


EMPLOYMENT
Mr. Jesse Flis (Parkdale-High Park):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the same minister. It pertains to the unemployed in this country.
Canada Employment had a casual employment placement office in my riding where 30 to 40 people would line up every morning to at least get a casual, short-time job. With no notice, with unemployment at record levels in Toronto, with the permanent Canada Employment office telling these people they have no jobs for them, this government closed the office at 341 Keele Street.
I ask the minister: Where are these people supposed to go to find work? Where are they supposed to go when the casual placement offices are being closed by this government?


Bernard Valcourt: Madam Speaker, my department has something like 1,200 points of delivery in Canada. I regret, but I am not aware of the details of the specific case he mentions. Had he given me notice I could have looked into it, which I will do, and get back to him.


Jesse Philip Flis: Madam Speaker, I will do the homework for the minister. I called Canada Employment yesterday and I was told that there had been acts of vandalism against the building and violence against the staff. These obvious acts of frustration as a result of the unemployment situation are just the tip of the iceberg.
When will this minister implement the Liberal five-point plan for economic recovery and solve the unemployment problem by getting Canadians back to constructive, productive and full-time jobs?


Bernard Valcourt: Madam Speaker, I did not see anything of
full-time production in the suggestion of the Liberals to throw money at the employment problem.
The government has indicated that it is interested in having the fundamentals of the economy right and relying on the private sector to create long-term, permanent jobs which Canadians need.


GOODS AND SERVICES TAX
Garth Turner: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of National Revenue. Where is all the GST money going?


Otto John Jelinek: Madam Speaker, it is not in my pockets, I will tell you that.
I think the hon. member knows that this government has set up a debt servicing and reduction fund. The legislation has gone through second reading and is before the appropriate parliamentary committee. All of the GST funds, to the last penny, are going to go into that debt servicing and reduction fund. It will be audited independently by the Auditor General to allow Canadians to see for themselves exactly where the money is going.
May I add for the benefit of the hon. members that there is no windfall. In fact, we estimate the number of dollars will be exactly as projected in last year's budget.


IMMIGRATION AND REFUGEE BOARD
Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Employment and Immigration who has condemned the behaviour of the two refugee board members who joked about the testimony of an Iranian describing the torture he had endured.
The minister surely knows that there have been other cases of unacceptable behaviour by commissioners and that commissioners, former commissioners and former adjudicators, have complained of undue pressure on them to reject more and more refugee claims, although they are supposed to be independent decision makers.

As a result, in the period of about a year the rate of rejection has gone up to 36 per cent. Therefore, I ask the minister whether he will appoint an independent inquiry to investigate these pressures, especially within the jurisdiction of assistant deputy chair Anna Ker.


Bernard Valcourt: Madam Speaker, I share the member's concern about the conduct of the two IRB members who are alleged to have exhibited the kind of conduct that Randolph Gass complained of yesterday, if it is true.
Yesterday I spoke with the chairman of the Immigration and Refugee Board, Mr. Fairweather, and I expressed my serious concern. As of this morning, I am informed that Mr. Fairweather has removed those two members from the hearing schedule as he continues to investigate this matter.
If the hon. member says that he has knowledge of people putting pressure on IRB members to reject cases of genuine refugees, he should bring that information immediately to the attention of the chairman.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


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


[Stage Direction]
23RD AND 24TH REPORTS OF STANDING COMMITTEE
Albert Glen Cooper: Madam Speaker, pursuant to Standing
Routine Proceedings
Order 108,1 have the honour to present the 23rd report of the Standing Committee on House Management regarding the broadcasting of committee meetings.
As well I have the honour to present the 24th report of the Standing Committee on House Management.
[Editor's Note: See today's Votes and Proceedings.]



PUBLIC SERVICE SUPERANNUATION ACT


Hon. Gilles Loiselle (President of the TVeasury Board and Minister of State (Finance)) moved: for leave to introduce Bill C-55, an act to amend certain acts in relation to pensions and to enact the Special Retirement Arrangements Act and the Pension Benefits Division Act.


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



SPENDING CONTROL ACT


Donald Frank Mazankowski: for leave to introduce Bill C-56, an act respecting the control of government expenditures.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Pursuant to Standing Order 68(2), the motion is deemed adopted.
Mr. Mazankowski 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 CANADA PENSION PLAN

February 14, 1992



MEASURE TO AMEND

Harvie Andre: for leave to introduce Bill C-57, an Act to amend the Canada Pension Plan.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I took for granted that there had been some discussion around the House about this matter.


Harvie Andre: Madam Speaker, there have been discussions. What I am proposing now is to introduce for the consideration of members the bill respecting amendments to the Canada Pension Plan allowing the disabled, who have been unable to get the disability pensions to which they are entitled, to receive those pensions.
This bill was passed unanimously by this House but without a royal recommendation and as a result it was turned back by the other place. Therefore, it is simply a replacement of the bill the House has already passed unanimously. I am asking today for unanimous consent to waive the normal 48 hours of notice so that members could have the bill over the weekend. Perhaps we could deal with it on Monday.


Mr. David Dingwall (Cape Breton-East Richmond):: Madam Speaker, the government House leader is correct. There have been discussions among the party House leaders on this particular subject matter. On behalf of my colleague from Winnipeg North we wish to give unanimous consent for the minister to introduce this particular bill.


Mr. Lyle Dean MacWilliam (Okanagan-Shuswap):: Madam Speaker, on behalf of my colleague from Kamloops, our House leader, we would like to see this brought forward and passed as soon as possible. Therefore we agree with that consent.


Mr. Gilles Rocheleau (Hull-Aylmer):: Madam Speaker, as usual and it is a nasty habit, our party, the Bloc Quebecois, was not consulted. However, since we definitely want this motion to get through and this bill to be passed as soon as possible, we will give our consent.


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



MOTION TO EXTEND HOURS OF SITTING

Albert Glen Cooper: Madam Speaker, I believe you will find consent for the following motion:
That, notwithstanding any Standing Order of this House, on Monday, February 17, 1992, upon the completion of the Adjournment Debate, or at the ordinary hour of daily adjournment if no adjournment debate is held, the House will continue to sit until 10 p.m. for the sole purpose of allowing members to make presentations on the results of discussions that they have had with their constituents on the constitutional issue;
That, for the purposes of this special debate, the question before the House shall be "That this House do now adjourn";
That no member be permitted to speak more than once under the provisions of this order and for a period not to exceed ten minutes; that members be permitted to table any document which supports their verbal presentation; and that all such presentations and documents be deemed referred to the Standing Joint Committee on the Government of Canada's Proposals for a Renewed Canada;
That, under the provisions of this order, the Speaker not entertain any dilatory motions or quorum calls; and
That, under the provisions of this order, when no member rises to speak, at no later than 10 p.m., the Speaker shall adjourn the House until the next sitting day.


David Charles Dingwall: Madam Speaker, this is very similar to previous motions that we have passed. I wish to give my consent.
However, in so doing, I want to indicate to the parliamentary secretary that when reference is made to allowing members, that means allowing all members of Parliament regardless of their party or particular affiliation, including Independent members of this House, to participate as they have in the last several nights on which we were debating this particular motion.
February 14, 1992


Gilles Rocheleau: Madam Speaker, I have to say that although we were not consulted, as usual, we did follow the debate. We took part in it and found it interesting. In fact we are hearing interesting things from our colleagues in this House and we are certainly going to give our consent to hear some more.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


Albert Glen Cooper: Madam Speaker, I have a second motion for which I believe you will find unanimous consent. I know that consultations have gone on with all parties of the House. I move:
That a special committee of the House of Commons be appointed and empowered to undertake a comprehensive review of the report of the Royal Commission on Electoral Reform and Party Financing tabled in the House of Commons February 13, 1992.
That the Standing Committee on House Management appoint the membership of the special committee and present its report, which shall be deemed concurred in upon presentation to the House of Commons, no later than five sitting days after the adoption of the motion;
That the said special committee be composed of eight members of the House of Commons;
That the said special committee have all powers of a standing committee of the House of Commons pursuant to Standing Orders 108(1), 120 and 121.
That changes in membership of the said special committee be effective immediately after notification signed by the member acting as the chief Whip of any recognized party has been filed with the clerk of the committee.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

Don Boudria: Madam Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, I have
Routine Proceedings
the honour and privilege to table petitions signed by 250 citizens from the electoral district of Glengarry-Prescott-Russell and other places. As could be expected, the petitioners call on this House to urge government to protect and improve article XI of the GATT. These 250 names are in addition to the 2,500 I have tabled in the House over the past few days, for a grand total of 2,750 names.


John F. Brewin: Madam Speaker, I have the honour to present four petitions on different subjects.
The first is a petition from a number of constituents from Victoria who ask that the goods and services tax on feminine sanitary products be removed.


John F. Brewin: The next is a petition circulated by the Public Service Alliance of Canada.
This petition calls on the government, and Parliament in particular, to maintain full inflation protection for federal public employees as a demonstration of Parliament's commitment to fully indexed pensions for all Canadians.
This is signed by many residents of the Victoria area.


John F. Brewin: The third petition is a little late. However, with respect for the constituents of mine and people from across Canada who signed it, I wish to present it in any event. It deals with recognition of the independence of Ukraine, which the government has now given.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: The hon. member is entering into debate. He should make a very succinct explanation of what the petition is about. The hon. member might sit down when the Speaker rises, please. It would be appreciated.
If there is another petition to be introduced, I am sure it will be presented very succinctly.


John F. Brewin: Madam Speaker, I am by training a lawyer and it is difficult for those of us in that profession to be as succinct as you would like. However, I will try to improve in response to your request.

February 14, 1992
Routine Proceedings


John F. Brewin: The next and final petition I would like to present is signed by many hundreds of residents of the Victoria area and calls on the government to conduct a full public federal environmental assessment review respecting the continuing use of Esquimau Harbour and Ogden Point in Victoria for the berthing of nuclear powered and nuclear armed ships.


Mr. Duhamel: For the fiscal years 1990-91 and 1991-92, has the government paid cash bonuses to (a) chief executive officers (b) senior civil servants (c) others and, if so, what were the (i) names (ii) positions (iii) amounts paid?


Gilles Loiselle: The Privacy Act prohibits the release of personal information such as the names of public servants who received cash bonuses and the amounts paid to them.


Lyle Dean MacWilliam: Madam Speaker, I am presenting a petition today on behalf of a number of residents from the Tbronto area. These individuals are very concerned about the application still before the CRTC regarding introduction of competition in the long distance telecommunications market.
The undersigned petitioners are urging the Minister of Communications to oppose Unitel's bid to compete with Canada's telephone companies in long distance service and are urging the minister to consult with all affected parties, specifically those-
The attached table provides information on the amounts awarded as performance bonuses to members of the management category levels for the fiscal year
1990-91. This report includes only employees from those departments and agencies for which the Treasury Board is the employer (Public Service Staff Relations Act, schedule 1, part 1). The data is based upon the information received from departments to date and represents approximately 82 per cent of the total management category population.
There will be no performance bonuses paid for performance rendered during the current 1991-92 fiscal year.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: The petition is sent to the Government of Canada. It is not sent to a minister. It would not be acceptable.


Mrs. Beryl Gaffney (Nepean):: Madam Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36,1 present 75 signatures on a petition signed since the murder of Nina de Villiers on August 9,1991, which has exposed serious deficiencies in the criminal justice system. They request this Parliament
The Privy Council Office reports that no performance bonuses have yet been paid to heads of Crown corporations and Governor in Council appointees for performance during the fiscal year 1990-91. Similar to the management category, no performance bonuses will be paid for performance rendered during the current
1991-92 fiscal year.
TVeasury Board Secretariat
Performance Bonuses Paid to the Management Category
to recognize that crimes of violence against a person are		1990-91 Fiscal Year	
serious and abhorrent and they are looking for some serious direction from this Parliament.	Group and Level	Bonuses Paid Number	of RecipientsSM	$4,535,255	1418EX-1	2,202,613	619EX-2	2,293,178	548QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER	EX-3	1,392,541	293(Questions answered orally are indicated by an aster-	EX-4	827,887	148isk.)	EX-5	431,554	60Mr. Albert Cooper (Parliamentary Secretary to Minis-	TOTAL	$ 11,683,028	3086ter of State and Leader of the Government in the House	Note: The data is	based upon the information	received from
of Commons): Madam Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: Nos. 126 and 187.
departments to date and represents approximately 82 per cent of the total figures for the management category.
February 14, 1992


Mr. Karpoff: 1.	With respect to measures being taken by the government to interdict cigarette smuggling (a) how many person-years are available to police the border against illegal smuggling (b) how many border crossing points between Canada and the continental United States are (i) manned by Canada Customs (ii) unmanned (c) what is the estimated value in the most recently compiled fiscal period of (i) illegally shipped tobacco products seized at border points (ii) illegally shipped tobacco products which enter Canada?
2.	Is the government actively considering imposing an export tax on Canadian cigarettes shipped to the United States and, if not, for what reasons?


Albert Glen Cooper: I am informed by the Solicitor General of Canada and the Department of Finance as follows:
The answer by the Solicitor General of Canada based on information maintained by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, much of which was provided by Revenue Canada, Customs, is:
1.	(a) The RCMP currently has 168 person-years dedicated to investigate Customs and Excise offenses within the country. In addition, all border detachments dedicate manpower to police the border in their areas and provide assistance to Revenue Canada, Customs as required.
(b)	The number of border crossing points between Canada and the continental United States depends upon the definition of border crossing points. There are many roads, lakes, rivers and fields that span the border and offer access to illegal smuggling operations.
(i)	According to information provided by Revenue Canada, Customs, they operate 118 ports of entry, of which 66 are manned less than 24 hours per day.
(ii)	Information from Revenue Canada, Customs indicates that 313 border crossings are unmanned. These consist of actual roadways crossings the border.
(c)	(i) As reported to the RCMP, Revnue Canada, Customs seized illegally smuggled tobacco at border points of value of $1,324,127.00 for the period 1 January, 1991 to 11 December, 1991.
(ii) The Departments of Finance, Revenue Canada, Customs and Excise and the RCMP agree that an estimated 10 to 15 million cartons of the projected 18 million cartons of Canadian cigarettes exported annually to the United States return illegally to Canada.
Routine Proceedings
2.	The government is aware of representations by certain groups that an export tax be imposed on cigarettes as a means of discouraging smuggling of these products. This is one of a range of possible approaches to address this problem.
The government is currently addressing this issue through several mechanisms. In 1989, a number of measures designed to deter the smuggling of tobacco products were introduced. These measures included improving the legislative provisions relating to the marking of tobacco packages to more clearly identify duty and tax paid products for exports. The penalties imposed under the Excise Act for selling tobacco products on which excise duty and tax have not been paid were also increased substantially at that time. More recently the Minister of National Revenue has been working with respective police authorities in an effort to develop better strategies to counter the problem of cigarette smuggling.
Finally, the government has initiated a review of the legislation which imposes excise duties and taxes on tobacco products. One of the key aspects of this review will be to examine whether there are further steps that could be taken to reduce cigarette smuggling.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: The questions as enumerated by the parliamentary secretary have been answered.


Albert Glen Cooper: Madam Speaker, if Question No. 136 could be made an Order for Return, this return would be tabled immediately..


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the House that Question No. 136 be deemed to have been made an Order for Return?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Mr. Samson: For each fiscal year since 1989, what is the total dollar amount
allocated for the payment of performance bonuses to executives and
senior managers in (a) each government department (b) each Crown
corporation (c) each federal agency?
Return tabled.
Supply


[Stage Direction]
February 14, 1992
Albert Glen Cooper: Madam Speaker, would you be so kind as to call Starred Question No. 166.
I ask that it be printed in Hansard as if read.

Question 166-Ms. Copps:
With respect to the Crown investigation and subsequent provincial prosecution of the Honourable John Munro, what was the total cost incurred by the government for the investigation and prosecution including (a) all salaries for the (i) Solicitor General's Department (ii) RCMP (iii) judiciary (iv) Attorney General's Department (b) all materials (c) all travel and accomodation (d) all witnesses (e) all computer time?


Albert Glen Cooper: I am informed by the Department of Justice and the Ministry of the Solicitor General of Canada as follows:
The Department of Justice was not involved in the John Munro trial since it involved the provincial responsibilities on administration of justice. All questions concerning the costs of the trial would have to be directed to the provincial authorities in Ontario.
essence, the same answers to these two different questions.
I am wondering if I received the replies that were intended. Did the person replying to the question perhaps misunderstand the questions? Was it a clerical error?
I wonder if the parliamentary secretary could check into this and let me know.


