1992-03-31

Hon. Kim Campbell (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to subsection 116(2) of the Criminal Code, as enacted by subsection 28(4) of an act to amend the Criminal Code and the Customs Tariff in consequence thereof, and pursuant to Standing Order 32(2) I would like to table, in both official languages, the following draft regulations: cartridge magazine control regulations, firearms acquisition certificate regulations, prohibited weapons control regulations, restricted weapons and firearms control regulations, storage, display, camping and transportation of certain firearms regulations, and genuine gun collector regulations.


PETITIONS
Mr. Mifflin:: Well done.


Mr. Peter Milliken (Kingston and the Islands):: Mr. Speaker, I thank my gallant and learned colleague from Bonavista-Trinity-Conception for his very kind words, and my other colleagues of course, but I could hear the words of the hon. member for Bonavista-Trinity-Conception.
I want to present a petition signed by numerous residents of Kingston in my riding of Kingston and the Islands who are concerned about crimes of violence
against the person as being intolerable and constitute an abhorrent crime. They request that Parliament in recognition of that fact amend the Criminal Code of Canada, the Bail Reform Act and the Parole Act.


Mr. Rex Crawford (Kent):: Mr. Speaker, it is my honour to rise once again, pursuant to Standing Order 36, to present a petition on behalf of the Moravian Indian Reserve which is in my riding of Kent.
The petition states:
The petition of the undersigned residents of Canada who now avail themselves of their ancient and undoubted right thus to present a grievance common to your petitioners in the certain assurance that your honourable House will therefore provide a remedy.
Humbly sheweth;
Whereas the majority of Canadians support equal treatment of criminal offenders but with legislated age shelters from criminal law for the very young adolescents and;
Whereas chapter 15 of the charter of rights guarantees equality rights,
Wherefore the undersigned, your petitioners humbly pray and call upon Parliament to:
Revise the laws of Canada to replace the Young Offenders Act with an updated Juvenile Delinquents Act with a lowered maximum of age 13 years.


Mr. Nelson A. Riis (Kamloops):: Mr. Speaker, it is an honour and privilege to present a petition on behalf of hundreds of employees of Canada's railway systems who are concerned that railway employees who were suspended for accidental violation of the Canadian rail operating rules are presently being unjustly penalized under sections 28 and 30 of the Unemployment Insurance Act.
They are calling upon Parliament to take immediate steps to specify that accidental violation of the Canadian rail operating rules does not constitute employee misconduct under sections 28 and 30 of the Unemployment Insurance Act.
May I simply add that this is about the 10th petition on this particular issue that I have presented.

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Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I have another petition on an unrelated but nonetheless very important matter from the residents of Little Fort, British Columbia. They are concerned about the proposal to divert the North Thompson River into the San Diego, California area and point out that it appears to be part of the NAWPA plan. They are asking the Canadian government to simply state categorically that our rivers are not for sale.


Mr. Derek Blackburn (Brant):: Mr. Speaker, I have the privilege to stand under the provisions of Order 36 and present a petition signed by several residents of the interior of British Columbia who are also very, very concerned about the possible sale of Canadian water, that is the diversion of Canadian rivers to the United States for commercial purposes.
The petitioners urge the government to state categorically that it will not permit our freshwater rivers to be dammed and diverted into the U.S.A. and to state that our Canadian rivers are not for sale.


Mr. Ray Skelly (North Island-Powell River):: Mr. Speaker, I too have the honour to present a petition in this House from concerned residents of the area I represent.
Their concern expressed by way of petition is over recent proposals that the President of the United States, Mr. George Bush, is considering once again bombing Iraq, allegedly to bring it into compliance with the United Nation's policy.
In fact, the threats by Mr. Bush are simply to improve his poor performance in the polls in the United States presidential campaign.


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
Mr. Albert Cooper (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons):: Mr. Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is that agreed?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


Ms. Mary Clancy (Halifax) moved:: That this House condemns the government for its failure to protect
and promote the fundamental rights of Canadian women, especially
as reflected in the 1992 budget.
She said: Mr. Speaker, I am happy to be moving this motion, seconded by my revered and hon. colleague from Kingston and the Islands, but I am disappointed yet again that there is a need. There is a great need to talk about government policy vis-a-vis the women of Canada because policy, as presented by the most recent budget, has proven to be a major and unmitigated disappointment to the women of this country.
Piece by piece, the government is ensuring that the obstacles that Canadian women have fought long and hard to remove are once again being placed in their paths. This year, it is true, we did not suffer the same frontal assault we have in the past when institutions faced severe cuts in funding. However, the cuts that were announced this year are just as important in terms of their long-range consequences.
In the budget document, the government gave its answer to a battle that it is losing with female civil servants. There will be no retroactive payments for pay equity prior to November 1990. No matter what the courts decide, no matter what the courts say with regard to this issue, there will be no retroactive payments prior to 1990.
On the same page of the budget, we find the same sort of response to a court challenge it may also lose. "Should substantial amounts of money be involved to broaden the current program, the government will seriously reconsider the basis of the program itself." This alone, without any other added statements, is enough to create a huge sense of despair among Canadian women. The government claims to be committed to equality but only gives lip service and not action because by every one of its actions, it removes the building blocks that women may take to some form of true gender equity in this countiy.
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The day after the budget we heard the Minister of National Health and Welfare announce that he had the privilege of killing the national child care program, a telling description, if ever I heard one.
Another major blow to the rights of women, a blow to the heart of the battle for agenda equality in this country was the cancellation of the Court Challenges Program. That is a disgrace, something that Canadians as a group should hang their heads over, but this government, most particularly, should hang its head.
The Court Challenges Program was one of the most innovative and progressive programs sponsored by this government. In other words, in a desert it was one of the few plants that was bearing fruit to benefit the people of Canada. It was a low cost program, $8.5 million over five years. That is not a lot of money.
I say to the hon. chairman of the justice committee it is not a lot of money when you are talking about equality rights. The hon. member thinks it is a lot of money. I wonder if he would think it was a lot of money if he were one of the disadvantaged that could take advantage of this program to right their wrongs, but the hon. member, being a white, I presume, Anglo-Saxon, and I presume again on his religion, Protestant or Catholic, in this country does not have to deal with the discrimination that women and visible minorities and the physically challenged and other disadvantaged groups in this country have to deal with. Yes, he turns his head. I am not surprised.
It was a low-cost program. Its cancellation will mean little for deficit reduction but the implicit message underlined by my hon. colleague over there is that this government is not prepared to help those least able to help themselves in the struggle for equality. What does this say about us as a country? What does it say about our heritage and our history in the realm of human rights? It says that the government laboured and brought forth a mouse.
Without the funding that this program provided, equality for women is a hollow concept in most instances. The charter is a mechanism for striking down discriminatory laws, but it is not one that grants access unless you have the money to pay for it. It does not guarantee access to the courts so that individuals or groups of women may challenge laws that are indeed discriminatory.
Going on in this same vein, women make up 52 per cent of the population. How many times have I said this in this House? How many times have others of us said this in the House ad nauseam? We are the majority in this country, but we are the majority who do not have either a voice or indeed the ear of the most powerful at this point.
Without the money from the Court Challenges Program, the vast majority of Canadian women are struck speechless in the fight for equality. That is what it means; women have been muffled and silenced in their fight for equality.
Must we, therefore, as the Minister for Multicultural-ism and Citizenship said, rely on the provinces to defend and promote our constitutional rights? He must have overlooked the fact that in the financial arena, again many of the provinces, my province for one, are particularly hard pressed and unable to grant to their citizens the kind of funding that has long been within the responsibility of the federal government to grant. What the federal government is doing here is abrogating its responsibility and denying that it has historically and constitutionally been the repository as the guardian of rights.
This is a national tragedy.
The Court Challenges Program was important to the advancement and the outcome of a number of significant equality cases. The Andrews case is one I could cite. The Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the main purpose of the equality rights section of the charter was to benefit those who have been historically disadvantaged. Surely, surely, there is no one in this House-well, almost no one-to whom I have to explain the historical disadvantages suffered by women. We could probably start back in the garden of Eden when Eve took the rap for Adam's original sin.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Mary Catherine Clancy: Yes, indeed; yes, indeed. I am prepared to argue the theology and I am quite certain that my colleague from the New Democratic Party and my colleague, the Minister responsible for the Status of Women, would agree with me. If the rest of you theological-well, I was going to say theological illiterates, but I am sure my colleagues would agree that that

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term is a little too harsh. As I check the House I do not see that any persons of the cloth are here.


An hon. member:: Except yourself.


Mary Catherine Clancy: Well, no, no, I cannot make that claim. I include in those who would agree with me on this matter the hon. member for Don Valley North, chair of the subcommittee on the Status of Women. I know she would agree with me on this, too.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: She may not have read it recently.


Mary Catherine Clancy: Well, perhaps not, but most of us remember the story. It was the first time that we got blamed for a multitude of sins.
Further to that, to get back to the seriousness of this issue, we have the Butler case where the Supreme Court of Canada upheld the obscenity provisions in the Criminal Code, arguing that while they were a contravention of the freedom of expression provisions, they nonetheless constituted a reasonable limit under section 1, a reasonable limit prescribed by law that can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society. That may sound like a legalism but there is a tremendous sense of freedom in that phrase.
It was recognized that the violent and degrading acts in pornographic material are harmful to the equality and dignity of women. Does anybody in this House disagree with that? No, I do not think so. I am sure not. I do not think there is anyone in this House who would stand up and be a proponent for the kind of garbage in pornographic productions that we have unfortunately seen in this country, and I do not think there is anybody in this House who does not realize that this kind of garbage is harmful to women, both in a general sense vis-a-vis the way men will deal with women in general and in the particular sense of making a direct attack on the dignity and the equality of women.
If there had been no Court Challenges Program there would have been no Butler case. What would the answer be? We would be faced with the continuing inequality.
Then we have the Albrecht case. The courts ruled that upon separation or divorce, a woman is entitled to share her spouse's Canada Pension Plan benefits. How many of us have dealt with that as from time to time governments of both stripes made mistakes when they amended the legislation.
The Liberal government amended it first and then, the second time it amended it, it knocked out the provision. The Conservative government amended it, and the second time it amended it, it knocked out the provision.
Finally, the Supreme Court of Canada, through a Court Challenges case, made the definitive statement and those women are protected. Again, without the Court Challenges case, we would have been on a continual legislative merry-go-round.
Fourth case, the Canadian newspapers case. The Supreme Court upheld the right of Canadian women and children who have been raped to have their names withheld from the media. Again, it is a fundamental question of individual privacy. It is a fundamental question of choice.
I could go on and on, but it is enough in this particular area to say that the Court Challenges Program was crucial, fundamental to the advancement of women's rights. Many cases have yet to work their way through the courts. Many discriminatory laws have yet to be struck down.
Ten years after the inception of the charter, in the words of the Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women, the news is not good. Women are initiating few cases and men are using the charter to strike back at the hard won protections for women and the hard won benefits.
The Advisory Council continues by stating that much has yet to be done: "The barriers to women's access to the courts must be removed", and interpretations of equality which are meaningful to women must be advanced more often in the courts.
I do not know how you could say it more plainly. I do not know how it could be more evident that what has taken place here is a travesty and an attack on the rights of the majority of the population in this country.
Basically, it is a shame. We use that word in this House. Sometimes we use it lightly, but in this case, we do not use it lightly. It is with heavy hearts that those of us on this side of the House look to the government and say: Shame.
Unfortunately, the Court Challenges Program is not the only program cut which will adversely affect women. The national child care program has also been sacrificed on the altar of deficit reduction.

