1992-11-01

Mr. Speaker:: It is my duty to inform the House that a vacancy has occurred in the representation, namely Ms. Callbeck, member for the electoral district of Malpeque, by resignation, effective Monday, January 25, 1993.
Pursuant to paragraph 25(l)(b) of the Parliament of Canada Act, I have addressed on Monday, January 28, 1993 by warrant to the Chief Electoral Officer, the issue of a writ for the election of a member to fill the vacancy.


Mr. Prud'homme:: A sad departure.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: I realize that the hon. member for Beaches-Woodbine is not in the House.

The hon. member for Beaches-Woodbine is not in the House to move his motion as published in today's Notice Paper. Consequently, the motion will be dropped from the Order Paper, pursuant to Standing Order 42(1).


Mr. Jim Edwards (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons):: Mr. Speaker, since the hon. member for Beaches-Woodbine is not here, I wonder if I could seek the unanimous consent of the House to proceed at this time to Government Orders.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: The hon. members have heard the suggestion. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: There is no unanimous consent.


[Stage Direction]
SUSPENSION OF SITTING
The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Is it agreed the sitting will be suspended until twelve o'clock noon?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.
The sitting of the House was suspended at 11.06 p.m.


SITTING RESUMED
[Stage Direction]
The House resumed at 12 p.m.


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Friday, December 4, 1992, consideration of the motion of Mr. Mazankowski that Bill C-93, an Act to implement certain government organization provisions of the budget tabled in the House of Commons on February 25, 1992, be read the second time and referred to a legislative committee in the Economics envelope; and the amendment of Mrs. Finestone.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: When the debate was suspended, the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands still had 11 minutes left.


Mr. Peter Milliken (Kingston and the Islands):: Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to be the first speaker for the first sitting of the House in 1993, and I hope all members on the other side spent a pleasant holiday in their constituencies.

February 1, 1993
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My own constituents were asking me when there would be an election, because nearly everyone I met during the holidays wanted at least to be able to vote against this government and have an opportunity to do so very shortly.
We now see a government here in the House introducing bills that are unacceptable to most Canadians. Canadians would like to have a chance to say no to this government now. And I hope that when the Prime Minister considers the matter this week, he will consider the interests of Canadians.

I have to return to the bill before us. As I was saying at the time of the adjournment on this debate on December 4, the bill is unacceptable to this party, primarily because of the change relating to the Canada Council and SSHRC, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.
I note also in the bill that it is stated that part of the purpose of this bill is to transfer certain functions and staff of the Department of External Affairs concerned with the promotion of Canadian culture abroad to the Canada Council. The Canada Council would be renamed the Canada Council for the Arts and for Research in the Social Sciences and Humanities to reflect this expanded function.
I have grave concerns about that latter transfer as well. The Canada Council has never been involved in foreign cultural work on behalf of Canada. It has no personnel who are trained in that particular kind of work. The Department of External Affairs has people posted abroad doing work already. Surely the cultural part of that work has been relatively minor to date. It is surely not taking up a lot of full-time positions in the Department of External Affairs. Yet, the government in its wisdom has decided as an apparent cost saving measure-although it is hard to imagine how this is going to save any money; I expect it will cost more-that it is going to take this jurisdiction away from the Department of External Affairs and create a new international arm, if you like, at the Canada Council. One wonders how many more employees will be required to administer this program now at the Canada Council than are currently engaged in external affairs, where surely it is a very part-time function of most of the officers involved in it.
I am very concerned about this not being a cost-saving measure at all, but in fact one that will cost Canadians
more. This whole scheme was very ill-conceived. The government did not apply its mind to the problem before it brought this bill before the House or before it introduced the budget. I am sure it was a last minute thing in an effort to get an impressive list of government agencies that could be folded up. It stuck this particular one on the list because it had nothing else to do and it had to make the list look impressive and long.
We know from the savings that have been announced on the total list that the savings on this particular aspect of it must really be peanuts. If the government were saving money there, it has been spending it elsewhere.
We had a spectacle recently in Kingston. The new minister of state for science came to Kingston on January 22. If he would have told me he was coming, I would have gone to the airport to meet him but he did not let me know. He came to Kingston and announced the Prime Minister's awards for teaching excellence in Kingston. He issued a lot of fancy, very colourful and beautifully printed brochures and $585,000 worth of prizes. They are not actually scholarships, just prizes. They are to be given to deserving teachers across Canada who assist their students with quality education in science and mathematics.
It is a fine program, but you have to wonder. The government is saying we have to save money by bunching these agencies together and forcing them to do things together when in fact they should be separately represented and are doing a perfectly adequate job at a relatively modest cost now. How did it find the money in the year of an election to come up with $585,000 worth of prizes?


An hon. member:: Election is the operative word.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Of course the figures that I do not have and which were not in the minister's press release-surprise, surprise-are the administrative costs of this program. How much did it cost to produce the glossy brochures and the fancy application forms? How many people are going to be employed to review the awards that are being handed out and decide who is entitled to them? It is a phenomenal program, a very good idea, but it is of no coincidence I suggest that April 30 is the deadline for applications. I will bet you the Prime Minister in giving out his awards will be jetting across the country during the campaign, calling teachers in to receive their awards from him when he visits the communities across Canada.
February 1, 1993

I suspect we might find in next year's budget, if this group is re-elected, this program cut as a cost saving measure because they could not afford it any more. Yet in an election year they can afford it, a year when they are closing down the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and disbanding some of its activities by forcing it in with the Canada Council and similarly putting works of the Canada Council at risk. It is a not a satisfactory way to run a government. This is most unsatisfactory and the government must know it.
I also note that this particular $585,000 prize program, the Prime Minister's teachers' awards for excellence, comes at a time when the department of science as I understand it has recently had cuts. The hon. member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell no doubt is aware of this. I read in the paper recently that 180 jobs were cut in that department the other day. Why was that? A shortage of money. Yet the government managed to find $500,000 for this program, plus the unaccounted for costs of administration. We have not heard about those.
At a time when the government is preaching restraint to its employees, firing off right, left and centre saying it has too many employees, their jobs are redundant and it does not need them any longer, it is embarking on new prize givings for Canadians all in the name of the Prime Minister and clearly designed to be handed out in the course of an election campaign.
These changes in this law are opposed by the scientific community in Canada. I have a letter from the Social Science Federation of Canada signed by their executive director. I would like to read a paragraph from the letter. The letter states: "As you know the Social Science Federation of Canada, which represents some 15,000 social scientists in 24 learned societies and 68 universities, has grave concerns about the ability of the new agency to protect the gains made by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council over the past 14 years. We are particularly concerned with maintaining separate funding for the research segment of the new agency and further encouraging the collaborative efforts of the other two granting councils which have been introduced by SSHRC".
He indicates that SSHRC expects to appear before the legislative committee when it holds hearings on Bill
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C-93.1 can only hope that the members on the government side will listen very attentively to what these people say.
I have received numerous letters from constituents of my own involved in the university community in Kingston who are opposed to this bill. They believe it is a bad bill. The minister of state for privatization I know knows something about the evils of this bill. He must have spent some time studying it because he knows about privatization and what damage it has done to the fabric of the Government of Canada. I would welcome his remarks in the course of the debate on this bill.
He must have concerns about this bill and the fact that these agencies which have functioned perfectly well before are being lumped together. Given the government's record of funding cuts, of failure to support the scientific community in Canada, which we have seen repeatedly in the reductions that the government has introduced in this budget particularly, one can only worry about the future of the social sciences in this country.
I am proud to say that I was a graduate in the social sciences. I studied political science and economics. I enjoyed the experience very much. I do not say that it was great preparation for being a member of this House but it certainly did me no harm and brought me into contact with this institution.


Mr. McDermid:: Some members have done well.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: I cannot hear the hon. member's remarks. I am sure they are erudite as usual. It brought me into contact with this institution at an early age, a contact which I have enjoyed repeatedly and continuously over the years.
I see you are indicating my time is almost up, Mr. Speaker. This bill is one that needs revision. As I indicated in my earlier remarks, parts of it are acceptable to the opposition. Part III, which changes the role of the Canada Council and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, is quite unacceptable. I urge the government to consider deleting this section from the bill.

February 1, 1993
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Some government members have indicated they object to the changes in the Unemployment Insurance Act. I can only urge them and others who have put on their thinking caps to look at this bill and see if they do not agree we should make significant changes in this bill along the lines that have been suggested we make in the Unemployment Insurance Act.
If they stand up and object, we can get the government to change its mind on this bill and get rid of this obnoxious part of it. This will allow the bill to go through in a way that is acceptable to the vast majority of Canadians.
This way is not reasonable. It is not a money saving measure. It is a political game. It is one the government ought to be ashamed it even embarked on. I hope the government will see fit to withdraw Part III.


Mr. Peter L. McCreath (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of State (Finance and Privatization)):: Mr. Speaker, I listened to my hon. friend as I did in the earlier part of the session when he began his speech.
I must say his logic fails me in these times when the public and even his own leader is calling for more efficient use of taxpayer resources. It is not just a matter of cost cutting, though cost cutting is extremely important. The issue involved here is service to the public. The world changes and as the world changes, institutions of government must change in order to respond.
I quote from his leader's speech the other day when at the University of Ottawa he said: "Our challenge today is to adapt the role of government to a new world". That is what this government has been doing in a variety of ways. I am pleased to see that the Liberal Party is starting to discover some of the wisdom of the policies of this government by following suit in a number of the policy pronoucements they have been taking.
However, that is not the purpose of this discussion. My hon. friend speaks with specific reference to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and the other funding agencies. I have been a great supporter of the work of these agencies. The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council had the good wisdom some years ago to award me a doctoral fellowship. Naturally I have a great appreciation for its judgment and the quality of its work.
It is important this work continue. It is important that the support of research both at the graduate level and at the post-doctoral level be carried out and be supported. Whether that necessitates the maintenance of three separate bureaucracies is a different question.
What is before this House is not the value and the importance of that work. It is not the rigor with which those applications are screened by experts in the field on the basis of peer review as they are. That is the basis upon which those decisions are made.
My hon. friend knows perfectly well that people sometimes make mischief with decisions made by granting agencies by pointing out that a grant was made to this person to study this or that. They try to tag the government when in fact, peer review is the only proper basis. That is the basis upon which it will be done in the future.
What is being done here is an improvement of the system. It makes the process work more efficiently for the benefit both of the clients of the system but also for the modest benefit of the taxpayer as well.
Perhaps my friend would like to reflect upon those no doubt profound remarks and offer his observations.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Mr. Speaker, I would be delighted to reflect on what the hon. member said. I would love to believe what he said but he has not cited a tittle of evidence in support of the fact that this is going to save the Canadian taxpayers a single cent.
I would like to know who is going to be displaced. Who and what jobs are going to be eliminated as a result of this change? There is no evidence that there will be. The Social Science and Humanities Research Council functions very well. It is one of three granting councils in Canada. The three granting councils act in a similar fashion. It is not a merger of the three granting councils that is being proposed in this bill. It is moving one of them into the Canada Council which does a different kind of function, albeit similar, but is not the same. It grants exclusively to the arts.
The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, NSERC and the MRC are the granting councils for three academic disciplines. They normally act in roughly the same way in terms of peer review and so on.
February 1, 1993

That is not what is proposed to be changed in this bill. What the government is doing is taking one of those three academic granting councils and putting it in with an arts granting council and saying that the two can work together now. It does not make sense. If there were some move to put the three granting councils under one roof, there might be some justification for it and there might be some saving to taxpayers. I do not know.
There certainly is not a saving by merging these functions and by transferring the external affairs functions, which I noticed my hon. friend blithely skipped over. He knows that is going to cost Canadian taxpayers. He knows it is going to drive up the cost. He knows that the money the government is saving from this scheme is being spent away on the Prime Minister's awards for teaching excellence, and he did not answer that.
If he is so concerned about the Canadian taxpayer, why is he not objecting to the extra half million dollars being handed out this year on these awards, plus the administrative cost which will probably bring it up to about one million dollars? I did not hear a peep from him on that score.


Mr. Ronald J. Duhamel (St. Boniface):: Mr. Speaker, I am rather shocked that the government member would not understand the implications of this particular piece of legislation. Frankly what was said is not accurate.
My colleague should know we have received hundreds of petitions and letters objecting not only to the substance of the bill but in fact to the process that was undertaken.
I would like to ask my colleague who has just spoken on behalf of my party how he feels about the process itself. There was no consultation. Is that an appropriate way to proceed?
I would like him to comment, as I believe he mentioned it, on whether I am correct that organizations involved both directly and on the periphery are not happy with this piece of legislation. They are the people who are most affected. They are saying that it is inappropriate, that it will not do those things that the government is saying it should do and that in fact it will be dysfunctional.
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Finally, I have received comments to this effect and would be interested in knowing how the people in the hon. member's riding have reacted to the research and development funds that have been made available in his particular area. In mine, they have been shocked, they have been angered and they feel that it is contrary to what the government has said it ought to be doing in this area.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Certainly, Mr. Speaker, I agree with the hon. member that the lack of consultation was a serious blow in this case. Surely if a government agency is going to be amalgamated with another one of the two it at least ought to be consulted, but apparently this was a decision made the morning of the budget and stuck in at the last minute. There was no apparent communication from all the indications that we have.


John Horton McDermid: How do you know that?


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: If the hon. member has evidence to the contrary he can present it. I would be glad to hear from him, but our understanding is that there was no consultation.


John Horton McDermid: You are just making that up.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: No, we are not. It was reported in the press at the time. The hon. member can check the news stories, very reliable sources.
Second, the opposition in my community is widespread to these changes. Many of the social scientists at Queen's University and the Royal Military College have written to me expressing their concern, particularly those at Queen's. They and many of the students are very concerned that this change is not for the better.
I am surprised that the hon. member for South Shore having received a grant once would treat this in such a cavalier way. He should be out supporting these councils and helping them as the people in my riding are.
Finally, in respect of the government's cuts in funding for research, I have a letter to the Prime Minister. A copy was sent to me from the vice-principal of health services at Queen's University, Dr. Duncan Sinclair. I would like to read part of the letter just to indicate the degree of dissatisfaction with the government's policy. It states:

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Hidden away in Mr. Mazankowski's economic statement of December 4 was announcement of your government's decision to renege on your previous very far-sighted commitment to provide increases to the federal granting councils of 4 per cent in funding for each of the next four years. When this commitment was made, many of us commended you and your colleagues for having the foresight to invest in the nation's future even at a time of severe financial constraint. We were all aware that increases of 4% would not go far to undo the many years of relative neglect of investment in research and development in Canada but we agreed then it was a start, and a good one given the state of our economy.
That this decision has been reversed is dismaying at the least and unconscionable at the worst. That it is unknown to most Canadians that you have reversed your course and reneged on your commitment is shameful. I was present at a consultation on a new strategic plan for the Medical Research Council that you addressed, the first such direct comment, to my knowledge, by a Prime Minister to a granting Council on government's recognition that investment in inquity is the only way to future health in our economy and nation. It was brave speech now made hollow by the actions taken on December 4.
My colleagues and students deserve better, Mr. Prime Minister, as does the country. Like it or not, the future will soon be upon us and our inheritors will not be able to do much with it without the knowledge, derived from research, that will make it possible for us to compete in a world made small by modem communication. I urge you to reverse this decision and give them and us a fighting chance.
That is the kind of letter I have received. That is the kind of disappointment that is felt in this country because of the government's two-faced approach to research funding. This bill is further exemplification of that two-faced approach. It is cutting one of the councils and merging it with the Canada Council. It need not do it. It is pulling out of external affairs cultural responsibilities which are well looked after there and need not be transferred. It will not save the taxpayers of Canada money. It is embarking on a Prime Minister's prize program for teachers and spending additional taxpayers' dollars at the very time it is preaching restraint to all these people. This is wrong-headed policy and it cries out for amendment.


Peter L. McCreath: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity to participate in this debate. I am going to refresh the House's memory as to why this legislation has been brought forward and place it in context as well.
It is interesting to note that today we have well over 400 separate organizations and advisory bodies that comprise the Government of Canada. There are 26 statutory departments, 80 departmental agencies, 56 Crown corporations and over 200 boards, tribunals, councils and other advisory bodies. There are times when one wonders how decisions ever get made in the government with so many agencies, bodies and individuals involved in the making of them.
If the government is going to meet the needs of the people it has to move with the times. Sometimes there is a sentiment, and I sense this sentiment as prevailing on the other side of the House, that once something is created it is created in perpetuity whether it has a purpose to exist or not. That is not the philosophy which prevails on this side of the House. We see the government's role as providing service to Canadians in response to needs which have been identified. Some of those needs last for many years and others are short in their duration.
The purpose of this bill as a budgetary measure is part of the process of streamlining government. It is not just for the cost savings although obviously they are a very important factor. It is important to note that this streamlining exercise which has been going on and was manifested in Bill C-63 and indicated in the budget of the Minister of Finance in March 1992 when he announced the winding down or closure of 47 agencies, still leaves over 400 of these agencies.
This streamlining process is to take place not only for the purpose of saving money, although that is important. Saving money and efficiently using tax dollars is of importance to taxpayers. It is important to me as a taxpayer because I do not want to see the government waste my tax dollars. I want to see the most effective and efficient use made of them. There is also the matter of service to the public. How can government best provide the services? How can government best respond to the individual needs of the taxpayers and the citizens of the country? That is what this exercise is all about as well.
It is interesting to note that we have had such a proliferation of government in this country that we now have to have meetings of interdepartmental groups to decide things simply because so many different departments are involved in the same decision. I understand for example that 11 federal government agencies or departments were involved in a simple exercise like planning the Canada Day celebrations last year.
February 1, 1993

Today there are four different federal government departments involved in the inspection of food: National Health and Welfare; Agriculture Canada; Fisheries and Oceans; and Consumer and Corporate Affairs. Does this sort of duplication and overlap make sense?
I guess from time to time it is incumbent upon the government as part of the process of serving the Canadian people to take a look at the machinery and structure of government that exists and see if there are ways to reconstitute things so it can more effectively serve the Canadian people. That is really what it is all about.
It is reasonable to ask the question from time to time: Does the purpose for which this agency or board was established still exist? If it does not then obviously it is time to get rid of it. Or the question could be as to whether there is a better way to do it. Or if other agencies and departments have been developed meaning there is some sort of overlap, then by collapsing them together the service could more efficiently be provided.
We are talking about service to Canadians along with decision making and cutting down on the red tape and bureaucracy by which things happen. That is really what this exercise of which Bill C-93 is a part is very important.
Reference has been made in this debate to the privatization program of this government. Indeed, this bill is sponsored by the Minister of State for Finance and Privatization. Privatization is a process by which the taxpayers are relieved of costs with which they are burdened.
I am pleased to say that this government during eight and a half years in office has removed 90,000 people from its payroll. I hasten to add that most of those people are still employed but they are employed in the private sector. They are no longer the burden of the taxpayer and so it should be. The people of Canada are looking to government to streamline itself to provide services in a most efficient way and with whatever possible benefits there can be for the taxpayer.
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It is appropriate to look at each agency and ask the question: Does the need still exist? Is there a public policy objective and can that public policy objective be more effectively served through the private sector? If it can be provided through the private sector then clearly there is no reason for the government to be involved. That is the philosophy on this side of the House. I suspect that does not necessarily apply to my colleagues opposite who seem to think the government should have its nose in everybody's business from time to time.
Our view is that the government should be motivated by the question of how best it can serve the public and how best it can provide a good deal for the taxpayer. That really is what part of the present bill is all about.
On the subject of cost savings it is important to make a point and I have heard some members in this debate discuss how much money would be saved. I think the amount of money to be saved in this bill is relatively modest. However, over time if we improve the efficiency of the government and services to the Canadian people, that in itself is an important thing. Clearly, there will be some modest savings effected as a result of this piece of legislation and that obviously is very important.
I think we should be looking even further. Ihke for example the matter of decentralization of government. Perhaps my perspective is somewhat impacted by the fact that I live in Nova Scotia and not in central Canada or in Ottawa.
Why is it that the Government of Canada is so centralized in Ottawa? What is more ridiculous than the idea of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans being headquartered here in Ottawa? Why do we have a massive bureaucracy of people, working very hard granted, involved in fisheries right here in Ottawa where the only fish in town are at the Dominion stores? Why is the department of fisheries not operated out of the regions, out of Nova Scotia or Atlantic Canada with another segment of the department in British Columbia where people really have a sense of what the fishery is all about? These are questions that need to be asked. Do we need these great bureaucracies?

February 1, 1993
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I strongly and openly recommend to the Minister of Finance in his review of government boards, agencies and departments that he take a serious look at the whole business of whether the entire Government of Canada has to be in Ottawa.
After all, not all Canadians are in Ottawa. What is wrong with the Government of Canada performing some of its central decision making services in Nova Scotia, Saskatchewan, Newfoundland or British Columbia? Is there anything wrong with that?
I certainly do not think so. I do not think so at all. I think we need to do more reviewing of these agencies of government and the tremendous bureaucracies that seem to have developed. They take on an existence of their own which may or may not have anything to do with why they were established in the first place.
This is important. I would ask all members of this House to recognize in this bill a very important step forward in looking at government and at how government can best serve the people of Canada. That is what this streamlining process is all about. It is about service to Canadians and it is about decision making.
I am sure hon. members like myself frequently get calls from constituents about granting processes or decisions. When you go to get copies of the forms that are there for approving things, it is amazing. Some require seven, eight and nine signatures before a decision can be made. I wonder why that is so. Why not hire a competent person who knows what they are doing and let them make the decision?
Again, I use the example of the fisheries. Why are individual licensing decisions made here in Ottawa? Why are they not made by the very excellent fisheries and oceans staff in Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, in the gulf and so on? The point I am making is that we need more streamlining of government and this bill represents a very important step in the right direction.
Any suggestion that my remarks are critical of any individuals who work for the Government of Canada would not be appropriate. My experience is that Canada benefits from an extremely dedicated Public Service. We have a competent Public Service with people who do what we in this House try to do, namely serve the Canadian people as well as they can.
The question is how can we do it in order to provide the best service? All of these various structures of government exist for one purpose only, to serve the Canadian people. That applies to us and to all departments and agencies. Therefore, the reviewing of these structures of government, the decision that was taken and the thrust implied in the budget of the minister last year, is an extremely important one. It is beneficial for Canadians.
I might say, unlike my hon. friend who spoke just prior to me and who has a large university in his constituency, that I have not had a lot of people phoning me and saying that they disagree with this legislation. It is quite the contrary. I remember when the budget came down that I received a number of comments from people saying: Delighted to see that you are thinning government a little bit. Some have even gone so far as to suggest to me that I should thin down myself a little bit, and I must say that is certainly an aspiration that I have. The process of thinning and streamlining government is one that is indeed supported by the public.
Most people wonder why we are debating this at all. After all, this is a budget implementation measure. The principle of doing what this bill is here to do has already been approved by this House and, I might say, has been significantly endorsed by people from coast to coast.
This debate in a way, while it is legally necessary, is really an after the fact debate. This House and the Canadian people spoke on this measure when they passed the budget. Nevertheless, the bill is before us. I think it is very consistent with where the Canadian public wants to see government restructure in this country. I heartily commend the government for bringing forth this measure and encourage all members to give it their support.


Mr. Eugene Bellemare (Carleton- Gloucester):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to comment on what was said by the Conservative member for South Shore, in Nova Scotia. I saw him make a big song and dance about the need for further decentralizing the Public Service so that people in his riding would have a place to find work besides the Dominion stores. I do not know exactly how long he has been a member of the House, but I do know he has been here for at least four and a half years.
February 1, 1993

The hon. member may have been here since 1984 but, if he has, he certainly is not doing his homework because he ought to know that decentralization of the Public Service has been taking place since 1972. If he bothered to make inquiries he would receive a little brochure from the Public Service explaining that there is a quota system for public servants across Canada.
For instance, the province of Ontario represents 30 per cent of the population so Ontario has about 30 per cent of the number of public servants. If his province represents 8 per cent of the population, if he had bothered to do his homework, he would know that his province has about that proportion of public servants. As for ensuring that public servants are in the right place, I am sure the various fisheries services in Canada are located in Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and British Columbia, not in the middle of Saskatchewan.
Conversely, when certain activities focus on agriculture our public servants are in Saskatchewan and Alberta where the farmers are, not on the coast of Nova Scotia or Labrador.
When a member wants to defend the interests of his constituency, his region and his government, he should at least check his statistics before making all kinds of statements.


Peter L. McCreath: Mr. Speaker, I certainly commend and understand my hon. friend's interest in speaking on behalf of public servants as he has probably as large a percentage of public servants in his constituency as anybody in this House and I commend him for taking that position.
My remarks of course were not addressed to the subject of public servants. My remarks were addressed, and I am sure on reflection he will realize that, to services to Canadian people that government, government agencies and departments provide, asking the question how well and how best they can be provided.
It would not make a lot of sense to me to have all the Coast Guard stations spread equally across the country, not that he advocated that. What is important is that the question be asked whether government ought to be involved in providing the service that is required. If the
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answer is yes, the next question is how best can government provide that service.
The Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, for example, is based in Moncton. It is operated from the maritimes where it should be because it is Atlantic Canada that it serves. I do not understand why they have an office with 75 to 100 people here in Ottawa. I do not understand why that is necessary. That is not in any way to disparage any of the individuals who work there. That is not the point I am making.
The point I am making is whether or not that is what is required to provide the services of that agency, the same point I made when I spoke about fisheries and oceans. Why is fisheries and oceans headquartered here in Ottawa with a large bureaucracy and staff of people when what they are dealing with is an industry and the support and direction of an industry that is located on the coast?
That is the point I was making.
In looking at government and in streamlining government the fact is no matter how many people we have in fisheries and oceans here in Ottawa we still require them in Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Quebec, the gulf and British Columbia because that is where the fisheries are.
I again commend my hon. friend for doing what he felt was appropriate. I certainly hope he was not suggesting I was in any way attacking public servants, which I do not think he was. He was taking advantage of this debate to make a point on behalf of his constituents. The point that I was making and that I would invite the House to address is the issue before us, which is how best government serves Canadians from coast to coast.


Mr. Phillip Edmonston (Chambly):: Mr. Speaker, in response to what my hon. colleague was mentioning, particularly about geography being one of the important features of making a government more streamlined, I was reflecting on that. It does not seem to me that moving certain aspects of the ministry of immigration to Vegreville, Alberta, is really going to make the government that much more streamlined. It is a problem that we have with waste in government right now. It is a question of competence and mind-set, the attitude of this government.