Albert Glen Cooper: Madam Speaker, my notes indicate that the hon. member has not yet received an answer. Obviously there is some confusion here. What I will do is try to check out what his concerns are to see if we can get it corrected for him.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Shall the remaining questions stand?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Harvie Andre: Madam Speaker, I would like to formally designate this coming Monday as an allotted day for supply.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS

[Stage Direction]
Royal Canadian Mounted Police		[English]
(a) Salaries	$ 179,281.02	SUPPLY(b) Materials	229.83	ALLOTTED DAY, S. O. 81-UNEMPLOYMENT(c) Travel & Accommodation	1,041,01	The House resumed consideration of the motion of(d) Witnesses	nil	Mr. Nunziata (p. 7033).(e) Computer time	59,114.00	Madam Deputy Speaker: When we started on members' declarations the hon. minister had the floor. HeTotal	$ 239,665.86	was answering a question. There are nine minutes left in the question and comment period.
Albert Glen Cooper: I ask that the allowed to stand.	remaining questions be	Hon. Bernard Valcourt (Minister of Employment and Immigration): Madam Speaker, you may recall that the hon. member's question was based on certain statistics.


David Berger: Point of order, Madam Speaker. I would		He wanted to compare Canada's performance with that
like to draw a question to the attention of the parliamen-		of other OECD members.
tary secretary.	
I received a reply recently to three questions, Nos. 148, 149 and 150, put on October 31. The difficulty is that I received the same answer to two different questions. There were two different questions and I received, in
The hon. member was right when he said that some OECD countries had unemployment rates that were either higher or lower than Canada's, but the important thing is that, according to this organization, in 1992 the

employment growth rate in Canada is expected to be 1.2 per cent which, as I said earlier, means 150,000 new jobs this year. And I think we should emphasize, that this is twice as high as the average rate for OECD countries, which happens to be around 0.6 per cent. Even in the United States employment growth is not expected to exceed 1 per cent. Furthermore, in 1992 and 1993 Canada is expected to outrank all other OECD countries on increases in the GNP. I realize this is cold comfort for someone who is unemployed in this country, but we must put the Canadian situation into its international perspective. Although we admit our economic situation is a difficult one, our position on the international scene reflects the sound economic management of the government I represent.


Dennis Joseph Mills: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the minister.
During the latter part of his remarks he put a tremendous emphasis on the government's program, the government's plan for retraining in this country. Quite frankly I agree with the latter part of his remarks and with everything he said in terms of the government's approach to retraining.
My problem is that as he was speaking one of the largest community centres in my riding, the Woodgreen community centre, sent me a fax.
I should say this community centre has been serving the community of downtown Toronto for many years. It has always managed its finances well, operating without a deficit. It has served the community. Over many years it has helped thousands of people in the community and it has a reputation for doing a very good job. Your own officials have recognized the centre publicly as being one of the better social support services in the city of Toronto.
I have been informed that your officials have met with officials at the centre and that all areas relating to retraining that are a part of the Woodgreen community centre are being cut back by 10 per cent. I am not saying that the budget is frozen at zero per cent; I am saying that they have been informed by your officials that the retraining budgets are being cut back.
My question to the minister is: Is this some kind of a mistake in the department? He stands up here today and puts all this emphasis on retraining and programs. Yet the actions in the marketplace seem to be different. I wonder if he could clarify that and give me some
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reassurance that his officials are not following his directives.


Bernard Valcourt: Madam Speaker, the hon. member raises an important question. This is the issue of what happens to some of the those initiatives that took place when the resources devoted to that kind of activity were more plentiful.
It is just impossible. I do not think there is any contradiction in saying that we have increased the amount of dollars that are going to go to training and retraining because of the Bill C-21 amendment to the UI Act.
We also have to live within the fiscal framework that this government has put in place. We cannot reduce the deficit by taking more dollars from the pockets of taxpayers in the form of taxes nor by increasing the borrowing of money to operate as a government.
There is no way that you can do that without having cutbacks. I am not talking here about cutbacks in training. I am talking about the department adjusting the resources it has to the activities that are more productive.
In the case that the hon. member mentioned, I am not aware of it, but I surely want to look at it. We have to let our fellow Canadians know that it is just impossible. There is no magic solution. You cannot reduce the deficit and keep on spending more.
I agree that there is a way to spend smarter, to spend more efficiently and this is what we are trying to do.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: There were almost three minutes gone and I said nine. There were almost three minutes before Question Period, so we have gone through our normal 10 minutes of question and comments.


Dennis Joseph Mills: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. We are lucky to have the Minister of Employment and Immigration here today.
We do not know what his schedule is, if he plans on being around or not. We understand he has a busy schedule. Do you think that we can get unanimous consent of the House to allow time for the other questions that people may want to ask of the minister while he is here?


Madam Deputy Speaker:: We may have the unanimous consent on one side, but it also depends on whether the hon. minister can or is able to stay, whether his schedule does allow him to spend a little more time in the House.
I do have to have unanimous consent. That depends on this side as well.
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Some hon. members:: Agreed.

February 14, 1992


Some hon. members:: No.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Resuming debate.


John V. Nunziata: Let the record show that the minister is a coward.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. I am sure the hon. member for York South-Weston will want to withdraw that comment.


John V. Nunziata: Yes, I do, but I find it rather strange, Madam Speaker, that the minister is not prepared to stay in the House and debate the issue of unemployment.
After all, he is the Minister of Employment and Immigration. Surely, given the devastating effect of unemployment on millions of Canadians-


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Order. A withdrawal must be a withdrawal. I think the hon. member has been in this House long enough. He should know that a minister has many different things to do. If he cannot stay in the House after having been here since ten o'clock this morning, I think the hon. member could allow this to be, without making some comments that really are unacceptable.
I would like the hon. member to please just withdraw.


John V. Nunziata: I will do that in deference to the Chair, Madam Speaker.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I thank the hon. member. We will resume debate.


Steven W. Langdon: Madam Speaker, it is an unfortunate day for many people in this country.
It is particularly unfortunate for those in Atlantic Canada. We have seen today news of three major economic blows to Atlantic Canada.
We have seen first that the Hibernia project in Newfoundland, which was a project that certainly many people in Newfoundland thought was going to generate significant employment for themselves for the future, is frankly teetering on the very edge of collapse. There has been an announcement that lay-offs of 650 workers in Newfoundland, plus another 50 workers in Montreal will
take place. That is out of a total work force of about 1,100. We are talking about a massive proportion of the work force seeing their jobs disappear.
We have also seen that 1,100 people are being affected at Fisheries Products International. The lay-offs which have been announced there are supposedly temporary, for three months. There have been temporary lay-offs announced previously by FPI which have extended well beyond the original period that was set out.
In addition to that, we see that 810 jobs are being transferred by Sears Canada from Halifax to Ontario. You might think that as an Ontario member I would feel pleased about that transfer of 810 jobs to Ontario.
But I have to say I am a member of Parliament who believes in national unity in this country and in fairness to the economic development opportunities of our country. To see a transfer from a place like Atlantic Canada where there are very serious economic problems and where levels of unemployment are far higher than in the province of Ontario, to the province of Ontario does not make economic sense. It does not make social sense. It does not make sense in terms of building unity in Canada.
We have a very serious problem in Atlantic Canada which has come out today. We have a very serious problem in other parts of the economy. Today as well, MacMillan Bloedel in British Columbia announced 400 lay-offs in that province.
We see reports today in the press which indicate that the level of welfare recipients in the city of Montreal has reached a level where one person in seven in the city of Montreal is on social assistance and one-third of them are children.
We see in the province of Ontario and in the manufacturing sector generally across this country, figures that came out yesterday which demonstrate that whatever the minister has chosen to get up and say this morning, the manufacturing sector in this country is facing continuing inexorable decline in the face of the policies that this government has put into effect.
Last year there was a 6 per cent drop in manufacturing jobs in the manufacturing sector throughout this country concentrated in central Canada, but also in British Columbia, Manitoba and in parts of Atlantic Canada.
February 14, 1992

What we see across this country is a series of devastating declines.
The government gets up and says, as the minister said this morning, that the recovery is under way. This morning the minister talked about predictions from the OECD and how Canada next year is going to grow so much' better. We would have more faith in those kinds of predictions if we had not heard exactly the same thing from exactly the same ministers a year ago. They told us that recovery was under way, that we would be growing faster than any other part of the world.
What we have seen the past year is that the so-called recovery has meant an increase in unemployment, a decrease in output, a decline in the manufacturing sector and assaults on our resource sectors from Atlantic Canada to British Columbia.
There is no recovery here, no recovery whatsoever. [Translation]
It is very sad to see what is happening in Montreal today. In one of Canada's major cities, one person out of seven is on welfare and one-third are children. We also heard today that people are fighting in Montreal's welfare offices. How can the government remain unmoved by scenes of such utter despair? When will this government finally do something to stimulate the economy, create jobs and revive the hopes of people in Montreal and across Canada, people in small towns in Quebec and Ontario, people in western Canada and the Atlantic provinces?

The minister spoke this morning. What did he say? I have talked already concerning his comments about the recovery being under way and his suggestion that the people on this side of the House are just raising these questions for some kind of rhetorical effect.
New Democrats have had two significant cross-country tours in the past year to try to get directly from the people of this country how they are hurting. If some of us speak with heat, if some of us speak with passion, about what is taking place in the economy it is not because we want to play to TV cameras or to play to the House of Commons. It is because we have heard these people, met these people throughout Canada, and they have told us
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how tough things are. We have heard them tell us how hope has been disappearing for their families. We heard people in Montreal, in Kitchener, in Guelph, in Windsor, in Saskatoon, in Vancouver, in Halifax, tell us about the increases in social welfare taking place, about what unemployment is doing to the fabric of their family life, to the fabric of community life within their societies.
Let me tell you, Madam Speaker, it hurts. We have to somehow get across to this government that people across the country are hurting. It is not a myth. It is not just something that shows up in the statistics. It is real live Canadians for whom the government has the responsibility of governing.
I am sorry it has the responsibility of governing them. I am sorry that it sits on the government's shoulders. Would that it sat on somebody else's shoulders, because it has not shown a sense of compassion and a sense of understanding the realities which so many people across this country are feeling.
We get up on our side of the House, and perhaps with some frustration, to speak about what we hear, what we see, what we know people are feeling across this country. The minister says: "You do not really care because you are being emotional". I am sorry, it is not possible for us to talk about the depth of the problem in this country without being emotional. It is not possible to talk about
1.5	million people being out of work, about one million on social welfare assistance across Canada without a deep sense of emotional hurt that this is happening in our country and a deep sense of anger that this government, which has been elected to take decisions, is not prepared to give the leadership that will show us some hope and direction for the future in this country.
The minister talked in his speech about: "The suggestion that you are making for recovery in this country, all that means is more taxes". If we get people back to work, if we stop having to pay for people on social assistance, if we stop having to pay the $30 billion that is now being spent on unemployment insurance, that saves money. That saves resources that are being spent, not on make-work projects but on completely wasteful allocations so far as building things for the future in this country.

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It is keeping people alive. It is providing people with some kind of stop-gap measure in the face of deep economic problems. It is not giving us any kind of even medium term solution.
I have to say it is remarkable to hear this government talk about how terrible it is to raise taxes when this very government and the very minister who was speaking to the House brought into effect an increase in unemployment insurance premiums just six weeks ago here in Canada. It was a very significant increase of 7 per cent in unemployment insurance, brought in by this very minister who says: "It is the opposition which wants to increase taxes". It is not the opposition which wants to increase taxes; it is this government that has increased taxes. .
The minister talks about the causes of our great national debt. I wish that he would talk about the unanimous report of the finance committee of this House of Commons. It is a committee which has a Conservative majority. Liberal and New Democrat members are on the committee as well. That committee came up with a unanimous report saying that yes, the deficit is a problem and the government should tighten up in ways to see to it that we do not increase that deficit.
What was the government's response to that unanimous report? It rejected the three or four specific ways in which the finance committee unanimously suggested tightening things up. So much for the reality of this government's commitment to doing something about the deficit. It is a not a reality which really exists.
One of the recommendations, for instance, was that there should be no more possibility for tax giveaways without them being compensated for by reallocations in the rest of the budget. Did the government say: "Yes, that makes sense. If we give money away through taxes, we have to make sure the deficit does not go up by reallocating money from other parts of the budget"? Did it say yes to that sensible suggestion? No, it said no. It tells us that what it really cares about is scoring partisan points rather than trying to deal with the serious difficulties of unemployment, of debt and of deficit in this country.
There are four New Democrat governments in this country provincially and those four governments are
trying to deal seriously, with a sense of reality, with the problems of unemployment and of deficit. They have recognized that you cannot increase your deficit, that you cannot create a situation in which in a world economy, the world money market decides that you are a basket case. Therefore, the deficit must be dealt with in a responsible way.
It is tough, very tough. Hard choices have to be made but they are being made by New Democrat governments: tough choices to reallocate expenditure rather than increase deficits so as to see to it that we get jobs in this country so that we expand employment in this country, so that we give hope to people in this country. That is what we ask for from this government, a serious nonpartisan sense of caring for the hundreds of thousands of Canadians who are without work.
I am just sorry that the minister this morning has not demonstrated that sense of non-partisan compassion and sensible economic policy making which is so essential to solving our economic problems in the future.


Dennis Joseph Mills: Madam Speaker, I listened attentively to the member from the New Democratic Party. I take him at his word when he talks about New Democratic governments trying to take seriously the sense of reality out there and the sense of reality vis-a-vis the unemployment problems we have and the reality of the deficit.
I have a very simple request of this member. For two weeks in a row I have been presenting to members of the New Democratic Party a project in the province of Ontario north of Toronto that will employ close to 12,000 people in permanent jobs, a project that will create close to 5,000 affordable homes. It is the first ever green town development in north America using recycled materials, all being organized and reviewed by some of the most sophisticated environmental organizations. It is a project that meets all the various requirements of the farming community, agriculture, et cetera. It is not asking the province of Ontario for one nickel.
The delays in processing at Queen's Park are not only costing the investors millions of dollars, but it is also missed opportunity to deal with the problem of putting people back to work.
February 14, 1992

My simple question to the member is this: Will he take this proposal which has been delivered by many others, including myself, to the premier of Ontario, the Hon. Bob Rae, and will he use his forces as a member of the New Democratic Party to see if he can get some movement on this project? I as a member of the opposition have tried through fax, through phone, through letter, and have not been able to get a response for months. Will he do that for me?


Steven W. Langdon: Madam Speaker, I first have to say, of course, that I am not a member of cabinet of the provincial Government of Ontario. I certainly can give my assurance to my colleague that I would be very interested in looking at the proposal he talks about. Certainly, as he describes it, it sounds like something that deserves careful scrutiny and review.
Once I have had a chance to look at it and to talk with the member for Broadview-Greenwood about the proposal, I would be quite prepared to talk with the cabinet ministers responsible at Queen's Park and try to determine the issue.
I do want to make a brief comment, if I could. The member referred to the delays in the decision-making process in the Ontario government. For the Ontario New Democrat government which has been in power for about 18 months now, this has been a continuing and serious source of frustration.
On taking power as a party, we found ourselves faced with a mammoth bureaucracy which had been created over a long period of power. Frankly some people have blamed it on the Liberals. The Conservatives continually blame what took place in Ontario in the 1980s on the Liberal government of Premier David Peterson. In fact one should look much more carefully at the Conservative governments which were in power provincially for a much longer period of time and allowed this set of bureaucratic agencies and ministries to develop which have made it very difficult to get rapid approvals for projects to take place. However, what is taking place in Ontario is an attempt to try to sort these things out.
For instance, in the case of the ministry of municipal affairs, there is a very strong effort being put into place to try to see that different levels of government have clear levels of responsibility. It is called disentanglement.
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It is very important in terms of seeing that projects do go forward quickly.