March 31, 1992

We all know that certain issues wax and wane in popularity in this country. We all know that it is our duty as politicians, as representatives of the people, as members of this historic House not to let ourselves be swayed merely by public fads and short-term aspirations. Child care and a national child care program is not a public fad. It is not a short-term aspiration. It is absolutely integral to employment equity for women and, in the long run, to over-all gender equality.
When Madam Justice Abella, as she is now, completed her landmark report on employment equity, one phrase became a clarion call for Canadian women and for those men, many of whom are here today, who support this philosophy that child care is the bridge to employment equity, absolutely and totally.
We all know that domestic responsibilities fall unfairly in proportion upon women. Certainly, every woman who sits in this House who is a mother knows that. It is the way of the world. What we are attempting to do is change the world to make the laws and the institutions somehow reflect the reality of all our lives.
It is incumbent upon us, it is a duty-I hesitate to use the words sacred trust but I will try them-to remember that our first responsibility in this Chamber is to the weaker, those who cannot protect themselves and those who are the disadvantaged in this society. Our responsibility is not as much to those who can protect themselves. Governments are here to protect those who are the weakest members.
It is clear in our modern society that the weakest members, those who have the least ability to protect themselves, are the economically disadvantaged and children. Who forms the largest segment of economically disadvantaged in this country? There is no prize for knowing the answer to this question. The answer is women.
If women cannot work outside the home, frequently the only survival for them is on the social assistance rolls. If there is not affordable, accessible, quality child care then they cannot work outside the home. It is as simple as that, particularly when their children are pre-schoolers.
There has been some sort of a groundswell response in this House, particularly on the government side, that child care is no longer important. Did I miss something?
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Did people stop having babies? Are there fewer children in Canada than there used to be?
No, Mr. Speaker, I did not miss anything. As a matter of fact what I have not mentioned is the fact that a million Canadian children go to food banks. Why do they go to food banks? Because their parents cannot afford to give them the proper nutritional daily meals. Why can they not afford this? Because most of those one million children who go to food banks are in single-parent families headed by women and they are in single-parent families headed by women where child care is unavailable, where child care is inadequate or where child care is not existent and where mothers are unable to get the training they need, the jobs they need, the level of income they need to deliver for themselves and their children a decent way of life.
I am not suggesting that a national child care program is a total panacea and the answer to all our ills, but it would be one major giant step in the social development of this country. It would be one major liberating step for women who need to feel at least a modicum of security about where their children are so they can devote their considerable talents and energy during the working period to their jobs so that they can feed, clothe, and house their families. Does anybody really disagree with that? I do not think so. But do we have a national child care program? No, no we do not.
Canadian women will continue to face the same situation and the same dilemma, to leave their children in less than suitable situations and continue to work or to stay home to take care of them.
As I say, with the pre-school child it is not even a dilemma. It is simply the fact that if you cannot find child care you cannot go to work. It is equally troubling that a million children in this country are latch key. The children are old enough to go to school, but I do not think any one of us would think that those children are old enough to be left alone.
I recall in my other life dealing with the Children's Services Act in Nova Scotia and looking at the definition of a child in need of protection. A family court judge of great renown in Nova Scotia, who happened to be the author of the act, Judge Louis E. Moir, said to me that if you look at those definitions, there is not one of us nor one of our children who has not fallen under that definition at some time or other. In other words, in every family, in every situation there are lapses. He said that is the reason parents go around with a heavy load of guilt

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over something that has happened to a child who was left unattended or something like that.
For most people who are not economically disadvantaged and who have access to quality child care, those situations are rare and thus worries about children at least in that sense do not happen all that often. But for the single mother attempting to break the cycle of poverty, attempting to get herself retrained, attempting to find the good life in Canada, those things happen all too often.
Mr. Speaker, you give me the signal that my time is up. I have only one comment to make.

In concluding, I would like to repeat that what the women of Canada receive is well below what they deserve to receive. It is time we listened to what women are saying. We represent 52 per cent of the population of this country, but our needs and priorities are always put somewhere on the backbumer. We have the money. Let's spend it to ensure that women's needs are not ignored.

Mr. Speaker, women deserve better. This government should pay attention. The gender gap lives.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the hon. member for Halifax on her very eloquent remarks.
She dealt in particular with the cuts in the Court Challenges Program which have affected not just women's groups, but also linguistic groups and other minority groups in our society, many of which relied on the Court Challenges Program. Native groups also come to mind.
Does the member feel that perhaps part of the reason for the cuts in this program that the government has implemented so cavalierly in the most recent budget were motivated by a desire to minimize criticism of the government?
In addition to the Court Challenges Program we had things like the Science Council of Canada and the Economic Council of Canada slashed. Both of them, potentially at least, could be critical of the government. In fact, the Economic Council was very critical in some of its reports, understandably with the mess the government has made of the finances of this country in the last seven years.
I am wondering if perhaps in its decision to slice all these programs away, the government is simply trying to
minimize criticism of itself. Does she feel that that was the principal motivation behind the cuts to the Court Challenges Program in particular?


Mary Catherine Clancy: Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from Kingston and the Islands for his question. I want to reassure the Minister of Forestry that being a woman I never, ever, ever anticipate chickens before they hatch.
In any event, with regard to my learned colleague's question, in the dissolution of the Economic Council, the Science Council and I might say also the International Centre for Ocean Development, which was cut and was of great importance to my own city of Halifax as well as to Canada's role in international ocean development, he is absolutely right. The government in that case was attempting not only to minimize, but to muffle, indeed to silence criticism, the kind of silence that Judith Maxwell in the report of the Economic Council broke and broke most eloquently on government policy.
With regard to the Court Challenges Program, it is a little different. In a sense, it is almost more sinister because it betrays a lack of awareness of the importance of the program.
An example is the pornography case, the Butler case. When these matters are brought to the attention of members on the other side and they are asked to look at them, I cannot believe that there is a single member on the other side of the House who does not see the importance of that landmark decision to the equality of women. It is not just to the equality of women I might add, but to a basic ambience in our country that Canada will not be a dumping ground for that kind of garbage.
What is the answer? What can be the answer? That is what I believe my learned friend is asking me. My response is that far too many people in this country, far too many people on the government side still do not get the point. There is still some sort of belief that disadvantaged women are some sort of minority or subgroup.
We know, the minister, my colleague from British Columbia, myself, we are all aware of the battles that we have fought individually on the question of violence against women. There is still a great amount of belief out there that the situation only relates to a subgroup, that it is not a broad base situation. We are diffusing that myth, slowly but surely.
But we are not diffusing the myth that disadvantaged women are a subgroup as well. It does not matter how many times you say it. I am not sure how many people really believe that women only make 67 cents for every dollar that men make.

I am not sure that people really understand viscerally that there are one million children using food banks, that there are one million latchkey children, that child care even for those who are financially well set is not that easy to find.
The long-range difficulty will continue to be a long-range difficulty until the make-up of this House and every legislature in the country reflects the population. Until 52 per cent of legislators, provincially and federally, are female we will still have that difficulty. There are none so blind as those who cannot see.


Mr. Guy H. Arseneault (Restigouche-Chaleur):: Mr. Speaker, I would also like to congratulate the hon. member for Halifax for the eloquent speech and come back to a topic that she raised in some detail in her speech, and that is the child care program.
I also am a supporter of her point of view that a national child care program is a necessity. I quite agree, as she has stated, that it is not the total solution to the problem but it would certainly go a long way.
I would like her to comment on the existing programs that are available. More specifically, this time of the year is income tax time and Revenue Canada has provisions with regard to child care. I would ask the hon. member her opinion on whether she thinks that these regulations are biased in favour of those who have money, the rich, and do nothing for those who are disadvantaged at the low level of the scale, many of whom are women.


Mary Catherine Clancy: Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from New Brunswick for his very cogent question.
In answer, we know that the government has removed more than $3.5 billion from the child benefit system since 1986, $3.5 billion. The government's blueprint for child benefits reform is inadequate as an anti-poverty measure.
Single mothers on social assistance will receive no additional benefit from this measure. Let me underline that, no additional benefit. Single mothers with annual incomes of between $30,000 and $40,000 will receive only $44 more a year. The child benefit is not fully indexed to inflation and therefore its value will decrease over time.
It is misleading for this government to tell Canadians that a choice had to be made between child care and programs aimed at children at risk. Glenda Simms,
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president of the Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women, clearly identified the gap in logic. Child care prevents children being at risk. Why is the government therefore attempting to pit abused and hungry children against Canadian children who are in need of safe and affordable child care? It is a disgrace.
We have a problem right now with the situation as it stands. The provinces have varying and different programs. Some provinces have better programs than others; some provinces have more money to spend than others. There is no standardized child care across this country. A parent who is looking for child care has very little in the way of quality control to understand what it is. If I have time I would just like to illustrate with a brief example.
I was president of the board of the largest child care centre in Atlantic Canada, St. Joseph's Children's Centre in Halifax. I was on the board for about eight years and president of the board for three. This was an excellent facility. Through our work there we dealt with other excellent child care facilities as well.
I had a colleague, another lawyer, who was involved with another child care organization. Indeed, he was on the board. Midway through his term on the board it was discovered that the standards at the other child care facility-not the one I was involved with but the other one-had fallen well below provincial regulatory levels, that there were indeed serious problems. What had happened, as frequently happens, is the people in charge were frightened. They were afraid of losing jobs, et cetera. We all know the scenario. I remember my colleague being absolutely flabbergasted that he could be involved with this and not have known right away. It did not go on very long. It only went for about a month, but to have children in inadequate care for even a month is not a very good thing.
This sort of thing goes on over and over again. The only thing that is going to cure it is national standards and a national program for all Canadians.


Hon. Mary Collins (Associate Minister of National Defence and Minister Responsible for the Status of Women):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to participate in this debate and to discuss with my colleagues in the House the unequivocal and firm commitment of our government to equality of women in this country.

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I would like to start actually with some points of agreement with my hon. colleague who has raised this motion today. I think it is important in this House and for Canadians to see that there is agreement in some areas of discussion of this nature. Certainly one of the areas of agreement would be the issue my hon. colleague raised, that the historical inequalities faced by women go back to the story of Adam and Eve. I would agree with her. That kind of historical reality has been fundamental in our western society.
Indeed it has only been realistically in this last century that we have been able to address and redress some of those significant inequalities. After almost 2,000 years or many more the kinds of changes or the acceleration of change is something we should feel very good about. It is the many Canadian women who have worked so hard during this century to make some of those changes that we would like to honour. That is one of the reasons earlier this month I announced that in October we would be celebrating women's history month, something that I hope will be established right across this country.
I do believe it is important for us to understand our roots, to understand the contribution women make to our society. I hope that all members of the House will join with us in their ridings to promote activities, whether it is honouring the famous five or many other wonderful women in Canadian society.
The second point I would like to agree with that my hon. colleague raised is that I too would dearly love to see 52 per cent of the members of this House being women. That is a goal I am sure all members would agree with.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Mary Collins: Don't you think? I think we might get some agreement. That indeed would be a more accurate reflection of the reality of society. It is something we are all working on in upcoming elections. That in itself-and I have talked about this in the House and with my colleagues-might help to change some of the way in which we undertake our business. We should to try to find more consensus around issues rather than the constant adversarial approach we are locked into. I think the Canadian public would find that much more acceptable as well.
It is also interesting at this time that many people still have difficulty understanding what we are talking about when we are talking about still having to look at issues relating to women's equality. They say: "Well, you have the vote and you have all these wonderful things. We do not need this any longer".
Recently Time magazine ran an article about how feminism is dead. It is important to remind people that although we have made significant advances there are still measures that must follow. We must all work, men and women together, to address those.
Often people say they do not want to be identified with feminism. It has had a host of labels and definitions going back to 1913. This concern about it is not new. Rebecca West, a well-known English author and critic, lamented the public's perception of feminism with this memorable quote: "I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a door-mat". I think in that instance all my colleagues would be feminists.
One of the most interesting definitions I saw recently was one from Nova Scotia in a report done by the Nova Scotia Advisory Committee on the Status of Women in a very nice book it put out. It comes from a grade 10 student. Sometimes we have to go back to the wisdom of our children who often see things in clear terms. She wrote: "A feminist is an intelligent woman of the nineties who believes she can do or accomplish anything a man can do. She knows men and women are equal". Hear, hear. I think that young woman captured feminism in a nutshell. More than that, it indicates an awareness hopefully among young people of the issues we are dealing with as well.
Let me return to the subject we are debating today about fundamental equality and again on the positive side. I have had the opportunity in recent months of visiting with my counterparts in different countries. They have visited Canada and sometimes I have visited their countries in international meetings. One thing they say almost consistently is how lucky we are in Canada, that women here have advanced whether it is the economic sector, whether it is in the political sector or whether it is in the educational sector. We have had structures in place in Canada starting about 20 years ago with the Royal Commission on the Status of Women and the various mechanisms to support particularly the activities of women's organizations and groups that have helped us
March 31, 1992