February 1, 1993
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I paid particular attention to my colleague when he spoke about how we have a certain amount of duplication between federal and provincial government activities. Working on the Beaudoin-Dobbie committee, we found from Quebec studies that that sometimes goes up to about $15 billion a year. I am not quite sure whether that figure is correct or not, but we do know that there is a great deal of money wasted by this government. It is not a question of geography. I am sure if you had these people moving from Ottawa into the different provinces or regions, you would still have people doing jobs that other people are already doing.
I am concerned about this question of whether maybe it should be more regionalized. I think it is a far deeper problem than that. I think the problem is one of the government, whether it is well intentioned or not. I am not here to castigate the motives of the government necessarily, but it seems that every time it says it wants to help the population in general and respond to needs that arise, as my hon. colleague mentioned, needs which the government is sensitive to, it shoots itself and fellow Canadians in the foot.
If you take a look at the so-called UIC reform for unemployment insurance, there was an obvious remark made by the minister of manpower and immigration who said essentially that there is this duplication.
I would like to ask the hon. member how he sees this duplication ending, not just moving the people from Ottawa to the other regions, but really ending this duplication.


Peter L. McCreath: Mr. Speaker, I am a little taken aback. What is wrong with Vegreville? What is wrong with locating a centre that could be put anywhere in Canada in Vegreville? Is there any reason that the people of Vegreville, who pay their taxes, should not experience some of the economic benefits that accrue from having a government agency located in their community? Is there anything different about that than locating the Department of Veterans Affairs in Charlottetown or locating the Canadian Philatelic Museum in Antigonish, which the Deputy Prime Minister of the last government did, which just happened to be in his constituency? What is wrong with locating the GST centre, which is a brand
new facility that is necessary, in Summerside, Prince Edward Island?
My remarks earlier were directed to the notion that things that occur in the region logically necessitate that the government should be centred there to ensure the delivery of those services.


An hon. member:: To streamline services.


Peter L. McCreath: That is right, to streamline those services. Absolutely, as my hon. friend points out.
There are other things that do not necessarily have to be done in Ottawa. This government is here for the benefit of the people. Why should this government not be located where the people are, which is in different parts of the country, so that there is no duplication involved in having certain government departments or agencies headquartered elsewhere than in Ottawa? I see nothing wrong with that.
I look forward to the day when some Canadian public servants, a greater number than the handful that are there now, have the honour and privilege of having their particular agency located in western Nova Scotia. I think that Lunenburg, for example, would be a marvellous spot to locate the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. I think the Department of Forestry would do marvellously if it were located in Liverpool, Nova Scotia.
My friend raised the question of duplication. I listened with great care, although I am not sure I really understand what he was saying. One of the things that was discussed in the constitutional discussions last year was streamlining government by getting rid of overlap between federal and provincial responsibilities. I think that is a very worthy goal. It was one that was pursued in Charlottetown to a degree that was not, as it turned out, acceptable to the public as a whole but it is certainly an aspiration that should be continued. Perhaps on another occasion, I will speak at greater length on that subject.


Mr. Don Boudria (Glengarry-Prescott-Russell):: Mr. Speaker, I listened very attentively to what the hon. member opposite said and I wonder how he can say one thing and change his opinion nearly 180 degrees in a few seconds when he is questioned about what he said.
February 1, 1993



The issue is not whether the immigration service should be located in Vegreville, although a whole argument could certainly be made about that. According to the member's own arguments the issue is that fisheries and oceans should not be located in Ottawa because that is not where the majority of the people using it happen to be located.


An hon. member:: Right.


Don Boudria: My colleague and I have used the member's own argument, not ours, to show the duplicity in the government's ways.


An hon. member:: In Vegreville it is a computer centre.


Don Boudria: Oh no.
Then I hear the hon. member saying that they are going to merge these two councils, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and the Canada Council, to save money.
To start with, as the very distinguished and learned member for Kingston and the Islands has said, the member has not made a case that it will save any money. Even if the hon. member had made that case that is not the sole criteria. It is perhaps a criteria but certainly not the only one.
This government then says that it really wants to save money because it is the government and it wants to do that. I have spoken on occasion in this House about Tory government waste and I just happen to have a few examples of how the government wasted the money of the taxpayers of Canada.


An hon. member:: Let us hear it.


Don Boudria: I was not going to but at the insistence of the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands I am going to have to do so.
For instance, the government decided to use a private courier, Interpost Systems of Canada, instead of Canada Post because it wanted to have reliable service. This is what it said. One department alone has spent $301,237 in hiring Interpost courier instead of Canada Post. Another department has spent $26,000. It goes on and on. Millions of dollars have been spent because the government did not trust the agency run by the government
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House leader to deliver the mail. I am putting it kindly because of my usual non-partisan style.
The government tells us again that it wants to save money. Well, well, well. I have news for the government. First, according to media reports in recent weeks the government has resumed the initiative of having not one but two jets fly the Prime Minister around. One of them carries the Prime Minister and out its window can be seen the other jet flying beside it. I suppose that in case the first jet is defective there is a second jet to carry the Prime Minister.
I am not an expert in aviation but something tells me that if the jet ever conked out, especially in the air, there would be some difficulty in transferring this very precious passenger to another jet. However I shall not comment on that any further at this moment.
I have examples of the constituency householder of the hon. member for Charlevoix. All the members and all Canadians who might be listening must know that we cannot address members directly, so let me put it this way. These are the grants that the Prime Minister announced in his riding, as he is the member for Charlevoix.
For instance, the sum of $500,000 has been given to an outfit in his constituency. It is going to find a system to remove the smell from pig manure in a piggery located in his constituency. This is from the same government that tells us it has no money. I am not saying we should not invest in agriculture, but this money goes to one farm in his constituency.
There are other grants of $81,000 and $155,000 to tourism establishments in his constituency. I could go on and on and list all kinds of grants that he has given all over the place in his riding. Maybe some of these agencies, maybe all of them for all I know, deserve them. However, the issue is that there seems to be one rule for the Prime Minister and his constituency and one rule for the rest of us.
For instance, last week there was a demonstration in Ottawa against the closure of rural post offices in Canada. The government has closed down many post offices in my riding and that is shameful. It has closed down the post office in Saint-Clement de Riviere-du-Loup. The government says that this is the new way and we have to cut down.

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Last week I brought to the attention of the media the situation of five post offices in the riding of Charlevoix. In the five cases the postmasters retired but new ones were hired. Therefore, there is one rule for the Prime Minister and one rule for the rest of us.
It is that kind of policy that is again represented in this bill.

I have in front of me a letter that was published in the daily newspaper La Presse on December 18, 1992. In this letter the president of the Canadian Federation for the Humanities, a professor in the Department of Philosophy at the Universite du Quebec a Montreal, Dr. Robert Nadeau, said this about the federal government's policy: "While it is certainly legitimate for a responsible government to want to reduce as much as possible the administrative costs of the many programs and organizations that it supports, it is not legitimate to do so in an authoritarian way and without any explanation, as if the measure were self-explanatory and those affected had no say in the matter. It is unacceptable that this bill dissolves the SSHRC and creates something as an appendix to the existing Canada Council by in a sense adding the SSHRC, as well as international cultural promotion programs, on to it. In proceeding this way, Ottawa is clearly giving the impression that it confuses research in the humanities with the business of promoting culture. Furthermore, it clearly suggests that the federal government is not very serious about its commitment to maintain and even develop research in the humanities".
Dr. Nadeau is telling us that the decision is first of all wrong and second, arbitrary. More and more we see governments announcing all kinds of policies by putting them in a so-called economic statement or budget, things that may have nothing to do with the budget, because in this case no one has proven that we were saving or spending a penny more or less. Is it a budget measure? That is certainly debatable, but the point is that because it is in the budget and the budget is considered a matter of confidence in the government, government backbenchers are forced by the way things work to support it even if they are opposed.
That is what the government does to pass such measures. That is why it is arbitrary and that is why Dr.
Nadeau is right. We can go further and wonder why the Social Science Federation of Canada and the whole humanities sector were never contacted and consulted by the government. For example, if we agree that this organization should be merged with another one-and I am not saying that they should be merged, but supposing they should-is it not possible that it is being merged with the wrong organization, with one that is unrelated to it, instead of being merged with another organization that might be a more logical choice? The government has not even shown that it is necessary to combine it with another agency, much less that it is being merged with the right one.

That is just one example of the arbitrariness of this bill. There are other things in the bill that I have no great objection to. From what my colleagues tell me with regard to the Agriculture Products Marketing Board there is not much that is of controversy in terms of what the government wants to do with Bill C-93.
We in my party are definitely opposed to what the government is doing to the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. The government says it is no longer needed. My distinguished colleague and House leader, the member for Cape Breton-East Richmond, certainly thinks there are still a lot of opportunities that remain unfulfilled in Cape Breton. There is still plenty of need for an organization such as this. Who has been consulted? Were the three members from Cape Breton who are caucus colleagues of mine consulted? Was anyone consulted? The government has not made a case that it has asked anybody. It has just inserted that to show the Reform Party or whoever that it is going to collapse a certain number of government agencies in order to pretend that this will somehow be better and that this government is really tough.
I have already spoken about the Canada Council and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and mentioned that my colleagues and I disagree with that particular merger.
As for the independent review commission for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, we certainly hope it will improve efficiency and the operation of the complaints process. However, we are concerned that this might lead to reduced service.
February 1, 1993

We have looked at the International Trade and Procurement Tribunal which is also in there. As for the Petroleum Monitoring Agency, for instance, we feel as a caucus that there is still a need for independent advice to the government in this sector. Right now we perhaps do not have some of the concerns we had a few years ago. Today there is no shortage or no crisis.
The good way of planning for a crisis is to organize things when there is no crisis. Then it is not necessary to buy a fire truck when the place is on fire because one does not usually make good purchases or good decisions in that kind of situation.
We certainly have a number of reservations. It is not that we are against everything in the bill but we are against the process that was used, the lack of consultation and the quality of some of the decisions that were taken. In some cases they were just bad. At the very least, in the case of the merger of the two councils the government has not given us one iota of evidence that it will be better, other than the platitudes we heard from the hon. member who spoke earlier this day representing the government. He constructed an argument that basically said the opposite of what he had said only moments before. If that has convinced anyone in this room, it certainly has not convinced me. The parallels he drew in his argument, and I do not want to be rude, frankly did not make sense.
When we speak of the councils, I want to say to the House that this is not something that I, my colleagues or anyone else has concocted. The university academic community is certainly not in agreement at all with it. I have received letter after letter. I have one here from Professor Judith Herz of Concordia University in which she indicates her disappointment with this.
I also have a letter from the Social Science Federation of Canada which was sent to the Minister of Communications in which Professor Louise Quesnel, president of that organization expresses her objections.

I have a press release sent to us by the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada. In this communique, the association tells us that it is unhappy with the government's policy.
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I have another letter, signed by Professor Claude Lajeunesse, president of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada, in which he explains to us everything that is wrong with the bill.
Another letter is from the University of Guelph. I should bring this one to the attention of hon. members because it comes from the Department of English at the University of Guelph. One member of this House is very familiar with that university. He is the former Minister of Science who recently has taken retirement from cabinet. He has not retired from the House yet although I understand he is not running again. However he has resigned from cabinet. As I understand it he was president of that university. He certainly knows that community. He knows how the academic community feels. He knows how much it is against this bill.
I want to close by saying that even if the savings of funds were the sole criteria, which they are not, the government has not made a case. It is not the sole criteria. The government has not consulted anyone.
Finally, in terms of the merging of the two councils, it has not tried to convince anyone that what it is proposing is even appropriate, that is if merging was the appropriate decision to start with. The government has not convinced us of that.
Why does the government not remove that section from the bill, along with the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency section? We could then proceed with the rest of it, send it to committee and hopefully assist the government in trying to find an expeditious way to deal with the proposed legislation but not with those two particular sections in it.


Mr. Simon de Jong (Regina-Qu'Appelle):: Mr. Speaker, I want to pose one question to the spokesperson from the Liberal Party.
I listened to him quite intently and I appreciated many of the remarks he made, particularly regarding bringing SSHRC, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and folding that in with the Canada Council as well as that part of external affairs which deals with cultural and academic matters.
I share many of his concerns and concerns expressed by other members of the Liberal Party.

February 1, 1993
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We will be having an election this year and the probability is quite high there will be a change in government. I wonder if the hon. member can give us the assurance that within one year, if his party gets elected as the government, it will trigger an automatic review of this new arrangement. If the review proves that amalgamating these groups was useless to begin with, as we now maintain, will it take the appropriate steps to restore what now exists?


Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, that is an excellent question. I have just conferred with my colleague who is the critic in this area and obtained his assurance that would be the policy.
However it goes beyond that. It is not just a matter of whether we can unmake the omelettes this government is making right now. It is a matter of all of us in this House indicating to the government some of its shortcomings and telling it to hold off. This government is in the fifth year of its four-year mandate. What kind of moral authority does it have to govern right now?


Some hon. members:: None.


Don Boudria: There you go. This government is around 17 per cent or 18 per cent in the polls right now. What kind of moral authority does it have to govern?


Some hon. members:: None.


Don Boudria: There you go, Mr. Speaker.


John Horton McDermid: Do you govern by polls?


Don Boudria: I am asked that question by the organization which gave $1 million worth of polling during the referendum period. I am asked by the minister who was probably at the cabinet table when the decision was made. Do I govern by polls?.
Listen to this. This is absolutely interesting. I think the minister has forgotten about the polling contracts which he and his colleagues gave before he uttered that one liner. He is probably sorry that he even brought it up because he has brought that topic to the forefront again. Maybe we should all forget that the minister uttered those words. Maybe this government should start thinking about the fact it has so little authority to govern that it certainly has no right to take these kinds of decisions.
This business of whether we have a four or five year mandate, the member for Charlevoix said that we have
to have elections every four years. I know the member for Charlevoix would always tell us the truth.


Ron J. Duhamel: Mr. Speaker, I wanted to ask my colleague a fairly simple question.

We have been told by one of our colleagues from the government side that very little money will be saved by this particular action. In fact he said modest. I wonder if my colleague has heard any figures or whether the government is prepared to put forward those actual numbers. It would be interesting to investigate.
The second point that was made, and an important one, is that apparently this will increase effectiveness. I have not had any evidence which indicates that except for a few philosophical statements that there are many out there, there will be fewer and therefore it will be better. I wonder if the member would care to comment on that.
A final third point. It is my contention that this government wanted to get closer to its kissing cousins the reformers and tried to respond to the Reform Party agenda. It was not a question of saving money although the government would like Canadians to believe that. It was not a question of increasing government effectiveness although it would like Canadians to believe that. It tried to give the semblance of reform, to pretend that something important was being done, to somehow try to regain the support of many of its former supporters who are now clearly supporting the Reform Party. I wonder if the member would care to comment on this.


Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, in terms of effectiveness, whether or not money is saved, as I said earlier, is not the sole criteria. It is one of the tests but not the sole one. However the government has not made a case for that. I say to the government across the way: Show me, I am from Glengarry. I would like to know where we are supposed to save money with this scheme. At least then the government would have one leg to stand on. We need more than that to satisfy us and it has not even done that very basic element in any case, that which it alleges is the important one.
February 1, 1993

The member for St. Boniface is quite right when he talks about the bosom buddies of the government across the way, the Reform Party supporters. The government wanted to pretend to collapse a group of agencies which would get them rave reviews in the media. Of course it did nothing of the sort, the government's popularity has been sinking since then. Having done that, it said it would pretend to save all of this money.
Let me give you an example of the money it was going to save. It is abolishing the Veterans Land Act. This is a section of the bill. The last time the Veterans Land Act board sat was 16 years ago. The only thing that remains is the name. The government is not going to save anything. It is just window dressing. It is just trying to please a particular constituency it is trying to cater to right now. The Tories are going after the "Presto Moaning Deformed Party" vote but it is not going to work. Frankly I do not care whether it does or not because between the two of them there is still not enough there to make a political party worth supporting.
In any case, Canadians know better than that. They know the truth. They know if you do not make a case that you are going to save any money at all, they are not going to believe it. To start with, even if that were the test, as I indicated initially, it would still have to be proven that it is the correct decision as opposed to a bad one.


Simon Leendert de Jong: Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the bill before us today, Bill C-93, in particular that section pertaining to the abolition of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and the international cultural programs.
As the House knows, Bill C-93 has various sections in it. It rises from the budget of February of last year and my colleagues from my party will have some things to say on some of the changes. We have no trouble at all with some parts. My comments will be restricted mainly to the part that sees the Canada Council taking over the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and the international cultural programs.
I have listened to government members try to justify this. They spoke in large generalities of abolishing and
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therefore came to the conclusion that this would save money. They said by bringing the function of the Canada Council with the functions of SSHRC and the international cultural programs together, this was automatically going to save money. One hon. government member did admit that the money to be saved was quite insignificant.
We really do not know if money is going to be saved. You can come to that type of conclusion by bringing something together so therefore you are going to save money but that is not necessarily the case.
I have heard other hon. government members make these great statements on how they have reduced the Public Service and how much money they have saved. Of course they never mention the increase in the number of consultants they have had to hire. They never mention the increased costs of going through consulting companies. When you balance the two together you come to the conclusion that not much money has been saved.
What happens of course is that ordinaiy workers in the Public Service have less protection because now many of them are working as employees in private consulting companies quite often doing the same job they were doing before but they do not have the type of protection and the type of social benefits they would formerly have.
The government is still paying the same amount of money but it is now paying that amount of money to the heads of some of the private firms who are now collecting some of that money as profits. It is not really much of a cost saving. What is the cost saving on this measure that is part of Bill C-93?
We have to examine how much money is to be saved in dollars and cents. We must compare the effectiveness of this new organization to the effectiveness of the existing arrangement and then determine the cost.
I am suggesting that what we must do is examine whatever potential savings there might be and examine the effectiveness of the delivery of programs to determine whether any of these possible savings are made at the expense of lower delivery of service to the clientele. Then we can see what the bottom line is and determine whether money will indeed be saved and whether the effectiveness of the programs will be reduced.

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One of the things that is really discouraging is the method by which the government undertook to implement these changes. There was no consultation. I understand that even the minister responsible was totally unprepared for this change. It was a change that was thrown in at the very last minute.
I understand that one of the ministers was going to address some of the social scientists. When he heard the budget it was the first time that he was aware that SSHRC was to be abolished. Of course, the minister cancelled his appointment to talk to the social scientists because he did not want to meet with them and have to justify what the government had done. Despite the fact that he was the minister in charge of SSHRC he did not even know about the changes that were coming.
So much for consultation, even within the government. It is no wonder that we have a very inefficient and ineffective government because even among the cabinet level they do not communicate with each other, let alone between departments.
We are also quite unhappy with things in the act itself. We do not accept that SSHRC should be folded into the Canada Council. We are also unhappy with what happens after that. We are not happy at all with the board and the way in which this new organization is to be governed.
We are not happy with the lack of assurance in the bill itself that the money that will go for research for the social sciences and humanities will come out of a research envelope. Verbal assurances have been given to SSHRC that for the next number of years its funding will come from the research envelope. They will not be in competition with the Canada Council for money that will go to culture in this country. However, there is no assurance or backup in the bill itself.
I have spoken to social scientists. They are quite concerned and I do not blame them. This government has said many things. The Prime Minister has said many things. He has made many promises and statements. However when the actual reality comes into play, when we actually see what the government does, it is quite the opposite.
I would not want to go so far in this House as to suggest that the government lies but I would not trust it. I do not blame the members of the social sciences community for not trusting this government when it comes to any verbal commitment as to what the sources of funding would be.
Why is it important to the social sciences that they not be forgotten and confused with the Canada Council? It is not that they have any objection or fights with the Canada Council. There are some similarities, particularly when we deal with the humanities and the Canada Council. That is the reason that originally the Canada Council and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council were one. A decision was made in 1978 to separate the two after a long time of consultation and discussion within the academic and cultural communities. There were some very valid reasons for that decision.
One of the major reasons, which I hope this government might understand, is that the social sciences and the humanities conduct research into some extremely important elements of our society. That role is different from what the Canada Council does and funds.
We are living in a day and age of very rapid social change. Never in the history of the human race has there been such a rate of change. It is a rate of change that continues to accelerate. Think of the difference between now, in 1993, and 1983 or 1973, only 10, 20 years ago. The social changes and the economic changes have been horrendous, and not just in our North American and Canadian society but on a global level. We know that these changes are going to continue to accelerate.
The question that we have to ask as a society is: Do we continually react to these changes or do we try to anticipate, try to understand, try to predict and try to do things so that we can go through these changes with the least amount of human harm? An intelligent society wants to understand the forces that are changing it. It wants to understand them so that it can take measures that will allow it to survive those changes with the least amount of human hardship and harm, so that it can go through those changes and be better able to profit from the positive side of those changes.
February 1, 1993

Just in terms of economics the social sciences are involved in research on physical problems, monetary policy, urban development, productivity, economic and strategic planning, managing for global competitiveness, and science and technological innovation policy. They are also doing research on family violence, an aging population, racism, sexism, youth and unemployment. They are doing important research that affects our native people and aboriginal people. It is important research and essential research.
If we are going to go through the end of this century and into the next century and the next millennium we need this research.
I know that the minister in charge of privatization and his colleagues in the Conservative government consider themselves to be tough macho characters. They consider all this social science research stuff to be woolly, soft, marshmallow type stuff. They feel that we really do not need it and that it is a waste of government money. Quite often the research that is done contradicts the government's policies. The government members are tough macho people and they figure that people will be able to toughen things out and toughen out the economic and social changes in our world. I believe many of them secretly believe that all this social science stuff is pinko stuff that is not really needed. I suspect that many government members in their hearts would like to see all of the social sciences and humanities abolished.


An hon. member:: That is not true.


Simon Leendert de Jong: I know there are some exceptions and I suspect the hon. member who interjected would be an exception but I am thinking of some of the other Conservative members, particularly the minister in charge of privatization. I become scared when a member like that is in charge of the social sciences and humanities. His concern about the social sciences and humanities could be put on the head of a pin, and maybe even the head of the pin might be a little too big for it.
What this government is doing is not just totally insensitive but it is dumb and stupid. I suspect it is going to be wasteful as well. Now SSHRC is being merged with the Canada Council. That organization is still going to need its own internal bureaucracy to deal with the humanities and the social sciences and to deal with the
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universities. One would wonder what the savings will be in the end and how many other types of duplication will be needed. For example, when the International Cultural Program is moved out of external affairs and into this new Canada Council this new council will need some ability to deal with our embassies and some people who know what our foreign policy is. It will need people who are in touch with the cultural and academic pursuits in other countries. It will need to duplicate what should already be known within external affairs.
We wonder how much new duplication will be created as the government tries to wipe out possible existing duplications, then we wonder how smart this move is.
Certainly this bill will be examined very closely when it reaches the legislative stage. We hope to be able to hear from the government members and the officials of the Department of Finance their justification for this move. We hope to hear their justification both in terms of the concept and of dollars and cents. I want to see in black and white how much this is really going to save the government. They should be prepared to show us that.
We will also be interested in seeing some amendments to the bill so that if this bill is to proceed it will at least proceed in the best possible form. It is a dumb, stupid, and useless move. I hope that this time next year I will be back here and many of the members sitting opposite will not be back. I hope that we will have a new government which will look at what this present government is doing now in its dying moments. Hopefully this time next year we will see a reversal of the stupidity of the existing government.


Mr. Don Blenkarn (Mississauga South):: Mr. Speaker, I was wondering if the member would advise us whether his party only objects to the amalgamation of the Canada Council into a new council, the Canada Council for the Arts and for Research in the Social Sciences and Humanities. Is that his only objection? He did not speak on the other parts of the bill at all. They all seem to be housekeeping measures designed to more effectively, as far as the government is concerned, operate these various agencies and activities of the government. If his only concern is with respect to Part III of the bill why would he not just move this bill forward to committee so that evidence could be heard to fortify some of the things he said? It seems to me that while there may not be huge

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savings in grants, it certainly would be more efficient to have one group of people responsible for the grants and allocations of funds rather than two. After all, there is an overlap of the kind of thing that is involved. The Canada Council does research in the social science field. Indeed, some of the complaints we as members of Parliament get are often in connection with Canada Council grants of a social science research type. The existing body on the Social Sciences and Research Council does research. It seems to me that to have it all under one head would be an efficient move.
The members of the New Democratic Party are perhaps not trusting of the government, but that is another matter. I was wondering if he had any other objection other than the objection to this one amalgamation set out in part III of the bill.


Simon Leendert de Jong: Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned at the beginning of my remarks, other colleagues will be dealing with other parts of the bill. I understand there is some objection to some aspects and no objection to other aspects of Bill C-93. Some we recognize are just housekeeping measures and some my colleagues disagree with. I do not think they feel very strongly about it, but they will be putting some of their concerns on the record as well.
As I stated at the beginning of my remarks, I was going to focus on that part of the bill that brings in under the Canada Council the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and the international cultural programs.
I want to answer the other part of the question that was put to me by my friend and colleague from Mississauga and that is all the different organizations that are opposed to this aspect of Bill C-93. We have the Canadian Conference of the Arts, the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada as well as different groupings of people involved in the social sciences themselves. The point is that the arts community, the humanities and the researchers and people involved in the social sciences are almost overwhelmingly opposed to this move. Yet the government continues to push it through. As well, the government admits it is not going to save much money. It claims it is going to be more efficient and yet all the people involved in the field, the
so-called clientele, are telling the government it is not so. It is not going to be more efficient. It is going to be more inefficient. Why is the government proceeding with this part of Bill C-93?


Ron J. Duhamel: Mr. Speaker, Bill C-93 is not at all what the government pretends it is. If it is about saving money, let us see the figures. Put them on the table so that we can examine them. Stop trying to pretend to Canadians that there are going to be millions of dollars that will be saved. Put the figures on the table. I shall be insisting as will other colleagues that that be done.
I just remembered the Auditor General's report. For example, on tax loopholes for foreign affiliates the Auditor General had some statements to make which could have saved millions if not billions of dollars: the implementation of the GST, up to $1.7 million according to that report: 4,000 new people administering that particular tax; untendered contracts, 22 contracts for the prosperity secretariat worth $3.3 million. I could go on and on.
By the fiscal year 2000-01, $1.2 billion will be lost in pension overpayments to ineligible recipients. Those are but a few examples of some of the programs that are not working, some of the over-expenditures, some of the problems that are being experienced by government that are in fact costing Canadian taxpayers not millions but billions of dollars. If the government truly wanted to save money, it could have attacked that.
There are other areas as well it might have addressed. Let me give a few examples. It could have in fact reduced the size of cabinet. It could have reduced the number of parliamentary secretaries. It could have reduced some of the travel and other advantages that we have and there are many others. Talk about saving money.