Pierre Blais: Madam Speaker, I have been listening to these comments all morning, and I must say that in this kind of debate I am always surprised to hear the kind of comments I just heard from the hon. member, especially when he says that today Canada has four NDP governments. I would refer him to what is happening today under those NDP governments, now that the latest NDP arrival in British Columbia has said that a relatively conservative-the word is well chosen-approach was needed to deal with the economy.
This means that thinking you can spend your way out and raise a projected deficit of $8 or $9 billion to $14 or $15 billion, as estimated in Ontario, does nothing to solve the problem. We have said many times that this means mortgaging the future of our children and our grandchildren.
Spending is the easiest thing in the world. We had a sample of that for many years. What we are trying to do is take measures that are more responsible,-perhaps less popular, but more responsible. I find it difficult to accept that a representative of a party that was opposed to the Hibernia project should blame us, and that has been a constant refrain since this morning, for problems that are actually due to the fact that certain companies have withdrawn from the project. It makes it harder for us to continue the project, but we are being blamed, while they voted against the project.
We are accused of not doing enough for the unemployed, but when we tabled Bill C-21 that would maximize the use of the unemployment insurance fund to help train our labour force and create permanent jobs, they voted against the bill.
Earlier they said this should not be a partisan debate. However, when we manage to corner them on specific aspects of their policy, they say: "Don't make this a political football".
There should not a double standard in the House. I hope the hon. member will realize that any political agenda must be based above all on the confidence of citizens in an economic policy that is stable and does not

February 14, 1992
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mortgage the future of our children and our grandchildren.
I listened carefully to what was said by the hon. member for York South-Weston and previous speakers. I think we must be careful. At a time when it is difficult for people who are out looking for jobs, we must make a concerted effort to find stable jobs in an economy that is going toward globalization. We should not try to convince people it depends on which political party is in power and try-I will use the hon. member's own words-to make political points with this issue.


Steven W. Langdon: Madam Speaker, first let me make it clear with respect to Hibernia that our opposition was not to the project, Hibernia. It was to the massive expenditures which this government was prepared to make.
As the minister said, it is very easy to spend. That is what this government was doing with respect to Hibernia. The proper course which should have been taken, which would have led to a much more sensible project that would not have collapsed today, would have been to take Petro-Canada, the national oil company which all Canadians had invested in, and see to it that it used the resources it had generated from the people of Canada to ensure that this oil resource was developed.
With respect to Bill C-21, again our objection was not to training. It was paying for training out of the pockets of the unemployed. That is what the minister has to realize. If we are going to take training seriously in this country and get a work force that can really take us into the 21st century, we have to do it in a way that is fair and just.
Finally-


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member but the period for questions and comments has expired.


Steven W. Langdon: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. It seems to me if the minister is going to raise a number of
points that I should at least have a chance to deal quickly with each of the three points he has put forward.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: The Speaker is in the hands of the House. There was a first question and a very long comment. The hon. minister made a short comment. We are now into 12 minutes of questions and comments.
I am quite prepared to listen to the hon. member for another minute or two, or ten or sixty. Does the House agree? If there is unanimous consent to have the hon. member continue his comment, I am quite prepared to do so.


Pierre Blais: On the same point of order, Madam Speaker. I think after a speech like the hon. minister has given, we should have maybe 20 or 30 minutes to answer all the points he raised in his question so that it is fair for everybody. I had just a minute or two to answer and make some comments on that. I think it has to be fair for everybody.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I take for granted that there is not unanimous consent to continue over and above.


Steven W. Langdon: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. The usual procedure is to actually ask the House: Is there unanimous consent? I certainly did not hear anybody say "No".


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I did ask. In his intervention, which I listened to carefully, I thought I heard a reluctance, if not a total "no" from the hon. minister which is why I am calling, on debate. I think the hon. minister will agree that this is what he said.


Steven W. Langdon: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Do I understand that the minister does not want an answer to the questions that he posed?


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Resuming debate.


Dennis Joseph Mills: Madam Speaker, I first of all want to compliment my colleague from York South-Weston for choosing this topic today.
Quite frankly most of us would agree in this House that the people in our ridings believe this is the number one issue facing this country today, namely getting people back to work.
February 14, 1992

I am going to try to take a little different tact in my remarks today.
I listened to the Minister of Employment and Immigration earlier today and I agree with his remarks that we are dealing with a restructuring of all the economies of the different countries in the world. He is absolutely correct. I do not debate that point with him.
I debate with him when he speaks of his commitment to retraining. I do not see it happening. I gave as a specific example the Woodgreen community centre in my riding. It is one of the most productive community centres in the whole city. Its track record in serving training needs throughout the community has been noted by many agencies as being superior. Yet, it is not only being frozen in terms of its resources to allow it to continue its service to the community but it is being cut back by 10 per cent.
There is a question of trust here. He even said in his answer: "Oh, well, I have to sort of look at these resource allocations again". I hope he will follow through and review the Woodgreen community centre because it is a very important contributor to the community.
So often we forget that when times are tough governance is supposed to be there for those who are most in need. Governance is not for those who do not need help. It is for those who are most disadvantaged and most in need.
It seems to me that the minister must review the Woodgreen request in that light.
The minister also made the point that we on this side of the House were not challenging him with new ideas or ways to advance this debate on putting people back to work. I really take exception to that point. I take exception because my colleague, the member for York-South Weston who initiated this debate on behalf of the Liberal Party of Canada, and our leader issued a challenge to the government. It is not a partisan challenge, let's face it. No party has a lock on how to put people back to work. All of us working together will get this job done, especially in light of the point the minister made that this is not a problem unique to Canada. This is a problem the whole world is facing.
Quite frankly I did not think that it was a good response to the idea of encouraging even further debate and exploring ideas.
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There are lots of ideas out there and in here on how to put Canadians back to work. To begin with, I want to refer specifically to a document entitled Work For Tomorrow-Employment Opportunities for the 1980s. This was the result of a parliamentary task force in place during the early 1980s. This was a task force composed of all members of the House of Commons. This was a task force that worked for close to two years during the last major recession we had in this country. After listening to successful people from all over the country who were weathering that terrible recession which we as a government were involved with, we as Liberals-we do not run away from that-after listening to people from all over the world and after listening to ways to put people back to work, the task force came forward with this document with 186 different ideas.
I recommend this document not only to all parliamentarians in this House but to all parliamentarians in every legislature throughout this nation. It includes 186 ideas put together by members of Parliament from all sides of the House, ideas that came to them from people from coast to coast, in every sector of the economy and every region of the country. So often we try to reinvent the wheel in this place. It is not necessary. This document has some ideas that are as good today as they were then. So often we push paper and create work when some of the basic answers are right before us.
I challenge the minister of employment to review and reissue this document to all parliamentarians. This is what Canadians are bugged about. They do not get the sense that we are doing anything to address the problems in an immediate way. It is delay, delay, wait and see. In terms of dealing in hope it is just the exact opposite. My colleague from York South-Weston said to the government today: "Let us continue to debate this issue of how we put people back to work". We are not talking about fuelling the deficit or adding to the debt. We are talking about specific ideas that we can discuss. If we initiate discussions right away, with the government's will, then all of a sudden hope and confidence are back in the marketplace.

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The government is always focused on the deficit and the debt of this nation. It should not tiy to create the illusion that government members are the only people in this country who care about deficit and debt. It is how you manage that deficit, how you manage that debt which is the key point. Quite frankly the government is overestimating the debt of this country by $50 billion because it never takes into account the reserves the Governor of the Bank of Canada has. The Bank of Canada is part of the Government of Canada.
It has used that scare tactic to the point that everybody is afraid to take a chance. In terms of creativity, this is what the government seems to be lacking. Let us take the 900,000 entrepreneurs that exist in this country. Would it not be much better to give an incentive to the entrepreneurs of this country to put people on apprenticeship programs, train them, and educate them in whatever sector the entrepreneur is in rather than pay them to do unproductive things like stay at home?
There is no cost to the Treasury because of that. I support the Leader of the New Democratic Party, who has been trying to put forward this idea for the last two weeks. There has never been a response to it. We are giving someone who is young-it does not matter what age-$10,000 to $12,000 from unemployment insurance. Would it not be better to give that $10,000 to $12,000 to someone who is an entrepreneur, to shift that person from an unproductive capacity to a productive capacity? It seems pretty basic to me.
There are all kinds of other opportunities which do not cause an assault on the deficit or debt. I mentioned earlier to the NDP a project just north of Toronto that would create almost immediately seven or eight thousand jobs within eight months, close to double that, without any draw on the treasury of Ontario or the Treasury of Canada.
The process is slowing it down. Canadians are fed up about the layers of government and the process in this country which slow down the decisions that need to be taken for projects that do not even cost the Treasury any money. It is so amazing. The government can sit here and say: "Deficit, deficit, deficit, deficit, debt". Yet, it never thinks of the debt the private sector or industry has and the added deficit and debt the private sector takes on because of the bureaucratic delays and the crazy
decision-making process that happens at the various levels of government.
I mentioned yesterday, and this is a challenge to all public servants, that we have to review our process of putting things through the system because that will put people back to work and will create more confidence in the country.
There is another thing. I have been saying for the last two years that we must become a nation that measures its strength by the mouths we feed and the environment we protect.
I was in the Middle East two weeks ago. I was in Amman, Jordan and met with officials from the Embassy of Iraq. We had several hours of meetings concerning Canada sending humanitarian aid, food assistance and medical supplies to Iraq under the auspices of the United Nations.
The warmth of the feelings that the people in the Middle East have toward Canada is incredible. I have in my hands an order from the Government of Iraq for close to 140,000 tonnes of food. This is food that it is willing to pay for, that will lead to a renewal of a relationship under the auspices of the United Nations. This will lead from food to medical supplies to environmental technology. It will lead to a situation in which Canada can create all kinds of new jobs for its factories by taking advantage of the billions of dollars of trade [DOT]opportunities in the Middle East.
Simply put, we should be developing ways to assist our entrepreneurs to go to the Middle East right now to take advantage of that good will. When I say billions of dollars I mean that literally. One cannot believe the good will that exists in the Middle East toward Canada. However, are we over there? Very few Canadian businessmen are over there. A few of the larger ones are, but a lot of our smaller and medium sized operators have a very difficult time in getting there.
Why can we not use the Department of National Defence plane which goes every Thursday and every Tuesday to Lahr, Germany, load it up with Canadian entrepreneurs and their order pads, and send them throughout Europe and into the Middle East and give them a boost? That does not cost the Treasury of Canada anything.
When they come home with those orders that will get our factories working again. These are the things that put people to work. This is not saying to the minister of
February 14, 1992

employment or the Minister of Finance that we should spend money, blow up the deficit, or add more to the debt. These are basic ideas. The Americans are over there doing it.
Somehow we always let the Americans out-hustle us. Hustle in this country seems to be almost a pejorative term. We must get over that feeling. As legislators and people who are here to assist, support and give leadership to the fight to put people back to work we must use government resources to inject some confidence into our business people so they can take advantage of that opportunity.
I know of a particular group of businessmen who went over to Amman, Jordan three weeks ago and on their second trip were short-listed on a $40 million potash deal. That is unbelievable. We have the best technology in Canada in the province of Saskatchewan and they were short-listed on their second visit.
These are the kinds of things we must do.
The shopping list of business opportunities abroad is so long but we just do not seem to be taking advantage of it.
Look at the realm of tourism. That is where government advertising should be right now. All government budgets vis-a-vis communication and advertising should be shifted to support a welcome mat "Come to Canada". In terms of foreign exchange and spin-off effect, we will not get a better sector than tourism.
What has this government been doing in that area? I know it has been doing something, but quite frankly I am sure that it realizes and accepts the fact that it could do a lot better. That is where I am coming from. This is not trying to take a partisan shot at the government. It is just trying to get it to put a tight focus on the urgency that as the nation's boardroom we have to make this project of putting people back to work the number one priority.
Maybe my colleague from York South-Weston challenges the wrong way in trying to suggest that maybe we should take a page from the legislatures in the United States and go through a weekend or a couple of nights putting a litany of ideas forward that people can take
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advantage of. I think the government is missing an opportunity by not taking advantage of it.
I suggest to the officials in the department of employment that they have to go back over some of the programs that the department has used in the past which have been successful. When my colleague, the member for Winnipeg South Centre, was minister responsible for employment during the very tough recession of 1981-82, he had a fabulous program called NEED. On evaluation, it turned out to be one of the most successful programs that the Government of Canada ever implemented.
I say to officials in the department of employment: "Do not be bashful in reissuing an idea like that to your political fathers right now. The country is desperate for ideas that will put people back to work".
I also challenge the officials in the department of employment to review the proposal that I put to the minister a month ago, Careers 91, the project of Peter Angelou from my riding. Young university students went out and found by knocking on doors trying to find jobs that there were actually more jobs out there than actually listed. They put a book together of all the human resource vice-presidents of close to 200 corporations in Ontario and what their requirements are in terms of filing for jobs, asking for jobs or whatever. This project which actually helps people find work without any expense to the taxpayer. That book produced by a couple of young entrepreneurs in the private sector should be supported by the department. Quite frankly I hope my words are not falling on deaf ears.
I repeat that we have lots of opportunity in this country to serve the world through food production, through environmental technology and lots of opportunity because of the phenomenal good will that we as a nation have throughout the world.
In closing, I hope we can prick the conscience of the minister of employment to revisit the idea of my colleague from York South-Weston that we have a major debating period in this House on ideas on how we can put people back to work for everyone's sake.


John V. Nunziata: Madam Speaker, I thank my friend and colleague for his submissions. I could not help but think as I was listening to the hon. member for Broadview-Greenwood what an abso-

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lute treat it would be if he and the minister of employment were to switch places.
If you compare the two speeches by my hon. friend and the minister of employment, you see in those two speeches the difference between what a Liberal government would do and what the Conservative government is doing. That is, the Conservative government is content to do nothing. A Liberal government would be prepared to develop ideas and to call upon all members of the House regardless of their political stripe to come up with ideas, to come up with an action plan to put people back to work.
The minister of employment-the minister of unemployment because all he is presiding over is unemployment-says that he refuses to take into consideration the Liberal economic recovery plan because it is going to cost money and add to the deficit and the debt. That is the position of the Government of Canada.
My friend from Broadview-Greenwood has pointed out ways in which jobs can be created without adding to the deficit or the debt. My question to my friend is this: Would he agree that there was a cost to unemployment in the first 11 months of 1991 of $16.3 billion? It was paid to Canadians to do nothing. That is the cost. It was $16.3 billion in the first 11 months. Over all, over $20 billion was paid to people to do nothing.
Would my friend agree that the minister really does not know what he is talking about when he says that there is no cost to unemployment when in fact there is a direct cost in terms of dollars and cents. There is also a tremendous indirect cost in terms of the idle production capacity that exists.


Dennis Joseph Mills: Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from York South-Weston for that insightful question.
Quite frankly it is not just the $20 billion that he mentions that comes from the unemployment insurance fund. There is a further $10 billion from the welfare fund. That is $30 billion and no productivity, not to mention the wear and tear on family life, health care, the lack of activity in the marketplace.
There is only one way to attack the deficit and debt of this nation, and that is through full employment. Through full employment, we get a return. Can you imagine $30 billion and no productivity? Imagine converting that, whether it be into training, a youth corps for
Canada, subsidizing with the private sector, or joint venture training programs in terms of training.
I cannot imagine a Conservative on that side of the House who would not rather have that money going into productive output than the current situation. For the love of me, I say to my colleague for York South-Weston, I cannot understand why the lack of political will exists when it seemed to me that was traditionally a quality of the Conservative Party.
The New Democratic Party in the province of Ontario has a philosophy whereby it does not mind the welfare scheme of things. I am a little bit amazed that the government is not going back to its roots.


John V. Nunziata: Mr. Speaker, I would like to remind hon. members of the Liberal emergency plan that was announced by our leader several weeks ago. It is a plan that is meant to deal with an emergency situation: 1.5 million Canadians unemployed, 2.2 million Canadians on welfare. We believe that emergency measures are necessary. We need long-term measures, but we also need some short-term measures to kick-start the economy.
There were five points in the program. I would like my friend from Broadview-Greenwood to comment briefly on the over-all plan and state his views on the effect the plan would have on the Canadian economy. One point was to reduce the minimum down payment for first-time home buyers from 10 per cent to 5 per cent. Another was to allow the use of RRSP funds for the purchase of a new home. The third was a shared infrastructure program to rebuild our roads, sewers and sidewalks. The fourth was an intensified training program, and the fifth was some emergency federal funding to food banks across the country.
Can the hon. member indicate what impact the Liberal Party emergency plan would have on the Canadian economy in the short run?