advance. It is something that does not exist in many other countries.
Often we have delegations coming to Canada that sit down and meet with my officials at status of women, meet with the Canadian Advisory Council, and meet with NGOs, and then go back and try to formulate their own plans. I think we have provided a real leadership role internationally in this respect.
The other issue I also want to raise today, because to me it is of great primacy and one I know my colleagues feel the same way about, is the issue of violence against women. I see it as fundamental to women's equality that we address this issue and that as a society we take the steps that are going to be important to reduce, and I would like to say eliminate if I could be that optimistic, the kinds of violence that occur in our society: physical and emotional violence. Of course that is the mandate of the panel which is undertaking its work across the country. I know that I am very much looking forward to its final report in December of this year and an interim report in May.
Again I compliment my colleagues who sat on the parliamentary committee-the chair of that committee is here and other members-for their work on The War Against Women, a very important landmark report. In the response from the government last November we indicated our agreement with almost all of the recommendations and are seeking ways to work toward their implementation.
As we heard earlier today, my colleague, the Minister of Justice, tabled the regulations which go along with the Gun Control Act that was passed in this House. It is one facet of addressing of this issue.
Last December my hon. hon. colleague from New Westminster-Burnaby put forward a motion that was passed unanimously in this House designating December 6 as a day of remembrance and action on violence against women. We know that led to a tremendous amount of activity throughout this country and a heightening and an awareness of these issues, an awareness to which the panel is now adding in its work.
We have also seen the introduction of legislation on sexual assault in this House which will be coming up for debate I expect shortly. Many groups have spoken to me about it. They really think it is landmark legislation. I
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hope we will have the full support of members in this House when that comes to debate and goes to committee. For women it is really significant in terms of changing the concepts. Often I think it is hard for men to understand in this issue, as well as when we get into issues of sexual assault, just how important that is to women. It involves our very being and our physical sense of ourselves which we want to ensure we can protect and cannot be violated.
We have also been very active in international forums. The Prime Minister attended the Francophonie last year and there was work done with respect to women at the Commonwealth. It was not only on the issue of violence against women, but the heads of government adopted the Ottawa declaration, to which the status of women ministers had agreed in their meeting, with respect to structural adjustment and ensuring that as structural adjustment occurs in countries it does not adversely affect women. That is very important for women throughout the world, both the north and the south. Most recently discussions went on in Vienna in the last two weeks at the UN commission on women in which Canada again played a major role, not only in the recommendations, for example, to increase the number of women within the United Nations organization and in management positions, something we have been really working on, but more important in a Canadian resolution with respect to violence against women, which was accepted unanimously by all countries. That was not easy, as I am sure the House can imagine. This means we can now move forward with working out the details of that and hopefully bring that back to the full United Nations General Assembly and then on to the world conference on women scheduled for 1995.
All these actions can start to make a difference for women not only in Canada but around the world. Women do feel a strong allegiance to their sisters and we know we have a responsibility to be of assistance.
There are other areas too that I think are important to remind ourselves of when we look at the progress of women in Canada. It is within the mandate of the federal government to ensure that women are getting their fair share of appointments. We are seeing women taking on increasingly responsible positions. In the Public Service we have seen a tripling of the number of deputy

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ministers who are women. Certainly the judiciary is an area that is important to women. They want to see themselves reflected in the judges. Only two weeks ago we were able to announce the appointments of not only Chief Justice Catherine Fraser as the first woman to head up a provincial Supreme Court but also the appointment of Madam Justice Rosalie Abella as the 100th woman judge in the federal sphere.
That has taken a lot of work because judges do not retire; they stay on. It is only as the vacancies come up that we are having to make these kind of changes. In all the appointments the government has responsibility for, we have doubled the percentage of women appointed. We are continuing to address that and continuing to make improvements.
Let us turn to some other areas. Education, for example, is one of the critical areas as we look at the opportunities for women's advancement. We know it is critical that women first of all complete high school, that they have opportunities to go on to post-secondary education, and that they do not drop out of areas such as maths and sciences which are so critical in terms of future employment opportunities. The ministers of science over the past few years have been working on this. The Canada Scholarships Program has been an important incentive for young people to study maths and sciences at the post-secondary level. Some 50 per cent of those scholarships go to women so we have this core of young women now going into those fields. We are seeing increasing numbers in the sciences and engineering professions. We also have been working closely with our provincial colleagues and our ministers of education to encourage them to ensure that young women are provided with the information and the support to ensure that they not only stay in school but that they pursue areas of science and technology.
The good news too as we look at statistics relating to women is that women are a growing influence in all sectors of society; economically, socially and politically. For example, between 1984 and 1991 the number of women in managerial and administrative positions climbed by 82 per cent. These kinds of positions account for almost one-third of all jobs that women have entered into over the past seven years.
There are some very bright spots in the professions. If we are looking at the issue of women being able to earn more money, being able to make choices and to look after their families and the future, we should look at things like the law and medicine where women are increasing in number, in some cases over 50 per cent.
Between 1981 and 1986 women were responsible for more than two-thirds of all employment growth in the professional categories listed by Statistics Canada. I think that is a figure that probably a lot of people are not aware of. It is a very important trend, one that we have to ensure occurs.
Indisputably-and I hope no one would argue about this-the participation of women in the paid labour force has become vital for our economy. We are 52 per cent of the population. It is expected that we will be 50 per cent of the labour force by the end of this decade. As a participant in a more closely integrated and more global economy, which we all know is the direction we are going in, Canada must draw upon all its resources, particularly the creativity and productivity of all of our citizens. They have come to realize that the efficient involvement of all of our human resources is essential to our continued social and human development.
I am not sure we have all the answers about how to do that but certainly through the number of strategies, prosperity strategies and human resources development strategy, we are trying to find those ways.
I come back specifically to the budget because my colleague has raised that. Although we have had debates in this House over a period of days on the budget, I would like to speak about some of the measures which I think are important advances for women, why I believe the budget is good for Canada in terms of getting our economic house in order, and why it is also good for the women of Canada.
Canadians have indicated to us that they want the deficit to be cut. They know that higher debt means higher taxes and they want an end to rising taxes. Those were clear messages received when women's groups were consulted in this process and many others who were consulted.
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They also want the burden of government reduced. They want less government and better service. We have to look at ways that we can accomplish that. They also want to ensure the development of Canada's resources, our human resources specifically. They want better opportunities for people to improve their skills and they want steps taken to ensure that our social programs meet our basic needs as well.
I think most of all Canadians have indicated they want a renewed basis for confidence, confidence that jobs will be created and maintained.
It was these kinds of views that were expressed right across the country that led to many of the measures in the budget and responded to these concerns. I think the equation is simple. The budget reduced government spending and directed the savings to tax cuts that will help individual Canadian women, men and families and support economic growth. That is what in the long term obviously is going to be important for women.
At the same time the budget we enforced is a responsible and a prudent fiscal plan that will hold the deficit to $31.4 billion in the coming year and reduce it substantially as the recovery takes place.
My colleague raised the issue of the new child tax program. This would be a point where I would disagree because I think that is a very important move. I think by taking what were three programs, including the old family allowance program and the child tax credit, combining them into a package, enriching it by over $2 billion over the next few years and targeting it to the families who need it most, we can help to make a substantial difference, not only in alleviating poverty but in helping the many cases of women-led families to start becoming more economically independent and have those resources that are required.
I think that the proposed new child benefit is responsible as well for changing family circumstances because programs that were developed at one time are not necessarily appropriate today. As you know, Mr. Speaker, the new benefit can be as much as $144 per month per child, tax free, for a total of $1,733 per year. That is a lot of money to put into the pockets of women that they will have the discretion to spend for their children whether it is on food, clothing, or day care facilities.
Of course for low-income families with children this
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new child tax benefit also includes a new federal earned income supplement of up to $500 a year which provides additional support to the low-income working parents, the very people who indeed my hon. colleague has talked about, and I agree with her. This is the target group, particularly the women in that group, that we need to focus on and provide support for and help, assist them to get off social assistance and back into the work force. That indeed is why this program is targeting what is called, and I do not like the expression, the working poor. I think it is people who are trying to better themselves and help to provide those extra dollars. That is combined, of course, with the many programs that I know I have had the opportunity of being involved in through my colleague, the Minister of Employment and Immigration, of funding, not only for language programs for immigrant women, but training and retraining programs for women, to help to give them those skills to get into the work place and then, through these kinds of programs, help provide the support to them.
As well, this program is simpler. I think it is fairer because it is based on total family income and not on individual incomes. It also rewards the work effort of low-income working families, as I indicated, many of which are headed by women. It will also assist them in balancing work and family. As my colleague mentioned, that too is an important issue that we need to address; how to ensure that women and men are able to find that more appropriate balance between work and family.
Mr. Speaker, you have indicated that my time is through. I have many more issues that I would like to address with respect to the budget. I know other colleagues will have an opportunity to speak later in the day, but I would like to say again that this budget is an important step forward in terms of dealing not only with the future and a healthier economy of Canada, but also in ensuring and working toward equality for all women in Canada as well.


Ms. Dawn Black (New Westminster-Burnaby):: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the minister for her comments today. There are, as she said, a number of issues that we all agree on, at least the women in this House. But there are a number of issues that we feel very differently about and we have strong differences on too.

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I would like to ask the minister to react to a quotation from the leader of her party, the Prime Minister, who said on July 28, 1988: "We will implement and build on our national child care program, the most innovative social advance in Canada since the Canada Pension Plan a quarter of a century ago". That is what the Prime Minister said in 1988.
I would like to ask the minister to respond to that quotation by her Prime Minister in view of what her colleague, the Minister of National Health and Welfare, said when he indicated he had the privilege to kill the child care program that they had talked about since 1984.
I would also ask the minister for her feelings on the Court Challenges Program that has been dropped in this budget, and how she can relate that action of her government in terms of the things she was talking about in her speech today on advancing women's equality in this country; and also the action of her government in reneging on its commitment to pay equity for women in the Public Service of Canada in setting an arbitrary date of 1990 as being the time when women in the Public Service were deserving of pay equity, and that those years in which they were underpaid and undervalued have no kind of validity or honour to those years when women were also underpaid.


Mary Collins: Mr. Speaker, I would be glad to respond to that as I did not get to some of those issues in my speech.
I will start with pay equity because I think it is important. As my colleagues know, that legislation was originally passed by a previous government. It was only when this government came into office that we started to work toward the actual implementation of pay equity within the Public Service. There were discussions and there were studies that went on over a period of years. There were legitimate differences of points of view between Treasury Board, the employer, and the unions on this.
Finally, rather than just going on forever, the Treasury Board announced that it would make a settlement of $317 million. That is of course primarily to women in a number of occupations. It felt that was a fair assessment and settlement. There would be ongoing payments of some $81 million a year. That has meant, in fact, that
there were lump sum payments made in the category, for example, of secretaries and clerks of between $3,500 and $5,900 a piece of sort of lump sum payments. It is now actually providing on average about $1,289 additional a year for secretaries and about $994 for clerks.
Following that settlement, the union, and it has every right to do so, said that it did not agree, and there was a dispute.
The method in the legislation for resolving that dispute is under the Canadian Human Rights Commission and the tribunal that has been set up to deal with that. That process is ongoing. It is not expected that they will reach a decision until probably some time next year at which time, obviously, we will see whether they agree with one party or the other or come out with something in the middle. One does not know.
In the meantime, though, I think from the government's point of view, to have had unlimited retroactivity, the costs would have been horrendous. One of the options would have said there would have been no retroactivity. That in fact is the case in many of the provincial acts that deal with pay equity. They are only forward-looking. They have no retroactivity clause in them. I think because governments have recognized that there is such uncertainty there that the potential costs that they cannot calculate makes it very difficult.
What we agreed to was a bit of a saw-off and said as of the date the case was filed with the Canadian Human Rights Commission, November 1990, that would be the date the government would then agree to pay retroactive settlements based on the decision of the Human Rights Commission.
I would just like to draw to colleagues' attention that not all provinces yet have pay equity legislation. The federal government was indeed the leader. For example, Ontario has no retroactivity and in fact adjustments are paid on a percentage-forward. They are not necessarily all paid at once. Nova Scotia has no retroactivity. Adjustments are divided equally over four successive years. Manitoba, in a similar vein, New Brunswick, P.E.I., Yukon and Newfoundland, all phase in. If a decision is made, they phase in.
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We are doing a lot better than that. We have said that based on what the judgment would be, we will indeed provide retroactivity. Not everyone is going to be happy with it, I understand, but I think that is fair because with almost anything you do in life, there is no unlimited retroactivity.
For me, the important thing is to move ahead, to ensure that there is a fair and balanced approach in dealing with pay equity and that we can move ahead at this time.
My hon. colleague asked me as well about child care. I am sure she is aware that the federal government now does contribute about $1 billion toward child care throughout this country. That is through a variety of initiatives, both through the provinces and through those women who are into training under the various training programs that we have. Of course, we also have the tax reductions which help another group of women, a very important group of women. We have, through things like Treasury Board, programs for establishing employer child care.
We have been working closely with my colleague, the Minister of Labour, on the whole issue of work and family and focusing on how we need to encourage employers to be more sensitive to this issue. One way is through the provision of employer-supported child care which, for many women, they see as as the appropriate response. Certainly we are working in that area as well.
I hope we will be able to do more because I believe that child care is an important component for many women in this country. I think it is not, as my hon. colleague would agree, only a federal responsibility. It is primarily within the provincial area with our focus being, as we have seen in this budget, on trying to help make it more affordable. That has been the focus, affordability, putting more money into the hands of women through the new family benefits package. By putting more money into the hands of women through the Income Ihx Act
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and the child care tax deductions, we are indeed making significant progress toward that end.