Let's be serious. I see an hon. member laughing over there. Do not laugh, it is serious. If he wants to save money I gave him some very good examples that could save lots of money.


Mr. Hudon:: Look at the list.


Ron J. Duhamel: When I touch some sensitive points they start to shout. They begin to speak up because I hit a nerve I will continue.
February 1, 1993



As I was saying, if we wanted to save money the Auditor General's report is a good place to start. Look at the size of cabinet and the size of government and do something meaningful there.
They talk about increased efficiency. They want to increase efficiency.

They have just thought about that, eight years after they have been in government. They said we had better do something because it is starting to fall through the cracks. More than eight years after they came to government they finally woke up. Somebody said: "Hey, we had better do something here to give the impression that we are going to have a more effective government. What is it we could do?" I am sure somebody has said it does not really matter whether or not it does it but it must give the impression.

The impression is what counts. That is what they want, to give the impression that they have cut, that they are suddenly becoming efficient, that now they have seen the light and with this bill government will be more efficient.

Canadians are not going to be fooled. Unless the government can put specific proposals on the table and demonstrate absolutely clearly there is going to be increased effectiveness, Canadians will not believe the government. They will simply not believe what it says.
I see one of my colleagues. I think he is probably nodding in agreement or if not he is miffed, but it comes out to the same thing. I can conclude the same. He agrees with me that unless Canadians are shown absolutely crystal clear that there will be additional effectiveness, they will not buy this.
Canadians know this government. They know it is a master at smoke and mirrors, of changing attitudes or attempting to do so, creating new perceptions, trying to forge an agenda that will in fact be used to try to
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persuade Canadians to give it a third mandate. This is part of the plan.

Of course it is part of the plan. Why pretend to save money by exaggerating the amount saved? Why pretend that the government will be more efficient when there is no evidence of it?

Because there is an election coming, it wants to forge the agenda, try to give the impression through the smoke and mirrors and glitz it can do a fine job for Canadians.


An hon. member:: That is right.


Ron J. Duhamel: My friend said that is right. I am glad that he agrees with me. I know he was not saying what I was saying was correct. That is what he was agreeing to. Absolutely. I know that. He knows it will not save any real money. He knows it will not increase effectiveness but he knows what it is trying to do.
He was probably at that strategy table trying to determine what it was going to do to persuade Canadians to say yes, it is okay. Canadians are not going to say yes, it is okay. It wants to try to persuade Canadians that something is in fact being done when it is not being done.
Let us look at the bill. A number of colleagues have talked about the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. It is an important part. I shall stress that part, but at the same time I will say that it deals with a number of other features.
It is called the budget implementation, the Government Organization Act, 1992. That is rather impressive, is it not, Government Organization. It talks about the Agricultural Products Board. Some of my colleagues have addressed that, so I will not go into any detail.
There is the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, the Canada Council for the Arts and for Research being blended into the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. It talks about the Canadian Commercial Corporation, Emergency Preparedness Canada, the Independent Review Commission for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Intellectual Property Tribunal, the International Trade and Procurement Tribunal and the Petroleum Monitoring Agency.

February 1, 1993
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Therein lies one of the traps. Canadians have never heard about those things before. As one of my colleagues pointed out, one of them has not been sitting for 16 years. Probably a few others have been dead for some time too.
My colleagues want to abolish something that is already dead. What a functional piece of legislation this is. Therein lies one of the traps that they are trying to set. They come out with these rather impressive titles and Canadians, they hope, will be persuaded that something meaningful is being done. Somehow they hope that they can change those opinion polls around.
Let me deal with perhaps the most significant part of the bill for many, many Canadians. It is the clauses that would wind up the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and transfer its functions and staff to the Canada Council. That is bothering most Canadians and is one of the aspects of this bill that this government will live to regret.
There is another feature that I think the government has forgotten. It has forgotten that this particular council is a grant-giving body which administers funds for research and scholarship. It was created in 1977 and it has worked well ever since.
The second part troubling Canadians is that the Department of External Affairs has a staff of approximately 25 people working for the International Cultural and Academic Relations Program. It forecasts a budget for this program of $27 million. The Canada Council, which was created in 1957, offers grants and services to artists and art organizations. It has a staff of 248.
The govemement is going to put all that together. It has not shown us at all where money will be saved, whether or not there will be jobs lost and I hope that there are not, or whether or not there will be money saved. It has not done anything. It takes these organizations which many people know little about and tries to suggest that something meaningful will be done. All it is, in the final analysis, is the creation of perception.
Let us look at what the academic community has said about these.

I have in front of me a press release dated November 30, 1992, just a few months ago. It says: "Funding of social science research threatened".

Funding for the social sciences research is threatened. That is what these people think about it.
"Merger legislation threatens eclipse of humanities research". That is what is being said. There is a lot more. Funding for social sciences research is threatened and may not be able to be continued, which is the gist of this argument, at the level or quality that has been so in the past.
I have another communique from the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada. I will read the headline: "Abolition of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council is turning back the clock". It goes on to say that this particular association has concerns about this council's programs being taken over by the Canada Council. It makes several important points.
This same organization says that the transfer of the International Academic Relations Program from External Affairs to Canada Council could also be problematic. It goes on to point out that the importance of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council to Canada's over-all research effort is one of paramount importance. It describes the history of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council in Canada. I would urge colleagues to read this because it has some excellent notes with which they may not be familiar.
In another communique from the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada it says that the merger of these academic relations and cultural programs is neither necessary nor desirable. It proposes a series of amendments that would shift the emphasis in an appropriate direction.
However I am sure the government has not taken the time to look at this. It does not want to listen to Canadians. We know that because if it had been listening to Canadians it would have put a halt to this. It would have consulted the people of Canada who are those most directly affected.
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Mr. Speaker, you know very well that these people have a better idea of the impact of this bill on then-organizations and on what these organizations do for Canadians.

Here is another communique from the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada with respect to the mini budget.

This mini budget has left a bitter taste with the universities. Why? Because the universities have been betrayed. That is why. They have been betrayed.
Here is another communique, this time from the Social Science Federation of Canada: "The government is defying its commitments to fund social sciences". In what way is the government defying its commitments?

The government, subsequent to or roughly at the same time as part of its strategy, decided to merge those.

Mr. Speaker, you know that as well as I do. [English]
It knew there would be a problem because it did not consult, it did not make sense and it had not thought it out. The government said: "Aha". It held out a carrot. "There will be a 4 per cent increase in research and development funding". However, a few months later, after a great announcement about that 4 per cent increase over four years, what did the government do? It reneged on that.
If one can renege on that-supposedly you are in a worse financial position than you thought you were when you made the announcement-then one admits two things. First, one did not do one's financial predictions particularly well. It was not done well at all.

Most people would agree with me that when I promise something publicly and then come back later saying
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"Well, listen, I did not fully realize the budget constraints, et cetera", that does not look good and that is not right at all. Something comes to mind, which I think would be almost too awful to say.

The people will not forget that a promise was made and that the promise was not carried out. It would not be so bad if it was the first time but it is not the first time.
I have another communique from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities: "A promise is a promise or is it?" I have another communique: "Bitter surprises for universities in mini budget".
Let us remember this. It is so critically important. I know that my colleagues will agree with me on this point even if they might disagree or question the others. Our greatest challenges in this country are really the social problems of the nation. In fact they may be the greatest challenges of this planet.
Say one stops to think for a moment to say: "What are the difficulties that this country is experiencing?" One would talk about our poor. There are different statistics but many people would agree that there are almost five million. It depends upon how one defines poverty and I understand that. However the majority of them are women and one million are children.
One would also recognize that there are more than 1.6 million unemployed Canadians in this country today. Most of them want a job and want to work but there are no jobs. This is the latest figure I have been using. I am told it is too low and I am sorry that it is too low, but there are over 2.2 million Canadians who are receiving social assistance. Apparently that is crowding 3 million people. The food banks at one time were using the figure of 2 million people to feed. It is now in excess of that.
Those are the challenges that are facing Canadians and those are the challenges that are facing this government as it enters this new session. The government is now trying to give the impression of doing something by taking some organizations that never meet and suggesting that if it takes them out it is going to save money and it is going to bring greater government effectiveness.
Let me go on to some additional social challenges.

February 1, 1993
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Almost every day we talk about the problems of abuse. Whether it is abuse of the elderly, children, people one is living with, too often of wives, these are challenges for our society. We talk about this abuse because we recognize that it must not be tolerated in this society.
When I talk about the unemployment rate, about people receiving welfare, about men, women and children who will be fed by food banks, about abuse, be it abuse of seniors, women or children, who are the people who could enlighten us and possibly provide solutions?

Of course, it is the people who are called social scientists, broadly defined, who could bring us some answers to those questions. They are the people who could somehow give us a new sense of direction and possible new solutions so that all of us who are committed to ridding society of those ills could make some progress toward that.
It is important to look at this action on the part of government, which I said was for purely political reasons. One has to understand what has been happening to the total culture of education.
There will be $10 billion less transferred for education from 1986 to 1995 in about a decade. There will be fewer dollars if one adjusts for inflation, and the need out there for training and retraining is increasing.
With respect to research and development, the government made a promise to double its investments and match Japan, U.S., Germany, France and other countries. What has happened? We have slipped even further.
I have not even talked about student debt or the astronomical increases in tuition fees and incidental fees in universities. I could go on but we have to look at the merger in this context. The educational community has once again been attacked without consultation. It made recommendations. It denounced this. It said: "At the very least, stop this. Hold consultations subsequent to having studied the implications of this. Then and only then if one feels it is appropriate should one proceed".

I conclude by asking the government to consider this proposal, to stop proceeding with this bill and consult. When it has consulted and if it firmly believes that it is the best decision for our academic community, our students and other Canadians, it can go ahead, but not without consulting and thinking it over.


Peter L. McCreath: Mr. Speaker, I must say that the rhetoric of my hon. friend far exceeds his logic.
I was trying to understand the thrust of what he was saying other than in a general and sweeping way suggesting that whatever this government did he was against it.
He says that Canadians have never heard of most of these agencies that are being dissolved. Remember when he said that? Then moments later he said that the government is not listening to Canadians about how they want all these institutions to remain. They have never heard of them, yet they want them.
I suspect that I mixed his metaphors a little bit and that he was really saying that Canadians want to keep the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. He talks about the assault on the academic community employed in this.
It seems to me that if the grants and fellowships of these agencies, particularly by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, were discontinued then I would have to stand in my place and totally agree with him because I think those are very important.
What is significant is that the funding of research and graduate studies takes place in this country. That will continue.
He said in his remarks that the SSHRC was established in 1977. I wonder if he recalls that prior to 1977 those same grants were delivered by, guess what, the Canada Council. The Canada Council has already performed this function. Is that not interesting?
The government that preceded this one believed in the proliferation of government and agencies. This government believes in cost effectiveness, efficiency and keeping up with the times. Even his own leader in a recent speech at the University of Ottawa said that our challenge today is to adapt the role of government to a new world. That is precisely what this government is doing. I assume that is where the Leader of the Opposition got that rather excellent idea. I would say to my hon. friend and put a question to him: "Does he not agree that government must be slim? Does he not agree that
February 1, 1993

government must respond to the needs of the people? Does he not agree that it is appropriate from time to time for government to take a look at its own structure to provide a streamlined presentation of services that better serves the Canadian people than a plethora of agencies-over 400-that exist today? Does he not agree that streamlining is most appropriate and that is the thrust of this legislation and that is supported by the Canadian people?"


Ron J. Duhamel: Yes, I do agree the government ought to take a look at streamlining, but it has to have an honourable purpose. This is a dishonourable purpose.
I am shocked. My colleague who calls himself a Progressive Conservative ought to really be standing up in the House today to suggest a change of name to regressive conservatives because that is exactly what this is all about.
If my rhetoric exceeds my logic, since he did not understand my message, I wonder what that says about his intellect, but I will not answer that question. I will simply leave it in suspension.
My colleague should understand something about this country of 27 million Canadians. There is an academic community with students and supporters that understands the implications of what it means to do what this government intends to do to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. My colleague should understand that.
Then there are a number of other Canadians, perhaps my colleague does not understand that, who do not have the time to delve into fancy names of organizations that have been around for a while. If the government was intending to save money, if the government was intending to try to introduce effectiveness into government, if the government was being honourable as opposed to dishonourable, if the government was not trying to fool the people of Canada, if this had been thought out, if the people had been consulted, then I would be delighted to support this kind of legislation.
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We know that was not the reason. Therefore, my colleague should consider my recommendations. They are not suggestions but recommendations. He should stand in this House and rename his party the regressive conservatives as opposed to the Progressive Conservatives and reconsider the comment he made about rhetoric and logic. Perhaps he can tell me confidentially-I would not want it to be a public statement-what it says about his intellect when he did not understand what I said. It was crystal clear: "You are shafting the Canadian people". That is what I said. Maybe he understands that language better.


Mrs. Marlene Catterall (Ottawa West):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise and speak on this bill and particularly to address the future of research in this country. One of the important issues dealt with in this bill is the folding of science, humanities, education and social studies into the Canada Council. This is not a partnership. It truly is merging one existing organization into another.
There is a great deal of concern about that. The Canada Council already has its own act and mandate. One of the major areas of concern is that the social and humanitarian sciences are going to be lost in the shuffle and given less importance at a time when the council has been funding, promoting and causing to be done some extremely important work.
The government talks frequently about the process of change, adapting to change, a new competitive environment and a new global environment. We talk about a future economy based on information and service industries. There is no doubt we are going through a major transformation in society, not only in Canada, but around the world. A lot of that transformation is based on scientific and technological advances.
However, along with the scientific and technological advance in the narrow sense of the physical sciences, another major revolution is taking place in how people live, how we learn and all the social dynamics that keep our societies and human beings functioning.

February 1, 1993
There is growing appreciation that physical sciences and technology do not develop in a vacuum, that they have significant repercussions for individuals and for society. More and more the need to look beyond the technical improvements we may be making to see the repercussions throughout society is being appreciated and understood.
I will turn to the area of social sciences and humanities.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBIois):: It being two o'clock, the House shall now proceed to statements by members pursuant to Standing Order 31.


STATEMENTS PURSUANT TO S. O. 31
Mr. Guy Saint-Julien (Abitibi):: Mr. Speaker, for several months now, the Communication Canada group, through its chief executive officer, has been striving to eliminate an excellent service provided by Communication-Quebec for the federal government regarding its programs and services.
The people of Abitibi-Temiscamingue are happy with the services provided by the Communication-Quebec personnel who have answered thousands of inquiries since this service was established.
The Government of Canada has been using Communi-cation-Quebec's structures and informational support free of charge since 1986.
Quebecers tell us every day how happy they are to have access all in one place to information services from both levels of government. This has been the case since 1986.
The Communication Canada group must consult with the federal members of Parliament from Quebec before
eliminating this service provided by Communication-Quebec for the Government of Canada.


THE ENVIRONMENT
Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Davenport: Mr. Speaker, every day 1,500 kilograms of 18 persistent toxins enter Lake Ontario waters. These include more than a tonne of lead, 424 kilograms of arsenic, one kilogram of PCBs and several kilograms of pesticides.
These persistent toxins endanger the ecosystem and the health of over 8 million people who live on the shores of Lake Ontario basin and those living downstream along the St. Lawrence River.
With the green plan the government promised to eliminate persistent toxins. Today the government still does not have specific targets and a timetable to reduce toxins entering Lake Ontario.
In the Niagara River there is a 50 per cent reduction target for the 18 persistent toxins by the year 1996, but it is not clear whether it will be achieved.
We urge the government to regulate eight of the still unregulated persistent toxins, to introduce targets and timetables for-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBIois):: Order, please. The member's time has expired.


TRADE BARRIERS
Mr. Bill Casey (Cumberland-Colchester):: Mr. Speaker, the Department of Supply and Services office in Moncton, New Brunswick, has a policy of buying smaller purchases only from New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island and not allowing businesses in Nova Scotia the opportunity to supply the government at this office.
This means that businesses as far away as Edmonston, New Brunswick, 300 or 400 kilometres away, have opportunities to provide this government office with goods and services. This means that businesses on Prince Edward Island, over 200 kilometres away, have access to this business; but businesses in Nova Scotia only 50 kilometres away are restricted by this federal government interprovincial trade barrier.
Provincial and federal governments in Atlantic Canada are urging all parties to remove trade barriers. This
February 1, 1993

position was a key part of the Charlottetown accord and is now an important recommendation outlined in the prosperity initiative. As well, the Council of Maritime Premiers has identified the removal of interprovincial trade barriers as one of its most important goals.
Considering these federal and provincial government policies, I urge the Minister of Supply and Services to drop this trade barrier and open federal purchases in Moncton to Nova Scotia businesses, some of which are only 50 kilometres away.


Mr. Jack Iyerak Anawak (Nunatsiaq):: Mr. Speaker, the government must deal immediately with the tragic mass suicide attempts of the young Innu children in Davis Inlet, Labrador.
The pain and grief suffered by this community have been ignored for too long. Government promises of facilities and services made 26 years ago remain unfulfilled. The Innu request to be moved to the mainland has not been acted upon and their land claim is not settled.
Too many have died. Too many are trying to die.
The government must act urgently in consultation with the Innu leadership to relocate the people to their chosen site on the mainland and to provide full community infrastructure. Health, treatment and healing services of the kinds requested by the Innu must also be provided.
I urge the government to give real meaning to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and to 1993 as the International Year of the World's Indigenous Peoples by acting to give hope to the despairing children and families of Davis Inlet.


TRANSPORTATION
Mr. J. W. Bud Bird (Fredericton-York-Sunbury):: Mr. Speaker, one of the important instruments for economic development in the Atlantic region has historically been the federal transportation policy. Both highways and railways have long been critical considerations, particularly so for freight traffic purposes.
In the situation pertaining to freight which exists today, however, there is a serious and costly aberration: Increasing volumes go by truck on highways which are already overloaded beyond safe use. Meanwhile rail freight is diminishing and main rail lines are being considered for abandonment.
It is also significant to remember that highways are built and maintained at public expense, while rail infrastructure has generally been the result of corporate investment. Surely there is potential to balance freight traffic more efficiently over both systems. For example, can the long distance heavy trucking burden on our highways not be relieved by such concepts as piggyback services over corridor rail lines? Are there not economic incentives or disincentives that can be designed to redirect freight traffic from the roads to the rails?
These are important questions for Atlantic transportation policy, and in view of current circumstances they deserve serious consideration now.


INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT WEEK
Mr. Stan J. Hovdebo (Saskatoon-Humboldt):: Mr. Speaker, today marks the beginning of International Development Week in Canada. International Development Week provides Parliament, the government and Canadians with an opportunity to reflect on Canada's long-standing commitment to Third World development.
Development week is a time for all of us to congratulate development NGOs and their thousands of volunteers for their vital and tireless efforts. Non-governmental organizations work as partners with local groups in developing countries. Together they work to improve basic health care, education and training, farming techniques, small business enterprise, and a host of similar projects. NGOs are experienced, efficient and accountable.
The government has indicated that it intends to cut aid to Third World countries in favour of eastern Europe. We agree that eastern Europe needs help, but such help should not come instead of or at the expense of Third World countries or the funding of NGO work in those countries.

February 1, 1993


UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE
Mrs. Gabrielle Bertrand (Brome-Missisquoi):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to clarify several misconceptions going around in the media about the proposed changes to unemployment insurance. There were references to a confrontation between the minister and the Quebec caucus, even a revolt. Such allegations are unfounded.
Of course it is only normal that we question the minister on behalf of our constituents, which we did and continue to do in a spirit of close collaboration and mutual understanding.
We are all in agreement on the principle of the measures announced by the Minister of Finance in his economic statement of December 2,1992 and reports are to the effect that the vast majority of Canadians and Quebecers are also in agreement.
However, my colleagues and I want to make sure that these measures will not be unfairly implemented. The members on this side of the House are faithful to the same basic principles of fairness, economy and, above all, justice.


VIOLENCE
Mr. David Berger (Saint-Henri-Westmount):: Mr. Speaker, during the last two months Montrealers have been victims of right wing violence and vandalism.
In December a church used by Haitian Quebecers and a mosque were set on fire, and youths attacked and killed a man they believed to be gay. On January 2 seven synagogues were desecrated with swastikas and hate slogans. On January 27 anti-Semitic symbols were spray-painted on a synagogue, a community centre, four cars and two homes. Just yesterday two school buses were spray-painted with anti-Jewish slogans and swastikas.
There is troubling evidence that these are not isolated incidents. New groups are emerging in Canada. Students are being recruited in our schools and modern technologies are being used to propagate hatred. For these reasons B'Nai Brith has called for a royal commission on racism.
I urge the Minister of Justice to meet with B'Nai Brith, to review its recommendations, and to take action to demonstrate that racism will not be tolerated in Canada.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Ms. Barbara Greene (Don Valley North):: Mr. Speaker, citizens in my riding and across Canada are deeply horrified at the Nazi-like atrocities occurring in Bosnia-Hercegovina and other parts of the former Yugoslavia. The United Nations is condoning ethnic cleansing by its proposals which allow territory seized by force to be retained.
I urge the Secretary of State for External Affairs to demand that the United Nations impose a peace plan which respects the territory of Bosnia-Hercegovina and the property rights of former residents, and which imposes a war crimes tribunal that will punish these barbaric acts.
The world should not stand by and watch.


GROUNDFISHERY
Mr. David Dingwall (Cape Breton-East Richmond):: Mr. Speaker, the government's cancelling of the inactive groundfish licensing is a reversal of a 10-year old policy known as the bona fide licensing policy.
This licensing policy gave priority to full-time fishermen to hold multiple licences and retain them even if they were not used. This multiple licensing policy allowed fishermen to play a direct role in resource conservation.
The fact that fishermen have not used these licences for two years means that they have helped to conserve the stocks. Yet the administration in Ottawa has chosen to penalize them.
I believe that the Maritime Fishermen's Union, the Prince Edward Island Fishermen's Association and the Eastern Fishermen's Federation are correct in challenging the minister and his groundfish management plan for 1993.
The onus of proof should be on the Government of Canada, not on inshore fishermen, as to whether the new policy of eliminating licences will conserve stocks. The Government of Canada must be condemned for the abrupt and arbitrary fashion in which the long-standing policy was reversed thereby hurting inshore fishermen.
February 1, 1993


JUSTICE
Mr. Felix Holtmann (Portage-Interlake):: Mr. Speaker, citizens living in a village within my constituency are gathering today in a place they would much rather not be. The people of St. Eustache, Manitoba, are burying their dead.
Maurice and Sherri-Lee Paul were stalked and murdered last week while in the confines of their own home. St. Eustache is a quiet small village. Maurice and Sherri-Lee were active, community minded parents of three children. They were well known and liked in St. Eustache. Like so many others they did not deserve to die.
It is time we put some teeth in the laws of this land. The killer of Sherri-Lee and Maurice had a restraining order prohibiting contact with the family. The Pauls sought refuge in the law, in the system. TTie system let them down.
This House must enact legislation now so that other communities will not be put through what St. Eustache is suffering today.


Mr. Steve Butland (Sault Ste. Marie):: Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister said in 1987:
Our highest priority is to have a trade agreement that ends the threat to Canadian industry from U.S. protectionists who harass and restrict our exports through the misuse of trade remedy laws.
The Prime Minister failed in achieving this highest priority and trade harassment continues in steel, pork and softwood lumber.
With the failure of free trade and the rejection of a sectoral trade agreement by the United States, where does that leave Canadian steelworkers whose work force has been decimated with 12,000 lay-offs in four years?
The trade minister is now suggesting, believe it or not, a blue ribbon commission to study the industry and make recommendations to both governments, but as of this morning there has been no formal proposal to the U.S. government.
As to the dispute panel and its decisions, it would appear that if the U.S.A. wins a ruling it is commonplace and quite acceptable, whereas if Canada wins there has been an extraordinary mistake and the ruling is challenged.
May I suggest to the Prime Minister that the steel trade be upper-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Order, please.


CAPE ASPY
Peter L. McCreath: Mr. Speaker, this past weekend the town of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, was struck with yet another sea disaster with the loss of the Cape Aspy, some 67 miles off Cape Sable Island. Although we are grateful that 11 crew members survived, Captain Albert Eisner and 4 others perished.
I wish to commend the efforts of the crews of the vessels and aircraft that came to the rescue, together with those involved in the search and rescue effort.
On the best of summer days the North Atlantic can be a killer. During a winter storm with high seas and ice build-up it is positively terrifying. Any way we cut it, fishing is a tough and at times perilous way to make a living.
I wish to pay tribute to the men and families who generation after generation have prosecuted Canada's oldest industry. I am sure all members join with me in expressing our sympathy to the families and friends of the men lost at sea this weekend.


GENERAL ELECTION
Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Mr. Speaker, the Conservative government is now clinging desperately to power, afraid to give the public the opportunity to throw them from office.
In 1984 a colleague of hon. members opposite made the following speech: "After four years Canadians are entitled to have their say about the government. After four years Canada is entitled to a general election. For all practical purposes the government's term has come to an end. Only political cowardice or contempt for the democratic process could explain why after four years in power the government refuses to announce a general election. It has to if it has any respect for democracy".

February 1, 1993
Oral Questions
Those words came from none other than Senator Lowell Murray, the Prime Minister's confidant and government leader in the other place. The Prime Minister should heed the advice of his friend given so freely and forcefully in 1984.
I hope all hon. members opposite, unless of course they have no respect for democracy, will convey their feelings to their leader and convince him to go to the people now. Goodness knows the people are waiting.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD

[Stage Direction]
[English)

Hon. Jean Chretien (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the right hon. Prime Minister. The Prime Minister might feel that he is not obliged to give a straight answer to his caucus, to his cabinet colleagues or to the press, but he has an obligation to tell the truth to the Canadian people and clear the air. We would like to have a straight answer. Is the Prime Minister quitting? Yes or no.


Mr. Speaker:: I have some difficulty finding that question in order. Perhaps the hon. Leader of the Opposition might try to put his question in another way.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, I do not know why the Prime Minister is refusing to reply to this question.


Mr. Speaker:: I probably should point out that I did not agree the question was in order.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, it is a very serious question because ministers are campaigning instead of working and the bureaucrats do not know where they are going. I would like to know if there will be a change in the role of the Prime Minister in the next few weeks?