Dennis Joseph Mills: Mr. Speaker, in reply to my colleague from York South-Weston, first of all every one of those points has merit. I support every one of them as I know most members of this House do.
Let us focus on just one, job retraining, where there is a residual effect. Imagine if the one million entrepreneurs that exist each hired one person. In other words, let us not create a lot of work projects just for the sake of work. We are not suggesting that. Let us use that resource of entrepreneurship in this country to train and
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employ at the same time. If you spread the load, with a million businesses each hiring one person, which could be done overnight, that program could be implemented literally within a week if the government had the will and wanted to do it. That would not cost the taxpayer one red nickel. You are taking people who otherwise would be receiving a UI cheque or a welfare cheque and putting them into the work force. You have them doing something productive. You are retraining them. There is a long-term asset there for this country.
I say to my colleague from York South-Weston that all we can do is take days like today and continue to press the nerve. Maybe the people of Canada are going to get a big surprise next week or the following week. The Minister of Finance may all of a sudden on budget night implement all these things. Maybe Canadians will get a surprise in the next two weeks. God, I hope so.


John V. Nunziata: I would like the member for Broadview-Greenwood to comment on the loss of manufacturing jobs, in Ontario in particular, and what the NDP government, the Bob White government at Queen's Park, is doing to business in the province of Ontario. What will happen if the proposed labour laws are adopted by the province of Ontario, the Bob White government at Queen's Park? What impact will that have on manufacturing jobs in Ontario?


Dennis Joseph Mills: I will be very short, Mr. Speaker, and I appreciate you giving us that extra minute.
The bottom line is that Bob Rae has made promise, after promise, after promise, after promise, but nothing happens in the province of Ontario. Nothing is going on there. It is the biggest wheel-spinning exercise that we have ever seen in the province. That is not a cheap shot. It is just simple fact.
Do you know what I think we should do with the crazy things that are going on with free trade, especially in the automotive industry? I think we should get behind some of our best auto parts people and we should get our own Canada car. We should buy out one of the factories in Windsor and start making a car for Canada so that we can develop the same kind of pride in manufacturing as the Germans and the Japanese. Let us have a Canadian car that we can export all over the world. With the good
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will that we have, we would probably do a lot better than what is currently happening.


René John Soetens: Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise to participate in the resolution before the House today. I certainly respect the views of the member who has just spoken. He has given some eloquent ideas and I am sure some of them warrant some action.
On the other hand, I sit here, listening to the debate that goes on, on the other side. Members of the Liberal Party rise and say that what the member for Broadview- Greenwood is saying is really the view of the Liberal Party. Are they out to lunch? That is no more the view of the Liberal Party than the view of the NDP on some of these issues.
If that had been the view of the Liberals, when they had a chance to govern they would have done a much better job. We only need to look back in the recent past. Members opposite, for some reason, have wanted to drag the NDP government of the province of Ontario into this debate. I will share with them some very basic facts so they can understand that whether it is Liberal or NDP, it really does not matter.
Let us go back to 1982 in the province of Ontario. At that time, the over-all budget of the province was some $17 billion. We did not have a crisis in health care. We did not have a problem with the highways. We did not have a problem with all kinds of portable classrooms stuck out behind the schools. We did not have a problem within the public service. The fact of the matter is, generally speaking, the province of Ontario was running pretty well.
We take that $ 17-odd billion and inflate it 10 years later so that today we should be spending about $27 billion or $28 billion. If we add to that the fact that there has been some population growth in Ontario, which provides additional need by the people who have moved into the province one way or the other, that cost is there. In fact, inflate the number to about $32 billion.
Lo and behold, in the province of Ontario today, thanks to the efforts of the Liberal government of David Peterson and the NDP government of Bob Rae, we are now spending $53 billion, some $20 billion more than

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any reasonable inflationary number. What has Ontario to show for it?
We know what Ontario has to show for it. We have a declining infrastructure when it comes to highways and services. We have a desperate situation in health care and we have a desperate situation in the schools. By using their economic policies in a province that was very successful 10 years ago, the opposition parties have managed to run it down quite dramatically.
We even have them ask: "What do you think about this labour policy the NDP is putting in place?" Of course, it is not a very positive thing, but that is only in the future. We are talking about the present and the past when we talk about their policies. We do not need to look too far to see just what it is that would happen federally should the Liberal or NDP members have their way on this particular resolution before the House today.
There is no doubt that unemployment is high; higher than I think anybody in this House would like to see it. We are aware that it creates a hardship. Every member of the government, and I believe every member of the opposition as well, is committed to finding ways of getting Canadians back to work. We on the government side have an action plan and we are following it to try to help Canadians get back into the work force.
However, opposition members would like Canadians to believe that there are magic solutions; that they can create jobs instantly. They prefer to ignore the fact that there is only one way to create the sort of jobs that provide lasting opportunities for personal security and prosperity, and that is by creating the conditions for renewed private sector investment. The member from Broadview-Greenwood talked about some of those kinds of things. Certainly we all acknowledge it is the private sector that has to create the jobs, has to start to employ the people, and it needs the conditions to make that happen.
Of course opposition members have a slightly different view. They want the government to buy the jobs for Canadians, even if it means adding quite substantially to our national debt. They do not really care that by adding debt they ultimately are talking about a heavier tax burden for all Canadians, for the workers of our country throughout Canada.
The Canada of 1992 cannot afford those sorts of silly-putty solutions, if I can describe them as such. The last time the federal government tried to borrow and spend its way out of a recession was back in 1982 when our deficit jumped from some $15.5 billion to some $38 billion over four years and our national debt doubled.
To this day it has caused a problem for all levels of government, not just the federal government, although we have to deal with that debt and the interest on that debt that keeps accumulating. It influences interest rates throughout this country. It influences the ability of provincial governments to borrow. It influences the ability of private citizens to borrow, of corporations to borrow, and ultimately the profitability of all of those organizations.
It does not come as a surprise that they would like to forget the past because they will say that was prior to 1984. Of course that is why I started out with my brief example of the province of Ontario, because that was not 1984, that is today.
They obviously think Canadians should ignore the policy framework that our government has put in place and that we should just forget about it. Our policy is for substantial sustained non-inflationary growth later this year. We believe that is going to happen. We think we have put in place the proper fundamentals to make that happen and it is through that kind of sustained growth that in fact unemployment will come down.
We can say that is my partisan view of the subject and, yes, I am partisan. That is my view of the subject. But there are others who have similar thoughts and they are independent of government, both independent here in Canada and outside Canada. They expect Canada to report one of the strongest growth rates this year of any major or industrial country around the world. Just yesterday the Conference Board of Canada released its estimate that the economy will grow by some 3.2 per cent this year, which will be the highest among the G-7 group of nations.
The Organization of Economic Co-Operation and Development expects Canada to record the strongest growth rate this year of all of its 24 member countries.
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These are positive forecasts and they are not just the result of a do-nothing government. On the contrary, they show that the policy framework that we have been putting in place with, all of the opposition that the folks on the other side can throw at us, is delivering results.
In last year's budget we said that we would lower interest rates over the long term and that those lower interest rates were key to sustainable economic recovery and job creation. To get those rates down and, more important, to keep them down, it is essential to reduce and ultimately eliminate inflation and inflationary expectations.
We took action to meet that goal. We established firm, realistic targets. We said that by the end of 1992 we would have inflation down to 3 per cent and that we would look for 2 per cent by the middle of the decade.
We seem to be achieving those targets. We still have another three years to go of course before we get to the middle of the decade, but the fact of the matter is that the Government of Canada and the Bank of Canada are committed to this price stability and we do in fact appear to be achieving those targets.
Second, we knew that the government had to take the lead in restraining government wages and salaries to assist the process of inflation reduction. I am sure all Canadians can remember this great debate, if I can describe it as such, that took place last summer and fall when in fact we were trying to bring through the House legislation to implement our wage policies, opposed by the opposition and of course opposed by the various public sector labour unions in this country.
Is it not interesting that here we are, having taken that very firm policy on labour demands, contrary to the one that was taken in the province of Ontario? It is now the province of Ontario that is telling its public sector employees they are going to have to live with 1 per cent. I should point out that they have encouraged spending controls. Across Canada the various premiers at the premiers' conference last week encouraged spending controls. The fact of the matter is here we are as a government in fact providing the very leadership for which the opposition has been asking. We have been providing that leadership because we know that the solution is a difficult one, but it is there in front of us.
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We also knew that we had to maintain our commitments through concrete actions to keep federal government finances on track and a balanced budget by the middle of the 1990s. I do not know what is going to be in the budget, which undoubtedly will be coming forward in the next two or three weeks, but I hope that the government continues to commit itself to the track that we have been on for the last couple of years.
The fact is, if we are to keep inflation and interest rates under control and bring them down further, we cannot allow government deficits to fuel inflationary expectations. Nor can we allow inflation or the deficit to eat up scarce funds in the capital markets.
That is why we took the wide-ranging steps to control government spending that I have mentioned. Not only that, we promised that we would bring forward a bill that restricted government's ability to spend. I am happy to note that today in the House the finance minister in fact introduced that bill, after extensive study by the finance committee, which restricts the government's ability to spend money. That is also why, as the finance minister and the President of the Treasury Board announced two weeks ago, we were freezing all discretionary spending through the balance of this budget year and additional hiring of any personnel that may be associated with it.
Even in face of greater than expected economic weakness, we are not going to let the deficit soar the way it did just 10 years ago when we found ourselves in a different circumstance.
Let me remind the House of some other positive economic developments that should renew our confidence in Canada's economic prospects in coming months. Despite the recent blip in the Bank of Canada rate, interest rates are down dramatically from where they were in May 1990. The commercial bank prime rate is now 7.5 per cent and that is almost half of what it was in May 1990 and the lowest rate since 1973.
Mortgage rates have also fallen substantially. In one year the mortgage rate has fallen 6 per cent. What does it mean? It means that a family carrying a mortgage of $75,000 amortized over 25 years is saving $300 a month on its mortgage payments.
In my riding we have had over the last 10 years an extensive amount of new housing construction. It has been a very active riding. I know that $75,000 mortgages are very common. I have heard from numerous constituents that they have been able to refinance their mort-

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gages and they are talking about the money they are saving, that they have never had mortgage rates as low as they have them today. Members have to appreciate that my riding has many young families. They were not here in the 1950s and 1960s when you could get a 25-year mortgage for 6 per cent or whatever the rate was. They were not old enough to be in the housing market, but they are in the housing market now. They have mortgages now and they know they are saving money now on their mortgage payments.
Underlying this progress is the substantial turnaround we have seen on inflation. The year over year increase in the Consumer Price Index for last year was 3.8 per cent, just half of what it was at the start of the year. When this January's number comes out, I would not be surprised if it was even lower and we will get it down to 2 per cent or maybe even a little less.
I would also point out that the Canadian dollar has fallen. I am aware that it has been a problem. It certainly is a problem for the Canadian industry when the dollar is in the 87-cent and 88-cent range. For a very brief period it hit 89 cents. That certainly is a problem for Canadian industry, but I am happy to see that it has in fact come down and hopefully through actions we will be able to establish a very stable price level on the Canadian dollar, certainly in the range where it is now and not escalating back to those higher levels. Once you have that lower dollar, there will be a stimulus because Canadian industry will be more competitive in two factors: in its exports, but also against imports. That is a double-edged sword and I believe that lower dollar will also help create jobs in this country.
Those are just some of the items that we have dealt with. There was mention of the five-point program and some of the recommendations that the Liberal Party brought forward such as the CMHC insured mortgage and being able to get into the housing market with a 5 per cent down payment. I know the Liberals say they recommended it. Yes, they did, but it was not necessarily their idea. This has been very publicly talked about for some four or five months. All people on all sides of the House thought that was a good idea, so we announced it. We have implemented that program. Housing is important as an engine of the Canadian economy. I hope that we will be successful in carrying it on.
One of the points the hon. member for Broadview- Greenwood made was the fact that there are all kinds of regulations delaying housing starts. I can sympathize fully with some of the points he made. Similarly in my riding just east of Toronto there is a pent-up demand. The problem is that we need a water filtration plant built so that the new housing will have drinking water. What is the hold-up? It is the same hold-up he talked about.
Developers are sitting there. They have their $10 million. They are ready to build. It is engineered. It is designed. It has a location. Lo and behold, it is sitting on some minister's desk waiting for approval which should have been granted over a year ago.


An hon. member:: Are those ministers at Queen's Park?


René John Soetens: Yes, those minister are at Queen's Park. I am glad you asked me to clarify that. I would hate for the people to think that it was ministers in Ottawa who were the problem. In fact, it is not.


An hon. member:: They are NDP then.


René John Soetens: They are from the socialist ilk, NDP in nature. Yes.
There are other ideas. There are things that can be done that would help the economy get going if some other people would also make some important decisions.
Of course, we also expect consumer spending to respond to lower interest rates in the near future. In fact, in the Canadian scenario, certainly in comparison to the United States scenario, you will find that per capita Canadians have more money on deposit in banks. Their debt on their credit cards is lower per capita than in the United State. I am not encouraging people to think about debt. Sometimes when you want to buy something, if you cannot immediately afford it today but you can afford the payments, you ought to get on with the decision. Certainly with the inflationary expectations, the price structures that we have been working with, consumers will find as the year progresses that they will be in a much better position to spend their money much more freely.
February 14, 1992

We have taken a number of steps. I have talked about a number of views on how we are going to bring down unemployment. It is an action based on a basic fact of economic life. For a trade dependent nation like Canada, you maintain jobs and you create new ones only to the extent that you can compete successfully in the global marketplace. When 35 per cent of what we do in this country is exported, we cannot put out of our minds the difficult circumstances that exist in other parts of the world, whether it is the United States, Europe, Japan, the Far East or the Middle East. All of these things have an impact.
If we keep inflation under control, if we keep our economic arguments going in the correct direction and keep the fundamentals correct, Canadian exporters will be able to do a much better job.
I realize I am running out of time, but there is another aspect. It is really the over-all confidence that Canadians have in the process we are in. Canadians will find with the budget that is coming forward in the next few weeks that the government has a very clear plan. We are going to continue on that plan. Canadians will have confidence that we know what we are doing. When they have that confidence, they will carry on to fulfil their part in the over-all scheme of getting the Canadian economy going.


David Kilgour: Mr. Speaker, I listened as carefully as I could to the member's talk. I wonder if he would tell the House if it is true, as I believe it is, that between June 1989 and October 1991,
461,000	manufacturing jobs, about 12.1 per cent of our total manufacturing jobs, disappeared and fully 150,000 of those jobs were gone before the recession's official onset. Our manufacturing industry now employs about 15 per cent of Canadians and it seems to me thousands of those jobs probably come from his part of Ontario. What is he talking about? What good does it do to get up to cite some think-tanks saying that our growth is going to go up more than any other OECD country next year? I do not know if he was present before, but I read the figures that showed that Canada is performing economically among the worst of the OECD member countries and certainly among the worst of the G-7 countries.
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At what level do these debates get conducted in this House? Are we conducting ourselves on the intellectual level that Canadians would expect us to be debating serious issues in this House?


René John Soetens: Mr. Speaker, I find it interesting that the member is talking about some of the economic policies of our government that he is obviously concerned about in his presentation. I believe in fact he voted for most, if not all of those.
Having said that, he asked me to defend a list of some
400,000	odd-jobs that have been lost in the Canadian economy, a list that has already been refuted by quite a number of people as having a tremendous amount of inaccuracies in it.
If the member is suggesting that the growth program that we are presently putting in place will not provide job opportunities, what does he think growth does? We are aware there is an unemployment problem in Canada. Through this growth that we are saying will happen because of our program, we will see unemployment in Canada fall. It will fall because people will have found themselves in very stable, consistent, ongoing, full-time, rewarding jobs.


Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question to ask the hon. member. He just answered the member for Edmonton Southeast that it was wrong to have supported some of these policies in the past. If it was wrong to have supported some of these harmful policies in the past, is it not far worse to continue to support all of those wrong policies, which the hon. member is doing right now?


René John Soetens: In case the hon. member did not hear me correctly, and I suspect he did not, I said the policies that the member was criticizing were in fact policies he voted for. All I am saying is that those policies are and were correct. By the implementation and continuation of these policies, we are talking about things like deficit control. I have no doubt that during the last election campaign the member from Edmonton talked about deficit control. I note when he walked across the floor he threw that argument out the window. He has joined those who do not think deficits are a problem.