Mary Catherine Clancy: Mr. Speaker, through you to the hon. minister, I was reminded in her comments of two things. One, she talked about pay equity and the provinces. I agree. She is certainly correct in the question that retroactivity is not exactly thick on the ground, particularly in the have not provinces, many of which she mentioned, for obvious reasons.
I was also reminded, to a degree, of what my mother used to say to me when I would say: "The kid up the street is allowed to do this and the kid next door is allowed to do this". My mother would say to me: "That is fine in those houses, but in this house, the child is not allowed to do this". I would ask the minister, understanding the difficulties inherent in this question of pay equity, does she not agree that what we have here is a long-term series of inequalities that the government has an opportunity to right? The women in the Public Service in particular are not subject to the employment equity law yet, and the pay equity provisions have been, in a sense, twisted out of their grasp. They originally thought they were going to get one package and later found out they were going to get another. Would the minister not agree there is an inherent fairness there that we should all be trying to achieve as soon as possible?


Mary Collins: Mr. Speaker, I am not sure I would agree with my colleague that there is unfairness. The fact that we have pay equity legislation and are proceeding with its implementation seems eminently fair to me.
There will be different points of view on the technical criteria of how we relate one job to another. Obviously there are going to be different perspectives between employers and employees' representatives. That is why we have a mechanism for resolving those differences, which in this case happens to be the Human Rights Commission. In other jurisdictions they have other mechanisms for resolving differences. I think that indeed is fair.
The provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan and British Columbia do not have pay equity legislation yet but will soon introduce it. Governments introducing pay equity legislation now should recognize that it probably should be done from this day forward. We cannot go back and redress all the inequities of the past, whether it is in this issue or many other issues. It is important now to find mechanisms to ensure that women are paid equitably and, as my colleague has said, also have the kinds of

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opportunities that we want to see come about through things like employment equity.
Quite honestly, this is an area where we have a good record at the federal government level, in so far as women are concerned. We have in fact seen a 50 per cent increase in the promotion of women in management over the past few years in those areas. I can see some really good progress taking place there.


Dawn Black: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity to participate in this debate on the budget and the implications of it on the women of Canada.
Unfortunately this budget continues in the same direction as previous budgets brought forward by this government. It puts the burden of deficit reduction on the shoulders of those who are least responsible for that deficit, and least able to pay for it. Unfortunately it is a continuing trend.
The budget is harmful to women, and particularly to poor women with children. It ends universal family allowance and replaces it with a two-tiered system based on income. Instead of giving the most money to the poor, the government in many respects is going back to the future with this outdated and Victorian notion of separating people and children into the deserving poor and the undeserving poor.
It is an insult to separate children into the two camps of those whose parents do have jobs, and those whose parents do not have jobs. It is an insult to reward the children whose parents have jobs with this small supplement of $500. It is an insult to call this bizarre gesture an incentive to work.
Why does this government not understand that hunger and deprivation are in themselves incentives to work? Through its own mismanagement, this government has caused and exacerbated a recession which has put 1.5 million Canadians out of work in this country.
The government has again in this budget cut training programs for people on welfare. The government has turned its back on the one million children in this country who are in need of child care.
Without child care, poor parents cannot enter the job market. They cannot keep a job. The poor people whom I know and have met want jobs, training, education and adequate care for their children. Instead they are being pushed into a spiral of desperation. Sixty per cent of these poor are women.
When the government says poor parents do not work because they are lazy or unmotivated, it is really saying that women with children are lazy. It has no idea how much hard work is involved in taking care of children and raising them.
I was a young mother who struggled with a chronically ill two- year old child and newborn twins at the same time. I know how difficult it is to be at home with limited resources and try to provide for your children the best way you can. This government has made it much more difficult for those women who are in the home trying to cope with raising children by cutting back on the resources available to those women.
How dare this government infer that kind of a daily struggle is laziness? Unfortunately, a lot of members of this House of Commons have no understanding of the reality of women's lives. They have no understanding of the reality of some women who line up at food banks with children crying and hanging on to their jackets. That in itself is an incentive to work, as is watching your children grow up without the ordinary things that other children have, and become statistics as high school drop-outs.
The minister, in her remarks, talked about how much better some women are doing in our educational institutions. It is true. More women are entering post-secondary institutions now, but all of us in this House must remember that 30 per cent of the children who enter school in Canada do not finish school. Thirty per cent of our young people do not graduate from high school, and that is an incentive to work. Feeling like the world is going to cave in on you unless you can change things for yourself and your family is an incentive to work.
Just for once I would like to be able to take away money, education, training, and connections from the ministers on the other side of the House. I would like to see them live on the level of income of many people and many single women with children in our country, and see if they would then come up with these kinds of policies. I think then they would have a lesson in reality and would perhaps be more sensitive to the needs of women, children and the poor in our society.
The minister also talked about the new child benefit. Well it denies benefits to the poorest of the poor. Only people earning $10,000 to $20,000 will get the extra $500. Those whose incomes are in the range of $3,750 will not see a single extra cent. How can anyone be expected to
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raise children on an income of $4,000 a year? The benefit itself is not indexed. Every year that benefit will be worth less and less, until one day it will probably disappear altogether.
Universality is being axed. That means money given to help maintain children is again a charitable policy of this government and not a right.
The government is also spending $500,000 in newspapers across this country to advertise this new child benefit. The minister said it is new, improved, simpler and fairer. I am not sure about that. I do not think all the families denied these benefits will see it as being newer, simpler, fairer or more generous.
The government also promised a homemaker's pension in 1984. We have not seen any evidence of that. The child benefit, which is a bit of charity thrown to some families, is a large step away from recognizing the value of child rearing to our society. The universal family allowance was in some families the only money that a woman received in her own name. We know, and statistics tell us, that one in ten women is abused by the man she lives with. More often than not, this abuse is more than physical and sexual abuse; it is usually also economic and social control. The woman does not share in the family finances.
In addition to choking off funds from the Canada Assistance Plan, which funds shelters for battered women, the cancellation of family allowance means fewer economic resources for women to get away from and out of abusive relationships. The issue of children was used by our Prime Minister during the United Nations summit on the rights of the child in 1990. Article 18(2) of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child requires Canada to "render the appropriate assistance to parents and legal guardians in the performance of their child rearing responsibilities and shall ensure the development of institutions, facilities, and services for the care of children".
Section 18(3) requires the Canadian government to "ensure that children of working parents have the right to benefit from child care services and facilities for which they are eligible".
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The new child benefit does not create one single child care space. It does not ensure quality care for Canadian children. It provides no greater access to care at all.
Before the budget we knew that one million Canadian children were in need of child care. After the budget nothing has changed, and we do not have even one new child care space.
This budget also contains another blow to economic equality for women. Between 1985 and 1990 women in the Public Service earned significantly less than men. The government promised that unfair situation would be rectified. Instead, the government has abandoned its promise to honour its pay equity commitment dating back to 1985. I remember, in the leaders' debate on women's issues, the Prime Minister standing up and responding that the money was there. It was in the bank and had been put aside for that pay equity legislation. Where has it gone? Did that bank account just disappear?
Seventy thousand women lost $1 billion which they had already earned but never received.
The government has also promised to ignore a human rights tribunal ruling on this issue if it does not like that ruling. I suppose this is the only promise the government will keep.
This budget also attacks legal and social equality for women. The cancellation of the Court Challenges Program is a disaster for women. It is a disaster for aboriginal people, visible minorities, and the disabled.
Disabled women are far more likely than any other women to be sexually assaulted. Disabled women tend on average to be even poorer than disabled men who are also extremely economically disadvantaged. Disabled women have fewer economic resources to leave an abusive situation. Their physical options are also limited.
Many shelters for battered women do not have money for major renovations to make them accessible to the disabled. Disabled women have fewer housing options when they try to leave an abusive situation. Disabled women are bombarded with societal messages about inadequacy. They are disbelieved, treated as less than adults, patronized, and often have poor self-esteem as a result of social and economic discrimination.

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This low self-esteem can also keep them trapped in abusive relationships. Disabled women are sometimes advised to stay in a physically or sexually violent relationship because "at least they have a man".
The government has chosen to cut back on funding for this group this time around. This is one of the disadvantaged groups cut back and hurt desperately by the cancellation of the Court Challenges Program.
Aboriginal women have witnessed the disintegration of their own communities. They and their parents are survivors of residential schools where many were physically and sexually abused. They were beaten if they spoke their own language or practised their own religious beliefs and customs. They went back to communities without sufficient skills to survive in a white world. They were met with racism, name-calling, battering and rape.
They went back to communities without sufficient skills to practise their traditional way of life. Residential schools broke up families and supplanted healthy relationships with sick ones.
Many aboriginal children grew up in these schools without affection and knowing only sexual abuse as a model for relationships.
In the general population, women who are raped are six times more likely than other women to commit suicide. Alcohol and drug use is also a symptom of childhood sexual abuse.
Aboriginal communities across Canada are beginning to deal with that legacy of pain. They are trying to reverse that cultural genocide. They are angry at the social and economic state of their communities and are organizing to change it. They are trying to build a life to heal the many wounds.
Aboriginal women are trying to keep their children off the streets. Again, this is one of the groups in our society this government has chosen to punish, a group that is just now gaining enough strength to continue fighting for their rights and to define a distinct place for themselves.
Aboriginal women and men and the generations to come are affected by the complete shutdown of the Court Challenges Program. Only those who can afford them can have rights is what this government is saying. This action of cancelling the Court Challenges Program, in effect, makes the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in
this country meaningless. Unless the people who most need access to those rights have the means to access them, it is useless to have a charter.
This is a time when the government has implemented a racist and sexist regulation to keep foreign domestic workers, particularly women of colour, from ever becoming Canadian citizens. What the government is saying is that no matter how many years one of these women can prove she has worked in Canada and been a good Canadian citizen, this is no longer good enough.
She must now meet the Canadian immigration point system which disadvantages women. Close to 60 per cent of the women entering Canada through the Foreign Domestic Movement Program in 1990 were from the Philippines. Now domestic workers from the Philippines and elsewhere will have to have the equivalent of a grade 12 education to come to Canada. The problem is that in the Philippines the high school system does not go that far and very few women have access to what would be the equivalent of a grade 12 education in Canada.
This government is telling women of colour that they are good enough to clean up after others but not good enough to be Canadian citizens no matter how hardworking, no matter how productive or responsible they are.
Many times when we talk about access to equality, we look for ways that disadvantaged groups in our society can seek that equality. With the cancellation of the Court Challenges Program, there is no recourse to seek equality except for those who can afford it. Guess what? Big surprise to this government: Groups who can already afford it already have those rights.
I feel I am standing here today repeating the same things I said one week ago, one month ago and one year ago. I am sure that there are many Canadians who are just as tired as I am of these same policies. These policies are not just words on a piece of paper, they affect the lives of every woman, every child, every man in Canada.
There are one million children in Canada in need of child care. If I were to attach names to all of these children, I would still be standing here tomorrow. If I were to tell you about their lives, we would be here until next week. Some are children whose mothers are on welfare, unable to look for work because they do not have adequate care for their children. We know that welfare is not enough for a family to live on.
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Forty per cent of the users of food banks are children. Seven hundred thousand children in this country rely on food banks for their daily food. The Prime Minister stands in this House and argues about how many children are poor, how many people have been raised above the poverty line and how many children are in fact living in poverty. The fact of the matter is that we have
700,000	children who rely on food banks for their food. He does not see their faces. He does not see thin children trying to laugh while their tummies are empty. He does not see the grades at school or hear their teachers scold them for not paying attention.
Those of us who think that hungry children are not our problem are being selfish. We are also being very, very wrong. For this is the future of our country. These children wear a gaunt and a grim face. It is the face of a child who is unable to finish school. Thirty per cent of the children who enter school in this country do not go through to graduation.
Montreal's rates of low birth weight rival parts of the developing world. In Manitoba, we know that children have died of disease related to malnourishment. Children are poor because their parents are poor. Sixty per cent of the poor in Canada are women and this budget entrenches again the feminization of poverty.
I urge this government to do something positive for women. Reinstate the Court Challenges Program. Reinstate the money for training programs so that people can learn how to do the jobs that are out there, instead of being stuck in a rut with no skills or skills that are no longer needed. Implement a child care program that meets the needs of Canadian children.
This government is always talking about competitiveness. If that is the only term that the government understands, why does it not look at how we are falling behind European countries in terms of child care, parental leave, education and training?
Let us get competitive with the Europeans on those issues. They are becoming more and more competitive because they do understand that workers have children, that workers need skills to do their jobs and that people are not bom just to serve business interests but that business must also take the needs of people into account.
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This budget, like this government, fails women. During times of restraint it is especially important to maintain and enhance equality rights. To do any less is to foster hatred and resentment.
Canadians need each other now more than ever. We have to work together to overcome these hard times. We have to leam about each other, respect one another and help each other. We need to care about each other and not just about our own pocketbooks or our own children.
All children in Canada no matter where they live, no matter what their colour, no matter what their physical abilities, are all our children. They are our present and our future, they are our responsibility and we cannot afford to fail them. We cannot afford to fail their parents. To do so is to put our future and the future of this country at peril. We will be judged by the choices we make.
I urge this government to start making the right choices, choices that offer women, children and the men of this country hope. This is a budget that says to the women of Canada: "No pay equity. No Court Challenges Program. No child care". In fact, it says to the women of Canada: "Know your place".