Right Hon. Brian Mulroney (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, given the fact that my hon. friend has been saying for weeks that he could hardly wait to get back to the House to lay out his program for job creation and social advancement in Canada, I find it somewhat interesting he would waste questions. He indicated that he could hardly wait to get to the House to ask questions
and advance his alternatives on GST, free trade and all those other matters.
Inasmuch as he is asking this question and he persists in it, perhaps I could just tell him this. In the 10 years as leader of my party, I had the privilege of doing pretty well against a Liberal leader in 1984. Then in 1988 we did pretty well again. With a leader like this, my expectation is that the triple crown is just around the comer.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, it is very easy. If we really want the country to feel good then do not chicken out. Call the election right away. Again the government has proposed we should have a free trade agreement with the United States.
In spite of the free trade agreement this government has not been able to convince the American administration to establish dumping and tariff rules that will work. So last week the United States treated Canada exactly the same way it treats any other country.
Will the Prime Minister or the minister explain to the nation why the Americans do not want to respect the so-called free trade agreement with Canada?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I have to conclude that my hon. friend is suggesting we ought not to have a free trade agreement with the United States in which case we would not have available to us the appeal procedure to a binational-


An hon. member:: What a joke.


Martin Brian Mulroney: My hon. friends say what a joke. There have been eight such instances under the free trade agreement and we have won eight out of eight. That is not a joke. That is a reality.
Canada has increased its exports to the United States in steel. Steel exports are up by 41 per cent. Even though we are going through difficult times, of the 19 countries hit by this tariff Canada is the only one capable of appealing to a binational panel composed of an equal number of Canadians and Americans. We have won those cases in the past and we are going to win again. If the Leader of the Opposition had his way there would be no such panel and Canadians would be the losers.
February 1, 1993


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, let the Prime Minister explain that to the workers at Sidbec in Quebec and the workers in Sault Ste Marie and Hamilton, hundreds of whom are losing their jobs each month.
Why does the Prime Minister not admit that they made a mistake by failing to negotiate subsidy rules that would be binding on both countries? That is the problem we have today. The Americans apply their own laws, but we should have rules that are binding on both countries.


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition will have to make up his mind. Does he or does he not support the free trade agreement? Does he or does he not support the GST? Does he or does he not support this government's policies?
As far as free trade is concerned, I may point out that compared with 1988-before the free trade agreement came into force-our annual exports of goods to the United States have increased by $17 billion. In November the value of our exports of machinery and equipment rose 24 per cent over the previous year. The value of our exports of consumer goods has increased 24.8 per cent and, listen to this, the value of exports of automobile products increased 11.4 per cent over the previous year.
The free trade agreement is a great success and without it Canada would now be at a distinct disadvantage. At a time when every single country in the world would like to have this kind of agreement with the United States, we have one.


Ms. Sheila Copps (Hamilton East):: Mr. Speaker, the fact is that during the three years since this so-called free trade agreement came along, the Canadian steel industry has lost $1 billion in investment. In my own riding and the Hamilton area alone more than 10,000 workers are unemployed.
How can the Prime Minister praise the benefits of this agreement, when last week's steel decision was a travesty of the spirit of free trade?
Oral Questions


Hon. Michael Wilson (Minister of Industry, Science and Technology and Minister for International TVade):: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member said that problems in the steel industry are all the result of problems with the free trade agreement with the United States. There are many problems throughout the world in this industry. The problems experienced by the Canadian industry with its cost reduction of $100 per tonne are not due to the free trade agreement. The problem lies with the industry in Canada. It is both a management and a labour problem.
That is the problem we have to deal with and my department has already started discussions with the unions and management. It is not a problem with the free trade agreement.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, that answer is an absolute disgrace for the minister.
When he suggested there is not a problem with free trade, can he explain why last week despite his claims five years ago that the free trade agreement was going to be great for steel the Americans slapped unfair tariffs against Stelco and Algoma and other Canadian companies? That is not a problem of Canadian management. It is not a problem of Canadian workers. It is a problem of the failure of this government to define what constitutes an unfair subsidy.
Why is the minister blaming Canadian workers and the Canadian steel industry for his own failures and the failure of his government in the free trade negotiations?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, what is a disgrace is the way that my hon. friend twists the facts and says that the problem is with the free trade agreement with the United States. She knows full well that this is a world-wide problem.
The Canadian industry had not been affected prior to last week by the anti-dumping duties by the Americans. For her to suggest that the problems the industry has suffered over the last three years are the result of the free trade agreement is a total distortion of the facts.

Oral Questions
I did say there was a margin of cost advantage between the Canadian and U.S. industry of $100 a tonne 10 years ago. That has dissipated, not by the free trade agreement but by problems within the industry, some of which can be laid at the doorstep of the companies themselves. That is the problem we are trying to address now.


EMPLOYMENT
Hon. Audrey McLaughlin (Yukon):: Mr. Speaker, while the Leader of the Opposition and the Prime Minister wish to debate the employment of one person, I would like to talk about the unemployment of millions in this country.
When the Prime Minister was first elected and was responding to results of the Liberal recession he said: "Unemployment is morally offensive and there is a moral imperative to bring unemployment down".
Since this House rose in December we have seen 400 high-tech jobs lost in Ottawa, 1,450 jobs lost in Oshawa,
10,000	in Canadian railways, 1,200 at Woodward stores, and so on.
We hear that things are improving, but we have to ask one question and one question only. Where are the jobs? How can the Prime Minister justify his policies which have led to what he has said is morally wrong and that is higher unemployment in this country?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend asks where the jobs are.
She indeed raises a serious matter, unlike the Leader of the Opposition. The matter of Canadian employment is a high priority. Canadian unemployment is unfortunately too high.
There has been employment growth in seven of the last eight months with 57,000 new jobs created in December alone. This was the most-


An hon. member:: Where?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Where? In Canada. Across Canada there were 57,000 new jobs. My hon. friend should be encouraged as well by the fact that I take the time to answer seriously because it is an important question.
Inflation is down and was annualized at its lowest rate in 30 years. Interest rates in 1992 were annualized at their lowest in 20 years in Canada. The Conference Board indicated this morning that Canada will lead the
G-7 countries in economic growth this year. This combination will allow us to lower the unemployment rate in a durable and ongoing way, not with fly-by-night job creation projects, but in an important, thoughtful and durable way.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: Mr. Speaker, the problem is that this government is not launching an attack on unemployment but on the unemployed. The proposed changes to the unemployment insurance system are so abusive and so cruel, especially for women, non-union workers and people who work under hazardous conditions, that the government does not even have the support of all its members.
Will the Prime Minister withdraw his policy on changes to the unemployment insurance system?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, we are of course prepared to listen to what all members of this House, including the Leader of the New Democratic Party have to say about any bill.
With respect to unemployment insurance, if she has any suggestions for saving the $600 million we need to reduce the deficit while being fair to workers, I would be delighted to hear them.
However, we are talking about a proposal which-


An hon. member:: It's a cruel measure.


Martin Brian Mulroney: The member of the New Democratic Party says it is cruel. In France, the socialist government went ahead with a measure that is practically identical. It cannot be all that cruel in the eyes of international socialism. Of course we will listen carefully to any interesting ideas coming from the opposition.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: Mr. Speaker, we have a very simple suggestion. The government should attack unemployment and not the unemployed. The changes it proposes attack the unemployed.
Given the lay-offs we have seen just since December 12 when this House rose, the proposed lay-offs in the railway industry, the devastation across this country in every sector, the large farm rally we saw in Saskatchewan where people were protesting the devastation of rural communities and farms in this country, every policy the government has brought forward has been a failure.
February 1, 1993

I say to the Prime Minister: Do not proceed with changes to UI, do not proceed with the Canada-U.S.-Mexico trade deal, do not bring in another budget, do not do anything except call a federal election. Will the Prime Minister do that?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I considered calling an election, but out of affection for the leader of the NDP I did not.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


An hon. member:: A kinder, gentler Brian Mulroney.


Martin Brian Mulroney: I indicated to my hon. friend that employment rose by 57,000 in December. Employment has risen in seven of the last eight months, a net gain of
134,000	jobs in Canada. Full-time employment increased for a fourth consecutive month, recording a gain of
35,000.	Merchandise exports are up. Unit costs are down 5.2 per cent. Productivity is up by 2.6 per cent and exports are climbing dramatically. That means jobs at home.
I must say this. My hon. friend says cancel the free trade agreement, cancel the GST, cancel our deficit reduction plans, cancel everything. I may disagree with that. I disagree with every single policy she puts forward, but at least she has policies, which is infinitely more than we can say about this bunch.


Mr. Maurizio Bevilacqua (York North):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the minister of employment. His proposed amendments to UI are nothing more than a failed attempt by the minister and his government to distract Parliament and Canadians from the real issues.
The problem is unemployment, not the unemployed. The problem is harassment and arbitrary management, not laziness. The problem is lay-offs and termination, not voluntary quits. Canadians are hard working people. They want to work.
When will this government stop attacking the victims of its economic mismanagement and provide immediate relief and opportunity?


Hon. Don Mazankowski (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member knows the December statement was very broad. It encompassed the fiscal deficit and outlined plans to contain it because of the dramatic decline in revenues.
Oral Questions
In the course of containing that slippage, we also provided expenditures toward investing in people, in infrastructure, in training and skills upgrading and particularly in the field of small business. I am encouraged by the response of small business and by the comments of the president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business who indicated that the December statement was clearly a win-win situation for small business.
The hon. member knows that 80 per cent of new jobs in Canada are created by the small business sector. We believe that the initiatives prescribed in the December statement will go a long way in assisting in the creation of jobs in the small business sector.
I remind the hon. member that the manufacturing sector has grown by 3.5 per cent in the first 11 months of last year thanks to our policies.


Maurizio Bevilacqua: Mr. Speaker, thanks to your policies we have 1.6 million Canadians unemployed and 2.2 million Canadians on welfare. The minister is going to stay the course which is absolutely unacceptable.
Canadians need a sound economic plan. Instead of attacking the unemployed, will he attack unemployment by immediately establishing a national apprenticeship training program and a national youth service program to give our young people the skills and opportunities required to get them working again?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I know the hon. member is making a pitch for the re-establishment of Katimavik which was not a very successful program.
If the hon. member wants to use statistics, I will certainly use statistics. Total employment in Canada today is 12.24 million and there are 1.8 million who are self-employed. That means there has been an increase in employment of 12 per cent since we have been in office.
Employment has grown, the labour force has grown and continues to grow. The participation rate is higher than that in most G-7 countries. As the labour force grows, job creation becomes that much more of a challenge. The hon. member would be the first to agree, I am sure, that we are going through a period of adjustment and restructuring in order to meet the challenges of a newly emerging economy.

February 1, 1993
Oral Questions
The economic statement I outlined in December speaks to that. I ask the hon. member to re-read it. I am sure he will find there are positive measures in it that will bolster growth and create jobs for the future.


Mr. Alfonso Gagliano (Saint-Leonard):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister. According to the Conseil regional intersyndical de Montreal, the changes in the unemployment insurance program proposed by the government are like a sledge-hammer being used to crack a nut. It is overkill. How can the Prime Minister justify this excessive and inordinate attack on the Canadian unemployed? Why is it always the unemployed and the needy who are penalized by the administrative incompetence of this government?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, we would be delighted if the hon. member would make some concrete suggestions.
Does he think it is unfair and morally indefensible for a government, especially a government that has fiscal problems, like all governments in this country, to decide that if a worker leaves his job voluntarily, without provocation, he should be deprived of the chance to receive unemployment insurance benefits that are paid for by all other workers in Canada?
All legitimate cases are covered: sexual harassment, and so forth. All that is covered by unemployment insurance, as it should be. The fundamental question is this: Does he think it is morally indefensible, in the circumstances, for a government or a Parliament to vote in favour of this kind of legislation? I would like to hear what he has to say about this, as well as any alternatives he has to suggest for streamlining our unemployment insurance system in this country.


Alfonso Gagliano: Mr. Speaker, I am very glad to hear the Prime Minister. If anyone in this government knows the construction industry in Quebec, he should, since he was on the Cliche commission and knows very well that Quebec is the only place in the country where the construction industry is governed by a
decree. He is very well aware of the problems. Now I will ask him a very specific question.
With these new changes to unemployment insurance, what happens when an employee working at James Bay has to quit his job because he must go home to deal with family problems? Does the Prime Minister not think that these new measures will penalize the worker, who will not be entitled to unemployment insurance benefits if the employer says he quit his job voluntarily?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, it is covered by just cause in section 28.
Now as for sexual harassment-


Some hon. members:: Answer.


Martin Brian Mulroney: I am answering a question, and the Liberals will not even let me finish my answer. I gave the right answer because it agrees with the facts and reality. But you see, the opposition party did not answer my question. Do they find it morally unacceptable for a government to deprive an employee of unemployment insurance benefits if that person quits his or her job voluntarily, without provocation, for no reason? That is a basic question.


AGRICULTURE
Mr. Ray Funk (Prince Albert-Churchill River):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister.
I am sure the Prime Minister is already aware of the fact that the 13,000 people who attended the farm rally in Saskatoon last Thesday represented the biggest outpouring of support for the farm community in prairie history.
I would also like to remind the Prime Minister that the projected net income for Saskatchewan farmers next year is $4,000, which is less than they would receive on welfare. Many of them are in the hopeless situation of not having enough money to put in next year's crop.
Since the Prime Minister was unable to attend the rally in person, I would like to ask him to tell us today what words of support and encouragement he is prepared to give the farm families of Saskatchewan.
February 1, 1993


Hon. Charles Mayer (Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member knows, I attended that meeting and we had a chance to visit at its end. I will say the same thing to the hon. member that I said to him in Saskatoon, we know these are difficult times and we think we understand how difficult it is. At the same time the federal government is providing record amounts of support to producers, not only in Saskatchewan but elsewhere, that have been affected.
If you add up all of the support the federal government has provided over the last six or seven years it has amounted to almost $21,000 per farm in Saskatchewan, which is well above the national average.
We also worked out an agreement a week ago with the province of Saskatchewan to see an additional $170 million go into that province in this calendar year. We have a proposal on the table with Saskatchewan to see an additional $63 million go into that province if we can cost share with the province.
While we recognize the problem and have tried to deal with it, we also know that no matter how much money any government provides, it is not the real answer. The real answer is to get better prices for our product when we sell internationally and the government is very committed to that.


Mr. Rod Laporte (Moose Jaw-Lake Centre):: Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister refused to come to the rally last Tuesday in Saskatoon. He is refusing to answer to the people of Saskatchewan right now.
I want to remind the Prime Minister that last fall he told Premier Romanow and all the people of Saskatchewan that once the results of the harvest were in he would look at providing help if needed. Those 13,000 people last week provided an answer and revealed just how bad things are.
Will the Prime Minister tell the farmers of Saskatchewan and all Canadians exactly how he plans to fulfil the commitment he made to them last fall? The crisis farmers are facing extends far beyond Saskatchewan's borders. If the federal government refuses to take its responsibility seriously, thousands of farmers from across this country will be joining the ranks of the unemployed.


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend is quite wrong. I did not refuse to attend anything. I had the opportunity to delegate the Minister of Agriculture who himself is a prairie farmer
Oral Questions
and who is committed perhaps as least as much if not more than any member of this House to the well-being of the family farm.
This government brought in-the NDP is asking the question Mr. Speaker. Now they apparently do not want to hear the answer.
This government brought in the GRIP program. This government brought in the NISA program. Both programs are greatly admired by Saskatchewan farmers. The government brought in a program of $170 million, announced by the Minister of Agriculture a few days ago. He just referred to another $65 million that the Government of Canada is working on with respect to farmers.
I would tell my hon. friend this. This government increased aid to agriculture, including western agriculture, over the eight year period by 650 per cent. It has provided more aid to agriculture than any government in the history of Canada and we are working with farmers to do more.


EMPLOYMENT
Mr. Jim Peterson (Willowdale):: Mr. Speaker, 1.6 million Canadians are out of work. Given this and given our very limited financial resources, I would like to ask the minister of defence why this government is spending $4.3 billion on helicopters instead of programs that would get Canadians back to work right now. Where are this government's priorities?


Hon. Kim Campbell (Minister of National Defence and Minister of Veterans Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, some years ago the party of which the hon. member is now a member of Parliament had a defence policy that called for the building and the deployment of frigates by the Canadian navy.
The purchase of the EH-101 helicopters is an essential part of that program because to deploy those frigates without helicopters is like building aircraft carriers without airplanes.
What I would like to know from the hon. member is whether the Liberal Party has a defence policy or if it has abandoned the policy that it initiated when it was government and which was carried on by this party when it became government to deploy the properly equipped frigates with the helicopters which are their essential eyes and ears.

February 1, 1993
Oral Questions
I would point out that as a result of the very good industrial benefits negotiated by this government in the course of developing this particular defence procurement, there is very significant employment for Canadians in fulfilling this important defence priority. It will have long term industrial benefits for Canada.


James Scott (Jim) Peterson: Mr. Speaker, we do have priorities such as the 1.6 million Canadians who do not have jobs today.
This is why I want to ask again: Why does this minister have funds to enter into partnerships with foreign governments when it does not have the funds to enter into programs to renew our municipalities and reconstruct our devastated manufacturing sector?


A. Kim Campbell: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member and his party are veiy quick to stand up in this House and urge the Government of Canada to participate in international operations for peacekeeping and peacemaking. They appear to want to have our men and women in the Canadian Armed Forces fulfil that obligation without being properly equipped.
I would suggest that the 45,000 person-years of employment that result from this contract are not insignificant. The bottom line of this is the well-being and safety of Canadians in terms of the search and rescue capabilities of these helicopters and in terms of their ability to protect the people who serve in the Canadian Armed Forces.


Mr. Brian Tobin (Humber-St. Barbe-Baie Verte):: Mr. Speaker, the last minister of defence to stand in this House and defend with such enthusiasm an absolutely essential defence priority was the minister of communications who in 1987 announced the $10 billion nuclear submarine program.
Of course that was followed quickly by the Prime Minister who announced the $1 billion Polar 8 ice-breaker, followed again by the program for a northern terrain vehicle, nearly $1 billion, announced in Alberta just before the last election. All three have vanished into thin air.
I say with great respect to the Minister of Finance, cut out the bluster and simply tell 1.6 million unemployed Canadians why they must stay grounded while this minister builds a Cadillac helicopter fleet.


A. Kim Campbell: Perhaps the hon. member could explain to this House why his party thinks it is appropriate to send Canadian men and women aloft in 30-year old aircraft.


Brian Vincent Tobin: Mr. Speaker, this party does not think it appropriate to send men and women in any field of endeavour without appropriate equipment, but we think it inappropriate to purchase a Cadillac system at a time when the Prime Minister says the deficit is so high he cannot put $1 into job creation.
I want to ask this Minister of National Defence and this government to recognize that the cold war in 1993 is being fought on the streets of Canada by Canada's unemployed and will it get its priorities straight once and for all in advance of an election?


A. Kim Campbell: Mr. Speaker, perhaps that hon. member will explain to the fishermen of Newfoundland who may have their lives saved by helicopters that are able to stay airborne for five hours instead of two hours, that are able to fly in weather conditions we now do not have the capability to fly in, and perhaps he will tell the families of the people who are saved by those helicopters when they perform their search and rescue functions that he regrets that we had a Cadillac helicopter to save their lives.


VETERANS AFFAIRS
Mr. Bill Kempling (Burlington):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of National Defence and Veterans Affairs.
On the weekend a report was released in Britain that is critical of the Canadian forces who served in Hong Kong in World War II. They were men of the Royal Rifles of Canada and the Winnipeg Grenadiers and a contingent of Canadian Army nurses. I have been to Hong Kong and viewed the battleground with the survivors of that conflict. I have visited the cemeteries and read the headstones of the young men and women who gave their lives. None of the headstones read coward or drunkard or any of the derogatory comments that appear in the report.
February 1, 1993

Would the minister care to comment on this secret report attributed to the late Major General Maltby?


A. Kim Campbell: Mr. Speaker, I know that in responding to this question I speak not just for the government but for all members of this House.
I have seen the responses of a number of distinguished Canadian historians to the comments of Major General Maltby and I think all agree that there is no historical basis for his comments.
I do not think it is necessary to speculate on why he made those comments, but simply to remind all Canadians, as all members of this House are aware, that the battle of Hong Kong was a terrible one, that there were grievous losses and in fact the survivors of that battle are among the most important clients of the Department of Veterans Affairs and receive the most comprehensive health benefits and that there was in that terrible battle one Victoria Cross awarded and that Victoria Cross was awarded to Major John Osborn of the Winnipeg Grenadiers.


EMPLOYMENT
Mr. Cid Samson (Timmins-Chapleau):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance.
Attack, attack, attack. I wonder if this government does not have anything better to do than to attack the unemployed in this country.
I would like to know from the minister just how reducing the benefits from 60 per cent to 57 per cent will help the unemployed in this country. It does not leave them enough money to take a bus to go look for jobs that do not even exist.
When is this government going to stop attacking the unemployed, do something realistic and create some jobs for these people? They are getting sick and tired of this nonsense.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member knows what the reduction from 60 per cent to 57 per cent effectively does. It freezes the UI benefits. Those who are currently receiving UI at current levels will continue. That is grandfathered.
Oral Questions
The hon. member knows that because of the maximum insurable earnings adjusted upward there would in effect be an increase of 3 per cent to 4 per cent. At a time when many employees across the country are having their salaries frozen and indeed having their salaries reduced, it was certainly appropriate to take this initiative.
The alternative is to increase UI premiums, which is another form of tax upon the working men and women of this country, the small businesses and all the employers of this country. It is a time when everyone has to tighten up to meet the difficult deficit challenges that we face. I hoped the hon. member would understand it in that light.


RAIL INDUSTRY
Mr. Bill Blaikie (Winnipeg Transcona):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transport. It has to do with a recommendation by a group of consultants hired by the National Transportation Review Commission that would lead to further unemployment in this country in the tens of thousands. That has to do with the recommendation that 23,000 jobs be cut from Canada's rail industry.
I want to ask the Minister of Transport when this government will realize that the answer to what is wrong with the transportation system is not in getting rid of more and more jobs in that very industry, but in admitting that deregulation and free trade are killing the transportation industry in this country and setting about re-regulating the transportation industry.
If the minister is not willing to do that, will he agree, because he has that report now, to release it and to convene a meeting of all the stakeholders in our transportation industry, not just the companies, but unions and communities and everyone else concerned, so that we can finally do what is right by Canada's transportation industry.


Hon. Jean Corbeil (Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, if the hon. member wants to quote some excerpts from that report he should also refer to the contents of that report which say that deregulation has been of great benefit to all stakeholders in the transportation industry in Canada, especially the clients and the shippers.

Oral Questions
The report he is referring to is one of the reports requested by the National Transportation Review Committee. It is part of the report. We will table our response to this report as soon as we have had a chance to go through this report that was tabled last Friday.


William D. (Bill) Casey: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Supply and Services.
The federal and provincial governments in the mari-times are working really hard to eliminate interprovincial trade barriers but the Department of Supply and Services in Moncton has its own little interprovincial trade barrier. The Moncton office will go west 300 or 400 kilometres to buy from businesses, they will go north to P.E.I. to buy from businesses, but they will not go 50 kilometres east into Nova Scotia to buy from Nova Scotia businesses.
Will the minister open this trade barrier up to Nova Scotia businesses and do the right thing?


Hon. Paul Dick (Minister of Supply and Services):: Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question. The answer does not change a great deal from the letter I sent to him on December 29. As a result of his representations, we are taking a look to see if we can change the delineation between the New Brunswick region and the Nova Scotia region.


YOUNG OFFENDERS ACT
Mr. Russell MacLellan (Cape Breton-The Sydneys):: My question is to the Minister of Justice. Canadians are becoming increasingly alarmed about the rising incidence of crime and violence in their communities. In particular, violent youth crime has more than doubled in the past five years.
The government promised changes to the Young Offenders Act by the fall. The fall has come and gone and we still do not have these changes. Canadians are becoming alarmed.
Why is the government refusing to make these much needed changes to the Young Offenders Act?


Hon. Pierre Blais (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada and Minister of State (Agriculture)):: Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend knows that we made some changes in May with Bill C-12 addressing some issues that Canadians were concerned with.
My hon. colleague, the Solicitor General, and myself are contemplating other amendments to this legislation and we will talk with Canadians in the weeks to come as well. We have a symposium, and I think my hon. friend will be there, in Toronto with all stakeholders-police officers, all groups and provinces-to get together to decide what is best to ensure that people will feel more secure in this country.


Russell Gregoire MacLellan: Mr. Speaker, Bill C-12 was passed over a year and a half ago. Even before it was passed his predecessor said that more changes were needed to the Young Offenders Act. We still do not have those changes.
Does this government need a symposium to tell it that the Young Offenders Act is flawed? Does the government need a three-day symposium to tell it what to do? Is this government so out of control on the question of law and order that it cannot make up its own mind, or is it just stalling?


Pierre Blais: Mr. Speaker, I must remind my colleague that the Young Offenders Act was passed in April 1984. I think that his party was in power then, but our government has already brought in a first round of changes.
I told the hon. member that I was very open and that we would work together. My colleague must know that responsibility for law enforcement in Canada is shared with the provinces and that it would be inappropriate for us to go ahead with reform on our own. I think we must bring everyone together in order to find the best possible approaches.
February 1, 1993

I already said that my predecessor had already spoken about our intention to go ahead and we will do that.


MANPOWER
Hon. Lucien Bouchard (Lac-Saint-Jean):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister.
The government seems to have adopted the policy of doing the opposite of everything Quebec wants, be they business executives, workers, the Liberal Government of Quebec-its ally-or the Official Opposition of Quebec. This is especially true of the federal government's refusal to withdraw from the manpower field, a field that we know is essential for economic recovery.
I therefore ask the government and the Prime Minister why they stubbornly insist on maintaining the present imbroglio, which is paralyzing the efforts of all governments, and why they refuse to withdraw from a field where efficiency requires that there be only one authority, namely Quebec.


Right Hon. Joe Clark (President of the Privy Council and Minister responsible for Constitutional Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, it is well known that a national referendum was held, with a certain result. Therefore we cannot proceed with the constitutional changes as such, but it would be quite possible for us to have discussions with the provinces, Quebec as well as the others, on arrangements that could change the status quo here in Canada.
We want a country that works; we are not trying to have an Italian-style country and Parliament.


Lucien Bouchard: That kind of
answer is avoiding the issue! Mr. Speaker, I think that we can say that that is the classic answer of all successive governments that have refused to comply with Quebec's most legitimate demands.
The saddest part is to see that there are always members from Quebec, be they New Democrats, Liberals or Conservatives, to support these unfair measures against Quebec.
I ask the Prime Minister whether he realizes that he is burning his last bridges with Quebec.
Tributes


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, what is unfair to Quebec, an unemployment insurance program or a job creation program?