Dennis Joseph Mills: Mr. Speaker, the member talked about the inflation numbers, the interest rate being reduced, et cetera. He

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would have to concede that the government's inflation targets are way ahead of schedule. Interest rates are in respectable shape. Does he not feel that there is enough room within his fiscal plan, seeing he is so far ahead on his inflation program, to do something that will put some hope back into that part of our community that is unemployed?
He is focused on ratcheting down inflation. Quite frankly, I would challenge the model right now that says there is any inflation in this country. I cannot see it. I do not know of it anywhere. My point is the deep economic pain that is out there for those people who are most in need.
We do not seem to have a life raft for them. At what point in time does the government say: "Our fiscal framework is on track. We are ahead of schedule. Now, let's look after those who are most disadvantaged in our society". At what point do you make that change?


René John Soetens: Mr. Speaker, I am happy to respond to that. Let me come at it from two directions.
First, in Canada, 90 per cent of the population is working. What we are talking about with some of the policies is to get that 90 per cent feeling more confident to start to invest. That will help the unemployment side.
That is one side we are working on. On the other side, I think the member is absolutely correct. It appears that our inflation targets are going to be met and that we are somewhat ahead of ourselves. Interest rates are a little lower than we have targeted.
I do not know what will be in the budget. I have a lot of opportunity to input to the minister, but I do not know what will ultimately be in it. I have recommended to the minister that because of some of these things that the member has mentioned and because there is still a serious unemployment problem, we should look at easing some of the levers by some capital projects.
I must suggest that my view of capital projects is different from those that the provincial government has responsibility for. I believe that we have our jurisdiction where we can invest some money. I have made some recommendations to the minister not to support a huge increase in spending, but to look at some areas where we know we are going to have to make some capital investment because of the kind of things that the
member has mentioned. I have encouraged that there be a look at some of these projects.
Of course, the biggest one, and I believe it was mentioned during Question Period, is the fixed link to Prince Edward Island. I recommended that and a number of others. Not every project needs to cost $1 billion. There can be some really worth-while projects, spending $50,000 here and $100,000 there, and maybe even $1 million in other locations.
Through a variety of programs, but fundamental at least to my outlook, we can in fact achieve those targets that we have set out.


Jesse Philip Flis: Mr. Speaker, I listened to the hon. member very closely. I spent some time with him in Saint-Jean trying to learn some French. I got to know him quite well and I know he speaks very sincerely.
He said that the government does have an action plan. I listened to him very carefully. What is it? Is it predicting that there will be a recovery? Is that the government's action plan?
He talked about the fundamentals that it has laid down. Is that the government's action plan? He does know that there are 300,000 skilled jobs required in this country right now. There are 1.5 million unemployed. What is the government's action plan to match these demand jobs right now and the 1.5 million people who are looking for jobs?
In Question Period I asked the minister of employment if he would implement at least part of the Liberal five-point plan for economic recovery. He definitely said: "No, because it would not provide permanent jobs. It would provide all short-term jobs". Yet, the member is agreeing with us now that there are some public works projects that might create jobs and help the unemployed.
What is the government's action plan for matching the
300,000	skilled workers required right now with this huge population looking for jobs?


René John Soetens: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that the Liberal action plan has five points in it.
One of the five which is a very public and very highly demanded plan is the down payment reduction on housing. That has been implemented by the government. To suggest that we are not looking at anything, one of
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their own ideas that he supports has been implemented.
The relevant issue is that 300,000 jobs are going unfilled because they are for trained people. Certainly I have seen in my riding, and I am sure all members have seen that over the last year, the government has moved a considerable amount of money into the training budget. I am sorry I do not have the numbers in front of me exactly, but I believe it was increased over the last two years from just over $1 billion to just under $3 billion.
That is a substantial increase in funding in the training programs. I would suggest that hopefully all of those people involved in those training programs, or many of them, will look at those 300,000 jobs which are going unfilled and be qualified to fill them.


Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak in this debate today. Let me remind the House of the motion we are discussing:
That this House condemn the government for its refusal to take
action to alleviate the intolerably high levels of unemployment in
Canada.
Many Canadians could have written this motion, perhaps not as eloquently as the hon. member for York South-Weston because very few people have such eloquence, but most of them think exactly what is in this motion.
First, let me take this opportunity to congratulate the member for York South-Weston on his recent appointment as the employment critic for the national Liberal Party. I am sure that I speak on behalf of all members of this House in congratulating the member. We know that he will really hold this minister and this government to account for the shortcomings of the Conservative government.
This government has so many shortcomings that it would probably take 85 critics to keep it honest in that regard, if that is possible. However, I know that the member for York South-Weston will do a tremendous job not only for the national Liberal caucus but indeed for all Canadians who want us to air that grievance with the government in order to obtain redress.
When I said that several million Canadians feel exactly as the member for York South-Weston does, I was not
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making a merely partisan remark. In addition to the feelings we have as parliamentarians there are very concrete statistics to support what we are saying.
I have before me an article written by Frances Russell, which appeared in the Winnipeg Free Press on February 5, 1992, and presumably in other Canadian newspapers as well. She points out that between June 1989 and October 1991, under the Conservative government, 461,000 manufacturing jobs were lost.
The hon. member for Edmonton Southeast referred to those very depressing statistics only a few moments ago. Yet, we hear some members across the way who say they are on the right track. What would things be like if this government were on the wrong track? We are losing this many jobs while the government pretends to be going in the appropriate direction.
The people of my riding do not think that what is happening now is at all satisfactory. The government pretends that this situation is world-wide.

Although the recession is not unique to Canada, Mr. Speaker, you are non-partisan and with your great objectivity and neutrality, you will understand that Canada's present situation has been made much worse by the monetary policy of the government opposite and also by the policy of too high interest rates. Of course our overvalued currency has cost Canada jobs that went abroad. This brought on the recession in Canada even before it was felt in other parts of the world.
We see that this government has greatly contributed to the recession. I would even say that the Canadian government beat others to the recession.
Before the nation-wide recession, created by the government opposite, many parts of our country were already suffering from recession. Take eastern Ontario, for example. In my riding of Glengarry-Prescott-Russell, in Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke, in Stormont- Dundas and in others, we started to feel the effects of this recession long ago. That is why some of my colleagues and I asked the Conservative government opposite in 1990 to establish an economic recovery program for eastern Ontario. We were so disadvantaged in our

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area that we needed such a program, even before the recession hit the rest of the country.
What we did not know then is that the worst was still to come.

I have before me a front page article from the Standard- Freeholder, a newspaper in Cornwall, Ontario, of Tuesday, August 28, 1991. It is entitled "Eastern Ontario Needs Job Help". It talks about the fact that an all-party committee of members of the Ontario legislature was on tour in eastern Ontario and it heard of the terrible economic conditions in eastern Ontario. It heard from the mayor of Cornwall, not from the member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell, that companies needed incentive to relocate in the region.
I would like to quote then Mayor Phil Poirier: "Ontario's competitiveness as an economic region is being weakened by its reluctance to match its competitors' actions, and the same applies for the federal government which has failed to provide economic assistance to eastern Ontario the way preceding governments have done".

Now hon. members opposite like to say: "Well, you know, you Liberals have no alternative". They say that or they say: "You have alternatives but they cost too much". That again is wrong.

For those across the way who ask what is the alternative, our leader, the member for Beausejour, announced a few weeks ago a five-point program to improve the economy of this country.
Let me go through those points, and I will also discuss how we are going to pay for them. I invite the Conservative members to take note, to write it down or get someone else to write it for them so that they can adopt these policies.
(1)	We ask for a 5 per cent minimum down payment for first-time home buyers. That is cost neutral and the government has done it already. We thank it for making this first step. There are four more yet to be taken.
(2)	Permit the use of the registered retirement savings plans for first-time home buyers. This program has no cost to it. All you do is borrow from your own RRSP, put some sort of an attachment on the property, and if and when you ever sell the property you put it back into the RRSP. There is obviously no cost attached to that, not even the loss of potential income tax, nothing. There is no cost at all attached to this particular plan of our leader, the member for Beausejour.
(3)	A shared cost infrastructure program. Yes, we have called for this program. One billion dollars is the cost of it. How do we pay for that? First, in my own province of Ontario the provincial government has already agreed to contribute matching funds. It has already agreed to pay for half of it. In addition, we must remember that by not paying unemployment insurance much of that money would be coming back, some $350 million of it.
There are two more components. One is intensified basic skills training in Canada and the other is emergency funding for food banks which we would pay for by cancelling government polling and advertising.
We have offered alternatives.

I call on members opposite to listen to the grievances of the Canadian people, those in Glengarry-Prescott- Russell and elsewhere, who want an economic recovery program to get the economy going again and not platitudes from the government which likes to tell us that it is on the right track.
They are not on the right track. Eighty-four per cent of Canadians who have had it with the Prime Minister and his government know that they are not on the right track. The Prime Minister spoke the truth yesterday. He told Canadians who do not like his policies not to vote for him. That is exactly what they intend to do, and I hope that it will be soon.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Atkinson):: The hon. member had indicated that he was splitting his time with his colleague so there will be a five-minute questions and comments period.
February 14, 1992


Mr. Gabriel Fontaine (Levis):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the hon. member a question. He has just mentioned that his -leader favours the use of registered retirement savings plans for the purchase of certain durables or houses which are even more durable consumer goods. Can he tell me what that will do? When your leader was a minister, as we were emerging from the 1980-81 recession, his government embarked upon a major capital projects policy and then interest rates soared, reaching 24 per cent and the inflation rate was as high as 14 per cent.
Today, under similar circumstances, that is to say just after a recession, here is your leader suggesting we do as he did then, that we make the same mistake and cause inflation and interest rates to flare up, while our party is advocating a stable monetary policy producing lower interest rates. They have been around 7 or 8 per cent for the past few months. That is a quite impressive drop. I would like the hon. member to explain to Canadians who have mortgages to pay how this would impact on their monthly payments on a $75,000 mortgage, for instance if, having adopted a major capital projects approach as advocated by his leader, we were to repeat the same mistakes he made in 1981 and let the interest rates rise to 20 to 24 per cent.


Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, the member opposite is a bit confused. For one thing, the first part of his question deals with registered retirement savings plans. The second part, which he mixes with the first part of his question, deals with the public works program advocated by the Liberal leader.
I believe that the member's question is about registered retirement savings plans. First, the member opposite knows, because the Canadian Home Builders' Association surely informed him like the rest of us, that thousands of home foundations are all ready to be built on. Therefore, the announcement of such a program would result in almost immediate construction. There would be no waiting for drawings or tenders, which could take months and even years. We are talking about something that could be implemented within a few weeks. The economic impact would be that fast.
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Second, I believe that the member was referring to some deficit that would result in a higher cost of living, or something like that. The member forgets that there is no deficit of any kind, neither for the government nor for the taxpayer, if you borrow from your own registered retirement savings plan. It is simply a transfer of investments from one portfolio to another. That is all that is involved. It may be that the member did not understand that, but he should familiarize himself with this issue by contacting the Canadian Home Builders' Association. If he wishes, I can provide him with the telephone number.


Dennis Joseph Mills: I have a short question for my colleague, the member for Glengarry - Prescott -Russell.
The member for York South-Weston, our critic responsible for employment, put forward an idea this morning that we in this House should issue a challenge to the Minister of Employment and Immigration that we debate right through the weekend ideas on how we can put people back to work. We need to stimulate this government to put a tighter focus on this issue.
I would like the hon. member to put forward some ways in which he feels we can get this government to respond to this request.


Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, I am almost tempted to say that the quickest way to get things done is to call an election right now. But even that would take a few days of campaigning before we are rid of the people across the way.
Meanwhile, it is incumbent on the minister to listen very attentively to the debate. I am sure, looking at him right now, that is precisely what he is doing. I am sure he is taking copious notes of the remarks of all hon. members of this House and that he will be responding and acting on our measures.
It is my hope that he and the Minister of Finance will announce in the budget in no more than two weeks from now the other four points suggested by the hon. Leader of the Opposition.
Yes, we could have debated all weekend. I am ready to do so but I do not think that the minister-and I am looking at him attentively right now-is ready. I am looking at the Prime Minister as well in his seat there

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and I do not think he is ready to debate this weekend either. Nor is the Minister of Finance. I can tell by that look on his face that he is not ready to debate this weekend.


Roger Simmons: Mr. Speaker, my friend from York South-Weston has moved a resolution that ought to command the support of pretty well every member of this House.


Don Boudria: Every Canadian.


Roger Simmons: Certainly, I say to my friend from Glengarry-Prescott-Russell, if every Canadian could vote on this resolution there would be a thumping majority in favour, I will tell him that.
The unfortunate thing I say to him and to this House, is that this House no longer really represents the majority wishes of Canadians. It is true that at the time of the election in 1988 a majority of members of a particular party stripe were elected. But the sad commentary on that group is that they no longer reflect the wishes of the people who sent them here.
The best example of that is the goods and services tax, where fully 85 per cent of the people-and I have no reason to believe the proportions are any different in Tory ridings than in other ridings-have voiced their opinion very strongly against that tax. Yet these people sit here and allow the will of the people to be thwarted.
If the people of Canada could say today "we condemn the government for its refusal to take action to alleviate the intolerably high levels of unemployment", they would support almost unanimously that resolution. I say "almost unanimously". There would be exceptions to that. It would not be a unanimous vote.
There are some people out there who would disagree with this resolution in all fairness. And who are they? Well, they are the people who have jobs, thank you very much. They are the people who ran those big ads about free trade during the last federal election. They are the people who are benefiting from a massive tax break from this government. I am sure everyone knows the statistics.
Those who earn $100,000 or more a year in this country are now paying $1,600 less in federal taxes than when this government took office; $1,600 fewer dollars each year than was the case when this government took office in 1984. Those earning $30,000 or less a year are
now paying $1,200 more a year in federal taxes than in 1984.
What is the net message? That this government is looking after its own rich friends. Those rich friends, if they were to vote on this resolution, would find nothing wrong with what this government has done because this government has looked after them very well in tax terms and in every other way possible.
I was particularly interested in what the hon. member for Ontario had to say. I thought perhaps his remarks were maybe the most informative from that side of the House in that he got into announcing aspects of what is going to be in the budget. He may be in some trouble with his colleagues for that, but that is quite another story.
At least his candour can be complimented. I found what he had to say to be very informative as to what will be in the budget. It contradicts what he was saying earlier about the need for more restraint and the big bugaboo was the deficit. He spent much of his time on that, but when he let his hair down he talked about how this government has some plans to do some spending when the time is politically ripe. I am interested in hearing more from him on that issue.
Yes, today is Valentine's Day, February 14, a day when we turn our thoughts to particular subjects but, irony of ironies, it is also the day that this country is being pummelled as never before.
I am sure you have heard about the lay-offs of hundreds of people in the forestry industry in the Albemi Valley on Vancouver Island by MacMillan Bloe-del today. I am sure you have heard of the closing of a Sears catalogue office in Halifax today.
I particularly want to flag the two items that we have mentioned already today, one being the Hibernia situation with its drastic employment impact and the giving of notice to 1,000 workers, and the other being 850 plant workers and 155 trawlermen in relation to the Catalina, Newfoundland plant operated by Fisheries Products International.
Just those four locations that I mentioned: Port Alber-ni in British Columbia, Halifax in Nova Scotia, Catalina in Newfoundland, and of course Hibernia at Bull Arm and other sites in Newfoundland, bring into sharp focus once again the difficulties that are being faced by the
February 14, 1992

people of this country. People cannot even assume from one day to the next they have a job.
Some of the misery of today, and I am thinking particularly about Hibernia, has been inflicted because of a commercial decision. At least that is the immediate reason, but a good part of the misery being inflicted today can be traced directly to government policy.
Why is the forestry industry whether in British Columbia or in Newfoundland or elsewhere in trouble? It is because of the high dollar. You heard the double-talk from the hon. member for Ontario in succeeding mouthfuls. He talks about how he is pleased the dollar is coming down and how at the same time he supports everything the government does.
Well which is it? What this government has done is kept the dollar artificially high at the expense of thousands of jobs in the forestry industry, the mining industry, the fishing industry, indeed any industry in which we export the product. That is certainly the case for the three industries I have just mentioned, three industries that Newfoundland depends very heavily on: forestry, mining and fishing.
Take as a second example the loss today in Catalina, Newfoundland of 1,000 jobs. Why does FPI, the company concerned, find it necessary to give these notices? The answer is clear and it is in its press release. I believe it relates to quota reductions. What causes quota reductions? The massive foreign overfishing which this government almost invited in 1985 and has allowed to go on year after year ever since.
Only today, during Question Period, I was asking the Deputy Prime Minister if the time was not indeed right for this government to give notice to the offending nations that enough is enough and that we intend to unilaterally extend jurisdiction, marine maritime jurisdiction, to embrace the nose and tail of the Grand Banks.
The motion is all about the failure, the refusal of this government to take action.
Whenever you have different parties represented in a forum such as this, you will have different views about monetary policy, about any number of policies which will
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have an impact on job generation. Irrespective of our differing ideologies, where there ought to be no difference is in the need to do some common sense things.
What could be more common sense than putting an end to this flagrant overfishing I have mentioned? What could be more common sense than allowing the dollar to come down a bit so that our exports are more competitive.
Yes, we condemn the failure of this government. Its failure has been so blatant, so stubborn and so arrogant. Does it not care at all? Doesn't anyone who sits on that side of the House care at all about the misery that has been inflicted, about the lives that are being destroyed, about the university education that will never go forward, about the families that are breaking up, about the increased crime?
These are all manifestations which flow directly from these very, very difficult economic times created in large measure by this administration.
Yes, we condemn that and that is why I am so delighted to support this resolution.
[Translation]	.