Ms. Barbara Greene (Don Valley North):: Mr. Speaker, I was struck by the comments of the hon. member for New Westminster-Burnaby with regard to poverty and food banks because that is, of course, a particular interest of mine. Having spent two years struggling with this problem on the subcommittee on poverty, one of the issues we need to resolve as a country is the issue of the responsibilities of the provinces versus the federal government.
We recommended that there be national standards for welfare in this country and we also recommended an expanded program of subsidized day care which I believe the member fully supports.
I know that the minister is in a very difficult position because imposing standards on certain provinces is, first of all, something they are absolutely opposed to. Second, it could be extremely contentious given the current constitutional agreement.
Right now the provinces have full authority to implement food programs under the Canada Assistance Plan for poor children, either on an area basis where they

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know there is a concentration of poor children or on an individual needs tested basis. Those programs are permissible under the Canada Assistance Plan.
Similarly, they can implement day care programs. There are three provinces that in fact are affected by the Canada Assistance Plan limit of 5 per cent; Ontario, B.C. and Alberta. However, neither B.C. nor Alberta was previously spending anywhere near the 5 per cent. Ontario was the only province which was substantially increasing its expenditures under the Canada Assistance Plan at rather dramatic levels, up to 14 per cent in certain years. There was certainly a commitment by the Ontario government to both expand subsidized day care and to expand welfare.
What then is the answer? We have an NDP government in British Columbia with a commitment just as strong as that of the hon. member for New Westminster-Burnaby.
Will the hon. member tell me what she thinks is the appropriate role of the British Columbia government? Of the other provinces, does she think they should initiate these programs? I know she disagrees with the 5 per cent cap. It seems to me she is saying that the federal government should take over and fund all these programs. However, given the current constitutional crisis and the attitudes of the provinces, which I understand are absolutely opposed to a national day care program, does she think that the federal government should be doing this against the wishes of the provinces? What role does she see for the provinces in this country?


Dawn Black: Mr. Speaker, it is a long and convoluted question, but as a member of Parliament in this place, I see a responsibility to all of the children of this country, not children in certain sections, not children in certain provinces, but all of the children of the country.
The member spoke of the Canada Assistance Plan and said that provincial governments could access funds through that to feed children. I want to remind the member that the Vancouver School Board, which has instituted at the municipal level, at the school board level, a lunch program for hungry school children in that
city tried to access the Canada Assistance Plan funding and were denied any funding by this government.
There was a long and hard struggle to try to access those funds for school lunch programs in British Columbia which was led by my colleague, the member for Vancouver East, who had many questions and many meetings with ministers on that side of the House to try to feed these hungry children. They were denied that by this government.
When she talked about the Canada Assistance Plan as only affecting a small part of the budget in the provinces of British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario, I would like to remind the member that the Canada Assistance Plan funds shelters for battered women, funds welfare systems and programs. It funds the very programs of the people she claims to care about.
It funds all of the child care shared-cost programs. I would say that most provinces with the financial ability to pay would be more than happy to access funds under that program, to build more child care spaces. I do not think there is any doubt about that.
I have not heard of any province saying that it is opposed to a national child care program where there are funds coming from this government to share in that expense.


Mr. Dennis Mills (Broadview-Greenwood):: Mr. Speaker, I feel privileged having the opportunity to speak on this motion that was put forward by my colleague from Halifax.
I have been reviewing and reading a lot of the work that we have done in this House and in committees across this country. I would like to cite the report that my colleague from Don Valley North put out in June, the "War Against Women", which is a very good report. We all have read different works that have been done by the researchers in the Library of Parliament.
About three weeks ago, I was given a short note by a lady in my riding. Her name is Christina Benson. It is on this issue of violence against women. I read it, and I believe she puts this issue forward in a way that I certainly could not improve upon.
I would like to read Christina's notes because I think they reflect the feeling and the knowledge of someone who is very close to this issue. She titles this:
March 31, 1992

Notes on a Women's Country
There is a place in Canada where women and their children live.
It is a hidden landscape we never show on our maps. It is no place but it is every place. Even more that we pretend there is no such place, we pretend that we do not live there. I call it women's countiy.
Sometimes there are oblique references to this place. We mention "domestic violence" and "child sexual abuse". We build a shelter here and there. We have a trial of some man for murdering a woman or abusing a child. We hold a candle-light vigil. Most of the time we mark this as incidental and accidental.
Occasionally it is impossible to pretend there is not a women's country. The Montreal Massacre happens. We concentrate on the excuses. That is when we best see how much we guard the lie about the women's country.
Occasionally, someone tries to talk about the women's country. In 1988 June Callwood wrote about the women of Mothers on Trial. "For pity's sake" she started her series in The Globe and Mail. Someone put the heat on. The last column was different. Instead of revealing the lies, the excuses appeared. For the indomitable June Callwood to back down the heat must have been very high. The heat still remains very high. There are few stories about women's country even though women go on disappearing all the time.
All of us know women who have "disappeared". Any woman can disappear, become lost; mothers, sisters, daughters, granddaughters, friends. Women who once lived with us; visited us; women who were our family, friends and neighbours. Women we saw at work, meetings, church, on the street. Women we do not see anymore. Women we sometimes hear a vague rumour about but more often nothing at all. Lost women, gone women, missing women.
The women's country is a frightening place. It is bleak, dark, pierced by warfare, pain, humiliation, hurt, injury, terror and death. Women's country is a cold lovelessness, close to formlessness, a world without kinship or naming, bound in cruel words and deeds.
In the women's country, terrible things happen. Men throw women against walls hard enough to snap bones and leave holes in plaster. In the women's country, men throw steel kettles, hot irons, cast iron frying pans at the heads of women. In the women's country, emergency room doctors spend hours stitching up faces, wiring smashed jaws and noses; longer hours removing splinters of teeth shattered in soft mouths.
In the women's country, men come into bathrooms and take small, soapy, wet, pink children's bodies and stick fingers, engorged penises, broken beer bottles into every orifice possible. In emergency rooms, doctors spend hours taking shards of glass out of baby girls' vaginas. The same doctors spend hours repairing the ripped larynges of infant boys.
In the women's country, ugly voices fill the landscape with rageful threats, threats so obscene they cannot be printed. There are no censorship rules for minds. Here the threats imprint forever, make everlasting bruises, leave everlasting scars.
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In the women's country, the emergency rooms of hospitals record tortures all the time. Nurses and doctors salve the bums of curling irons and acid etched wounds; repair the holes of drill bits worked into fingers, toes, skulls, eyeballs; resuscitate collapsed lungs in chests caved in by steel-toed boots; deliver babies with holes in their hearts from bullets aimed at pregnant abdomens; fuse spines crushed by blows from crowbars.
In the women's country, nurses and doctors in emergency rooms bag bodies of women riddled with bullet holes; bag bodies of women whose missing limbs, eyes, noses will never be found in the sewers they were flushed into; bag masses of pulp that were women.
Their final identification is a feat of twentieth century forensic science.
In the women's country, children are tied up with electrical cords to watch the dismembering of their mother. In the women's country children see their mothers shot on the school steps. In the women's country, children see their mothers pushed out of cars, off balconies to death. In the women's country, children worry about their mothers all the time. In the women's country there are many orphans.
In the women's country, women and children run and hide a lot. They hide in the night from raging, rampaging men who charge with words, fists, knives and guns. They flee in snowstorms, in rain, in cold, in sheds, in barns, under porches, running away in pyjamas, shoeless. They run away to hide in house after house, town after town. They hide with friends, in hotels, in motels, in shelters and refuges. If they are very lucky, they get passed along a thin network of brave women who hide them from a predatory man.
Life narrows to a small single focus of running, exhausted flight, a landscape of shattered windows, broken doors, a rain of bullets- Sometimes there is safety for a while, a respite that lets hands and bodies stop trembling, lets a child finally dare to close its eyes for sleep. There is never safety for long. Someone finds a disembowelled cat, rabbit, dog, something on the doorstep. There is a threatening note. Bewildered friends ask "Please leave. This is too much". Another phone call, a new destination, another flight. Another prayer for hope and safety. Then the bullets come through the door again. A bleeding woman tries to hide a child, fails, falls as the door breaks down and the last round empties loud death into her. The child stares. The man picks up the telephone, calls the mother, friend, shelter, whomever it will hurt the most, gloats and leaves.
There is another vigil. Another woman, mother, friend, shelter worker becomes a candidate of the therapy for survivors of violent deaths. There is another orphan. A shelter renames itself for the last woman to whom this happened. The story falls as a silent pebble into a still pool. There is no ripple. Now you remember that silly question. If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one to hear, does it make a sound?
In the women's country, women die without inquests or memorials. They die in cold lakes; in cold bathrooms letting slashed blood flow down dirty drains; in cold rooms they swallow pills that take the pain away along with their lives; in cold rooms they hang themselves.

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If you wanted to, you could find the women's country. There are lots of places to go looking. Find a hostel. Bag ladies can draw routes to the women's country. Every homeless woman once lived in a house on a street next to you too.
Go to the psychiatric wards. Mad women know the routes to the women's country too. Every mad woman once lived in a house on a street next to you.
I realize that my time has expired, but I want to conclude by saying that I believe one of the most difficult issues we have in communicating the problems women are having in this country today, especially violence against women, is that too often we just do not want to talk about it openly. If we did start talking about it openly a little more often, I believe we might institute the kinds of policies that would prevent a lot of this from happening.