Some hon. members:: We are talking about the manpower field.


Martin Brian Mulroney: Oh, manpower. It would be important to point out that we Liberals, Conservatives and New Democrats wanted to offer that to Quebec in the referendum but the Bloc Quebecois said no.


Mr. Speaker:: It is my duty to remind the House that as a consequence of discussions the House will now hear tributes to the Right Hon. Jeanne Sauve.
 * *


THE LATE RIGHT HONOURABLE JEANNE SAUVE
Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, it was in this House that from the beginning of her political career Jeanne Sauve was to radiate her remarkable personal qualities and her profound love of this country.
She was a member of Parliament for 10 years, most of which were spent as a minister of the government of that time. Subsequently, from 1980 to 1983, she presided over the proceedings of this House. I am sure you, Mr. Speaker, will appreciate that this responsibility may at times be a very heavy burden for the Speaker of a democratic House such as this one.
Those among us who sat in the Commons at the same time as Madam Sauve will remember above all that she drew strength and serenity from an optimistic and generous vision of Canada's future.
Although she was an eager and able participant in the partisan give and take that is an entirely natural expression of one's political commitment, she never forgot that our first duty as a member is to serve our fellow citizens and our country.
As parliamentarians, while we mourn the passing of an esteemed and respected colleague, we also admire a career that was outstanding in every respect.
May her memory always be an inspiration to us and to those who some day will be our successors.

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As Governor General she represented our country with a natural dignity and generosity that was appreciated by all, from the average citizen to the leaders of this world. Since we first met more than 25 years ago, I have appreciated the warmth of her personality and the strength of her convictions.
Since I was first elected as Prime Minister of Canada and until the end of her mandate as Governor General in 1990, her advice, encouragement and of course her friendship were much appreciated. I will always consider it a rare privilege, in the course of my public career, to have served my country in the company of this great lady.
Jeanne Sauve was sincere in her conviction that Canada is more than the sum of its parts, that British Columbia, the west, Ontario, Quebec and the Atlantic provinces, with all their differences and similarities, together form the most splendid country on earth. She always showed as much confidence in our future as she did pride in our past.
Her most precious legacy to us and to future generations is her exemplary dignity, lucidity and unshakable confidence, especially when coping with the illness she was to experience during the last 10 years of her life.

Jeanne Sauve possessed many remarkable qualities. A person of deep religious faith she was also acutely aware of and sensitive to the realities that exist in a great pluralistic society. She was a committed foe of intolerance and racism in all of their forms. She was equally blessed with a sharp and inquisitive mind and an exuberant sense of humour. She expected others to meet the same high standards that she always demanded of herself. Yet she abounded in compassion for those who from time to time fell short through no fault of their own.
In her public life, as in private, I always thought that she was a supremely gracious person. She brought to every office and to every task a measure of quiet dignity and effortless appearance which enriched and impressed all with whom she dealt.
Above all, Jeanne Sauve was a passionately committed Canadian. She loved Canada with every fibre of her being and she came to represent Canada. She was a French speaking young woman from Prud'homme, Saskatchewan, who became one of the builders of modern Quebec and yet felt so at home in English speaking
Canada. She came to represent the very best values that all of Canada stands for, both here and around the world. She was keenly aware of the diversity of Canada and she applied that awareness in ways that always strengthened our citizenship.
With the support of her late husband, the hon. Maurice Sauve who also served in this House with distinction and whom many of us remember very fondly as well, she became the first woman elected to this House from the province of Quebec. Obviously talented, she was soon appointed to cabinet where she successfully discharged many portfolios. As Speaker of this House she implemented significant administrative reforms which have greatly improved the efficiency of the institution.
Her years as Governor General were characterized by an admirable combination of verve and dignity, proof if ever it was needed that style and substance are not mutually exclusive. Her Majesty was extremely well served by Jeanne Sauve's tenure at Rideau Hall.
After an exceptionally full life of service she continued to devote herself to noble causes, and in a very special way to the cause of the youth. She caused to be created the Jeanne Sauve Youth Foundation to stimulate in our young people and the youth of other countries the creativity and initiative that she herself displayed throughout her entire life.
With other members of Parliament which I see here today, I was at the first Jeanne Sauve Conference for Youth that took place in Montreal. The Secretary-General of the United Nations was the principal guest, and it then broke down into four days of seminars, discussions, and debate. It was an exhilarating and genuinely impressive experience.
At the end of the day the conference was all about tolerance and the fundamental values of citizenship, and about encouraging these young men and women from around the world to assume positions of leadership in their own countries when they returned to them.
Those who knew her well understood that nothing brought more joy to the lives of Jeanne and Maurice Sauve than their son, Jean-Franqois. He was truly the apple of her eye and no mother could have been prouder of a son.
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I remember well that her smile was never brighter and her eyes never more expressive than when she talked about Jean-Frangois, her family and those she held dear.
To Jean-Frangois and his wife Diane I extend my very deep personal condolences.

Speaking on behalf of the Government of Canada, of all members of this Elouse and of all Canadians, I wish to express to Jean-Frangois and all members of his family our feelings of profound admiration for the historic endeavour of Jeanne Sauve and to extend our sincere condolences.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, like the Prime Minister, I rise in turn to pay tribute to this great lady who was our colleague in the House of Commons.
The members of my party benefited from her company and her advice for 12 years when she was a member of this House.
She was a quite remarkable woman. She was very learned and had travelled around the world, but she still remained unpretentious. Everywhere she went, she loved to meet young people and we felt that Jeanne Sauve represented the best of Canada. I think that she is the finest example we could give Canadian youth.
As the Prime Minister just said, she came from a small French speaking village in Saskatchewan and spent part of her youth in Ottawa. Later she was quite at home in Montreal's artistic and journalistic community. When she came to this House in 1972 she was already very well known, both in Canada and abroad.
She was always very diligent in the many cabinet positions she held. She was very interested not only in her own department but in what was happening throughout the government. She was always the first. In the tributes paid to her it was mentioned that she was first in school and she was also first here. She was the first French speaking woman from Quebec appointed to cabinet. She was the first woman Speaker of this House and, of course, to crown her career, she became Governor General of Canada. She filled that position with a style that had not previously been matched.
When she retired she wanted to go on. It was very much in the character of Jeanne Sauve because when
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she was a young person she was involved with young people. She tried to organize them. She tried to make sure they would find a comfortable place in society in Canada as La jeunesse etudiante catholique: comment se trouver une place dans la societe canadienne.
She decided to spend the last year of her life trying to get the young people of the world together because she fundamentally understood there was no difference among human beings. It did not matter what language they spoke, what religion they professed, what was the colour of their skin or what gender they belonged to; it made no difference to Jeanne Sauve. What she always sought was to make invaluable what is the best in every human being. Until the last weeks of her life she worked at trying to bring the young people of the world together.
As was said by the Prime Minister, Jeanne Sauve was probably the greatest lady we have known in public life in Canada in this century. I had the pleasure of serving with her and her husband. It is very rare to see a family so completely committed to public life. Both had the feeling that when you are in public life, you can make a difference if you work hard at it. We can say that this couple was a great asset to this House of Commons and to the country.
On behalf of the party that Jeanne Sauve served in, I would like to express to her son and his wife our deepest regrets. He can be proud he is the son of two great Canadians. Jeanne Sauve was, among all Canadians I have known, one of the greatest persons I have had the pleasure to spend time with and work with. God bless her soul.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: Mr. Speaker, I also rise to grieve the passing of Jeanne Sauve, a Canadian whose work in public life was a model for all Canadians. Her accomplishments truly were remarkable, as the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition have noted.
Jeanne Sauve began at a very young age, at 20, as national president of the Jeunesse etudiante catholique. Later she became head of la Federation des mouvements de jeunesse du Quebec, an employee of UNESCO in Paris, a mother, a wife, a prominent Quebec journalist, a member of Parliament, a member of cabinet, Speaker of this House, Governor General, and most recently head of a scholarship fund which had as its goal bringing together world youth.

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While remarkable achievements in themselves, they were more significant because Jeanne Sauve was often a trail blazer and her efforts made it easier for others who followed.

She was the first woman from Quebec to be appointed minister. She was the first woman Minister of the Environment, the first woman Speaker of this House, the first woman Governor General.
Madam Sauve belonged to this very special breed of people who give dignity to their tasks without ever shying away from a challenge.

I have been personally inspired by Madam Sauve's steadfast conviction to change, her conviction in spite of obstacles that were often in her way. Of special importance was Madam Sauve's drive to create space and funds for on site day care for children of the House of Commons' employees. She was not a woman to shy away from controversy when it came to principle.

As Governor General she made a number of people jump with the stand she took on the Meech Lake accord, when she argued passionately that Quebec had always been a distinct society, and she said so because she was convinced it was her duty to promote national unity.

Madam Sauve once said that the role of the Governor General was to meet people, make them conscious of the presence of the Crown and the importance of the Constitution to their country, comfort them, manifest enthusiasm over what they were doing because it is an encouragement trying to foster national unity. It is fitting that in her last years she would again focus on the issue of youth in Canada and around the globe.
Madam Sauve will be fondly remembered by many. While there is great sadness in her passing, there is also great respect for what she has done for the people of Canada.
On behalf of my party, I would like to express our condolences to her son Jean-Francois, his wife and family and simply to say that thanks to his mother and father, Maurice Sauve, Canada is a better place. They will both be missed.


Lucien Bouchard: Mr. Speaker, I knew Madam Sauve and had the opportunity to see her at work both on the home front and abroad. Whatever she did, she did with distinction, intelligence and passion.
Her view of her role as Governor General was more Canadian and activist than that of most of her predecessors. She travelled more extensively abroad in her official capacity and never hesitated to carry out, to the fullest, the role of head of state for Canada.
She was also the first Governor General whose status of head of state was recognized in France during an official visit to that country. In addition, she did not hesitate to call upon the open-mindedness of her fellows citizens to urge them to ratify the Meech Lake accord. Not one of those who have had the honour to be in contact with her will forget the pleasantness of her conversation and the nobility of her views.
I wish to pay the last honours to this great lady on behalf of the members from the Bloc Quebecois and to reiterate all the respect and admiration I had for her. To her son and daughter-in-law, I offer my deepest sympathy.


Mr. Speaker:: I would like to remind all members that they have until six o'clock this evening to go to the Rotunda to sign the register in memory of the late Right honourable Jeanne Sauve.
There is another tribute this afternoon for a former colleague of many of us in this House, Charles Turner.
February 1, 1993


THE LATE HON. CHARLES TURNER
Mr. Joe Fontana (London East):: Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to pay tribute to a former member of this House and of the Senate, the Hon. Charles Thmer, who on January 10, 1993 at the age of 76 passed away in London, Ontario.
He served the constituents of London East and Canadians very well between 1968 and 1984 in this House. He was appointed to the Senate by the Right Hon. Pierre Trudeau in 1984 where he served until 1991 at his retirement.
He was known to most who served with him as Choo-Choo Charlie because of his locomotive engineering background. Most will recall that he was an officer of this House, being Whip of the government of the day. I suppose some will fondly remember the great bell escapade in March 1982 when for 15 days the bells rang. As a faithful servant of this House, Charlie brought his bed into the lobby and stayed there for a number of days protecting the government of the day.
In London East Charlie was known for his big heart. He was a big man with a very big heart. He was a man with a common touch who at no hour of the day hesitated to serve his constituents by delivering a passport or an unemployment insurance form. You name it and Charlie did it.
Charlie loved serving the people. He loved his job here and he loved the Senate. His contributions were many. While he was here he spoke frequently about transportation and safety, unemployment insurance, portable pensions and pensions for veterans, workers' rights, and an end to pollution in Lake Erie.
This is a trademark of the quality of this man. He said that it was the little guy that makes the world go around. The big guy is nobody if he does not have the little guy to do the work. That is what Charlie was all about.
To his wife, Marjorie and his daughters, Charmaine and Gloria, and his three grandsons, we on this side of the House pay our deep respect and convey our deep condolences to the family. He was a great man who will
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never be forgotten, not in London East and not in this House or in the Senate.


Hon. Lorne Nystrom (Yorkton-Melville):: Mr. Speaker, I too want to say a few words on behalf of my party about Charlie Thmer.
I was first elected in 1968 and Charlie Turner was one of the class of 68. He was successfully re-elected in 1972, 1974, 1979 and 1980. When Mr. Trudeau ceased to be Prime Minister, Mr. Tbmer was appointed to the Senate. He was a Senator from 1984 until his retirement. For awhile our responsibilities in the House overlapped. He was the chief government Whip and I was the Whip of the New Democratic Party for part of that time.
Charlie was very well liked as a member of Parliament. For those who did not know him, he was one of those members who was liked on all sides of the House. He was one of the so-called ordinary people elected to this place who never lost the common touch with the ordinary person in his riding or elsewhere in the country.
If you wanted to know what was happening and wanted to get the pulse of ordinary Canadians, Charlie Thmer was one of the members of Parliament you could count on to have that knowledge at his fingertips. I can remember the Prime Minister of the day, Pierre Trudeau, saying that he often consulted Charlie Turner when he wanted to know what was going on among ordinary people across the country.
On behalf of my party, I want to express to his wife, his daughters and his grandchildren our deepest condolences and sympathy. We will miss Charlie Thmer. This House is a much better place because of Charlie Thmer and we will miss him.


Hon. Tom Hockin (Minister for Science and Minister of State (Small Businesses and Tourism)):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise on behalf of the people of the city of London, and particularly London West which I represent, and on behalf of our party to add my words of condolence to Marjorie, her two daughters and grandchildren on the passing of Charlie Thmer.
We have just paid tribute to Jeanne Sauve and we are now paying tribute to Charlie Thmer. It shows the glory of this institution. Madam Sauve was the Speaker and later the Governor General. Mr. Thmer had the common touch and everybody who served with him in this House remembers him with tremendous affection. Charlie Thmer, as my hon. friend just said, liked to articulate the needs of the ordinary person, the small guy.

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I remember very well having lunch with him the first week I was elected in 1984. He told me that one of the secrets to getting re-elected was to deliver the passport personally to the front door, because you have to find ways to make contact with the constituent. "Don't send it through the mail, Tom. Take it yourself". He was searching for ways to reach out to the average person. Nobody was more successful in the history of London's political life than Charlie Tbmer at doing that.
He was named Choo-Choo and he had the image of the average guy's politician. Wherever you were with Charlie Turner, people would approach him and treat him as if he was their uncle or older brother. He had an accessibility which all of us admired enormously.
Charlie's greatest concern was when organizations got big: big business, big unions, big institutions. He was afraid they would lose touch with what ordinary people were saying. He used to talk about that. He always tried to make a connection to the average person in order to make sure these big institutions, be it government, Parliament, a union, a company or an institution, did not get out of touch with whom they represented?
The people of London were proud to have him as one of their members of Parliament. They were proud they had somebody whom the Prime Minister of the day trusted so fully, as Prime Minister Trudeau did. They were proud to have somebody who was from their part of the world and who had gone through the economic growth of southern Ontario in a way that would make an ordinary person proud.
As a member of Parliament from London, I have always looked at Charlie Turner as a model of how to be a constituency MP and colleague. I know this House will join with me in saluting his memory.


Mr. Len Hopkins (Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke):: Mr. Speaker, as one who knew Charlie Turner from the day he came into the House, I want to say today to Marjorie, his two girls and the rest of the family that they have every right to be very proud of Charlie Tbmer.
He was indeed a grassroots representative of his riding. He was a grassroots representative of the people in London, simply because he came from the average walk of life? He came into this House having spent many years as a railroad engineer.
When he was Whip of the Liberal Party Charlie faced some tough days and some tough issues. We would tease him because he ran the Whip's office just as he would a steam engine or locomotive on the railways. He had a heart. Deep down he was a very kind-hearted individual, but he was one who wanted to get the job done.
He had a very close liaison with the labour community, not only of the railroads but also other industrial bases across this country. He was respected by people right across Canada from coast to coast to coast.
Everybody in this House certainly knows there is not a much tougher job that a person can be given than to be Whip of a political party. The Whip has to deal with every single member. Charlie was able to do that on an individual basis. When he had a tough decision to make, he made it, but he made it with fairness.
I consider it to have been a great pleasure to have worked with Charlie Tbmer for several years. I consider it an act of respect that one of the other members in this House today said that he kept touch with the common individual because he came from the average walk of like.
He has given all of us a lesson. As we sit in this House today and in the days to come, if we use Charlie Tbmer's ideas and his empathy for people who are having difficult times, we will certainly be emulating the great example that Charlie Tbmer gave to this House and to the working people across this nation.
Today I want to say to Marjorie and to Charlie's and Marjorie's two daughters that we thank them for giving us Charlie Turner in this House for a long time. We respect the work he has done. We are with them today in telling them to keep their chins up. They have every right to be proud. We only hope that the people of
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Canada will remember the Charlie Tbmers of this world. They too are outstanding representatives in this nation.


Mr. Jesse Flis (Parkdale-High Park):: Mr. Speaker, I got to know Charlie Tbmer between 1979 and 1984 in the transport committee on the opposition side and of course on the government side.
As my predecessors have already mentioned, he was a grassroots politician. He brought the concerns of the average worker, whether it was from CN or CP, to the transport committee. I remember how hard Charlie fought for better pensions for the retirees. Some had retired from CN with very inadequate pensions. They wanted to make representations to the transport committee and Charlie Tbrner made sure they were represented there.
When we were crossing Canada with the western transportation and grain handling act, known as the Crow bill, Charlie Turner fought for not cutting branch lines. People do not know this about Charlie. He had the foresight to know that if branch lines were cut it would be the end of many family farms in Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Charlie saw that and he fought to preserve the branch lines. Charlie has added a lot.
Yes, Marjorie, his two daughters and grandchildren can be very proud of another great Canadian who has made his niche in the history of Canada.
I got to know him as our party Whip. Charlie practised what I call the three Fs in life. He was firm. He was fair. He was friendly. I pay tribute to Charlie Tbrner, a great parliamentarian, a great Canadian.


Mr. Maurice Foster (Algoma):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to extend my condolences to Charlie Timer's family. He and I were elected in 1968 along with almost 100 other new members.
He was an expert in the field of transportation having been an engineer on the railroad. He not only was an authority in caucus and in the House on railroad and transportation issues but he was also capable of regaling us with great stories about his years on the CNR.
He was a staunch supporter of Mr. Trudeau and ultimately was the chief government Whip during the difficult times of the bell ringing incident during the early 1980s.
His great supporter of course was Marjorie. She would often be on the Hill. He was dedicated to his riding. He drove home practically every weekend from Ottawa to
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London. He loved to attend all the public functions in his riding, to meet and greet and be well known by his constituents.
I simply want to join in the words of condolence that have been spoken in the House to Marjorie, their daughters, and their grandchildren. He really was a great constituency person, a great parliamentarian, and ultimately a great senator. He will be missed.


Mr. Pat Nowlan (Annapolis Valley-Hants):: Mr. Speaker, I too want to add some very personal words on the death of Charlie Timer. I frankly did not know he had passed away during the break until I heard the words expressed here today. I am not going to repeat everything that has been said.
I first got to know Charlie when he came here in 1968 on the transportation committee. I was in the opposition and he was a government man. Charlie was fair, civil and had that manner of respect for fellow colleagues regardless of what side of the fence they stood on, something that is getting to be a rare commodity around here. I agree with all those who have said he was the model of a constituency member. I do not know what he did in the Senate, but I know that in this House of Commons he added a note of civility and common sense that is much needed around here.
I got to know his wife Marjorie because, as the member for Algoma has just said, she was always around. I certainly want to extend to her and the family my sympathy for their loss.
In closing, everything has been said in a sense. I can see the common thoughts he gave as the member for London, as parliamentary secretary to the minister of science and technology. One of the things I am going to miss now that I have heard these eulogies today is his great sense of humour. Boy, you need a sense of humour around here too.
There was that belly laugh and a smile which really did captivate and came out at times when there was tension and strain. I think that helped all of us from time to time.
I am glad I was in the House to hear the statement earlier today and to acknowledge the many years I shared with Charlie, regardless of the fact we were on opposite sides of the fence. It did not make any difference in terms of respect for each other. We were each trying to do our thing in making this a better place, and he certainly tried to make this House and the country a better place.

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Privilege


Mr. Speaker:: I want to thank all hon. members, the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition, the Leader of the New Democratic Party, and others for the eloquent tributes they have paid this afternoon to the Right Hon. Jeanne Sauve and to our former colleague, Charlie Turner.


PRIVILEGE
David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, I rise today on a question of privilege which arose on December 11, 1992, the last day the House sat before the Christmas break. During Question Period at that time I had asked the government if it would produce the full financial statements for Hockey Canada, a public agency. The member for Vancouver Centre responded on behalf of the government. I quote from Hansard of that day at page 15105:
I will take that question on behalf of my colleague, the Solicitor General, who has indicated that this matter is currently being investigated by the RCMP The Government of Canada will offer no further information until the RCMP has concluded its investigation.
This answer was interesting in itself, Mr. Speaker, since the Solicitor General has never indicated to this House or publicly, to my knowledge, that such an investigation was ongoing by the RCMP. More important, however, six days later the chairman of the board of Hockey Canada, Mr. Ian Macdonald, released a statement saying:
The suggestion that the RCMP are investigating the financial records of Hockey Canada is simply not true. No one in Hockey Canada has had any conversations with the RCMP concerning such an investigation, nor have any of our records been examined by them. It is difficult to determine from where such reports emanated.
The question of privilege is simple. Either the member for Vancouver Centre misled the House or an Order in Council appointee to a government agency is refuting the words of a minister of the Crown and casting aspersions on the proceedings of this House.
I would like to quote from the 19th edition of Erskine May, chapter X, page 144 under the heading "Constructive Contempts", subheading "Speeches or Writings Reflecting On Either House":
In 1701 the House of Commons resolved that to print or publish any books or libels reflecting on the proceedings of the House is a high violation of the rights and privileges of the House.
Also noted in this passage of Erskine May is:
Reflections upon members, the particular individuals not being named or otherwise indicated, are equivalent to reflections on the House.
Although Mr. Macdonald did not publish a book, he did in fact cast aspersions on the proceedings of this House. In the 1990s the press release of a statement is equivalent to a published document. It is circulated instantly and widely to millions of Canadians across this country.
Mr. Macdonald's press release of December 17, of which I have a copy and will provide to the Chair at the completion of my remarks, was based on the proceedings in the House during Question Period. There is no doubt of the source in the minds of the public who watched Question Period on December 11, 1992 and the media who reported the exchange on national television and in daily newspapers across this country. Mr. Macdonald was clearly upset by the proceedings in the House when he admitted to The Toronto Star on December 18, 1992: "I cannot describe how frustrating it is to pick up the paper and be connected with something like that".
This is not the case of the opposition and the government disagreeing. We are not talking about a dispute over facts that the Official Opposition and the government engage in during our daily accountability sessions. We are talking about a government agency which spends taxpayers' money in its deliberate attempt to bring into disrepute the proceedings of this House.
We in this House, as I think you have evidenced on many occasions, take seriously the honour of taking a member at his or her word. A senior public servant has publicly refuted what a minister of the Crown placed on the record of this House. The question was a simple informative question and the answer was simple: There is an RCMP investigation.
What has transpired since the House adjourned has been confusing and contradictory. The taxpayers of Canada have a right to know how their taxes are being used. That is essentially why we are here. One of the
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main roles of the Official Opposition is to hold the government accountable. I do not believe the opposition or the government are able to do their jobs and to do them well when the head of a public agency publicly disputes the proceedings of this House.
In Erskine May the definition of contempt is as follows, and I quote from page 143 of the 20th edition:
It may be stated generally that any act or omission which obstructs or impedes either House of Parliament in the performance of its functions, or which obstructs or impedes any Member or officer of such House in the discharge of his duty, or which has a tendency, directly or indirectly, to produce such results may be treated as a contempt even though there is no precedent of the offence.
We asked a question in this House. We are told that we cannot have an answer because of an RCMP investigation pertaining to the question we have raised. Then the chairman of the board attempts to refute the minister's answer claiming that no such investigation exists and this happened six days later.
The truth is missing somewhere behind the words of two responsible parties. We in this House are being impeded in performing our constitutional role of holding the government to account for the disposing of taxpayers' money. Our job in Parliament is to subject all Crown agencies to public scrutiny to show the wise use of tax dollars. We must be objective and, I suggest, constructive.
Public agencies that comment on the proceedings in this House are not conducive to us fulfilling our responsibilities. Indeed we believe them to be breaches of our privileges. Mr. Macdonald's actions are more than a disagreement with something said in the House. He is a public official who is attempting to prevent the House, I suggest, from getting the facts. It may well be that the responsible ministers will agree with me on this point.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, if you find a prima facie case, I am prepared to move the appropriate motion. On the other hand, if somehow the minister has inadvertently misled the House with regard to the RCMP investigation, we will want to hear why such a thing was allowed to stay on the books and to stay in the minds of the public for such an indefinite period of time while her colleague, the Solicitor General, sat idly by and responding with nothing in the interim.
Privilege


Hon. Doug Lewis (Solicitor General of Canada):: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to respond to my hon. colleague's allegations. There's a suggestion that the time of the House and of members of Parliament and of the committee on privileges and elections should be used to pursue this matter.
First, it would be helpful to review the actual question to see how loose and rambling the actual question was. I am sure, Mr. Speaker, that when you have the opportunity you will agree with me.
My hon. friend started out by talking about Florida, then discussed the future of the league. He went on to suggest that serious questions had been raised recently about the financial dealings of the non-profit federal agency Hockey Canada and certain individuals. Then there was the direct question after the rambling that asked the minister responsible whether the government will provide to this House a full financial disclosure other than the annual one-line item expenses and income report for Hockey Canada since Hockey Canada has been incorporated.
The hon. minister replied. Bear in mind that it is a fact of life that we are often out of the House on business and she was responding on my behalf. I know that in no way would the hon. minister have ever misled the House. On this very simple case she had no cause to mislead the House.
Her answer is: "I will take that question". I am sure, Mr. Speaker, that when you review the text you will see that the question is: "Will the government provide to the House?" She undertook to take that question "on behalf of my colleague, the Solicitor General, who has indicated that this matter is currently being investigated by the RCMP. The Government of Canada will offer no further information until the RCMP has concluded its investigation." That is what took place in the House.
My hon. friend has not told the House something. I do not suggest for a minute that this was in an effort to mislead the House, but my hon. friend did not go on. I would not suggest for a minute that my hon. friend would deliberately mislead the House. However, my hon. friend neglected to point out to the House that there were comments made outside the House. Those of course are not something that would go to a matter of privilege based on a question answered in the House.