Gabriel Fontaine: Mr. Speaker, I want to ask my colleague if he claims that the government should implement measures that would have the effect of raising interest rates significantly. That is my first question.
Second, does he claim that government policy should destabilize the value of the Canadian currency and fuel inflation? Would he be in favour of a return to an inflationary policy, a policy of high interest rates?
If so, what does he have to say about economic forecasts such as those of the Toronto-Dominion Bank, for instance? In its latest bulletin for winter 1992 that bank predicts increases compared to 1991 when investments in Canada decreased by 28 per cent. For 1992 and 1993 the Toronto-Dominion Bank expects investments to increase by 20.7 per cent and 29.6 per cent.
I dare say that this reflects a policy of controlling inflation and keeping interest rates low. How can these rates remain low and how could inflation be kept under control if we advocated, like the member's leader, a repeat of the mistakes of the Liberal Party in 1981,

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namely major public projects or the use of money in registered retirement savings plans?
Elis colleague said that these monies would simply be transferred. That colleague does not at all understand what is involved. If a person with money in a pension fund actually withdraws that money and uses it for another purpose, the fund has to take that money from somewhere. If the Liberals claim that we should print money, that will fuel inflation and we will again experience the problems of 1981.
How does the member reconcile all this, and what is his opinion on interest rates and the value of the Canadian dollar?


Roger Simmons: Mr. Speaker, I would like to start by thanking my colleague from Levis for his questions. I hope to be able to properly answer his questions in French at some point in the future, but for now I choose to answer him in English.

I would like very much to be able to respond at more length to my colleague in French, but I am sure he would be more interested- in the substance of my response than the semantics of it. I will stick to the language that I botch somewhat less completely than I do French.
The hon. member raises a number of interesting questions. On the question of inflation, of course dealing with inflation has been important and I think the government has done a good job of keeping that under control. The answer is no, nobody on this side wants to jeopardize that situation.
We have to keep in mind that one is well under control. It is not the only objective. Any government must have a balance, a smorgasbord of objectives. This is one of them and it has done a reasonably good job of dealing with that one. It cannot hang its hat on that one alone. It has to move on and address some of the misery that is out there.
The member for Levis talks about destabilizing the dollar. No, the dollar is quite stable. Indeed the only tampering with it has been in the opposite direction to keep it artificially high. Our position is that if the government left the dollar alone it would become very stable, a bit lower and even more stable. The only
tampering with it, as I say, has been in the opposite direction to keep it artificially high.
If he is going to quote economists from Toronto-why anybody from a sensible province like Quebec or Newfoundland would want to quote anybody from Toronto, I do not know-I will indulge him if he will indulge me. Somebody else from Toronto, a good economist, said the other day that the appreciation of the Canadian dollar over the last four years "is having a damaging effect on the economy".
No, we are not wanting to destabilize. We are wanting to make the dollar even more stable and we can do that by bringing it down.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Atkinson):: The time for questions and comments is now terminated.


John V. Nunziata: I rise on a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I wonder if the House might indulge the hon. member for Algoma. He has a quick question to ask of my colleague from Newfoundland.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Atkinson):: I would like to
express to the hon. member for York South-Weston that it was agreed that there would be two speakers from the Liberal side, 10-minute debate and a five-minute question and answer period. The five-minute question and answer period following this member's speech has expired.


Mr. Andre Plourde (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of International Trade):: Mr. Speaker, this motion and this debate provide me with an opportunity as a former industrialist to think aloud, to share my views and even to speak my mind.
As legislators it is important that we take the time to meet and exchange ideas, to get to the heart of the major challenges facing the nation instead of merely skimming over them, to seek the cause of the problem instead of just focusing on the symptoms, to take a good hard look at some of the major forces which are now shaping our national and international agendas, forces that challenge each of us in our respective fields but which are necessary if we are to be efficient or even survive.
How much stronger our nation would be if such an opportunity for change came our way more regularly, in all regions of our country and in all walks of life. Yet, it seems that we have fewer opportunities for substantive
February 14, 1992

dialogue. What is really paradoxical is that at the same time the vagaries of our times call for even more discussion and debate. This creates a stronger need for public consensus as a basis for achieving our goals.
You are all well aware of the financial, constitutional, environmental, international and social issues which we all are currently interested in. I would like to share with you, Madam Speaker, and with the members of this House my own feeling on one or two truly fundamental issues, issues that have received little or no attention in our daily lives or in the media but yet set the tone to all the others.
Two closely related forces are sweeping the planet: the emergence of a global economy and the coming of the information age.
Whatever labels one uses, the fact is that the age we are now in is very different from the one that the two generations before us knew. The industrial age is over; the knowledge age is here. National borders are blurred as global systems dominated by world-wide corporations and three huge trading alliances emerge. A new world order is taking shape. The market economy is winning the whole world.
Those who refuse to admit it and remain attached to old ways are left behind. In politics and the huge government bureaucracy, pressures for change are enormous but change is slow in coming.
Instant access to information and universal education have dramatically increased the power of individuals. Now individuals want to have a say in decision making. That in itself is a force for change.
Greater individual involvement tremendously enriches our society and our democracy, but the political process, which includes both the government and private institutions, must be thoroughly rethought to reflect the new autonomy of individuals and the new interest groups which are more powerful than ever, not only to involve them in decision making, Madam Speaker, but also because today it is time to recognize that individual behaviour, translated into daily action, is a greater determinant of what the nation is than are government decrees.
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Individuals express themselves on all the markets of the land; they cause things to happen. We must therefore take another look if we want the political process to work well. In doing so, we must also reform institutions and think of new mechanisms. We must manage more efficiently, privatize, and deal with those who cannot deal with the changes.
As a government, we must be more concerned with developing co-operation and consensus on a wide scale. We must encourage attitudes and behaviours in that direction. A new fundamental reality has appeared with the information age and the global economy and it has a direct effect on our society. This perception of the new reality has been one of the key points of the government's agenda since 1984. This agenda has been consistently pursued, although there have been some mistakes along the way, I agree. We have pursued this agenda despite massive constraints of all kinds, not the least of which is certainly the ideological heritage of Liberalism that has continued to haunt us, a heritage that continues to mislead too many Canadians.
After decades of watching a titanic government spend massively, a government guided by a vision of society and the public service that belongs to a bygone era, the federal government's strategy for economic renewal is in striking contrast. It clearly shows the coherent vision of a national economy that does not have to suffer government interference and where individual initiative and entrepreneurship take on their full importance.
By reducing the public debt, by slashing wasteful spending and inefficient programs, by reforming the tax system and extending trade opportunities, and by consolidating international markets, the prosperity initiative which the Minister for International Trade and the Minister of Employment and Immigration launched last October is another major step in this series of coherent initiatives.
Canada, as you know, faces a serious competitive threat. We are lagging behind our main international competitors, especially in terms of productivity and knowledge acquisition. We are proposing a serious attempt to inform Canadians about a whole complex of issues. We have created consultation procedures to take the public debate further and to encourage consensus.

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First, it is innovative and that is somewhat risky. Second, we have involved the private sector in it. Third, a solid base has been established for developing a national action plan this year. This plan will include not only all governments but also all interest groups in Canadian society, and here I include all members of this House. This initiative is a perfect example of a government that understands the new realities of our time.
This process is bound to succeed if you, together with other leaders in Canadian society, recognize that you must take part, if you encourage all the other partners in our society to commit themselves fully, and if everyone together determines the process. What will happen? In this day and age governments can no longer act alone. Your actions and your commitment will determine whether our nation succeeds or fails to meet this important challenge of competition.


Gabriel Fontaine: Madam Speaker, I listened to the speech made by my colleague who talked about the new world order in which we live. It must be said, to the credit of those who preceded us, that the eighties are very different from the sixties and the seventies. It is for that reason that some changes must be made in the economy and that we must avoid repeating the mistakes made in the sixties and seventies. I believe that the member explained very well why we must adapt to this new world order.
The member also talked about the privatization process implemented by our government. I would like to tell him about this privatization exercise, using the case de Havilland and Canadair, two former public companies that had run through almost $3 billion. Since it is a company from my colleague's constituency that took control of Canadair and de Havilland, I would like him to tell us exactly what he witnessed in his own riding in terms of achievements by this private company which acquired public corporations that were previously in deficit. It is important that the population knows what good private entrepreneurs can do, as opposed to bureaucrats.


André Plourde: Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Levis who underlines the importance of Bombardier in Quebec. As member for Kamouraska-
Riviere-du-Loup, I have the privilege to have that company in my riding, namely in La Pocatiere. I remember when I first came to this House in 1984 and when our Prime Minister talked about privatizing some Crown corporations, the first ones mentioned were Canadair in Montreal and de Havilland. Madam Speaker, you will recall that we had a very lively debate in this House because the opposition was absolutely opposed to the government's idea of selling Canadair and de Havilland to private interests.
However, we knew very well that if a successful Canadian and Quebec company of Bombardier's magnitude wanted to acquire Canadair, it would turn it into a profitable private venture, and we would no longer have to put up with the deficits that we had with Canadair and de Havilland. Indeed, in one year the federal government had to absorb a $1 billion deficit.
We are now in 1992, and who saved de Havilland in Toronto, Qntario? I admit that there are many lay-offs there right now. But it was Bombardier, a company from Quebec and Canada. Who saved UTDC in Toronto which belonged to the Government of Ontario and was later bought back by Lavalin? It was Bombardier, a company from Quebec and Canada. Who saved Canadair in Montreal? Again it was Bombardier, a company from Quebec and Canada.
Today we realize one thing: The three corporations that were privatized are now making profits and are creating jobs.
I thank the member for Levis who brought this issue to my attention. I am very proud of Bombardier and its input in Canada's economy.


Mr. Maurice Foster (Algoma):: Madam Speaker, two points came to mind as the hon. member for Kamouraska-Riviere-du-Loup was speaking. He comes from a resource area and I likewise come from the resource area of northern Ontario. We have had massive lay-offs in both the uranium mining industry in Elliot Lake where we have lost some 2,500 of 4,000 jobs in the last couple of years and we will be losing another 1,000 this year when Denison Mines shuts down.
February 14, 1992

One of the problems we are running into in regard to training, and I have spoken to the minister about this, is the problem with the training allowance under Bill C-22. There is provision for up to three years of training, but unfortunately it is a highly segmented, regimented system.
What we really need is more flexibility so that a person starting, whether it is at the late high school level or early high school or even in literacy training, would be able to start at whatever level their proficiency was at and then move through for four years of training on to skills training and technical training. That is the one point that came to my mind and I think it is urgent.
The second point is that the government really needs to take some immediate action now to stimulate the economy. The leader of my party proposed that we have an infrastructure program where a billion dollars would be set aside by the federal government which would be matched equally by the provinces and municipalities. That way we would get things moving out of this recession. I think that is important.
The other matter that needs to be looked at is co-operation between the federal and provincial governments. Mr. Bob Rae was on the television a few weeks ago and outlined what a disastrous situation the Ontario economy was in, but he did not give much prescription. The one thing that he did propose was that his government would be willing to match dollar for dollar any initiatives by the federal government.
I have proposed to the premier that the federal government has offered to provide up to $30 million for Elliot Lake to build a francophone community college in that community. I am challenging him to come forward with the provincial share of that funding so that that project can go forward.
It is hard to believe but the premier seems to be trying to establish some board of governors to put the decision at arm's length. Whereas he is the premier and his cabinet is responsible for education, they should make a decision and establish a community college for francophones in Elliot Lake. It has broad support throughout northern Ontario. The federal government has provided its support. Even Ontario Hydro has offered through a special economic diversification fund to provide another $10 million.
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What is required is for the province to take its responsibility, not try to fob it off as to location to a board of governors, and move on. This project would provide some 500 direct jobs, another 500 indirect jobs and some several thousand students for that community which is desperate for jobs and for diversification because of the massive lay-offs which we suffered during the last two or three years.
I am sure those three or four points are very much in line with those of my hon. colleague across the way. It is essential, as we work our way through this recession, to find tools and take action to overcome the tremendous economic downturn that we face, the loss of jobs and the unemployment that so many thousands of Canadians face today.


André Plourde: Madam Speaker, first of all, I would like to thank the hon. member for Algoma. When he referred to Ontario Premier Bob Rae, this took me back to the First Ministers' Conference held last Monday. In fact I have nothing but praise for the Premier. He said at the conference that we should set politics aside and forget about being Conservatives, Liberals, New Democrats or whatever, and work together to develop Canada's economy.
That is what I as the member for Kamouraska-Ri-viere-du-Loup have been saying for the past eight years in my region and my riding. Politics does not do a thing for the economy. When opposition members in this House and in the provincial legislatures realize that politics is no way to help the economy, I guarantee we will create jobs. When we talk about programs, a government's program is like any other product. It has to be sold. I have been in the private sector for 28 years, and I know what I am talking about.
Earlier I referred to Bombardier in La Pocatiere. I held a press conference in November 1991 to announce a subsidy for Bombardier, but only the regional press showed up. We announced that 800 new jobs would be created in La Pocatiere over the next nine months. It was not mentioned in the national media or on CBC television because it was good news. They only want to announce bad news. When we realize that we have to start talking about the positive things that are happening,

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it will be a big relief to realize that the federal government iscreating new jobs.