Mrs. Beryl Gaffney (Nepean):: Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to stand in support of the motion of my colleague from Halifax:
That this House condemn the government for its failure to protect and promote the fundamental rights of Canadian women, especially as reflected in the 1992 budget.
In this year's annual report of the Human Rights Commission, three aspects of discrimination against women are highlighted: the sex biases in the justice system, the systemic economic disadvantages, and various forms of violence.
The 1992-93 budget has done nothing to promote security of person for women. However, it does include measures that will actually facilitate sex biases in the justice system. Worse still, this budget promotes and even authorizes systemic economic discrimination against women.
In the introduction of his budget speech the finance minister claims that one of his aims is to support the well-being of Canadians and their families. Instead he has made women and children the primary targets of his cuts and fiscal mismanagement.
The child benefit is one aspect of this budget that has been widely promoted by this government. Perhaps mother's disadvantage would be a better term. The average family gains very little from this proposal. Since it is not fully indexed to inflation, in three years the value of the benefit will decrease by 10 per cent, and within 10
years this benefit will deprive most families of all meaningful assistance.
Single mothers on social assistance fare even more badly. They receive no additional benefit whatsoever. Already over 60 per cent of single mothers live in poverty in this country. Last year 700,000 Canadian children stood in line at food banks. Without increased benefits to their mothers these children will stay in that food bank line.
At the same time child care has been completely neglected. This is from a government that has been promising better child care and actively campaigning on that promise for over eight years. Without child care single mothers cannot find employment that will help them escape the social welfare trap.
By denying single mothers these two fundamental forms of assistance, this government has chosen to perpetuate the cycle of child poverty.
But food on the table is only one necessity that this government is attacking. By severely curtailing the CMHC's social housing budget, and by shutting down the Co-Operative Housing Program altogether, the government will deprive many single mothers and their children of a roof over their heads. Over one million Canadians could be left homeless by this mercenary measure.
Working women will also suffer under this budget, especially if they are employees of the federal government. Equal pay for work of equal value is still a dream for most women. Over the past 20 years the male-female wage gap has closed by only 8 cents. Women's wages, on average, are still 32 cents lower than men's for comparable work.
Our toothless pay equity legislation puts the onus on the employee to prove that discrimination exists. The Pay Research Bureau, which collects and provides information to help set pay, benefits and conditions of employment for the Public Service, was one of the few resources for women trying to establish evidence of discrimination. The government has used the budget to eliminate that essential resource.
Retroactive pay equity settlements prior to 1990 have also been eliminated, even though women have been entitled to equal pay since 1977. This move will deny
80,000	public servants earnings which are rightfully theirs. I call that almost stealing.
March 31, 1992

The elimination of the Court Challenges Program is perhaps the most fundamental example of this government's failure to protect the rights of Canadian women.
This program provided funding to allow disadvantaged groups to go to court to defend their rights according to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Many landmark decisions could not have been made without the Court Challenges Program.
More recently the program allowed the Women's Legal Education Action Fund to argue successfully that the obscenity provisions in the Criminal Code are indeed constitutional in that they reasonably attempt to prevent harms that affect the dignity and equality of women.
The elimination of the Court Challenges Program will silence the voices of many Canadian women before the law.
Along with minorities, seniors and children, this budget is directly attacking the fundamental rights of women all across Canada. An attack on women is an attack on families. It is an attack on children. It is time that this government stopped paying lip service to the women who make up over 52 per cent of the population of Canada and give every Canadian her full entitlement of rights and freedoms. I would like to read into Hansard a few comments from the Toronto Star made by Carol Goar. She says:
Why, after seven and one-half years of Conservative government,
has the number of food banks in this country risen from 75 to 292?
Is it right that 700,000 Canadian children, one out of every nine,
should have to depend on charity to eat?
She goes on to ask:
Why, during the devastating recession of the past two years, has the federal government reduced its support for low-rent housing by 46 per cent? Does the Prime Minister realize that thousands of families in urban centres go hungry each month so that they can pay the rent? What has changed since the summer of 1988 to convince the Prime Minister that child care is no longer a fundamental right? Does he realize that most single mothers cannot enter the work force to build a better life without affordable child care? Does the Prime Minister remember saying in Toronto 10 years ago "There is nothing I see that is more painful to me as a citizen of one of the most blessed nations on earth than the continual fighting and bitching-
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The Prime Minister's words.
- that is going on among and between just about every major group in our society.". Can the Prime Minister explain what he has done to improve the mood of the nation?
Mr. Speaker, it is a great privilege for me to speak here in the House on women this morning. I believe nothing has changed. I have been here almost three and one-half years and I seem to be saying the same things over and over again. I hope this government will start to listen to those of us who are most concerned about the rights of women in this country.
Thank you.


Mrs. Louise Feltham (Wild Rose):: Mr. Speaker, a number of questions have been raised in the House relating to why the federal government has abandoned its promise to initiate a national day care act.
I would like to take this opportunity to set the record straight. Hon. members have couched their questions in a manner that is very misleading. Their questions would lead one to believe we have turned our backs on day care and no longer believe that day care is an important service needed by many Canadians.
This is just not so. The House will recall that the federal government put forward a day care bill, Bill C-144, that would have spent $4 billion over a seven year period. You will also remember that both of the opposition parties did everything in their power to defeat this bill. Their stalling tactics were almost unprecedented.
Nevertheless the federal government persevered and finally, when the opposition members had exhausted all of the avenues open to them, the bill was passed and sent to the Senate. The opposition members were still not content with their previous efforts to frustrate the will of the majority of Canadians, and urged the Liberal-dominated Senate to further block and delay the bill.
The Senate decided to hear from further witnesses. They knew full well that almost every individual and association from every part of Canada had already been extended the opportunity to appear before the parliamentary committee. This was also after a lengthy task force on child care heard from interested parties from every region of this country. There was no question that the Senate was going to prolong this exercise for as long as it could. Given the Liberal-dominated Senate skills

March 31, 1992
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that had been sharply honed over the years to frustrate the work of Parliament, this could be a very long time.
Now events took over and an election was called. It seems strange that these two opposition parties, which have done everything in their power to prevent a National Day Care Act, are now attacking us for not introducing the bill once again. The public will not be fooled by these antics. Now let us look realistically at just what the federal government promised. It is true that during the election we indicated the bill would be reintroduced. However during the course of the election and immediately following it, many citizens concerned about day care urged us not to reintroduce this bill.
I am not talking only about those who did not believe the federal government ought to be lending its support to influence parental decisions as to whether or not parents should enter the work force. I am referring to groups which have a strong and continuing commitment to day care services. They argued that a different approach ought to be taken.
In addition to these concerns expressed by many in the day care community, the federal government found that the economic climate facing us was also very different from that of 1988. We had been hit with an economic slow-down. Falling revenues and rising expenditures were leading to a dangerous situation that, if not controlled, would have threatened the well-being of Canada.
Any citizen who found himself in such a situation would of course have taken prudent action. This was exactly what the federal government did. It recognized that our deficit was too large and was growing at an alarming rate. Therefore it took an aggressive approach to deficit reduction.
It knew full well this approach would involve some pain, but if also knew the long-term benefits demanded these actions. Consequently the federal government announced that a number of plans, including those for child care, would be put on temporary hold.
During this same period we listened carefully to the various new points that were being put forward relating to day care. You will recall the government stated on numerous occasions that it would consult with and listen to the views of Canadians.
The minister of the day responsible for day care frequently assured the House and all Canadians who made inquiries that a strategy would be in place during this government's current mandate.
The minister of the day, as well as other members of the government, made it clear they were not committed specifically to reintroducing another bill, Bill C-144. Our position was that Bill C-144 might be reintroduced, but another approach could possibly be taken, depending on further consultation and serious reflection on the information being received.
Our government would determine the exact nature of the strategy to be announced and implemented. It is also very clear that contrary to what the members in opposition would have us believe, promises were not specifically made about day care. The federal government listened to Canadians from every walk of life and knew that the problems being addressed were broader than day care.
That is precisely why the federal government steadfastly used the term child care rather than day care.
I want to speak to this further in a moment. However I want to speak about the situation that currently faces Canadians. Certainly the situation in 1992 is very different from that of 1984, when the government first announced its intention to launch a national child care program. Every major western country is feeling the impact of the recession. Every government, regardless of its political ideology or leanings, has had to come to grips with this new reality.
All members of this House recognize that Canada is not an isolationist country. Our own social and economic environment is directly influenced by what happens to our major trading partners. Any government that does not recognize there is a new spirit of competition abroad, affecting every country, will soon be left in the abyss of a stagnant and deteriorating economy.
The federal government does not bemoan these changing circumstances. It firmly believes that Canadian physical resources and personal expertise are second to none, however like any wise country, we need to streamline and modernize our competitive edge. The rewards will go to those who are not fearful of competing in climates of increasing excellence and are willing to make the adjustments necessary to forge ahead.

Certainly this means getting our own house in order. It means we cannot have our strengths toppled my an excessive deficit. This belt-tightening exercise is being undertaken by every level of government in Canada. Dutiful and painful decisions are being taken, as I said, by every level of government. It is not a partisan issue.
Municipalities make headlines daily as they struggle with the types and levels of services they can afford. They too have to make decisions about the balance between increased taxation, expenditure cuts or going even deeper into debt.
Most municipalities recognize there is very little room for going back to the hard-pressed homeowner for further increases in taxes. Pressing too far brings an inevitable backlash and turns citizen against citizen. If we go to the well too often we will find the well dry. This is obviously a non-starter.
Going deeper into debt has its limits as well. The debt load soon strangles all initiative and allows even less room to manoeuvre. It is nothing short of folly to reach the point where the interest charges become the number one budget item.
The provinces are in the same boat. It does not matter what provincial party is in power; Progressive Conservative, Liberal or NDP. Once it is in power it soon finds that it faces the same economic climate as everyone else. There are no magic solutions. It can bite the bullet and constructively confront the challenge, or hide its head in the sand and make the problem worse by procrastinating.
The federal government is no different. It faces the same problems. It cannot pretend that the changed realities are not there, or that hard decisions do not have to be taken. The line of attack we are taking is not essentially different from the action ordinary Canadians would take.
For example, recent polls have indicated a change or shift in Canadian attitudes and priorities. It is not that Canadians no longer think that day care is important. They obviously do. The shift reflects a changed environment, requiring new responses consistent to the new realities.
We all know what these changed realities are. The recession has brought about increased unemployment
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and higher levels of social assistance. Canadians perceive these problems differently now. They realize that they are no longer the problems of a small minority.
Traditionally, the typical Canadian was not worried about job security. Now middle income families know of middle income neighbours who have lost their jobs. Adjustments to the work force have affected professionals, white collar workers and blue collar workers.
Levels of education and technical abilities are no longer a cocoon of artificial protection. High-tech professionals are just as apt to have their positions terminated as the labourer. Hospital nurses, teachers and other professionals experience similar anxieties and concerns about their future.
Food banks are commonplace and the beneficiaries are not only those with low incomes. Many who have never previously thought it possible that their family might require these kinds of services now know that no one is completely free from the uncertainties that exist in a changed environment.
How have these realities changed our perspectives and therefore our priorities? For one thing, the level of awareness about poverty is much higher than it used to be. Canadians know that the number of families living in poverty is much greater than they previously believed. They are now more aware that poverty can and most often does come about through no fault of the individual affected.
The socio-economic forces at work are beyond the control of individual families. The typical Canadian has confronted the fact that many of their fellow citizens are facing hardships and want the government to take action.
If a typical Canadian is asked to priorize the following problems: a 10-year old requiring day care, a physically abused child, a sexually abused child, a hungry child, there is no question that day care will no longer be at the top of that list. No person of conscience would turn their back on the hungry or the abused child. Neither could we.
The number of children living in poverty in Canada is just not acceptable to us. The painful decisions that have to be made must be shared by all. It cannot be inordinately carried on the backs of impoverished children. Consequently we have done what most Canadians would

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have us do, we have opted to ease the conditions faced by children living in poverty.
Given that there are no magical sources of new money to address these problems, what can be done? First of all, it is important to streamline expenditures and the administration of expenditures so that money reaches those who need it most.
The objective of the child benefit is to create the best possible program for families with children. To do this, the new benefit puts resources where they are needed. The new child benefit puts resources where they are needed. The new child benefit provides more generous benefits, an additional $2 billion over the next five years to low and middle income families. The new child benefit is fairer. It is based on family circumstances, it rewards work and it supports low and modest income families.
The new child benefit is simpler than the patchwork of measures it replaces. Currently 600,000 family allowance cheques are sent each month to high income families and the money is then recovered.
The new system will calculate automatically and deliver a single monthly cheque to over three million families. Thus the new child benefit becomes a major step in improving benefits for families with children. Under the new system, a low income family with one child can receive as much as $1,520 per year, an increase of almost 50 per cent.
Child benefits will be increased by $2.1 billion over the next five years. However, money alone is not enough. We will be consulting with provincial colleagues and key groups on a related package of initiatives directed more specifically toward helping young children as risk.