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It is quite fair to say that I am not briefed on behalf or acting on behalf of Hockey Canada, but I do have in my hands the same news release that my hon. friend referred to. In there Dr. Macdonald was quoted as saying: "The suggestion that the RCMP are investigating the financial records of Hockey Canada is simply not true. No one in Hockey Canada has had any conversation with the RCMP concerning such an investigation nor have any of our records been examined by them. It is difficult to determine from where such reports emanated".
There is no mention of the House of Commons in here. If one is going to be hauled before the bar of the House for defaming the House of Commons, one has to defame the House of Commons and the members in it.
I know my hon. friend is used to being referred to in the media in many places. Over the holidays, for example, he was in several newspaper accounts, that I believe I remember reading, with regard to certain difficulties he had in his party. I know he is used to being referred to in the media, but in this report there is no reference to the House of Commons. For one to defame the House of Commons one has to at least mention it.
I am sorry. I respect the desire for truth from members of Parliament. I have been on both sides of Question Period. I am sure that my hon. friend could pursue this matter under estimates. He made reference to the real question he is referring to, which is whether the government will provide to this House the full financial disclosure. That is the question my hon. friend asked.
The House knows there is a place to do this when the estimates of the government are considered. I think with all due respect to the time of the House and the items before the House that that is a matter to be dealt with at committee and I am sure we would be more than ready to entertain any questions on that line. I do not believe it is sufficient, but I am in your hands.


David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, the hon. minister opposite is trying to paint a picture that we in the opposition have somehow done something which ought not to have been done in our attempts to elicit information from the government and responsible ministers.
I did not ask in my question of the day about an RCMP investigation. I asked specifically and made a reference to financial information. It was the Minister of Justice-not a minister who is unfamiliar with the law and the workings of the law-who responded in kind. I wish to read this for the benefit of all members: "Madam Speaker, I will take the question on behalf of my colleague, the Solicitor General, who has indicated that this matter is currently being investigated by the RCMP. The Government of Canada will offer no further information until the RCMP has concluded its investigations".
What are we supposed to do in the opposition? If there is an RCMP investigation, that means we cannot get the information according to the Minister of Justice and not someone who is unfamiliar with the law.
My final point is that perhaps the Solicitor General would set the record straight. Is there an RCMP investigation of Hockey Canada or is there not?


Mr. Speaker:: I am sure the Solicitor General will be heard in just a moment. I am concerned that this is moving away from the procedural issue I have to decide. However, if the hon. minister wishes to respond to the question just put by the hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond, he is entitled to do so.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, if my hon. friend had made the question that direct and succinct when he asked it, he would have received this reply.
We are aware that the RCMP is reviewing the alleged wrongdoing pertaining to the National Hockey League Players' Association. Hockey Canada is co-operating with the RCMP in this review. Hockey Canada is not under investigation.


Mr. Speaker:: The position of the Chair in a case like this is one sometimes of caution because something which is just a difference of opinion, or a difference of fact or a difference of fact as argued, does not necessarily amount to a question of privilege.
I have listened very carefully to both the hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond who raised the matter and to the Solicitor General who has responded. It may be that the response of the Solicitor General has done
February 1, 1993

something to clear the air, if I can put it that way. However I am going to look very carefully at the question that was asked, review the arguments that were given and return to the House as quickly as possible.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


James (Jim) Stewart Edwards: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to section 36(8) of the Standing Orders, I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government's response to 246 petitions.
[Editor's Note: See today's Votes and Proceedings.]



PUBLIC SERVICE STAFF RELATIONS BOARD


Jean-Guy Hudon: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the President of the Privy Council it is a pleasure to table in the House today the Sixth Annual Report of the Public Service Staff Relations Board for the year ending March 31, 1992.
[Editor's Note: See today's Votes and Proceedings.]



AMERICAN MUSIC AWARDS


Mr. Ross Harvey (Edmonton East):: Mr. Speaker, I rise to take the admittedly unusual but certainly not unprecedented step of seeking the unanimous consent of the House at this time to move a motion to congratulate Consort, Alberta's own k.d. lang for being named the best new adult contemporary artist by the American
Routine Proceedings
Music Awards in Los Angeles on Monday, January 25, 1993.
I have taken the step of notifying all of the House leaders of the various parties in the House and believe that with unanimous consent we can deal with this matter expeditiously.


David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is quite right. There were consultations with our party. I wish to give the unanimous consent of our party to this particular motion.


Mr. Nelson A. Riis (Kamloops):: Mr. Speaker, I too want to acknowledge that there were consultations and on behalf of the New Democratic Party I give consent.


Mr. Speaker:: Is there consent?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Ross Harvey: Therefore, I move:
That this House congratulate Consort, Alberta's own k.d. lang for
being named the best new adult contemporary artist by the American
Music Awards in Los Angeles, California, on Monday, January 25,
1993.
Well done, k.d.
Motion agreed to


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.



POINT OF ORDER


Mr. Derek Lee (Scarborough-Rouge River):: Mr. Speaker, a point of order on the matter of Motion No. 15 on our Order Paper.
On November 19, 1992 the Standing Joint Committee on Scrutiny of Regulations tabled its sixth report in this House recommending disallowance of certain provisions of the public works nuisance regulations. The committee believed that these regulations placed unlawful restrictions on freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.
Under the rules this disallowance will later today become an Order of the House of Commons. I am pleased to note that on December 10 last the government acted to comply with the disallowance resolution of the committee and we would like to thank the Minister of Public Works for having acted on this matter in advance of today's formal Order of this House.

February 1, 1993
Routine Proceedings PETITIONS



NORTH THOMPSON RIVER

Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, it is an honour and a privilege to present a petition on behalf of the Coalition of People Against River Diversion which recently held a two-day conference in Barriere, British Columbia. It was hosted by the North Thompson Indian Band and attended by a large number of participants including delegations from a variety of First Nations.
They point out that a firm by the name of Multinational Resources plans to divert the North Thompson River in order to sell the diverted water in the San Diego, California area.
They point out that this is simply part of the thinking flowing out of the NAWAPA plan. They know that at present the federal government has no legislation prohibiting the diversion of Canadian waters to the United States and therefore they are simply asking the government to state categorically that it will not permit our fresh waters to be dammed and diverted into the United States. They want the government to state that Canadian rivers and lakes are not for sale.



JUSTICE

Mr. Robert E. Skelly (Comox-Alberni):: Mr. Speaker, I have a petition signed by 800 of my constituents in memory of Dawn Shaw, a little girl who was raped and murdered in the Comox Valley.
The petitioners have indicated their concern that children are increasingly becoming victims of sexual assault and they have proposed a number of measures to make our community safer for children. One measure is DNA testing of persons suspected of sexual assault.



HOUSING

Rodney Edward Laporte: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to present a petition from a number of constituents in my riding who are concerned about co-op housing in this country.
The petitioners say that many Canadians have experienced serious housing problems and that the government terminated the federal co-operative housing program on February 25, 1992. They state that this action eliminated 2,000 new co-op units for 1992 alone, along
with 4,000 construction and manufacturing jobs for the same period.
They state that the indexed 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. They state that there are approximately 164,000 renter households who want to move into co-op housing due to the success of the program in creating affordable and stable mixed income communities.
The petitioners therefore call upon Parliament to urge the government to immediately reinstate the federal co-operative housing program and to commit the $6.1 million to the program which had been planned for 1992 to permit approximately 2,000 co-operative housing units to be sponsored this year.


Mr. Mac Harb (Ottawa Centre):: Mr. Speaker, my petition concerns the government cut in social housing by 34 per cent.
As a result of that cut many of the housing programs have been cancelled. There is a need for a strong federal presence in housing programs in order to ensure equal access to adequate and affordable housing, to which all Canadians have a right.
I join with my constituents who are calling on Parliament to urge the government to restore its planned commitment to social housing by reinstating many of the programs that it has cancelled.



GOODS AND SERVICES TAX

Ron J. Duhamel: Mr. Speaker, petitioners from across Canada are asking that the government remove the goods and services tax on books and other reading materials.
They point out that there has been a zero rate of tax since Confederation. They also emphasize that education is the cornerstone of increased productivity and increased competitiveness. They conclude by saying that the government ought to review its policies with regard to this tax.



LANGUAGE USED IN RADIO AND TELEVISION BROADCASTING

Ron J. Duhamel: Mr. Speaker, I have a second petition. The petitioners ask that Parlia-
February 1, 1993

ment regulate the language used in radio and television broadcasting.
They point out that often the crude language used in broadcasting conflicts with what parents are trying to teach in their homes. Finally, they state that it is not necessary to use such poor language to inform people.



SENIOR CITIZENS

['I thank the hon. member for Sault Ste. Marie for giving the Chair notice of this matter. As I remarked with respect to the applications brought by the hon. member for Winnipeg-St. James and the hon. member for Moose Jaw-Lake Centre, I am sure that the House is aware of the matters raised by the hon. member and as hon. members will recall, the House exchanged both questions and answers on the matter today.\nUnder the circumstances, taking nothing away from the fact that it is of a serious matter, I do not believe it appropriate to adjourn the House for a special debate at this time.']
Jesse Philip Flis: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36 I have the honour and privilege to table petitions from Canadian senior citizens from across Ontario.
These petitioners complain that thousands of Canadian senior citizens live below the poverty line and that over 80 per cent of single women over the age of 65 live in poverty. They complain that the 37 cent increase in old age security pensions in April 1992 is inadequate to meet the many needs of Canadian seniors and say that the federal government has a primary responsibility to ensure the adequacy of seniors' pensions.
The petitioners call upon Parliament to urge the government to ensure that Canadian old age security pensions are sufficient to meet the basic needs of Canadian senior citizens.
This petition is presented in the two official languages.



[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk)
James (Jim) Stewart Edwards: Mr. Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: Nos. 286, 396, 402, 408, 414, 419,424, 429 and 431.


Mr. Whittaker: Since January 1, 1989, with respect to the Immigrant Investor Program of the Department of Employment and Immigration (a) have any complaints been received by the department concerning possible illegal or improper activities by funds established under the program and, if so, (i) how many involved allegations of illegal activities or violations of the laws establishing and governing the program (ii) how many were referred to the RCMP or other enforcement bodies for action (b) have any of the funds approved for this program been deregistered by the department?
Routine Proceedings


Hon. Bernard Valcourt (Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Since January 1, 1989, (a) yes; (i) approximately 22 complaints have been received by the department; (ii) of this number, 6 have been referred to the RCMP or another enforcement body for action; (b) yes.


Mr. Angus: With regard to the board of directors of CN Rail for the years 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991 and 1992 to date, (a) what were the names of the members of the board, and for each of them what were the total fees paid per year, what were the individual travel costs, and how many meetings did they attend; (b) what is the total annual cost for the office of the chairman of CN Rail, including salaries, travel expenses, entertainment, communications, personal accomodation, et cetera; (c) what did it cost to furnish and refurbish the office of the chairman and the chairman's staff; (d) what does it cost per year to provide a limo service including a driver for the chairman, and how many hours was the limo used by the chairman, and who else uses the limo?


Jean Corbeil: The management of the Canadian National Railway Company (CN) advises as follows:
(a) 1988
Brian O'N. Gallery
Ronald E. Lawless
Alfred J. Bentley
Jacob Brouwer
George T. Cooper
Guy Coulombe-appt. June 7, 1988
Eugene Demkiw
Janis Johnson
Marie Marchand-until June 7, 1988 Emerson Mascoll
Yvon R. Poitras-appt. May 26, 1988 Cheryl J. Stagg
George Urquhart-until May 26, 1988
Brian O'N. Gallery
Brian R. D. Smith-appt. Nov. 15, 1989
Ronald E. Lawless
Alfred J. Bentley
Jacob Brouwer
George T. Cooper
Guy Coulombe
Eugene Demkiw
Janis Johnson
Emerson Mascoll
Yvon Poitras
Francis J. Ryan-appt. Oct. 15, 1989 Cheiyl J. Stagg-until Oct. 12, 1989

Routine Proceedings
Brian O'N. Gallery-until Feb. 1, 1990
Brian R. D. Smith
Ronald E. Lawless
Alfred J. Bentley
Jacob Brouwer
George T. Cooper
Guy Coulombe
Eugene Demkiw
Janis Johnson-until Sept. 27, 1990 Emerson Mascoll
Maurice Mayer-appt. May 5, 1990 Yvon Poitras Francis J. Ryan
Brian R. D. Smith Ronald E. Lawless Alfred J. Bentley Jacob Brouwer George T. Cooper Guy Coulombe Eugene Demkiw Emerson Mascoll Maurice Mayer
Stuart A. Murray-appt. Jan. 9, 1991 Yvon Poitras Francis J. Ryan
January 1, 1992-September 9, 1992 Brian R. D. Smith
Ronald E. Lawless-until July 1, 1992
Alfred J. Bentley
Jacob Brouwer
George T. Cooper
Guy Coulombe-until July 1, 1992
Eugene Demkiw
Emerson Mascoll
Maurice Mayer
Stuart A. Murray
Yvon Poitras
Bernard Roy-appt. July 1, 1992 Francis J. Ryan
With regard to the question of CN Rail board of directors expenses and remuneration, the following information is provided: There are 12 directors on the CN board.
In 1988 part-time directors were each paid a fee for services as a director at the rate of $5,000 per annum and additional fees of $250 per day for each day on which they respectively participated in one or more meetings of the board of directors or any committee thereof.
Between 1989 and September 1992 part-time directors were each paid a fee for services as a director at the rate within a range of $5,600 to $7,000 per annum and additional fees within a range of $450 to $600 per day for each day on which they respectively participated in one or more meetings of the board of directors or any committee thereof. The chairman of each of the five standing committees of the board of directors received an additional $3,000. In 1992 this fee was reduced to $2,000. Directors were also compensated for travel time relating to attendance at meetings.
Remuneration and expenses relating to the administration of the CN board are well within the levels found in the private sector.
(b)	, (c) and (d) with regard to administrative expenses, CN does not report this information as it is regarded as proprietary.


Mr. Axworthy: Were meetings convened at the Privy Council Offices between March 1 and May 31, 1989, at which were present, (a) Bruce Howe from the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources (b) Robert Blackburn from the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources
(c)	Harry Rogers from the Department of Industry, Science and Technology and, if so, what were the specific dates of the meetings at which any or all of these officials were in attendance?


Mr. Len Gustafson (Parliamentary Secretary to Prime Minister):: In so far as can be determined, Messrs. Bruce Howe, Robert Blackburn and/or Harry Rogers attended meetings at the Privy Council Office between March 1 and May 31, 1989 as identified as follows:
February 1, 1993

PCO Meetings with Messrs. Blackburn, Howe and/or Rogers
A)	& C) Deputy Ministers' Breakfast or Luncheon Meetings:
Wednesday, March 8, 1989 attended by Howe and Rogers
Wednesday, March 29, 1989 attended by Howe and Rogers
Wednesday, April 12, 1989 attended by Howe and Rogers
Wednesday, April 26, 1989 attended by Howe and Rogers
Wednesday, April 28, 1989 Probably attended by Howe and Rogers (no record of over-all meeting attendance)
Friday, May 4, 1989, Deputy Ministers' Luncheon Meeting
attended by Rogers
Wednesday, May 10, 1989 attended by Howe and Rogers
Wednesday, May 17, 1989 attended by Howe and Rogers
Note: Mr. Blackburn was not a deputy minister during the period specified.
B)	Other meetings:
Thursday, March 16, 1989 attended by Robert Blackburn
Monday May 10, 1989 attended by Robert Blackburn


Mr. Harvard: Has the government undertaken a study on the impact of the proposed merger between Air Canada and Canadian Airlines and, if so, what did the study conclude in relation to a) the number of employees who will lose their jobs b) the level of services for the flying public c) the number of routes that will be dropped d) the level of air fares?


Jean Corbeil: The government was awaiting a final joint proposal from Air Canada and PWA including information on the impact on workers before undertaking any formal studies of the implications of a proposed merger. As the member is aware, the boards of directors of both companies in October rejected the draft merger proposal. Therefore no specific study on the impact on employees, level of
Routine Proceedings
service, reduction in number of routes or level or air fares has been conducted.


Mr. Simmons: Has any action been taken by the Department of Transport (Canadian Coast Guard) relating to the concern expressed by the Auditor General in his 1978, 1983, 1989, 1990 and 1991 reports to Parliament over "the need to define levels of service for the icebreaking program and to determine the size of the fleet of ice capable vessels needed to provide these levels of service" and, if so, a) what was such action b) is a "needs and options analysis based on defined levels of service" now conducted prior to the approval and disbursement of "major capital expenditures" as recommended by the Auditor General?


Jean Corbeil: Yes.
(a)	Initial work began on Canadian Cost Guard (CCG) levels of service in the late 1970s in response to concerns of the Auditor General, Treasury Board and Transport Canada internal audit. Several program evaluations and economic impact studies were initiated by CCG and carried out by groups such as the Bureau of Management Consulting, Sypher-Mueller Int. and Hickling Management Consultants. These studies confirmed the importance of the CCG's ice-breaking services to the marine community.
The Canadian Coast Guard issued an initial ice-breaking operations levels of service (LOS) document in October 1990, with instructions that the document was to be used for ice-breaking activity management and that it would be refined for continuing application thereafter. The LOS document provides clear definitions of icebreaking services that clients can expect. In simple terms it describes the what, where, when, how much and how fast, as well as limitations on and priorities for the available services. The LOS document is supported by data obtained from the ice-breaking Operations Data Information System (IODIS) and was refined on the basis of experience gained during the 1990-91 ice-breaking seasons in the Arctic and eastern Canada. During the fall of 1992 consultations were undertaken to make clients aware of the levels of ice-breaking services provided by the CCG and to solicit their comments on the program. Initial feedback from clients has been positive.
In order to respond more effectively to broader responsibilities in the areas of safety, statutory requirements and environmental protection, the Coast Guard has implemented a five-phase fleet restructuring plan (FRP) spanning the 1991-1994 period. The Auditor

February 1, 1993
Routine Proceedings
General's comments were carefully considered and incorporated in the development of the FRP. The major points of this plan involve the redeployment of 10 ships between regions and the removal of 10 ships from active service. The outcome of the FRP is to better match ship capability including ice-breaking capability to operational demands and geographic locations to meet the client needs.
(b)	A needs and options analysis based on levels of service has not yet been conducted, as there have been no major capital expenditures in recent years. Flowever, this analysis will be carried out on any future fleet capital projects such as new vessel construction or mid-life modernizations before these projects are submitted to Treasury Board for approval.


Mr. Duhamel: With respect to the proposed merger between Air Canada and Canadian Airlines International has the government undertaken a study on the impact upon workers and, if so, (a) what did the study conclude in relation to the number of Winnipeg based employees who may lose their jobs (b) were there any recommendations to protect the consumer from harmful monopolistic practices resulting from such a merger?


Jean Corbeil: The government was awaiting a final joint proposal from Air Canada and PWA including information on the impact on workers before undertaking any formal studies of the implications of a proposed merger. As the member is aware, the boards of directors of both companies in October rejected the draft merger proposal. Therefore no specific study on the impact on employees, level of service, reduction in number of routes or level of air fares has been conducted.


Mr. Comuzzi: With respect to the 1992 referendum, for the entire referendum period has the government given contracts to companies to supply paper and/or printing for all documents for the purpose of distribution to the electorate and, if so, which companies received the contracts?
Also standing offers for the following companies were utilized: Noranda Forest Recycled Papers and Inter-City Papers Ltd.
For the purpose of this response "referendum" was presumed to mean the Charlottetown accord and the "entire period" was from October 1 to October 26,1992.

Question No. 429-Mr. Nowlan:
With respect to the contract between Supply and Services and the Rider travel group for government travel (a) does the Rider travel group use the Sabre Reservation System and, if so, what is the charge for each reservation segment (b) what in total has been paid on a monthly basis to the Sabre Reservation System since the contract has been awarded?


Paul Wyatt Dick: With respect to the contract between Supply and Services and the Rider Travel Group for government travel, (a) the Rider Travel Group uses the Sabre reservation system to make reservations for government travel. There is no charge to the government for making these reservations. Both Sabre and Gemini receive their revenue from the supplier that is hosted (i.e. listed) in the system. In the case of airlines this would be on a segment basis while it would be based on the number of reservations made for hotel and car rental companies; (b) no money has been paid to Sabre for government travel by either Rider Travel or the government.


Mr. Nystrom: With respect to Canada Pension Plan survivor pensions and combined survivor retirement pensions, for the most recent period available what is (a) the number of recipients for each age group of (i) under 35 (ii) 35-39 (iii) 40-44 (iv) 45-49 (v) 50-54 (vi) 55-59 (vii) 60-64 (viii) 65 and older (b) distribution percentage for these age groups?


Hon. Benoit Bouchard (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Distribution of survivors' pensions and combined retirement-survivors' pensions by age are as follows:
November 1992


Paul Wyatt Dick: With respect to the 1992 referendum, for the entire
Age Survivors' pensions Combined Survivors'-Retirement Pensions
awarded contracts to the following companies to supply	Number	Per cent	Number	Per centpaper and/or printing for all documents for the purpose of distribution to the electorate:	-35	5,687	0.87%	n.a. *	n.a. *35-39	9,105	1.39%	n.a.	n.a.Dartmouth Free Press	Bradda Printing	Lowe Martin Co. Inc.	Interglobe Inc.	The Runge Press	Yorkville Press Co. Ltd.	40-44	15,892	2.43%	n.a.	n.a.Translitho	Metropole Litho Inc.	Dollco Printing	45-49	24,164	3.70%	n.a.	n.a.Copieurs Rive Sud	Transcontinental Prestige	Capital Box of Ottawa Ltd.	50-54	32,776	5.02%	n.a.	n.a.St. Joseph Printing	Kromar Printing Inc.	Ronalds Printing Inc.	7.25%	Love Printing Services Inc.	National Printer Inc.	55-59	47,346	n.a.	n.a.
February 1, 1993

Number	Per cent	Number	Per cent60-64 73,366	11.24%	25,450	9.59%65+ 444,407	68.08%	239,818	90.41%Total 652,743	100.00%	265,268	100.00%Source: Income Security Programs Health and Welfare Canada	Canada Pension Plan	
* n.a. - not applicable


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


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


Mr. Speaker:: Shall the remaining questions stand?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Ron J. Duhamel: Mr. Speaker, I am seeking some guidance from you.
I had submitted a question to the Order Paper on December 12, 1991 which read as follows:
What is the total amount of revenue collected by the government from the goods and services tax since January 1, 1991 and what has been the total amount spent on (a) advertising (b) tax credits (c) GST rebates (d) set-up costs (e) other expenses associated with the implementation of this tax?
A second question reads as follows:
What is the total of GST revenue placed in the debt service reduction account and what is the current balance of the account?
I have been rather patient with the government on this. I have raised it several times in this House. It seems to me that well more than a year later I should have received a response to those particular questions. They are not extremely complex. They only require numbers. I would like to know if this is ever going to happen. Why has it not happened? What is being hidden here?
Surely those answers are available to the Government of Canada so that I can share them with the people of Canada.
Routine Proceedings


James (Jim) Stewart Edwards: Mr. Speaker, I think that my hon. friend and I have had an exchange about at least one of these questions before.
I have done some checking in anticipation of these questions, to be honest. The second question he refers to, concerning the debt reduction account, is one that I think was answered in the economic statement of the Minister of Finance. I do not say that in order to be provocative or flip. I more or less share my hon. friend's impatience because that is a fairly straightforward question to be answered. We will get after that one with all kinds of dispatch.
With regard to the first question to which my hon. friend refers, that is a much more complex question. There are many aspects to it. There is a lot of work involved in it and a lot of work has been done in preparing the response. I am told that work is almost complete. I hesitate to give a date but I can tell my friend that there are a lot of people working on preparing a response to his question.


Mr. Speaker:: I am in receipt of a notice of motion under Standing Order 52 from the hon. member for Winnipeg-St. James. I also have a similar application under Standing Order 52 from the hon. member for Moose Jaw-Lake Centre.
In terms of time received the hon. member for Winnipeg-St. James was first. I will hear the hon. member.


Mr. John Harvard (Winnipeg-St. James):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 52, I wish to propose a motion to adjourn this House for the purpose of discussing an urgent and pressing matter, namely the severe income crisis which is devastating farmers and threatening their security and future on the land.
Income is expected to plummet nearly $1 billion this year. That is a drop of over 20 per cent. The average farm family in Saskatchewan can expect only $4,000 in net on-farm income this year. I believe this to be an urgent issue and I also believe that it is appropriate for this House to set aside time to discuss this pressing matter.

February 1, 1993
Point of Order


Rodney Edward Laporte: Mr. Speaker, I also wish to give notice of my intention to move the adjournment of the House pursuant to Standing Order 52 to discuss a specific matter requiring urgent consideration, namely the plight of agricultural producers not only in western Canada but right across this nation.
These individuals and families are in desperate need of funding to see them through the winter and to ensure that a crop is planted in the spring. Some 13,000 people recently gathered in Saskatoon to express the need for immediate action in agriculture. This was the largest rally in the history of Saskatchewan and quite possibly in the country. They expressed the desperation that many farm families feel with respect to their future. It is essential that this House enter into a discussion on this disastrous situation and that this government move to take some direct action.
The situation is deep. It is wide spread and it is certainly not limited to Saskatchewan. Because of the dimension and the depth of the agricultural crisis, leadership must be initiated by the federal government.
It is my belief that if we do not immediately deal with this issue, thousands of farm families will be forced from the land, creating social and economic hardships of extreme proportions.


Mr. Speaker:: I thank both the hon. member for Winnipeg-St. James and the hon. member for Moose Jaw-Lake Centre for their succinct but nonetheless satisfactory notices because it puts the Speaker in the position where there is no question as to what is being raised.
The Chair is not unaware at all of the matters raised and of course from what proceeded in the House this afternoon during Question Period, it is clear that the House is cognizant of the difficulties.
That being so, however, I do not feel that it is appropriate today to move on an emergency debate which would set aside the business of the House.
I thank both hon. members for raising this matter which I am quite sure is deemed as serious by the House of Commons.
The hon. member for Sault Ste. Marie also has a matter to raise.