Robert Evans Skelly: Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the member of the Liberal Party who moved this motion which calls on the House to condemn the government for its failure to take action to stop unemployment and to create additional employment in this country.
I was looking at an article recently in The Ottawa Citizen in which Judith Maxwell, a well-known Canadian economist, was trying to determine what were the reasons for the poor economic performance in Canada. She said: "Higher inflation and failure to invest in new technology are major reasons for the higher production costs in Canada, not social programs and wages".
It seems that the government has taken its focus at two issues, social programs and wages, so it is really missing the point of the problem, which is one of the reasons we are seeing such tremendous job loss in this country and why the government refuses to take effective action to increase employment in Canada.
In the same article Maxwell also blasted what she called the "very weak training effort by Canadian business compared with that by industry in the U.S., Japan, and Germany". I think that criticism can be directed not simply at business but also at governments in Canada, and in particular this government, because training is the key to a successful economy in the future and to successful participation in the future economy by those who need the training.
As you might know, Madam Speaker, one of the previous participants in this debate mentioned the announcement of a shutdown in Port Alberni within the last few days of two logging operations employing something like 340 men and 60 contractors. Over 400 people have lost their jobs in those two particular logging operations in my riding. As a person who comes from a community of 19,000 people that is largely dependent on the forest industry I can say that, in conjunction with a number of other lay-offs and permanent shutdowns that have taken place over the last several months and years, is causing tremendous economic problems.
I am not going to say that it is a dying community because Port Alberni where I come from has tremendous resilience. It has always been able to pull together and push back. It has been around for a long time. It has thrived for a long time. It has done well for a long time. Many times it showed the highest average income levels based on tax statistics of any community in the country, and it is going to do that again.
At this particular time things are looking pretty grim in Port Alberni. Between 1982 and 1984 we have seen 2,500 people lose their jobs in the logging industry at a time when there was no loss to the forest land base due to the environment or withdrawals from the working forest. It was simply an increase in speed of production, mechanization, changes in markets and that kind of thing. As a result those 2,500 people lost their jobs permanently in the forestry industry.
Just recently in that community we have seen a plywood mill shut down with the loss of roughly 300 and some jobs. We have seen a sawmill shut down, with another 150 to 200 jobs lost. We have seen processes within the pulp and paper mill in Port Alberni shut down. Again we are looking at something like 500 jobs possibly being removed from that plant and probably removed permanently. It is a community that is definitely suffering.
It is interesting, at the same time as the community is suffering, as those jobs have been lost and as MacMillan Bloedel, the major employer in the community, is declaring tremendous losses in its operations over the last year, that company has declared a 15 per cent dividend to its shareholders within the last week. Those shareholders are reaping the benefits that they do not deserve because that company is losing money. What is happening is that the shareholders are taking their dividends from the declining capital of that corporation. That is unfair to the community of Port Alberni. That is unfair to the workers in Port Alberni who are actually losing their jobs to pay those dividends to shareholders who have not done a lick of work, as far as I am concerned, in the forest industry.
In addition, MacMillan Bloedel has been investing in the United States. It recently invested in a $300 million oriented strand board plant down in Deerfield, Wisconsin. This was made more feasible as a result of the
February 14, 1992

changes that were brought about by the free trade agreement.
Recently the parallam process, a process for developing laminated beams that almost have the strength of steel and can be used as a substitute for steel beams, was developed in Canada by Canadian scientists. It has now been sent for manufacture down to the United States with partners in the United States. Again another $300 million investment. I suspect, in the last two or three years since the free trade agreement has allowed it that leeway, the company has now invested about $1 billion in the United States while it is shutting down its investments in British Columbia and putting workers out the door who have committed their lives, their skills and their talents to that company in Canada.
It is unfortunate we do not have companies operating in this country that have a sense of duty, responsibility, nationalism and patriotism for this country and a sense of responsibility for the workers.
Judith Maxwell was talking about the investment in training. A study was recently done by the Council of Forest Industries in British Columbia and by the International Woodworkers of America (Canada), the major union operating in the forest industry in that area, of 227 sawmill workers in a number of sawmills in British Columbia. The results of the study were as follows.
They found that 56 per cent of the workers had difficulty understanding training manuals at the grade 4 level. I am talking about the grade 4 level. Only 26 per cent of those sawmill workers were able to understand technical material relating to the operation of their equipment and to safety processes. Only 26 per cent was able to understand technical documents at the grade 12 level.
The fact is that when those people lose their jobs and they are literate at only the grade 4 level, we are talking about people who are unable to get jobs in the future. They simply do not have the skills, the education and the ability to get jobs in the future. Many of them, because they were trained on the machines they operated over the years, understood those machines very well. They understood the technical problems, the safety problems and were able to operate on those machines.
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In fact, they were some of the best skilled workers in the world with respect to those machines. Once the machines became obsolete, the worker became obsolete as well. As Judith Maxwell said: "This is a country where companies expend very little". In fact, we are the lowest in the world in terms of the amount we invest in on-the-job education for our workers. As a result, we end up de-skilling those workers to the point where they end up not being suitable for employment in the future.
I was looking at an article just a few seconds ago from the National Anti-Poverty Association which talks about what the future hopes of those workers are, should they become unemployed, since they are literate at a very low level.
Let me quote from that document: "The National Anti-Poverty Organization, for example, estimates that low literate adults are twice as likely to be unemployed and many times more likely to need social assistance than other Canadians. Even if employed, such low literate Canadians earn only two-thirds of the average income of others".
Illiteracy is a tremendous impediment for Canadians to get jobs. In fact, the federal government, through the Department of the Secretary of State, has been warning Canadians that something like 38 per cent of all Canadians have difficulty reading material that they find on a day-to-day basis, whether newspapers, bus schedules, airline schedules or Hansard. All of these kind of things they have difficulty reading and understanding. The government has estimated that costs the people of Canada, the economy of Canada, something like $10 billion a year.
When we think of $10 billion a year and compare that to the deficit that this country is facing, we are talking about one-third of the national deficit that could possibly be attributed to the problem of literacy in this country.
We always look at Canada as a developed country. It is one of the leading countries in the world in terms of education. Yet, under this government, the educational level in Canada is actually going down and the illiteracy rate is actually going up. There is a sign here that we should be reading as parliamentarians and as members of government that we are doing the wrong thing with respect to training our work force.

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Those sawmill workers, because of their low literacy levels, are not going to have the opportunity to get a job in the future. If that is the problem with those workers, it is certainly a problem with Canada. We should be spending a lot more time looking at the problem of education and how we can deliver education to our workers.
It seems strange that other countries do not have this problem, at least to the same rate that Canada does. I am thinking in particular of the nation of Sweden. I was recently looking at an Australian magazine called The Bulletin in which they were talking about the education systems in the various countries around the world.
It talks about the Swedish system which concentrates heavily on adult education and also on making education available to supplement their labour market strategy. It talks about leaving work in order to get involved in an education program in Sweden. They give an example of a millworker who left his job and went into an adult education program at the age of 52.
In Canada, we consider a 52-year old worker who loses his job to be no longer trainable. Yet, here is an example of a Swede who left his job at the age of 52 and went into a training program. The Government of Sweden pays him $12,600 for 28 weeks of training and $400 a week as a wage supplement while he is on that training program.
It has been estimated in Sweden that of those people who take those kinds of training programs, 70 per cent of them who leave at the conclusion of the program have a job within the space of six months. We do not have anything like that here in Canada; nothing like that in the province where I come from and nothing like that is offered by Employment and Immigration Canada.
I received this document in the mail from Employment and Immigration Canada. It cost $1.5 million to mail this document to every household in the country. It does absolutely nothing to improve the educational quality of the work force in Canada. In fact, it is virtually a waste of government money, but I think it is the only thing that the Minister of Employment and Immigration can really say that he has done in the last little while. Tens of thousands of Canadians are losing their jobs. Whenever
they go to him either through his unemployment insurance or through his training programs, there is almost nothing that can be done.
It is interesting that Sweden spends most of its unemployment money on the educational or training part of it and only a very, very small per cent on income supplement. In fact, to quote the article from the Australian magazine I was referring to, it says:
The country stints on cash benefits for the unemployed, doling out just .84 per cent of GNP for that purpose, but what they do is they pay people to go to training programs so that when they come out of those training programs, they will have the intelligence and the skills and the understanding to get into a job.
As I pointed out, it is usually within the space of six months that people who have taken those training programs end up re-employed in a permanent job.
There are other things that this government seems to neglect to do that could assist getting people into employment again or getting people into employment. I want to quote a document that was brought by Dr. Harris Jane from McMaster University to the special committee of the House on employment equity about the cost of discrimination, how that cost affects industry in Canada and the United States and how that costs society as a whole. Dr. Jane quoted a study, an economic report of the president in the U.S. on discrimination against blacks, Puerto Ricans, Spanish Americans, Indians and others, which shows that it can cost the U.S. economy a loss of up to $20 billion per year.
He also pointed out another author who indicated discrimination in the work place has decreased national income in that country by as much as 1.41 per cent or $9 billion annually.
We are now in the process of revising the employment equity legislation. We know what the tremendous cost is to people in this country when you discriminate against people based on colour of skin, the fact that they are a member of a visible minority, are aboriginal, are women, or are disabled. Those people in many cases have skills that are far higher than those who are actually hired to do the job. If we brought those people into the work force, they would be contributing far more, be far more productive and make our industries far more competitive.
February 14, 1992

We were told by Dr. Jane at that meeting that when President Reagan for ideological reasons offered to get rid of employment equity in the United States, those companies that had adopted employment equity policies which knew the advantage to their company and knew the advantage to the economy, insisted that President Reagan leave the program intact because it was helping America to be competitive and it was helping their industries to be competitive.
There are many things that we should be looking at in this country, examining our management practices, examining the way our industries are structured, examining how we handle social programs to make sure that we are getting the maximum benefit that we can possibly get. It is only when we improve those management practices, improve our industry, make sure investment is taking place, both by the people who are involved in industries as well as in the machinery and equipment they use, that we are going to get the most competitive economy we can possibly have.
The one thing we cannot do is constantly attack those social programs that the government seems to want to focus on. Things like medicare and transfer payments to the provinces which are used in education and social services are actually going to decrease productivity of our industry and of our work force and decrease the competitiveness of this country.


Gabriel Fontaine: Madam Speaker, I listened with interest to the hon. member's speech, and like the hon. member I am aware of the difficult situation in the forestry sector in this country, especially in his province.
As you know, the forestry sector ranks among the five largest exporters in Canada and is responsible for a significant share of the $175 billion that we export. I think these industries are having trouble maintaining, let alone increasing their sales, as a result of increasing production prices and also because of certain environmental constraints as a result of legislation in a country that is our main customer, the United States.
The hon. member also mentioned the fact that equipment in the various plants was outdated. I would like to
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ask a few technical questions. He referred to programs for retraining manpower and upgrading employee skills.
I agree, and I think my government's departments have already provided special programs to help the employees of these various companies.
However, when he talks about updating facilities, does he think keeping interest rates low is relevant and is this a policy our government should maintain? I think that when companies decide to buy, the cost of borrowing is an important factor. That is why in recent years, investment has gone down significantly in manufacturing. Now that interest rates are low, experts predict there will be a lot of new investment in 1992 and 1993.
I would like the hon. member to qualify his low interest rate policy, considering the need for companies to reinvest and to increase their technical capacity.
I would also like to ask him, considering that buying new equipment will create pressure on interest rates, how he would reconcile this with simultaneous pressure created by major highway and sewer projects favoured by his colleagues in the Ontario government and possibly by other provincial governments, and also by opposition members here in the House today. If there is too much pressure on demand, I think interest rates will go up, and this would make it more difficult to update the plants that provide work in his region.


Robert Evans Skelly: Madam Speaker, I thank the member for his question. He talked a little about interest rates. I remind him that interest rates in Canada are really not much of a factor to multinational forest companies such as MacMillan Bloedel, the one I was referring to that operates in my constituency.
MacMillan Bloedel shows in its annual report that a great deal of its borrowings come from Japan where interest rates, especially over the past several years, have been far lower than they are here in Canada. They have also borrowed substantially in the United States. In Japan they were borrowing at rates that were 2 to 3 per cent. The United States rates were around 5 to 6 per cent at a time when rates in Canada were around 12 to 13 per cent. In the old days you could say that when the governments were borrowing money for infrastructure

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programs and borrowing money from a limited domestic market or a North American market, there was a chance they could drive up the cost of money by taking a substantial amount of what was available in capital markets. Now the world is a capital market. You told us that we must understand that we are dealing with a global world. Now you must understand that we are dealing with a global world in terms of capital markets as well. A company like MacMillan Bloedel can borrow in Japan at 2 and 3 per cent and it can borrow in the U.S. at 5 and 6 per cent at the same time as money can be borrowed at 7, 8 and 9 per cent in Canada. Those companies do not recognize international boundaries in terms of capital markets.
Therefore, I do not think the fact that Canada's interest rates have come down has really been of much assistance to those companies. They have access to capital markets at lower rates elsewhere.
The problem with investing in Canada is that when these companies examine where to invest it is possible for them to ship natural resources in an unprocessed state to areas in the southeastern United States, across the border into the United States, which are closer to the market. There are lower labour costs there because of anti-union legislation such as right-to-work legislation in those states. That is what is driving investment out of Canada and into the United States.
The free trade agreement the government has developed for Canada has given companies far more freedom to take their investment across the border and put Canadian people out of work. That is one of the primary problems we are dealing with.
I hope I have dealt with most of the member's questions.


Maurice Brydon Foster: Madam Speaker, I was interested in the speech by the hon. member for Com-ox-Alberni because he is a member of the New Democratic Party. We in Ontario are faced with the problems created by the New Democratic government of Mr. Bob Rae.
We certainly were pleased to see his proposal in his fireside chat, that he was willing to contribute dollar for dollar to projects put forward by the federal government with the co-operation of both levels of government. As soon as I heard his speech I immediately wrote Mr. Rae a letter to point out that the federal government had
proposed to provide some $30 million for a new community college in Elliot Lake, Ontario, a community which has suffered the most massive unemployment of any community in northern Ontario, over 50 per cent and perhaps as high as 60 per cent.
I suggested to Mr. Rae that it would be really great if he would support that project from his side. Indeed the arguments were made to his party leader a couple of weeks ago when she visited Elliot Lake. I would hope that the hon. member would be able to support her view that the Ontario government should not procrastinate any longer, should make a decision to go ahead with that community college and should provide its share of the funding.
It not only has the responsibility to provide half of the funding along with the federal government but the responsibility to choose the location. However, it seems that the Government of Ontario has decided to establish a board of governors for the francophone community colleges for the whole of Ontario with the idea of letting the board choose the site.
It seems to me that the Government of Ontario has the responsibility to choose that site itself, and clearly Elliot Lake is the choice. The federal government is on board. Ontario Hydro has provided some $10 million through its working group. I would hope that the NDP Government of Ontario would not procrastinate and would make a decision to go ahead. That project would provide a lot of jobs. It would provide a student population in the community of some 2,000. It would be a great project for that community which has over 50 per cent unemployment right now.
I hope the hon. member will convey that message to the provincial premier.


Robert Evans Skelly: Madam Speaker, of course I would not want to prevent the establishment of a worth-while project in Ontario. I am sure the member would not either.
The Government of Ontario has to operate through its legislation and procedures in the same way that every other government does. If he wants to change those procedures, I would suggest that perhaps the hon. member might run for office in the province of Ontario and hope he is more successful than his party was last time. If there is a proposal to improve the economy of Elliot Lake I will certainly get in touch with the Government of Ontario and lend my assistance to it.


Mark Joseph Assad: Madam Speaker, I have read the motion tabled by my colleague from Toronto requesting that this House condemn the government for its refusal to take action to alleviate the intolerably high levels of unemployment in Canada. In October a 120-page report from a Harvard professor, Mr. Michael Porter, was published by request from the government and the Busines Council on National Issues.
I received a translation of that report and read it. It was veiy interesting. I also received from the Montreal office of the Canadian Manufacturers' Association a report it had prepared. It was sent by the president of the Quebec chapter.
These two documents contain valuable information and are quite similar even though the one from The manufacturers' association was prepared at least a year before that of Professor Porter from the United States. I would like to present some of the main points.
It is evident that the current problems of Canadian manufacturers which resulted in job loss are due to the high cost of the Canadian dollar. Everybody knows that, it has been said often enough.
Also mentioned in the reports are the interest rates which are much too high as compared to those of the United States. Sometimes the margin in Canada is 5.5 per cent higher than that of the United States. You can easily imagine how difficult it is for our small businesses to borrow at such high interest rates. Consequently there was a decline in the manufacturing sector which resulted in lost jobs. But we must not forget that perhaps the most important factor was the so-called free trade agreement. That agreement with the United States certainly had an effect. I do not need to elaborate. The news were far from encouraging when week after week we saw a great number of Canadian and Quebecer manufacturers that could not compete with American companies, and we know why when we look at the Canadian system.
We the Canadian people decided over the years to protect ourselves collectively with programs such as health care and old age pensions. I would like to note I am always surprised when I ask people whether they know that old age pensions do not exist in the United
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States like in Canada. Most people seem surprised when I tell them that.
In Canada, we have put in place a pioneering system of social security for all the people. We are really a privileged people that the world envies. The free trade agreement cost us many jobs. We saw the results of that. To my great surprise, during 1988 until the end of the election, the Canadian Manufacturers' Association insisted that the deal was absolutely essential. It was its point of view just before the 1988 election and for some time after that. To my great surprise, in December 1991 the Canadian Manufacturers' Association decided to release a study. What did it say in its report? Simply that the free trade agreement was premature. Imagine, three years later it made up its mind. I told the Quebec president: "I am surprised to see that strong supporters of the deal as you were three years ago now realize that there were problems."
For three years they talked about a high dollar and high interest rates. Now they realize that the agreement was premature. He is saying today that we should have waited at least five years before signing that agreement. In other words, we should have stated our intention of entering into a free trade agreement, but we should have provided for a transition period which would have allowed us to adjust gradually, because a lot of adjustment was required. This was not done. We now see the results. This transition period of at least five years was necessary.
Second, what I find strange about the manufacturers association is when it says that the federal government should have known the Americans would be no less aggressive after the signing of the agreement. Imagine that. We kept repeating at the time of the signing of the agreement that the American government was not going to do anyone any favour. Why should it after the signing? We now see the kind of argument we get into with the Americans.
Finally, the manufacturers' association proposed a series of measures. Naturally it is still talking about an overvalued Canadian dollar and high interest rates. It says that our monetary and fiscal policies contribute to a reduction of personal savings, which leaves less money available for small and medium businesses. It also says

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that we need initiatives to improve training and development. This is obvious.
Needless to say, the Japanese and the Germans are admired for their remarkable levels of education, especially when it comes to trades training. It is all over the news; you have probably read the same pieces I have. I wonder, why not copy them to a point? In the United States, they are facing the same problems as we are, but if we look to the East we can see what Germany and Japan are doing. In Japan at the present time 96 per cent of all its students graduate from high school. They all have basic knowledge or skills in mathematics, not super university degrees but at least basic skills required to deal with modern technology as it exists in the world today, and it is evolving fast. But here in America-because Canada and in the United States are in the same boat, a fine mess I dare say-only 70 per cent of our young people complete high school.
What is worse is that barely one per cent has the basic mathematical skills required to keep a job in high technology manufacturing industries. I repeat I am not talking about scholarly degrees in calculus or anything like that. I am only talking about the basic mathematical skills required to work in high technology industries. That gives you an idea. It was our doing. We have something to learn, not only from the Japanese and the Germans, but also from the Swedes and the Finns. In Finland in particular, and it has always amazed me, 20 years ago, its government told the pulp and paper industry: "Gentlemen, we have a new policy. From now on there will be no tree cutting unless you are at the leading edge of the pulp and paper technology". As you know, the Finns innovate a lot; they have equipment plants for the pulp and paper industry. But here, in Canada, even when we were the world's biggest pulp and paper producer per capita, we had no secondary industry producing equipment for the pulp and paper companies.
Unfortunately I do not have enough time to address this whole issue.
In conclusion, since the schools do not provide the necessary advanced training, I think the time has come for some kind of national service. Yes, a national service that has nothing to do with the military service. For at least two years, the young would attend classes and learn
a craft or get some technical training, which is a must today in the high technology industry in Canada.