Mr. Rey Pagtakhan (Winnipeg North):: Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to rise and speak on this motion introduced by my colleague for Halifax which reads:
That this House condemns the government for its failure to
protect and promote the fundamental rights of Canadian women
especially as reflected in the 1992 budget.
I ask, Mr. Speaker, why? The answer is best summarized by the statement issued by the president of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women, Miss Judy Rebick when she stated: "This is not a direct hit like the last time", that is referring to the 1991
budget, "but it is a much more profound attack on women-it is more global".
Why is that? Immediately I will set out before the House the reasons and outline them. First, the Tories have abandoned their promise to introduce a national child care program. Second, the government has eliminated the Court Challenges Program which was introduced in 1985 and has provided funds for women, minorities and disadvantaged groups to mount court challenges under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The Charter of Rights and Freedoms would be a hollow document if the rights contained in it were not exercised. The Court Challenges Program ensures that those rights are exercised. Witness the recent example of a ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada on the constitutionality of the federal obscenity law through the help of the Court Challenges Program. The decision rendered is crucial to our understanding and recognizing the harmful effects of pornography on women and children.
The third reason why this budget reflects poorly on women is that this budget attacks the spouse's allowance. The majority of low income seniors that would benefit from this allowance, those between the ages of 60 and 64, are women. Fourth, this budget has attacked the Pay Research Bureau, and thereby indirectly attacks the pay equity principle. Last, this budget has cut back on social housing on which many single mothers rely for shelter.
In Februaiy 19911 was part of the Liberal task force on the recession of the economy when it met in Winnipeg. A hotel in the southeast end was the venue on a bitterly cold day in the depths of winter. At that time we thought the recession, like all prairie winters, was showing the worst of itself. Well, we were wrong. There was still much more to come. We learned how much lack of money and human tragedy have in common. On that day in the hotel room the testimony I heard shocked and saddened me, especially the words of the women.
Three witnesses particularly stand out in my mind. They were representatives of the Native Women's Coalition who told us simply with a stark forcefulness about the hell in which many natives live. We were told that on most reserves women have no shelter from abuse in their homes. Because of this it is not uncommon for teenagers to get pregnant in order to qualify for enough social assistance to move away from their families and into the cities to their own apartments.
March 31, 1992

My horror grew when in the months that followed I heard more and similar stories of abuse, poverty, neglect and despair of women, young and old, of every age and race.
Taken separately these stories seem unrelated, distanced by circumstance. But woven together they form a cloth of shame the federal government must wear.
Imagine a 12-year old boy in Toronto who suddenly became troubled and aggressive. His parents, who both work outside the home, sought counselling from a psychologist. The problem they found was that the boy was stretched out of shape with grown-up responsibilities because the family could not afford or find proper child care. The boy spent four hours a day caring for his younger brother and sister. His boyhood was fast fading as a curtain of burden was drawn around him.
He did not have time to play with his friends. Private time was beyond his reach. Even his parents, exhausted from their jobs, bills and commuting were too tired to realize his needs. This boy has become the face of the government's oft-promised national child care program that a few hours before the budget was introduced, the Minister of National Health and Welfare had the courage to boast he was not introducing. It was really a sad day for Canada.
Let me quote from the opening paragraph of the Winnipeg Free Press editorial of March 1 entitled "Retreat from day care":
It is tragic for parents of young children and young people who hope to raise families that polls say Canadians no longer view a national day-care program as a priority. Health Minister Benoit Bouchard claims he has polls which tell him as much.
It continues:
To use that excuse to abandon government promises advanced to woo voters in 1984 and in 1988, however, is cynical and harmfully shortsighted.
Let me quote from the column of Mr. Leonard Shifrin in the Free Press of March 13, 1992. He said:
Cutting the surtax rate to give $450 benefits to $100,000 earners and $40 benefits to $25,000 earners will cost the treasury $1.2 billion next year-three times the price of the child care plan.
A government that can afford such largess for the rich doesn't have to choose between increasing day care spaces and fighting child abuse.
In Winnipeg a single mother on welfare went on trial for the death of her young son. She was acquitted. The judge apologized for her suffering. The boy, one of two children, had died when he climbed on to the stove when his mother left to do laundry. Police found an apartment
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that was clean and tidy, with play things but with very little furniture. The woman's background showed she had once been caught stealing diaper ointment and that she had pawned her furniture to buy food for her babies. This is a sad story indeed.
How many of us would wish to grow old? Do you stand before the mirror and ask the lines on your face to deepen and the seasons to pass more quickly? Yet there is a legion of people in Canada who anxiously await old age so they might be able to climb out from under the weight of their poverty. These people are mainly women in their late 50s and 60s. They are often without job skills or are at the mercy of the marketplace that hungers for youth. Usually they are alone, their husbands dead and their children unwilling or unable to help. They have lived through wartime. They have contributed greatly to the prosperity of Canada, yet they have no share of it. Most do not qualify for Canada Pension Plan benefits. Some are eligible for spouse's allowance which is not a great deal of money, but it means a great deal to those women who have nothing. It helps them to preserve their dignity in the face of abject poverty.
For most people age 65 means retirement. They can pick up those books they always meant to read, start new hobbies, golf, visit with grandchildren and travel. These times are the golden years. To the women who wait to grow old, age 65 means an old age pension.
Last week members of a federal seniors organization travelled to Ottawa to meet with members of the Liberal caucus and relate their fears. One of the women told how difficult it was for seniors to pay for the upkeep of their homes. Previously they were able to apply for home maintenance grants from CMHC, but the granting program was cancelled. Once seniors cannot pay for the upkeep of their homes they are usually forced to sell them. Then where do they go? Where will they go when the government pulls back from commitments to social housing which is often the only alternative left to many, many seniors?
In conclusion, let me say that the pay equity program is another problem. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees equality today but not tomorrow. If the government was to respond, it would respond with vigour. Women in this country need the government's help, yet with this budget they got less than zero. The child benefits package is a fraud. Child care has been killed. The Court Challenges Program was cancelled. The spouse's allowance has an axe hanging over it and pay equity is being ignored.

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Social housing also took a direct hit and suffered a funding cut while the Co-op Housing Program was eliminated. Indeed, the 1992 budget fails to meet Canadian women's dreams and aspirations. They will continue to face the inequitable and grim realities.
Therefore, through you, Mr. Speaker, I ask this government to resign.


Mr. Scott Thorkelson (Edmonton-Strathcona):: Mr. Speaker, my question is quite simple. The member opposite in the Liberal Party condemned the government for cutting funding to the Court Challenges Program, social housing and some other programs.
I would like to ask the member what taxes he would raise to fund those programs.


Rey D. Pagtakhan: Mr. Speaker, it is interesting that the government member would ask such a question. He assumed the Liberal caucus would like to see taxes raised. It is such a fallacious premise that his question does not deserve an answer. It is an insult to Canadians. There is a beautiful principle expounded by the United Nations that when resources are limited, you have to reallocate resources and make priorities. Our priorities are the children and women of this country.


Mrs. Sheila Finestone (Mount Royal):: Mr. Speaker, under the Conservatives, an increasing number of women and children have joined the ranks of the poor. It is a fact that if poverty strikes parents, it strikes their children as well, and it is also a fact that a disproportionate number of women are found among the most economically disadvantaged in our society. No form of poverty is acceptable, but the alarming number of single-parent families headed by women that lack the bare minimum to survive is intolerable. The Canadian government told Canadians to expect a realistic budget. The Tory reality is that 2.3 million people in this country are on welfare, 1.5 million are unemployed, 3.8 million, including one million children, do not have the bare necessities of life and more than 60 per cent of mothers who are on their own, divorced, separated or single, are poor.
The 1992 Tory budget does nothing to deal with the problem of poverty in this country or to improve women's quality of life. In fact, the budget contains a number
of measures that are particularly hard on women and children. Let me explain.
First of all, the Mulroney government broke its eight-year old promise to implement a national child care plan which would have given women and children a chance to get out of the poverty cycle. The government is misleading when it tells Canadians it had to choose between child care services and programs for children at risk.
The president of the Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women, Glenda Simms, exposed the flaw in the government's reasoning when she said that child care services are a way to ward off danger. Why does the government see abused and poor children as different from those who need safe and affordable day care? We know the government has cut more than $3.5 billion from the family allowance envelope since 1986. Its child benefit measure will not help fight poverty. This benefit will be of no use to abandoned or single mothers on welfare. Since the child benefit is not indexed, its value will go down, and we have the same amount of money we had before, except that the packaging is somewhat different.
Another item. The budget scrapped the Court Challenges Program, implemented in 1985, which gives women, minorities and disadvantaged groups the funding they need to defend their cases before the courts, as provided under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Since the program was established, there have been a number of landmark judgments, including the Forest case which led to the reinstatement of language rights for Franco-Manitobans.
The Charter of Rights and Freedoms is merely a mechanism that can be used to abolish discriminatory legislation. It does not guarantee individuals the resources they need to challenge legislation that prevents them from exercising their rights before the courts. Without the funding provided under the Court Challenges Program, the rights in the charter have no real meaning for disadvantaged groups.

Bertha Wilson, the very famous and renowned judge who just left the Supreme Court this past year said that the Court Challenges Program, which was axed in this budget, was an imaginative and worthwhile program and should be saved.
March 31, 1992

Wilson recently wrote the Minister of Justice to express dismay and distress over the cancellation of this program which has an annual budget of $2.75 million. She said:
It is totally illusory to confer rights on people who do not have the means to enforce them, and I assumed that the expansion of the Court Challenges program was an effort to address this problem. While I fully appreciate, of course, that all governments are currently in a period of financial restraint, I must say that I have difficulty with a policy that places the burden of that restraint on those who can least afford to bear it.
As a member of the Supreme Court, Wilson said she witnessed how invaluable the program had been to minority groups and the disadvantaged. She went on to point out: " I believe I can say with complete confidence that the public has unquestionably received full value for its money on this particular program".
That program provided funding of up to $35,000 at each court level to individuals and non-profit groups for test cases challenging federal laws and policies under the charter's language and equality guarantees.
The Conservative chairman of the all-party committee, the member for Oxford, has written to the Prime Minister to protest as well. He said: "We are optimistic we might be able to persuade the government to find some other ways of providing this kind of service".
But the multiculturalism minister and member for Pierrefonds-Dollard said the program has outlived its usefulness and the provinces will have to step in to fill the gap. While this program was established in 1978 to help fund minority language rights cases, it was extended in 1985 after the powerful equality section of the charter was proclaimed. I recall being part of the committee that reviewed that particular section 15 of the charter and made the recommendation to enlarge the challenges program.
The third point I bring to your attention- [Translation]
-is the spouse's allowance program that was meant to help disadvantaged older people under 65 until they became eligible for Old Age Security benefits and the guaranteed income supplement.
Page 101 of the budget papers shows the government's intention to seriously reconsider the spouse's allowance
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program if the courts ruled that it had to be extended to divorced and single people. If this government acts, this measure will affect the most vulnerable and economically weakest people aged 60 to 64, largely women.
In addition, I would draw attention to this month's increase in Old Age Security benefits. The amount of 37 cents is really insulting; the previous increase was 75 cents. Certainly that is not enough. You cannot buy a cup of coffee or even a slice of bread for that amount.
Another thing that I would mention is the downgrading of pay equity. Finally, I would call attention to the cuts for social housing.
On the subject of salaries, not only did this government abolish the Pay Research Bureau but it also announced a reduction in back pay for public servants. Indeed, the government does not intend to grant more compensation for the period before November 1, 1990, and it will take the required action in Parliament to implement this decision. This means that if you don't like something, you abolish it. For 80,000 public servants, this is a rejection of the principle of pay equity.
Finally, there is the subject of isolated or single mothers who need social housing. This government announced that the growth in spending on social housing would be limited to 3 per cent until 1997. On that point, I would mention that this government not only reduced the number of social housing spaces by nearly 50 per cent but it also abolished the co-operative housing program, which nevertheless was cost-effective and made it possible for seniors, one-parent families, the disabled and the poor to live in affordable housing.
In closing, Mr. Speaker, I again draw to your attention that this budget is disgusting for women and certainly for people in financial difficulty.


Mrs. Lise Bourgault (Argenteuil-Papineau):: Mr. Speaker, as I listen to the hon. member for Mount Royal, the first thing that comes to my mind is that it would be absolutely necessary for the government to be able to print money in order to solve the numerous problems that many Canadiens are facing.
It is absolutely absurd to hear things such as: "If the government must review the allowance program for widows, this could be applied to divorced people and others that might need that money". It sounds as though the government is no longer capable to act because it is

March 31, 1992
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always subjected to the decisions made by the Supreme Court of Canada following the implementation of the famous Charter of Rights and Freedoms that the Liberals left untouched.
I would like to ask a question of the member for Mount Royal. I approve of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but I often wonder if it would not be possible to amend this famous charter in order to avoid excessive recourse to the courts, thus preventing the government from acting selectively when a certain group has a particular need. The member is aware that 50 year old people now want to have access to the Program for Older Worker Adjustment, just like the 55 year olds. If the government agreed, you would then say: Why not make the 45 year old workers eligible? Surely, the government must impose some limits.
When the Liberals were in power, they set up a scientific research program that was a national scandal, a fraud of $1 billion through a program that had been decided by the former finance minister of the Liberal government. Just imagine if the government had that one billion dollars. Programs such as Canada Works, and all the others; the tap was open. The Liberals had money and there was no problem. We got here in 1984 and we inherited that legacy. Of course you inherit serious problems in times of recession. It is very nice to make statements of principle and to try to make political capital on the backs of children and women in difficulty, but what is our capacity as a nation to pay? The Liberals from the other side of the House never answered that question.