Steve Butland: Mr. Speaker, I rise pursuant to Standing Order 52 as well to request that the House be adjourned to discuss the crisis in the steel industry in Canada. The reciprocal trade actions in the past several days initiated by the United States and Canada bring to the forefront once again the dire circumstances of our Canadian industry.
The loss of 12,000 steel jobs in Hamilton and Sault Ste. Marie alone over the past four years reflects the situation which will only be aggravated by these actions.
The Minister for International Trade has been rebuffed in his attempts to forge a new bilateral agreement, thus leaving the industry in uncertainty and under immediate risk.
I believe an emergency debate on the status of the steel industry in Canada is both timely and essential.


Mr. Speaker:: I thank the hon. member for Sault Ste. Marie for giving the Chair notice of this matter. As I remarked with respect to the applications brought by the hon. member for Winnipeg-St. James and the hon. member for Moose Jaw-Lake Centre, I am sure that the House is aware of the matters raised by the hon. member and as hon. members will recall, the House exchanged both questions and answers on the matter today.
Under the circumstances, taking nothing away from the fact that it is of a serious matter, I do not believe it appropriate to adjourn the House for a special debate at this time.



POINT OF ORDER


Marcel Prud'homme: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.
February 1, 1993

Earlier in our proceedings we agreed to a motion by the hon. member for Edmonton East congratulating Ms. lang. Obviously the entire House joined in these congratulations; however, if memory serves me well, I would like, for the future-

I look at my hon. friend ready maybe to answer, but I am talking about the future.

In the past we had motions under Standing Order 43. At any time members would rise at the beginning of our proceedings to ask for unanimous consent for all sorts of good causes, and it would be quite embarrassing and very difficult for members to object. Furthermore, that was potentially embarrassing for the government because of possible international implications or, if the cause were noble, consent might be refused because one or two members were not in a responsive mood that day. I thought that was unfortunate. Standing Order 43 made it possible for any member to rise on an urgent or important matter.
Members addressed the issue.
By the way, the new Whip of the government, like others before him, decided that maybe we should look into that rule that was abused by the House. That is where in protecting the right of backbenchers we came to the conclusion that we should have a new article 31 Declarations de deputes, known in English as Statements by Members, for 15 minutes. In this way a member did not have to beg his colleague to put something to the House, to congratulate or defend or attack. Mr. Speaker would be the master of the good taste of the statements raised by members.
Over the years we have ameliorated our practice in the House. I see it today and I have seen it earlier too. It has nothing to do with what we did a moment ago. I am thinking of the future. In the British law, precedent sometimes is so strong that it becomes the rule. If we allow too many precedents, that will become the new rule.
I do not know if it is the mood of the House not to have statements by members. As a matter of fact, there may be some reform where we may have more statements by members. I do not want a long debate, but I would like to submit to you, Mr. Speaker, for your
Point of Order
reflection and maybe for later comments that it may not be appropriate for members.
I would have liked to know there was such a statement where I would be asked for my consent. It is difficult on a moment's notice to give consent. This may be acceptable to all members, but what if it were to be divisive? What if members are not present and they need not be present-they could be in their offices-because nobody gave them notice of a very important matter that could be raised at that time where it is not customary now? I do not need and you do not need to be there for statements by members. It is the members who choose what they want to raise in the House. I am a defendant of more rights for the member. But when I am asked for my consent I would like to know before I give it what is going on, what are the implications.
In this case, I repeat that we all agree that we were happy for Madam lang for the great honour she has given Canada. That has nothing to do with the question I am raising, but I am using this opportunity to bring it to your attention, Mr. Speaker.


James (Jim) Stewart Edwards: On the same point of order, Mr. Speaker. I agree with my hon. friend that what was accepted as a motion might better have been put under Standing Order 31.
I did not raise an objection on behalf of the government at the time that unanimous consent was sought, although to be strictly true about it and strictly accurate, there was not proper consultation on the matter. There was a letter circulated today by the hon. member, informing the government and others of the hon. member's intent and asking for co-operation. I do not think that constitutes consultation. However, consent was not withheld from this side because I think to have done so would have been small-minded.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, as House leader of the member who first initiated this particular request, I feel an obligation to reply. I do believe that my hon. friend has raised a very important point. Considering the nature of the request and the nature of the motion today, as he said, I do not think there is any difficulty. It is not something that we would find divisive in the House. Indeed, consultation perhaps left something to be desired. I asked the hon. member whose suggestion it was to ensure at least in writing that the appropriate House leaders would be apprised of this intent.

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The case, however, still remains that there were many members presumably at the time who had not been informed, were not consulted, and consequently on another issue it could be very divisive and we find certain members not being able to respond with the enthusiasm that they would normally wish.
May I suggest that the point raised by my hon. friend be simply transferred to the House management committee and have it examine this. Again, I would not want to see this practice continued and made a routine during Routine Proceedings.


Mr. Speaker:: I wish to thank the hon. member for Saint-Denis for raising a matter of the utmost importance for the procedure of this House.
I noticed that he mentioned the word precedent and the importance of precedents.

I know that members would allow me to share with all who are here this afternoon what Dean Swift, the famous English author, said of precedent over 200 years ago. He said this: "Lawyers are a race of men among us who believe that anything that has been done before may legally be done again". It seems to me that his comment is perhaps apposite for the discussion that is taking place.
On behalf of the hon. member for Edmonton East, I did receive a letter from him. He did circulate it to some people in the Chamber and I think his intention was to try to get the word around that he was going to move this motion. In the result the House acceded to it.
The difficulty comes when perhaps we might be on a much more divisive matter. That puts the Chair in a very difficult position. If the Chair allows members to use motions as they once used the old Order 43, as the hon. member for Saint-Denis has pointed out, I think we may be headed for some difficulty in the Chamber because some members might get up and say that given the fact that the orders were changed some years ago to deal with this very matter, it is not appropriate that the Chair allow motions to proceed as the motion did this afternoon.
I thank the hon. member for Kamloops for suggesting that the matter go to the House management committee. I certainly understand and thank the hon. member for Edmonton Southwest, the parliamentary secretary, for his comment and I think the House probably also appreciates it. I am sure the hon. member for Edmonton East appreciates the fact that the hon. member for Edmonton Southwest did not object to this particular motion this afternoon.
However, I would ask hon. members to keep in mind that on a more divisive matter, I think the Chair would be right in the middle of the crossfire. Therefore I accept the invitation of the hon. member for Kamloops. On behalf of hon. members who are here this afternoon I will write the appropriate letter to the House management committee referring this particular rule to the members of that committee.
I thank the hon. member for Saint-Denis.



AUDITOR GENERAL


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBIois):: I have the honour to lay upon the table the Auditor General's Report to the Senate and the House of Commons on Matters of Joint Interest.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Mazankowski that Bill C-93, an Act to implement certain government organization provisions of the budget tabled in the House of Commons on February 25, 1992, be read the second time and referred to a legislative committee in the Economics envelope; and the amendment of Mrs. Finestone.
February 1, 1993
The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: When the debate was suspended the hon. member for Ottawa West had the floor.

You have 17 minutes left.


Marlene Catterall: Mr. Speaker, I welcome this opportunity to resume my comments on Bill C-93 and more specifically its impact on the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.
We hear a great deal of rhetoric from the government concerning the management of change. I do not think anybody in the Chamber would dispute that the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council is an important part of that approach to the future.
We know that the world of the future-Canada's future economically-will depend particularly on developing the service and information sectors of our economy. That depends on the expansion of knowledge in all fields. It depends on us having a commitment to the expansion of knowledge in science and research and in all fields.
It includes having a commitment to the development of expertise in a variety of fields as well as retaining the expertise that we have-our brain power-and developing international links to ensure that that can happen. Canadians must be able to learn in Canada and do research in Canada, but be well plugged in to the international scientific community and continue to practice in Canada as well.
We have been through a period in this country-I go back to the sixties for my first experience of it-when we did not have expertise in a variety of domains and continually had to import expertise and knowledge from other countries.
Now, 30 years later, we are looking at a situation where many of the people who came to this country at this time to contribute their knowledge and talents to Canada are saying to their children, who are now interested in various fields of science as well: "If you want a future as a scientist, do not stay in Canada. Go somewhere else".
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We have seen what has happened to the National Research Council. We have seen the abandonment of the Science Council. I want to put this in a context because the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council plays as important a role in the development of our future as the development of the physical sciences.
The move proposed by the government to put the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council under the Council for the Arts in Canada shows a very limited view of the important role of this council. That is not in any way to denigrate the role of the Council for the Arts in Canada because it plays an important role, but it is a different role.
The science and humanities are linked in a very important way to the physical sciences. The important direction or trend in the development of human knowledge is the integration of different fields of science.
As I began to say before Question Period, the kinds of issues that we need to face increasingly mean that technical advancement does not come without repercussions throughout society. The management of technological change is more than a question of physical sciences. It is also a question of changes to the individual in society, changes fundamentally to our economy and changes to our society in a collective sense.
The importance we are giving now to the environment is a good example. Managing the problems of global destruction are more than a question of science in the traditional sense or the physical sense. It is very clear that if we are going to avoid the terrible damage that we have seen in our atmosphere, water and soils, we need to address the social dynamics as well as the physical dynamics.
In the field of biomedical science, it is not a question simply of technical advances, it is a question of how those technical advances are used. It is a question of what changes those bring to society as a whole. We only have to look at the question of reproductive technology to know that it is more than issue of developing the technology. It is also important to look at the social and personal implications of those developments.
When we talk about the development in the physical sciences of the ability to manipulate the very matter by which life is formed we know that it is not enough to deal with that knowledge as a physical science. The social implications of that science are equally important.
When we talk about a changing world in which lifelong training and education are going to be necessary, we know that more attention to society and humanity and how we adapt to change is vital if Canada is going to

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profit from opportunities of the future without leaving our people behind. Adjustment brings with it more than dollar and business implications. It brings with it adjustment and turmoil.
We know we have a young generation that is facing more difficulty than previous generations in finding a place in that new economy. We know that we have a rising level of violence and racism. We know that whether we are going to be able to have the brains and talent we need to have in this country in the future depends on dealing with the issues of poverty. We know that we have an increasingly aging population that is going to require a different approach in many social policy areas.
We know that the future requires bringing many different fields of knowledge together and an increasing emphasis on the social and human implications of change. That is one of the important roles of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. It is to ensure that we are understanding change, not just from the narrow physical science point of view, but from the broader implications for society as a whole. We are dealing with the disruption and the change to society that comes from progress in science.
We know it is important to set new economic directions. When change is occurring so rapidly, it is no longer enough to react to change. We know it is important to develop links both ways between the social sciences and the arts, as well as between the social sciences and the physical sciences.
Submerging one council in the other deprives both of the recognition of the important role they play in Canadian society. That certainly deprives the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of its ability to reach out to all fields of knowledge and to play the important role it should be playing as we plan our future.
Dealing with these issues requires leadership. It requires an understanding that the role of government is to provide that leadership. Instead we have seen the dismantling of the tools-in other bills that have come before us-by which that leadership has been provided. I have referred to the science council. I have referred to
the economic council and the council for oceans development. We have lost a number of institutions that I believe are important for Canada to seize the opportunities the future offers.
Understanding government and knowing what government is doing is an important part of that. Regrettably, one of the members who spoke earlier displayed, I think, an abysmal lack of knowledge about how government works.
The member for South Shore said something like what is the point of "the entire Government of Canada being in Ottawa?" If members of the government do not know that over 70 per cent of government offices and employees are not in the national capital region, then I am not quite sure how they expect to govern the country. If these members do not know that over 70 per cent of the people who work for the Government of Canada are in centres throughout the country, then they clearly might have a little difficulty deciding how to govern better.
If the member does not know, for instance, that there are 18,000 employees in the Public Service in Halifax,
12.000	in Vancouver, 20,000 in the Montreal region and
9.000	in Edmonton, he obviously is clearly uninformed about how government is operating now. I would have trouble having confidence in his ability to improve it.
The second point I want to make is that in exercising leadership the government has talked a great deal about partnership and consultation. It is all rhetoric. We have not had, in this major reorganization, the means to develop the intellect of our country, which is certainly our most important capital for the new era.
There has been no consultation whatsoever with the scientific community on these changes. What does that say about the commitment to partnership and to consultation? It undermines totally everything the government has said it planned to do in its prosperity agenda that spoke a great deal about partnership and consultation. It spoke a great deal about the need for science, research and technology development, yet we see a major change in that field without any partnership and without any consultation.
February 1, 1993

We may or may not be seeing a cost savings in this. The government has admitted as much. I think it is rather arrogant for a government in the last few months-possibly even the last few weeks of a mandate-to reorganize the structures of government and the structures by which Canadians are served.
I want to take just a few minutes to speak about the Cape Breton Development Corporation, which is another of the bodies dealt with in this bill. As I see it, one of the key elements in our future is to develop the abilities of communities to meet their own future needs and to develop their own future certainly with the partnership and the support of their federal and provincial governments.
If we believe that communities know their own strengths, people and opportunities best, then to fold an important agency like the Cape Breton Development Corporation into a larger regional agency seems to me to be going in the wrong direction.
I wanted to particularly refer to a comment made by the Solicitor General in response to one of my colleagues speaking on this very issue. It was the member for Cape Breton Highlands-Canso who was talking about the rising unemployment and the serious economic situation in Cape Breton. I am sure that situation is even worse now with the problems in the steel industry. In response to that the Solicitor General said: "That is because they vote Liberal".
The idea that a region should be punished because of how it votes is something that goes back to the day after the 1988 election when a well-known member of this House chose to say that Ottawa was going to be punished for voting Liberal. This is a democracy. People have the right to vote how they want to vote and still be entitled to the support of their government. I found that comment so offensive that I did have to refer back to it.
We see a disregard for people in this bill. We have no idea. Some people are coming from the Public Service, some people are coming from one council and some people are staying with the new council to be formed. We have again the government operating a kind of shell game when it says it is getting rid of employees in the Public Service. It is not really. It is just moving them out of the Public Service and into another agency which will continue to be funded by public dollars. This kind of
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diversion and pretence really does not solve the problems of the country.
I also want to challenge the idea that bigger is necessarily better. Bigger agencies often just mean more levels of administration, reporting and accounting and not more productivity.
We have before us a poorly thought out bill. It was done with no consultation with those who are most directly affected and with the arrogance of a government that thinks it knows best for everybody and does not have to listen to anybody else.
We are abandoning a number of agencies that perform an increasingly important function as we face a changing future.


Thomas Hockin: Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a few comments with regard to the remarks just made. It is important that we be practical about what is going to happen under the various headings that the hon. member covered.
First, in terms of the amalgamation of the Canada Council with the SSHRC it is important to remember that the new council that will be formed will remain at arm's length from the government. The council will have full latitude to plan and establish its priorities to fulfil its mandate. The merger will also not affect the amount of support delivered to the two client groups. There was some intimation that might happen. That will not happen.
Funding for each group remains clearly distinct and the peer-review system for each will be maintained. The mechanism to do all this is still under discussion, but it is important that I put those comments on the record.
There will be some savings. Clearly the council itself will be smaller and there will be some other savings which I hope the hon. member supports. Her leader speaks about decreasing the deficit but I still have not found out how they will do it. This is one action that helps in a small way.
More important, she gave the impression that the granting councils are somehow under special attack. The truth is that this government has probably spent more money on native issues and science and technology than almost any other category of the federal government jurisdiction. Even the 10 per cent cuts on grants and

February 1, 1993
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contributions announced in the last statement will not affect the granting councils.
The granting councils are not being affected by that 10 per cent cut. They went from four to zero but they will not be cut the whole 10 per cent, as is the rest of the government. This was our way of saying that this is a very special category.
It is also important because people lose track of this historically. Since we became the government in 1984 the research budget for the granting councils has increased 60 per cent. That is a huge increase given the tremendous fiscal pressures on the government.
It is important too, and this was not mentioned, that we remember that the Canada Scholarship Program has awarded over 12,500 scholarships valued at over $30 million to encourage students to study science at university. More than half of these have gone to women. We are providing more funds to the Industrial Research Assistance Program. We are permanently extending the networks of centres of excellence program which everybody salutes as a very good way to focus research.
There is also the Canadian Space Agency, drug research and the green plan. It is important to know what we have done to stimulate R and D spending through tax incentives. We are approving R and D tax incentives which will provide further R and D support of $230 million over the next five years. We are making it easier for Canadians to use federal science programs. Finally we have set aside $400 million to correct areas in which the tax system may slow the adoption of new technologies.
Science and technology are very important to this government. It is important that these points be made during this debate.


Marlene Catterall: Mr. Speaker, I think the minister gives credence to my comments with some of the figures he has provided. For example, there is the 60 per cent increase since 1984. That is over a period of eight years and is less than the rate of inflation. That is an effective drop in spending power.
Second, the government's total commitment to science and research has declined not increased. I would
not want the minister to leave an untrue impression with anybody by suggesting that it has increased. It is also really important that the minister is now saying that they are consulting on mechanisms. The time to consult is before one makes a mistake and not after.


Mr. Howard McCurdy (Windsor-St. Clair):: Mr. Speaker, does the hon. member know that the new minister of science and technology talked a great deal about his government's policies with respect to science and made claims about its scientific expenditure and so on?
I do not think that was really the issue raised by the hon. member. I thought the hon. member was trying to pursue the question that was not answered, which was: What is the logic, the justification for combining SSHRC with the Canada Council? Precisely, what will be the savings? Who asked for it? Whose idea was it? How do these justifications compare with the abundant arguments that were advanced in favour of the separation in the first place in 1978?
Answers to none of those questions were provided by the hon. minister. The reasons are likely clearly identified by the hon. member. The hon. minister does not know why.


Marlene Catterall: Mr. Speaker, if I may quickly respond. I thank the member for putting very clearly the crux of the argument I made.
It is fine for the minister to stand up and say that this is going to save money. It would be rather interesting if any information might be presented to the House to demonstrate that. My experience is that when one reorganizes for the sake of reorganization one brings the work of an organization to a grinding halt and ends up spending a great deal of extra money, not saving money. If the minister or government has information to the contrary then it would be nice if it were tabled in the House.
There was a great deal of consultation in the mid to late 1970s which led to the establishment of a separate council responsible for social sciences and humanities research. That was done in broad consultation with all affected parties across this country. Now we have an arbitrary move by a government that wants to move for the sake of being seen to move. It has provided no justification whatsoever for this move.
February 1, 1993


Ron J. Duhamel: Mr. Speaker, first of all I would like to thank the hon. member for a most interesting speech.

It would seem to me that we need to stress again, and I wonder if my colleague would like to comment, that there has not been any deep reflection on this bill. The government is trying to suggest to Canadians that eight years after taking power it has finally realized that there were a number of agencies that needed to be sabrer.
Where are the dollar savings? Put them on the table. Show us concretely where the effectiveness will be realized. Why did the government not consult? Surely it should ask the people who will be affected. There are at least 15,000 social scientists in Canada. Why would they not be consulted? Could my colleague please comment?


Marlene Catterall: Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for the question.
I will repeat what I said when I spoke about the abandonment of the Economic Council of Canada, the Science Council of Canada, the International Centre for Ocean Development and a number of others. I repeat it for this council but in a slightly different way.
The government seems to have trouble with any body that provides impartial or objective assessment of priorities and spending in this country.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: The first five hours of debate on the bill have now expired.

As of now, there will be a 10-minute maximum for all speeches, without questions and comments.


Howard Douglas McCurdy: Mr. Speaker, thank you for this opportunity to speak on Bill C-93, which is the Budget Implementation (Government Organizations) Act, 1992. It gives force to a number of mergers and in some instances the elimination of various bodies, as announced in the February budget of last year.
Many of the windings up and mergers are unexceptionable. They include the winding up of the Agricultural Products Board, and the merging of Enterprise Cape
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Breton with ACOA. That is probably a reasonable thing to do, although we should be cognizant of the comments made earlier by another hon. member arguing that at least Enterprise Cape Breton had the merit of being local in its focus. There should be some effort even under ACOA and the other regional development agencies to ensure that there is local input and some degree of control over economic strategy in their regions.
It also merges the Canadian Commercial Corporation with the Department of Supply and Services. Emergency Preparedness Canada merges with the Department of National Defence. The Copyright Board, the Trademarks Opposition Board and the Patent Appeal Board are merged. The Procurement Review Board is merged with the Canadian International Trade Tribunal. The Petroleum Monitoring Agency's functions are taken over by the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources. The Veterans Land Administration's functions go to the Department of Veterans Affairs.
There are two changes which should raise some questions. The first is the merger of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police External Review Committee with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Public Complaints Commission. The first of these two bodies deals with grievances and appeals by officers and the second deals with complaints by citizens about bad behaviour or other difficulties with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
It is obvious that there is a significant conflict of functions involved in merging these two bodies, which I do not see justified in the arguments of the government for bringing about this change. This issue was cited by my colleague from North Island-Powell River. He highlighted the importance of the Public Complaints Commission in dealing with situations which although not common are all too common for the victims of those occasional instances of inappropriate actions on the part of the members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
Nevertheless, most of these changes are either provided with some justification in terms of functions or in terms of cost. One might find that almost all of these changes, with the exceptions I have noted, could be justified to reasonable people. However, that does not apply to Part III, which was described in the budget as a merger of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council with the Canada Council.

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Nobody asked for it. There is no justification provided for it. No explanations have been presented to justify it. We heard the minister of science and technology dance all over a justification for it. He suggested that there might be some savings but provided no specifics of what the savings might be.
In fact just about everyone who has any interest in the issue at all very quickly indicated their opposition to this change. They expressed their shock that the government would initiate such a change without any consultation whatever and remain mystified to this day as to why the government would embark on this peculiar little exercise of merging a body that has to do with the support of research in academic institutions in the fields of social sciences and humanities with the Canada Council, which has to do with the support of creative and performing arts in this country.
It took a long time but culminating in 1978, after considerable evolution of the research enterprise in the social sciences and humanities in the universities, we arrived at the conclusion that the activities then included under the Canada Council should be separated to form the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. This took place at a time when the National Science and Engineering Research Council and the Medical Research Council were separated from the NRC. Everybody with an ounce of sense thought it was a reasonable change. It was a change that resulted in a development that has been successful ever since.
These folks in their reasoning, as usual shallow as a mud puddle, jumped up with an idea that they were going to save some change. It comes down very simply to a manifestation of the substantially anti-intellectual bent of this government in a time when knowledge has become more important than it ever has been in history. It must be opposed to knowledge because ignorance seems to motivate almost everything it has done in recent weeks and months.
We have opposition from the Canadian Association of University Teachers, the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada, the Association of Canadian College and University Teachers of English, the National Consortium, the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and the Conference on the Arts. Everybody is opposed to this legislation.
Given that the government cannot in this instance, as in any other instance, be stopped in its momentum for stupidity, these various bodies have said we should try and make this legislation work somehow. One of things they noticed was that right off the bat, after reassuring the academic and arts community that the two separate identities of function would not be lost, that in fact the two would be merged, what we have in the title of the bill and the fact of the bill is in effect a subsuming of social sciences and humanities research under the Canada Council. Even the name of the new council suggests that. As you will note, the new name of this body would be the Canada council on the arts and so on, which means that just about anybody referring to it will be talking about the Canada Council as other activities will be lost in a name which will obscure this separate function.
The associations have suggested at the very least that this government rewrite the bill, not so that SSHRC is merged with the Canada Council, but the two bodies be merged together in a new unit that would not have reference to the Canada Council as the adopting agency. Rather it would give equal status to both in the name of a new agency which would not be shortened to obscure its functions.
The associations also raised the issue of the structure of the governing council.
The minister of science and technology said that the functions will continue and will be at arm's length, and all of that. First of all we have to look at who is going to go on the council of this new organization. Substantially all they have to do is have some familiarity or understanding of the activities in which the council is going to be engaged in order to be on the governing council.
There is no requirement that there be any specific number who understand research in the humanities and the social sciences, nor that they have specific experience or any reputation in the arts, or have any knowledge of the international activities of external affairs in any specific way. We suggest it should be necessary if it is going to be protected from government interference, because now we have a body that is just set up for government patronage. That is the way it is going to be.
February 1, 1993


Mr. Dennis Mills (Broadview-Greenwood):: Mr. Speaker, I am happy to have an opportunity to speak on Bill C-93, legislation that was tabled in the House on February 25, 1992.
Quite frankly, the first day back after being away from the House of Commons for almost two months I find debating a bill which has to do with machinery of government so depressing. For me it does not have a heck of a lot to do with the real deep pain that is out there in the economy today.
As I was reviewing the bill I noticed in Part IV, which has to do with the Canadian Commercial Corporation, that we are moving it from the minister of industry and trade over to the Department of Supply and Services.
For those Canadians who are not aware of the Canadian Commercial Corporation, I would like to give a little bit of a backgrounder. This is a Crown corporation that assists Canadian companies in their efforts and in their ability to do medium and large international contracts. Most of them are defence related, but not exclusively. It helps small Canadian companies which do not have the ability to do some of these contracts on their own. The Canadian Commercial Corporation will come in and provide the stability and sometimes financial support, sometimes even management advice.
I am particularly interested in this agency of the government. I find it does not really matter where a piece of government machinery is located. What I mean by located is whether it is under the minister of industry or the Minister of Supply and Services, or if it is linked to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources, wherever it is. It does not really matter what its location, what really matters is the attitude of the public servants to their job functions, their attitude in terms of service to the public.
We on this side of the House are not really adverse to reviewing government operations to try and streamline them from time to time. It is a normal activity. However I do not understand moving them for the sake of moving them.
In the case of the Canadian Commercial Corporation, I am really concerned that by moving it from one minister to another we are creating a situation which I
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am not convinced is going to improve the efficiency. In fact I had a personal case where I found just the exact opposite.
I have in my riding a group of doctors who invested in a Canadian corporation based in Woodstock, Ontario. The name of the corporation is Amertek. This corporation won a military contract with the United States to produce military fire trucks. The contract was for close to 300 of them. Many of these fire trucks actually served in the Persian Gulf. They outbid the American firm Oshkosh which is an internationally recognized firm. Amertek is 100 per cent Canadian owned and 90 per cent of its product is exports, the kind of company that this government is always bragging about.
In the course of doing the contract the U.S. military came in and made close to 3,000 design changes. They went from a Chevrolet to a Cadillac in terms of military fire trucks. In fact these fire trucks are so good that there is one of them stationed at Camp David and another stationed at the White House in Washington.
This is what happened. These small entrepreneurs, because they had faith in the Canadian Commercial Corporation, did all of these extras and they have been waiting for two and a half years for the Canadian Commercial Corporation to process their extras.
Four years ago this company had close to $7 million in retained earnings. All of those retained earnings have been depleted. The investors put another $2.5 million to $3 million into the company. Now this company is having a very difficult time making it from payroll to payroll. Meanwhile there is close to $15 million worth of extras that are owed to them by the U.S. military.
My point is this. Here is an example where the will of the Public Service and the political will have really looked the other way when it comes to serving this small or medium sized enterprise. This is what bothers me about a debate like today's. It does not really matter where the Canadian Commercial Corporation is in terms of machinery of government. What we should be weaving into this debate and what we should be talking about is public service, the attitude of the public servants toward this small or medium sized company.