John V. Nunziata: Madam Speaker, I would like to start by thanking the hon. member for his speech. Could he perhaps explain his reference to a national service?

I am very much interested in his comments about a national service. Perhaps my friend and colleague can elaborate a little more on this concept.


Mark Joseph Assad: Madam Speaker, this is not something I thought up, but I have been hearing more and more about this concept. People have been talking about it for years, and I remember I discussed it with colleagues in Quebec City, in the National Assembly, when we were astounded by the fact that at the present time 500,000 jobs are not filled because people do not have the technical skills, and I mean basic skills. I am not talking about university degrees.
There are 500,000 jobs that are not filled because we have not been able to train our young people through apprenticeship training and technical or trade schools. The national service concept is a very simple one. I do not know all the details, but I think we can skip those for the time being. The fact is young adults, as you know, have to go to school until they are 16. So starting at 16, 17, 18, 19 and up to 25 or 26, if they leave school and do not finish high school, of course they have no trade and so they are unemployed. Obviously they have no future.
My point is that we could do what they do in Germany, Sweden and Japan, and establish a national service, in co-operation with industry. Here in Canada, with the help of industry, we could train these young adults. They would have some discipline and a bit of order in their lives. It is not their fault but the important thing is they would have at least two years to learn a trade or some kind of technical skills in the industry. Industries know their own needs. There are 500,000 jobs waiting. They know their needs, and we could train these people. Training in those fields could be extraordinary.
February 14, 1992

Do you realize how helpful it would be for those young adults to to learn a trade or some basic technical knowledge for various industries? We could solve many problems in this way. Great challenges await Canada now. But if you want to face up great challenges, you must take big steps.
I say that a national service might be the answer for our young adults, because in the last few years we have almost had a lost generation in Canada. Our young people are not to blame. They did not get the required basic knowledge in school. We failed in that regard and we must recognize it.
But the time has come for important initiatives and I say that a national service, organized jointly with the industry, could be a giant step that would enable our young generation to fill existing jobs. It would also give them hope as well as a chance to contribute to Canada, to the welfare of all Canadians and, more important, to their own personal benefits, happiness and personal satisfaction.


David Kilgour: Madam Speaker, the motion is that the House condemns the government for its refusal to take action to alleviate the intolerably high levels of unemployment in Canada.
This morning I asked the minister some questions about the level of unemployment in Canada and, as you heard, our rate is now among the highest in the OECD and G-7 countries. In looking at The Economist magazine for this week, the only countries with a worse unemployment rate than ours appear to be Australia, Italy and Spain.
It is a lot more than simple statistics which are not very meaningful to people. It is young people, students, older people, people 45 years of age who get lay-off notices. It is thousands of careers, families, children and grandparents and an awful lot of human beings. I am sure there are many people in your constituency as well, Madam Speaker, who are going around trying to find a job that does not seem to be there.
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There are about 1.4 million Canadians looking for work today. If you consider the people who have stopped looking or who have stepped out of the work place, the number is considerably higher.
The Canadian Labour Market and Productivity Centre reported that Canada's unemployment rate would be almost 14 per cent if we included discouraged workers, those on temporary lay-offs, and took into account underemployment among those forced to work part time because of the shortage of full-time jobs.
Our employment rate is at one of the highest levels among the advanced industrial democracies. Among other things, the government has cut the Canadian Jobs Strategy by $100 million and raised the unemployment premiums for those with jobs and employers by 24 per cent. Reference was made this morning to a document from the employment and manpower department which mentioned how the government was going to make the $100 million in cuts in the budget and how the cuts would be allocated to particular regions.
A press released dated February 11 states: "Documents from CEIC reveal that the federal government is in the process of dismantling existing training programs across the country. At a time when the country is facing its worst economic crisis since the 1930s, the federal government proposes to respond to unemployment by slashing training dollars".
There is probably still more bad news to come. The government's own forecasts call for double digit unemployment late into 1992. A strong case can also be made that the government actually used prolonged high interest rates. I certainly concede that interest rates are very low now. In fact, our rates are among the lowest of the figures cited in The Economist this week. But they were too high for too long and it is a classic case of waiting until the horse is out of the bam before you close the door. Interest rates should have been lowered many months ago if we wanted to kick start the economy. Unfortunately it is going to take many months to have any positive results from our lower interest rates.
As I said, the case can be made that the government induced this recession in large measure with its high interest rates and high dollar to bring on a recession to lower the inflation rate in places like metropolitan

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Toronto. Of course, metropolitan Toronto and southern Ontario have been hit as hard as any region by the made-in-Canada recession.
The Bank of Canada has lowered interest rates so much now that savings are in danger of leaving Canada, possibly causing a collapse in our dollar and renewed inflation. Low income Canadians are feeling additional pain because $411 million was cut from federal social housing programs.
According to the Canadian Association of Food Banks, the number of people receiving food assistance has risen 40 per cent over the last year. Our leader, the member for Beausejour, is thus quite correct in calling for the redirection of $25 million from Ottawa's advertising budget to Canada's 1,300 food banks. Imagine, 1,300 food banks in this country.
Our provincial economic growth was weakened last year by poor markets-I am talking about Alberta now, forgive me-for oil and gas and by high dollar and interest rates that together choked our natural resource sectors.
The entire petroleum industry has been shrinking and restructuring in an attempt to survive. Staff cuts are likely to continue. Petro-Canada, for example, plans to close about 1,200 service stations across the country and that is likely to be only the first wave of another wave of cuts.
There were six years of relative prosperity. I give the government credit for some of that. I think there is no doubt that for a period its policies were working. I would remind members opposite that during those six years we had 34 separate tax increases and the deficit is still not far off the figure of 1984 when the government took office.
The federal debt, as most people know, is virtually out of control. The government has squandered the opportunities available through the mid to late 1980s to bring spending under control.
Sustained economic success for Canada can only be achieved by tough-minded fiscal and monetary policies such as those pursued by countries like West Germany since 1948. How are we going to kick-start an economy which is now in a recession?
Low interest rates and a lower dollar will probably require at least six months to generate significant new
economic activity. In the meantime, our party, the Official Opposition, has proposed among other things, first, allowing first time home buyers to make down payments of 5 per cent for the purchase price of a CMHC approved mortgage instead of the current minimum of 10 per cent. I salute the government for accepting that proposal. We think and hope that it might create as many as 50,000 jobs in the home building industry and cost the taxpayer nothing.
Second, our party has proposed that first-time home buyers be permitted the use of $7,500 tax-free from their RRSPs.
Third, we proposed an immediate federal infusion of $1 billion with equal investments by provincial and municipal levels of governments to fix roads, sewers, bridges and other parts of Canada's aging municipal infrastructure.
Finally, we propose using $150 million for basic training for the unemployed, even to the point of not lowering the deficit by as much as planned next year.
Madam Speaker, you have been sitting there listening to one person after another get up and fulminate against the government. You are probably quite tired of listening to it all day. However, as you know from your constituents, there are an awful lot of our fellow citizens who do not need to be out of work. If we had a little flexibility, a little willingness, a little determination by the Minister of Finance and those around him, we could turn this recession around.
In closing, I urge the government to do some of the things we have suggested and what other people have suggested as quickly as it can for the good of the 27 million people who live in this country.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: There will be a five-minute question and comment period.
Before I give the floor to the hon. member for Welland, I would like to ask the hon. member for Edmonton Southeast not to presume the reason why I may or may not be tired.
Mr. Gilbert Parent (Welland -St. Catharines-Tho-rold: Madam Speaker, you are probably tired for the same reason all of us are. It is the end of the week and that is the only explanation for it.
February 14, 1992

I thank my colleague from Edmonton Southeast. I was in his riding about six months ago and I had occasion to talk about the conditions there at the time.
He mentioned in his speech today the fact, for example, that in Edmonton, his city, and also in my city of Welland, we have food banks. There are 1,300 food banks across the country.
One would think that in a country as rich as we are and, yes, as caring as we are-Canadians are caring people-that we as members of the House of Commons could somehow urge this government to see that surely one of the rights that Canadians should have is the right to at least have food.
I will talk about the employment situation. In the last week or so I visited the Port Weller dry docks in my riding and they went from a peak of 1,100 people at one time building ships for our country. They are now down to 250 people and they have work, they tell me, to carry them through only until the end of April.
They are hoping they will get one of our defence ships, the Prolecteur, in there. I hope they do too. The fact is that most of the 250 people remaining are going to be unemployed until that time.
The hon. member also mentioned the car industry. We have over 10,000 workers in the Niagara peninsula who work not only for General Motors but for the parts industries. I think that as these people are affected, they affect not only their immediate communities but also the province and the whole nation.
We have unemployment of about 16 per cent. Some of the things that the hon. member has mentioned to us are common sense things. Surely the government will have a look and see that its right wing, Attila the Hun tactics are not the answers for what we are going through right now.
As one of the members on the other side has said, if we are in a "severe recession", I would think that what they are trying to do is push us into a depression. I would hope that they would listen to the common sense of the member who has just spoken.
One of the questions that I would like to ask the member, and he touched on it very briefly, is about the
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oil patch. In Edmonton and Calgary and in Alberta generally, we have most of the people who work in the oil industry and now we see this morning the cutbacks at Hibernia.
What incentives or what encouragement could the government give to these people who in some ways generate a great many jobs to not only produce better but to produce more efficiently? Then we as Canadians could all benefit from their expertise and their contribution to the country. I am talking about the people in the oil patch and the oil industry, and I know he is very familiar with that.


David Kilgour: Madam Speaker, I have a neighbour who lives in southeast Edmonton who recently told me that he works one month off and one month on in the oil patch, but not the oil patch in Canada. He works in North Yemen. He gets on a plane at the beginning of every second month and flies to wherever you get off the plane for North Yemen and works there for one month, and then comes home to see his family in southeast Edmonton.
Why does he and others who do a similar thing, have to go to the Middle East to look for oil when, as the member may not know, we still have lots of oil and gas left to find in Alberta? I understand we have in Alberta, for example in the tar sands, twice as much oil as they have in all of the Middle East. Why are we not developing that secure quantity of product for this country and for this continent, for that matter?
I do not have any answers for him on that. I think the answer is that our expertise is needed in Canada and I would like to see more of it used in Canada to find oil and gas in Canada so that people like my neighbour do not have to leave his young family every second month to go off and live in a tent somewhere in North Yemen.


Gregory Francis Thompson: Madam Speaker, it is indeed a pleasure to take part in the debate today.
Although we do not have a lot of time left, I just want to remind the listening public what we are debating. The motion was put forward by the member for York South- Weston. It reads:
That this House condemn the government for its refusal to take
action to alleviate the intolerably high levels of unemployment in
Canada.

February 14, 1992
Supply
We do not disagree with the urgency of the matter of high unemployment. The debate, in the last few moments especially, has been very reflective and I also use the words instructive and possibly constructive.
It makes no difference on what side of this House you sit, if you are a compassionate human being and a Canadian you have to be concerned that 1.5 million people are unemployed in this country. It is of great concern.
I would just like to pick up on some of the themes I have heard here today, in particular in the last speech. It is interesting to note, as the member from Edmonton pointed out, that statistics do not tell it all. I refer to the fact that it is predicted that Canada will lead the OECD countries in growth of the economy. That sounds good. That 3 per cent figure or 3.5 per cent or more, whatever it happens to be, is one which I think we can all lean on and take some satisfaction from.
However, the difficulty is that our society, our economy, is going through such stressful changes that despite the fact that we may lead the western world in economic growth next year there may not be any resulting change in the unemployment figure. Companies are finding new ways to do business and are becoming much more efficient at how they conduct that business. There are many examples even in my own riding in the last year of that happening.
The pulp and paper industry has been under siege in recent years in this country. In my own riding some of those companies have reduced their labour force dramatically while at the same time, in that same period, their productivity has grown. Although the output of the company has grown, the number of employees actually being employed has decreased. That is a recurring theme in the Canadian economy and in the world economy. We are finding better and more efficient ways of doing things. However, at the end of the day there is obviously a human cost to that efficiency. That is very disturbing.
I think that all of us on both sides of this House find no comfort at all in those numbers, in those figures.
One of the things that we have done in this country in the last number of years is allow our debt and deficit position to get out of hand. As a result of allowing that to happen this very day in this country of ours, 35 cents out of every tax dollar Canadians send to Ottawa is spent servicing the debt, paying interest or providing the
interest payment on the debt we have incurred over the last number of years in this country. That means we only have 65 cents with which to do something because the other 35 cents that is paying interest on the debt is not productive money.
The difficulty is that it hamstrings the government's ability to get out of situations we now find ourselves in. If we are talking about an injection of more moneys into the economy to get the economy moving, none of us are opposed to that, none of us on either side of this House.
The difficulty the government finds itself in now is that if we do inject some more money into the Canadian economy it will be borrowed money. That figure of 35 per cent will grow higher and higher so we have to find new ways and possibly more imaginative ways to get the economy going.
One aspect we have overlooked in this country in recent years is the training of our workers. We have done a very poor job in this country, a very poor job. As a government we have to continue to put more moneys into education and the training and retraining of our workers.
For example, in Japan most corporations dedicate about four weeks out of the year to individual worker training. None of our major corporations in this country come even close to that number. Apparently in the banking community there are a number of banks in Canada that are starting to do that, but they are only doing it in terms of one week. Madam Speaker, you can imagine if you look at the auto sector, the pulp and paper industry, our computer industries, and the telecommunications industry in this country what we could achieve if we had the foresight a few years ago to designate training for our workers with the help of government.
That is what I think we have to do. Where we can be successful is to get that interchange between governments and business working the way it does in some other countries of the world. The country that I point to is Japan, that little economic miracle, if you wish. We have it within our ability to do it and we must do it.
That is one of the ways I think we can solve some of the problems that are staring us in the face today without just simply shoving money at them, pouring money into them. That is not going to solve anything at the end of the day, nothing at all.

I want to quote Michael Wilson. He sums up his interpretation of what has happened in this country in the last 100 years. Michael Wilson is a friend of the hon. member for York South-Weston.
Mr. Wilson said, and I think most of us would agree with this: "In this country of ours, Canada, for the first 100 years we lived off of our resources. In the last 25 years we lived off of our credit".
It does not work that way any more. We have to find a better way to do it. I believe that by working together we can achieve better and bigger things in this country.
Supply


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I am sure the hon. member for Carleton-Charlotte was referring to the hon. Minister for International Trade, which is the way he is referred to in this place.
It being four o'clock, it is my duty to inform the House that pursuant to Standing Order 81(17) proceedings on the motion have expired.

Therefore, this House stands adjourned until Monday next at eleven o'clock pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 4 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Monday, February 17, 1992