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I am concerned about the fact that bureaucrats sometimes make these machinery of government changes and we as politicians are sold on them as being essential for efficiency, when in fact quite often they have nothing to do with efficiency.
Mr. Speaker, you are signalling that I only have a couple of minutes left. I think the biggest danger when we make these changes is that we get involved in a system which I call the MAD treatment, maximum administrative delay.
Entrepreneurs who want to deal with government, who want support of government and then get involved in a contract cannot figure out why it takes months and months in order to get the proper response.
I appeal to the government, to all members over there and the minister responsible for the Canadian Commercial Corporation. If they really do believe that this bill is going to make the Canadian Commercial Corporation a streamlined, more productive unit, one that is supposed to serve the public, then I challenge them to pick up the file on Amertek on certification which has been sitting for almost two years.


Mr. John Brewin (Victoria):: Mr. Speaker, I was actually anticipating that one of my colleagues to my right might get up at this point in the proceedings. I hope you will forgive me if I am not as quick on my feet as you might have hoped.
I am pleased to participate in this debate and I want to deal with a very specific area in the act. As we have already heard the act deals with many different boards and tribunals in government.
The one I wish to address is Emergency Preparedness Canada which was established I believe in 1987 to deal with emergency preparedness.
On the surface the act is a very simple provision in respect of Emergency Preparedness Canada. It simply winds it up and turns over its functions directly to the Department of National Defence. At this point Emergency Preparedness Canada comes under the general responsibility of the Minister of National Defence. Therefore, the ultimate responsibility has not changed and does not change as a result of this act.
The act does end an experiment, if we can call it that, a decision made by this Parliament after very significant
thought in the early 1980s. There was considerable review of emergency preparedness in this country and the legislation pertaining to it. As a result of that consideration Parliament passed the Emergency Preparedness Act and established Emergency Preparedness Canada.
That decision is effectively being wiped out by this legislation. As far as I can tell it has done so without any public discussion or debate, without any reasons being advanced by the government for this change other than a cosmetic one to help the government politically respond to what it sees as a challenge from the Reform Party. I think the government owes it to the people of Canada and to this Parliament to explain its decision in this area far more carefully than it has.
I say that as the member for Victoria from Vancouver Island, where we have a very special concern and interest in emergency preparedness and particularly the risks and dangers to our area from earthquakes.
I wish to use this opportunity to refer the House and the people of Canada to the most recent report of the Auditor General. The report suggests that this government and therefore the Minister of National Defence who is responsible have been nothing short of grossly negligent in their responsibilities for emergency preparedness.
It is only by good luck that we have not yet had a major earthquake disaster on the west coast of Canada. The situation is that this government has left the people of that area bereft of emergency services that could effectively deal with such a catastrophe.
Emergency preparedness is the responsibility of all three levels of government and the municipal governments in our area have struggled to develop a response within their areas of jurisdiction. The Government of British Columbia is seeking to deal with it as well. However, as the Auditor General reveals the federal government has just delayed and delayed and delayed in getting to the heart of emergency preparedness to deal with the potential catastrophe of an earthquake on the west coast. We have seen five years pass as the Auditor General states it in which the government at a snail's pace has moved toward a national earthquake support plan.
February 1, 1993

On page 567 of the Auditor General's report he notes: "We found that general long-standing problems in federal emergency planning were not being addressed within a reasonable timeframe". Five years after the Auditor General raised the issue in 1987, part two of a national earthquake support plan is still being worked on.
The Auditor General concludes: "In our opinion the delays are the result of several factors including interdepartmental jurisdictional disputes, allocation of resources to other priorities, the complexity of co-ordinating plans with the provinces and a lack of sense of urgency perhaps due to the absence of a recent major disaster in Canada".
It is to the shame of this government and to the ministers responsible, in this case the successive Ministers of National Defence, that we are still not ready to face the consequence of a major earthquake disaster on the west coast.
I call on the government to take the necessary leadership, not to wait until we have a disaster, but in fact to act now. Give those responsible the necessary resources to move so that a potential disaster can be met.
The Auditor General's report again notes that the Geological Survey of Canada, which is part of the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources, has indicated that it feels a compelling requirement to determine if there is evidence to indicate that earthquake catastrophes could take place in the immediate future on Vancouver Island. There are ways to test the chances of an earthquake happening in this area in the immediate future. However, the Auditor General says: "The GSC states it has limited funds for these and related projects".
Now this government can find funds for cold war military hardware and equipment. It can find funds for helicopters designed to deal with the cold war which is over and to hunt submarines which are no longer a threat to our security. But it cannot find the funds according to the Auditor General to deal with a real threat to the lives of hundreds of thousands of people on the west coast of Canada.
I ask the government as it puts through this so-called housekeeping legislation to take its responsibilities seriously and to hear what is being said by the Auditor
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General and by the people of our area before it is too late. The warning has been sounded. I ask the government to respond.


David Berger: Mr. Speaker, I wish to address the aspects of this bill which relate to the merger of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and the Canada Council.
The bill would wind up SSHRC as it is known, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, and transfer its programs to the Canada Council. This change was announced in the February 1992 budget without any prior consultation or public study of the matter. It came as a complete surprise and shock to the communities concerned. It is important to note that both the artistic and research communities are opposed to this proposal.
To briefly review the history, in 1978 after much consultation and study the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council was established. The activities relating to research in the social sciences and humanities which were previously conducted under the auspices of the Canada Council were transferred to an independent agency. At the time, this move recognized the growing importance of social sciences and humanities research to Canada's over-all science and economic effort and gave social sciences and humanities research the needed autonomy and profile.
It is important to mention some of the disciplines covered by the social sciences. They include: economics, political science, psychology, sociology, history, law, management, education, journalism, demography, science policy and the study of languages.
We spend a great deal of time reflecting on what we have to do as a country to improve our economic circumstances and to compete in fiercely competitive world markets. One of the factors for which the Japanese have known such important economic success is the quality circle. This was not invented by an engineer or by a scientist, but by a social scientist, a professor of management. It is an indication that innovations which take place in our economy do not come solely from the fields of the natural sciences and engineering.
The government has said that the interests of the artistic and research communities will be protected. The government has not convinced the communities concerned by this bill. Despite assurances, they remain opposed.

February 1, 1993
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I have received perhaps 100 letters from different groups from across Canada including: the University of Ottawa, the school of graduate research; the University of Montreal, the law faculty, the geography department, the education department; Laval, the department of political science; the University of Winnipeg, the vicepresident of academics; Acadia University, the department of political science; the University of Western Ontario, the department of anthropology.
Thousands of researchers across the country are opposed to this legislation. They remain opposed to it despite the assurances the government has provided. I would like to read into the record excerpts from the letters I have received.

The Department of Education of the University of Montreal: "For researchers in education, complex problems such as illiteracy, dropping out of school and multi-ethnic schools require increased funding beyond present levels. We are concerned that the administrative restructuring which has taken place may cause the funding community to lose interest in subsidizing academic research in the human sciences and thus reduce the support required to ensure continuity". This letter is from the vice-principal of graduate studies and research at the University of Montreal.
From Laval University, at the department of school administration and policy, the department's director, Mr. Jean Moisset, wrote to Mr. Ricard, chairman of the Standing Committee of the House of Commons on Industry, Science and Technology, last March. He said: "I was astonished and extremely disturbed to hear about the planned amalgamation of the Humanities Research Council with the Canada Council".
He went on to say: "It is surprising, to say the least, that one should have chosen this crucial time in our history, marked by so many serious educational, socioeconomic and political problems, to attempt to remove from the social sciences sector one of the most reliable expressions of its specific identity and one of its driving forces: its Research Council".
As I said before, I could quote from hundreds of similar letters.

While the two communities remain opposed, as I have indicated, the research community represented by the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada and the artistic community represented by the Canadian Conference of the Arts have developed a compromise position.
Again, their first wish is that this bill would be withdrawn. In their letter of December 7 to the Minister of Communications, signed by representatives of both of these organizations, they state: "We would prefer that the government not proceed with Part III of Bill C-92 at this time".
However, if the government is determined to do so, they ask for a number of amendments. First, they would repeal the Canada Council Act and create a new agency to be known as the Canada Council for the Arts and for Research in the Social Sciences and Humanities. The second amendment which I would like to quote is that a person would not be eligible to be appointed as a member of the new council if the person does not have the knowledge or experience that will assist the council in fulfilling one of its functions.
These are just two of a number of amendments that have been forwarded to the Minister of Communications.
To this date there has been no formal response from the government, but I would certainly hope that in committee the government would study this proposal seriously and indeed accept it, if the government is not prepared to come to its senses and just do away with this ill-advised merger.
I would like to conclude in noting that we are often told that budgetary factors are at the source of a change of this nature. Again, the government has really provided no evidence that there are going to be any substantial savings as a result of this merger. On the contrary, it seems that the damage that will be created by the harm to two agencies which have well represented their respective communities could exceed any benefits that have been suggested by the government.


Leonard Donald Hopkins: Mr. Speaker, Bill C-93 has been placed before us today under the pretext of saving money and consolidating efforts. It is the old cliche: the bigger you make things the better they are. The fact is that the bigger you make them the more you lose control of what is going on.
February 1, 1993

Bill C-93 provides for the termination of certain government bodies or the merging of certain government organizations into other government bodies. By the time this Parliament is over, this government will have the management areas of the Public Service of Canada so mixed up no one will know where they are going.
I want to take a case in point. On the Emergency Preparedness Canada organization set up by the hon. member from the Wellington area when he was Minister of National Defence, he brought the bill to set up Emergency Preparedness Canada into this House with all the fanfare of the greatest thing we have seen since sliced bread.
It was a good idea. It has been a good organization in the sense that the people in Emergency Preparedness Canada are dedicated to that organization. What do they do? They train people from all across the country on safety and how to handle emergency situations of all kinds. They have operated as effectively and thoroughly as they could with very little money put in to back them up on the most important objective that any national government could put into effect, that of trying to create co-ordinated emergency measures organizations across this country.
When presenting the budget of February 25, the Minister of Finance announced on that date that Emergency Preparedness Canada would be taken out of its own single operation and would become part of the Department of National Defence. Again, Mr. Speaker, you had this great birth of Emergency Preparedness Canada with some outstanding people working in it. Their single objective was to run classes for municipalities all over this country. They brought in business corporations and taught them how to handle emergencies. They brought in provincial departments, federal departments and all kinds of agencies and ran Emergency Preparedness Canada and how to handle emergencies of all kinds.
Examples of some of the things that they were doing were Canada's emergency response system: who is responsible, taking some of the bedlam out of the organization when emergencies occur, family emergency preparedness, municipal emergency preparedness, the
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federal role in emergency preparedness, disaster financial assistance arrangements, emergency response and business resumption planning, emergency food and water pack, essentials of life, blueprint for major catastrophes, what the Government of Canada has done to be prepared for a catastrophic earthquake, earthquake preparedness, people with disabilities, earthquake check list, forest fires, floods. We have it all. They have been doing a fantastic job.
The Auditor General of Canada was absolutely correct in his report when he said that here we have a Government of Canada that set up this agency to do a job and then walked away from it and left it with very little to do that job. Now it is turning around and putting it into the Department of National Defence. The Department of National Defence is certainly a very favourite department of mine in government. The Department of National Defence has all kinds of duties of its own to perform and it wants to perform them well: peacekeeping, their own training programs.
It is called into emergencies of all kinds and it can play a very effective role in backing up Emergency Preparedness Canada, but what is the guarantee that Emergency Preparedness Canada is going to be given any higher profile within the Department of National Defence than it now has when it is standing on its own?
There is no question whatsoever but that Emergency Preparedness Canada should be left alone, left where it is now, because it has the authority and the ability to co-ordinate with all government departments, the ability to co-ordinate with the provinces and with municipalities and whatever. It should be left alone. In the interests of the safety of the Canadian people all over this country, it should be given the resources and the facilities to do its job well so that every municipality, every province, all departments of government-federally and provincial-ly-and the territories will know where they are going when an emergency occurs because there will be a co-ordinated plan and because you will have people in that organization who have been trained in that region of Canada by Emergency Preparedness Canada to do the job when those emergencies occur.

February 1, 1993
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The previous Minister of National Defence, and I say this with some regret, spent more time looking around the country for another location for the training centre of Emergency Preparedness Canada, which is presently located in Arnprior, Ontario, than he spent on trying to support the organization itself.
There is no question but that we should vote against this bill because Emergency Preparedness Canada is one of the greatest things that has happened here. The Minister of National Defence at the time, the hon. member for Wellington and about three other counties, I cannot name them offhand right now, came in here with great enthusiasm and he got co-operation from the opposition at the time to set up Emergency Preparedness Canada. We have some very, very fine public servants in that organization who are capable and have indeed proven that they are capable of working with municipalities, corporations, business organizations, provincial departments, federal departments and organizations in the training process.
What would happen today if there were a serious earthquake in Canada? Everybody would be wringing their hands and saying isn't this terrible and so on, and it would be. What would be even more terrible would be that the Government of Canada would not be able to play a major role because it is not financing the very agency which it set up to handle such training for those people, namely Emergency Preparedness Canada.
If you are going to set something up and brag about it, for heaven's sake give it a chance to do the job. That is another terminology that was thrown out at the time: We are going to set up this agency to train the people across the country in emergencies; everybody is going to know how to handle emergencies, and we are going to give them the tools to do the job.
How often have we heard the Prime Minister use this very expression: "We are going to give the people the tools to do the job"? I have been very close to the Auditor General. I piloted this bill through the House setting up Emergency Preparedness Canada for the opposition, and we co-operated very closely in setting it
up because it was something good for the country. But it is only good if it is allowed to work.
I think it is a disgrace today for the government to be taking Emergency Preparedness Canada out of its own element where it can zero in and do things entirely on its own and put it in a larger government department where we do not know what kind of priority is going to be given to it. As an agency it still has the right to call upon all departments and the total forces of the Department of National Defence to help it out in times of emergeny.
I am going to close on that. I wanted to say a word about the Canadian Commercial Corporation and its tremendous job but I do not have the time.


Mr. Stan Keyes (Hamilton West):: Mr. Speaker, I would also like to contribute to this debate. Given that time is short, my intervention will be likewise.
My community also has some concerns about this particular Bill C-93. The community in my riding has been informed that the existing programs under SSHRC, the budget and administrative personnel will remain intact under the new council, although the organization's function and funding of the new ageny are undefined in this legislation. Therefore, our community in Hamilton-in particular McMaster University-says that the preservation of the research budget, a fair and balanced representation on the council and the provision of strong, progressive leadership with a commitment to a consultative process are key issues. The operative word is consultative.
If it is the government's objective to more effectively serve the Canadian people, as members opposite have so often repeated throughout this day, then I want to put on the record the concerns of the vice-president of research at McMaster University, Mr. Ron F. Childs. He writes:
"(1) We would urge that the budget for the research and scholarship activities of the humanities and social sciences community not only be protected, but more importantly, that it continues to grow relative to the funding for the Medical Research Council and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council.
February 1, 1993

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(2)	We would urge that humanities and social scientists be adequately represented on the council with the appointment of internationally recognized active researchers.
(3)	We would urge that great care be taken in appointing a president of the new council. The president of the council must provide leadership that unites and builds on the common interests of the arts and research communities. The result of the government's decision on the dissolution of SSHRC and the creation of a new agency has created an unsettling environment upon which the future of the arts and research communities must be built".
In conclusion, Mr. Childs writes in his letter that the decisions reached on this issue will determine the direction, health and stature of the research community in the university sector.
I cannot stand here in the House and speak highly enough about the great achievements at McMaster University in Hamilton.
Mr. Speaker, with your permission I would like to split my 10-minute time with my colleague from Ottawa Centre who would also like to make a brief intervention before this period is over.


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


Some hon. members:: Agreed


Mac Harb: Mr. Speaker, along the same lines as my colleague from Hamilton West, I also have received a number of representations from the University of Ottawa as well as Carleton University and from a third university in my riding, Saint Paul University. Professors from those universities have indicated their concerns about the manner in which the government has proceeded with this part of the act.
In fact, this is not the first time we have seen something like this. Both councils were joined together in 1978. Through proper consultation in 1978, the two were separated. The councils for the arts and for social sciences and humanities each served different purposes even though they are both in the field of education.
I have been told that no proper consultation has taken place and that is a concern. One would wonder why the government would not have spent a little time in order to deal with the concerns of both councils. As it is, the research in SSHRC over the past three years has been subjected to a lot of pressure by the government when it came to their budget allocation.
By itself, that is a big load to carry on its own. Now that both councils are combined, they are going to see even more pressures on them when it comes to budget allocations and when it comes to the representation on this new council.
For the benefit of everybody, including those who are in the industry in the educational field, maybe the government should defer that part of the act until such a time as proper consultations have taken place. The membership is in excess of 14,000 across Canada. The representative of that membership is telling us that the government has not properly consulted them and taken their concerns into consideration. It has not really reflected on their wishes. One would say that the government has done something wrong. It should defer its decisions on this matter.
I wanted to say this positively. I do not want to sound as being on the negative side of things. The government will do the right thing by deferring this part of the act because the Liberal Party has gone on the record as opposing the marriage between those two councils. It is not because we do not like streamlining, but basically we believe that those two councils serve different purposes even though both of them are in the field of education.
To that extent I would like to call upon the government for the deferral of this part of the act.


Mr. Chris Axworthy (Saskatoon-Clark's Crossing):: Mr. Speaker, we have before us another example of the government making a policy decision which has the potential to have a major impact on Canada's ability to compete in the world and to function effectively as a society without any consultation at all with the appropriate groups.
This is a wide-ranging piece of legislation making large numbers of changes in structure. It brings together organizations whose interests are not necessarily the same. It puts them into larger groups rather than diffusing power and decision making in our society and making sure that decisions are made close to where they are going to be implemented and where those people who are making those decisions have the best, most up-to-date knowledge of the situations which are being addressed. Rather than bringing decision making to the communities, the government is centralizing decision making and indeed creating entities which do not very well fit together.

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I would like to refer to two of these in the context of my remarks to point out how inappropriate this approach is in dealing with organizations for which the government is responsible. I will comment on the suggestion in this legislation that the Canada Council and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council deal together as one. I will also comment on the proposal which would link the Cape Breton Development Corporation with ACOA.
Neither of these are wise moves. Neither of them will give rise to any benefits to the communities they serve. If the government's only response is that it wants to save money in this consolidation process, that may be possible, but we will not have more effective decision making and more effective organizations in Canada.
A critical point which has been raised is that there has been no consultation at all with the affected groups prior to the implementation of this legislation. There was no consultation prior to the finance minister's statement. In particular, with regard to Canada Council and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, this will be reversing a decision which took place 14 years ago to separate these two organizations precisely because one organization representing some 200,000 artists in Canada and the other organization representing social sciences and humanities research in almost 100 universities and colleges did not fit and work together.
The decision to split them up was carried out after much consultation and was well received by the communities themselves. Both of those communities are opposed to the amalgamation of these two quite different organizations. One deals with funding support for the arts and the other deals with funding support for social sciences and humanities. Neither of these will be well served by the amalgamation of them.
One thing we should always worry about with this government is whether or not this amalgamation is the beginning of restrictions on funding available to the organization. If this merger were to go through we would have artists, social scientists and those in the humanities making decisions over where funding dollars might go, where research dollars might go and where support dollars might go.
As was recognized some 14 years ago, there is no clear link between the arts on the one hand and social sciences and humanities on the other such that would make an organization like this work effectively. There was no consultation. It does not make sense. It is not going to give rise to appropriate concentration on the issues which are faced by both the arts and the social sciences and humanities.
As the constituencies have indicated, the most effective situation and the best solution here would be to scrap the suggestion for a merger between the Canada Council and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and leave them as they are.
The other merger I would like to deal with is that which will affect most deeply Cape Breton. There has not been a great deal of success in the organizations which have had the objective of generating jobs in Cape Breton. The Nova Scotia economy in general and the Cape Breton economy in particular have never really recovered from the 1981 recession. That happens also to be the case for most of the regions of Canada and certainly it applies to my province also. For example jobs in the goods producing industries in 1982 were about
87,000	in Nova Scotia. They rose to 101,000 in 1988 prior to the implementation of the free trade agreement and the ever stronger enforcement of this government's economic strategies when they fell to 86,000 in 1991; a loss of 15,000 jobs in goods producing industries in Nova Scotia.
In particular, personal income in Cape Breton was about 84 per cent of the Nova Scotia average and 68 per cent of the Canadian average. Averages have been falling in Cape Breton and Nova Scotia for much of the last decade.
Therefore the approach that this government has taken with regard to the economy in Cape Breton has not worked, neither has it worked with regard to the wider application of ACOA.
However nothing good can be served by joining these organizations together, by making them bigger and by moving the decision-making away from Cape Breton and putting it into the context of the whole of Atlantic Canada.
February 1, 1993

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Once again there was no consultation. Once again this is not something that will benefit Cape Breton, the economy of Atlantic Canada or the economy and society of Canada. Those are just two examples in which there was no consultation and in which bigger bodies are being created when we should be really thinking about spreading the decision-making around.
As is so much of the case with this government's decision-making, this is wrong-headed. It will not help. It will make matters worse. The only effective thing to do with this legislation is to vote against it.


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


Some hon. members:: Question.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: The question is on the amendment. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the amendment?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.


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


Some hon. members:: Yea.


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


Some hon. members:: Nay.


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


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Call in the members.


PAIRED MEMBERS
[Stage Direction]
nil
Mr. Speaker:: I declare the amendment lost.
Pursuant to Standing Order 45(6), the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred division on the motion of the hon. Leader of the Opposition and the previous question on Government Business No. 15.


THE CONSTITUTION
[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Friday, December 11, 1992, consideration of the motion of Mr. Valcourt (p. 15084); and the motion of Mr. Chretien (p. 15087).
Mr. Speaker:: The question is on the motion of Mr. Chretien.
The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to
on the following division:
(Division No. 401)
++YEAS
Members Anawak Andre Arseneault Atkinson
Axworthy (Saskatoon-Clark's Crossing) Beatty Bellemare Bernier Bevilacqua Bjomson Blaikie Blenkam
Bouchard (Lac-Saint-Jean)
Boudria	Boyer
Brewin	Brightwell
Browes	But land
Cadieux	Campbell (Vancouver Centre)
Cardiff	Casey
Catterall	Chadwick
Champagne (Champlain)	Charest
Chr&ien	Clancy
Clark (Yellowhead)	Clark (Brandon-Souris)
Clifford	Cole
Collins	Cooper
Copps	Corbeil
Corbett	C6te
Couture	Crosbie (St. John's West)
Danis	Darling
DeBlois	de Cotret
Della Noce	Desjardins
Dick	Dingwall
Dionne	Dobbie
Do mm	Duceppe
Duhamel	Duplessis
Edmonston	Edwards
Fee	Felt ham
Ferguson	Ferland
Finestone	Fisher
Flis	Fontaine
Fontana	Foster
Fretz	Friesen
Punk	Gaffney
Gagliano	Gardiner
Germ	Gray (Bonaventure-fles-de-la-Madeleine)
Gray (Windsor West)	Greene
Guilbault	Gustafson
Halliday	Harb
Harvard	Harvey (Chicoutimi)
Harvey (Edmonton East)	Hawkes
Hicks	Hockin
Hogue	Horner
Homing	Hovdebo
Hudon	Hunter
James	Jelinek
Johnson	Joncas
Jordan	Jourdenais
Kempling	Keyes
Kilger (Stormont-Du ndas)	Koury
Landry	Langlois
Larrivee	LeBlanc (Cape Breton Highlands-Canso)
Leblanc (Longueuil)	Lee
Lewis	Littlechild
Loiselle	MacAulay
MacDonald (Rosedale)	MacDonald (Dartmouth)
MacDougall (Timiskaming)	MacKay
MacLellan	Malone
Manley	Marchi
Marin	Marleau
Martin (Lincoln)	Masse
Mayer	Mazankowski
McCreath	McCurdy
McDermid	McGuire
McKnight	McLaughlin
Mifflin	Milliken
Mitchell	Mitges
Monteith	Mulroney
Murphy	Nault
Nicholson	Nunziata
Nystrom	Oberle
O'Kurley	Ouellet
Parent	Parker
Peterson	Phinney
Pickard	Plamondon
Porter	Pronovost
Proud	Prud'homme
Redway	Reimer
Ricard	Richardson
Rideout	Riis
Robinson	Robitaille
Althouse
Anderson
Angus
Assad
Attewell
Axworthy (Winnipeg South Centre)
Belair
Belsher
Bertrand
Bird
Blackburn (Jonquiere)
Blais
Bosley
February 1, 1993

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Rocheleau
Saint-Julien
Scott (Hamilton-Wentworth) Siddon
Skelly (Comox- Albemi)
Soetens
Speller
Stewart
Thacker
Thorkelson
Tremblay (Rosemont)
Tremblay (Lotbiniere)
Van De Walle
Venne
Vincent
Weiner
Whittaker
Wilson (Swift Current-Maple Cri Wilson (Etobicoke Centre)
Worthy
Young (Beaches-Woodbine)-218
Rodriguez
Scott (Victoria-Haliburton) Shields
Skelly (North Island - Powell River) Sobeski Sparrow Stevenson Tar d if Thompson Tobin
Tremblay (Quebec-Est)
Timer (Halton-Peel) Vankoughnet Vien Walker White Wilbee -Assiniboia)
Winegard
Young (Acadie-Bathurst)
++NAYS
Grey (Beaver River)
Members
Now lan-2


PAIRED MEMBERS
[Stage Direction]
nil
Mr. Speaker:: I declare the motion carried.

Consequently, in accordance with Standing Order 61(2), the next division is on the main motion.
Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the said motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.


Mr. Speaker:: All those in favor will please say yea.


Some hon. members:: Yea.


Mr. Speaker:: All those opposed will please say nay.


Some hon. members:: Nay.


Mr. Speaker:: In my opinion, the yeas have it.
And fewer than five members having risen:


Mr. Speaker:: I declare the motion carried.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
Mr. Speaker:: It being 6.52 p.m., this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 10 a.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 6.52 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Tuesday, February 2,1993