Sheila Finestone: Mr. Speaker, it is a rotten thing for a member of this House, regardless of his party, to say that he or she does not like the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The hon. member is not pleased that we made changes, that we gave Canada a Charter of Rights and Freedoms to protect the most needy, a charter that gave them the opportunity to present their case and seek justice before the courts. This is really a sad, lousy and unacceptable attitude.
Also, regarding the needs of the most needy, a choice was made by the minister of National Health and Welfare, who said that he was the killer of two important programs: one in the transport sector, and now this one
which was aimed at providing day-care services to families.
When you govern, you have the opportunity to make political decisions. It is sad to see that the political decisions made by this government were to help the rich; now the gap between the rich and the poor has become totally unacceptable. If this government, through its policies, was not able to choose another option, it is truly time for Canadians to do what is necessary to change this government. That is what we need: a change of government.
If the government had wanted to do so, it would have made cuts in office personnel, those people that eat out of the public through, and then it would really have been able to eliminate the advertisement and the publicity surrounding all its projects to try to fool the public. Indeed, this government is really trying to deceive Canadians.
There are political decisions to be made, such as the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the program that helps me and the needy to go before the courts, as well as older and younger women, mothers, and especially children who live in poverty. None of these groups have been served by this government and its new budget which abuses the public.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Questions and comments have now ended. Debate.


Scott Jon Thorkelson: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak on this very, very important issue, the government's commitment to the equality of women. I am pleased because I believe the government has repeatedly shown its commitment to improving the position of women in Canadian society. It has shown determination in addressing issues which are of concern to women and which hinder the advancement of women. Of course, more could always be done and we are working on doing more.
In no area is this more evident than in the area of the issue of violence against women. This is not just a recent concern of the federal government. This government has been working hard to understand this issue since the early 1980s, to develop and to implement effective
March 31, 1992

responses to this complex, devastating and costly social evil.
No government has worked harder at listening to women. No government has worked harder to involve women and other sectors of society in developing solutions.
No government has worked harder to bring home to Canadians the realization that violence against women costs our society dearly and that we all share the responsibility to address it.
The federal government has accepted its responsibilities to send the unmistakable message that violence against women in all of its forms, emotional, sexual, physical abuse or the denial of women's rights is never, never acceptable.
We are committed to act in areas which are clearly a federal responsibility. We are committed to supporting community action. We are convinced that action is needed across many fronts. We are convinced that all the tools available in a modern society need to be employed in a co-ordinated and comprehensive fashion to prevent, to reduce and to one day end violence against women.
This approach of reaching out and working with women and other partners of society is succeeding in shifting the political and social momentum on this issue. This approach is helping women to galvanize other groups and institutions to examine their response to this problem and to take action.
Even as we speak today, the Canadian Panel on Violence Against Women is at work crossing the country listening to women. It is reaching out at the grassroots level to improve our knowledge of the problem, and to produce solid recommendations for preventative action.
Announced in the Speech from the Throne in May of 1991 and launched three months later with a $10 million budget, the panel is evidence of the depth of this government's commitment, not only to ending violence against women but also to ensuring that women are fully involved in developing the solutions.
The panel came into being as a result of the unwavering vision of thousands of Canadian women who insisted on a society in which they could live without fear.
We as a government received petitions and requests from women all over Canada asking for a national
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inquiry into this issue. I personally was petitioned by many women from my own constituency who wrote and called me on this issue.
Women wanted greater public awareness and a chance to speak out about their own experience. They wanted to share in a process of discovering what needs to be and what can be done to end the violence against women and to heal the wounds that it causes.
The members of the panel were chosen in careful consultation with representatives of women across Canada. This consultation has resulted in a panel which exemplifies the finest in knowledge, experience, sensitivity and leadership.
It is a panel which collectively represents the perspectives of the various regions of Canada, urban and rural, as well as a first-hand knowledge of the unique needs and concerns of aboriginal women, immigrant women, and visible minority women. Above all, it is a panel with the front-line experience which is so critical to the understanding of this issue.
The panel has a comprehensive five-part national mandate. First is to examine violence against women in all of its dimensions, be they physical, psychological or sexual in nature, and whether they occur in the home, the workplace, the street or the media. It will examine the violence as it occurs in trusted relationships such as those involving physicians and clergy, in dating relationships and including cult and serial violence. We read about these problems every day in the newspaper. The panel is examining them right now. It will also document the incidence, root causes, effects and links among various forms of violence.
Second, it will identify the issue and name the violence from the perspective of the woman's experience.
Third, it will heighten public awareness about violence against women.
Fourth, it will seek solutions relating them to the root causes of violence against women and it will emphasize prevention.
Fifth and finally, the panel will produce recommendations designed for governments at all levels, the nongovernmental sector, business and organized labour, churches, schools, communities and individuals.

March 31, 1992
It will devise a plan of action with concrete timeframes for federal government action. The panel functions at arm's length from the government and it has an enormous task to complete in a relatively short period of time. The final report is due at the end of this calendar year.
At the present time the panel is fully engaged in the first phase of its mandate. It is holding a series of grassroots, largely private consultations in five nine-day tours to over 100 communities across Canada. So far, the panel has visited British Columbia, my own province of Alberta, Quebec and the Atlantic provinces. It is presently holding meetings in Ontario.
The panel is taking that approach to ensure that it is accessible to women everywhere in the country and to make it possible for women to come forward and speak about something which is so terrible and so sensitive that for years women have borne it in silence and in fear.
The panel expects to complete this first phase of its mandate next month and to issue a preliminary report by May 27, 1992. It will then enter its second phase which will involve a series of public consultations.
The very fact that this panel is at work examining this issue is already furthering the objective of public education and helping to send out the message that violence against women must be of concern to every man, woman and child in this country.
It is helping to get the message out to institutions, companies, professional organizations and labour unions. It is providing a forum and a focus for all sectors of society to come together to deal with this issue.
The panel's work is being well received across the country. Women and front-line experts are responding to the panel's call for involvement. We must remember that the panel itself is, for the most part, comprised of these front-line experts.
People have been involved in this issue for many years. The media has been receptive to the work of the panel, and the momentum for change is being maintained by the very presence of the panel in communities all across the country.
It is partly through this kind of continuing public awareness that we, as a government, believe that we can
build zero tolerance of violence against women in society.
The more people who know that such violence exists and how to recognize it, the fewer people will tolerate the social, physical and political factors at work to perpetuate the abusive power in Canadian society.
The more intolerant society becomes toward abuse and violence, the more understanding it shows for the victims of the abuse, the easier it will be for women to stand up to the abusing.
Some have suggested that we already know enough about violence against women and that we need not study it further. Research has been fragmented and scattered leaving individuals, groups and communities to grope for information and solutions. More often than not, they have found that the answers have often posed more questions rather than solutions.
The panel's work will do much to remedy this situation. It will bring together what we now know about the issue of violence against women and will make it readily available to all those who need it. The work will add to what we know. It will point out what we do not know and what we still must find out.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I think we should call it one o'clock and the hon. member will then have 10 minutes remaining in his speech plus 10 minutes for questions and comments, once we return to debate after three o'clock.
It being one o'clock, I do now leave the chair until two o'clock this afternoon, pursuant to Standing Order 24(2).
The House took recess at 1 p.m.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 2 p.m.

Mr. Bill Attewell (Markham-Whitchurch-Stouff-ville):: Mr. Speaker, Nathan Abramowitz sent me a picture of a stamp being issued by the Iranian postal service to mark the UN International Day of the Child.

March 31, 1992

I was deeply disturbed by the stamp which pictures a young boy throwing a rock through a Jewish Star of David on an ocean-blue sheet of glass. This stamp exploits innocent children, using them to promote and incite violence and hatred toward Jews.
Iranian officials must recall this stamp and stop inciting violence against Jews.
External Affairs officials have told the Iranian ambassador that Canada strongly objects to these stamps. We must continue to pressure Iranian officials to stop this intolerable anti-Jewish campaign, especially in the name of the world's children.


PARLIAMENTARY FORUM ON DISABILITY
Mr. Neil Young (Beaches-Woodbine):: Mr. Speaker, yesterday, something absolutely extraordinary happened here on the Hill.
An assembly of CEOs, union leaders and Canadians with disabilities listened and applauded Justin Dart, an American civil rights leader, as he praised Canada's record on equality and freedom. He challenged us to protect equality and empowerment as basic tenets of democracy.
Equality and empowerment must be fostered by our collective sense of who we are as Canadians. They must be protected by government.
The values of our society, equality and empowerment, must not be compromised by ignorance nor eroded by economic excuse. Chopping programs such as the Court Challenges Program and Silent News is not the way to
go-
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for bringing business and labour together in your Parliamentary Forum on Disability. With your support, equality and empowerment will become a reality for all Canadians.


GASOLINE ADDITIVES
Hon. Ralph Ferguson (Lambton-Middlesex):: Mr. Speaker, in spite of my repeated warnings and countless appeals over the past two years to ban the gasoline additive MMT, this government continues to ignore the
health risks, especially to young children, environmental risks and the damage to pollution controls by continuing to allow this insidious neurotoxin to be added to unleaded gasoline in Canada. This compound has been banned in the United States since 1978.
In January of this year, after the direct intervention and appeals of five major car manufacturers, three automobile parts manufacturers associations, environmental organizations and academics and medical specialists, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency again rejected an application to allow MMT in U.S. unleaded fuel.
Why are Canadians not being afforded the same protection as our neighbours to the south? Why is this government willing to ignore the evidence and willing to continue to risk the health of Canadians, especially our children?


ABORIGINAL LANGUAGES DAY
Mr. Willie Littlechild (Wetaskiwin):: Mr. Speaker, traditionally our educators were our elders who taught us the way of managing and prospering in harmony with the natural world.
I therefore ask this House to endorse today, March 31, 1992, as National Aboriginal Languages Day in order that we may promote and enhance an awareness and revival of our aboriginal languages.
I also encourage all aboriginal people to participate in activities that will help recognize this unique day and recommend that they all learn at least one word a day.
[Editor's Note: Member spoke in Cree]
As one of our elders said: "If we can speak and understand our language, our elders can then tell us who we are".
[Editor's Note: Member spoke in Cree]



Ms. Ethel Blondin (Western Arctic):: Mr. Speaker, today marks the fourth anniversary of Aboriginal Languages Day.

March 31, 1992
There are 11 language families, 53 languages and over 200 dialects which embody our unique relationship to the Creator, reflect our traditions and our values.
We ask all peoples to use March 31 as a day to celebrate our survival as a peoples and to promote and preserve our aboriginal languages so aboriginal children in generations to come may proudly speak of then-culture in their mother tongue.
[Editor's Note: Member spoke in Inuktitut.]


GYPSY MOTH
Mr. Dave Worthy (Cariboo-Chilcotin):: Mr. Speaker, Canada is facing a potential crisis because of the arrival on its shores of the gypsy moth. This moth is normally native to eastern Asia and has been transported to our shores by freighters. Although localized right now, it can spread swiftly throughout B.C. and possibly other parts of Canada.
We have been working in co-operation with the U.S. to find a solution. They have taken action to deal with their problem. We have yet to deal with ours. The objective is to prevent further infestation.
The Department of Agriculture is planning aerial spraying in Vancouver next month. It is imperative that we proceed. If left unchecked, this infestation will have a devastating effect on Canada, economically as well as environmentally.


POVERTY
Mr. Chris Axworthy (Saskatoon-Clark's Crossing):: Mr. Speaker, while it should not come as a surprise, doctors are now stating publicly that Canadian children are dying from malnutrition, dying because they are poor.
Canada's 377 food banks are unable to meet the demands of the hungry and social assistance rates across the country are inadequate to meet the nutritional needs of Canada's poor.
The Minister of National Health and Welfare recently told a Vancouver audience that child poverty has been on
the decline. This is an appalling error on the part of the minister responsible for children. In fact child poverty is on the rise in Canada.
Less than two years ago the Prime Minister told heads of state that "funding is important but it is not, in the end, the decisive factor in the war on child suffering. Political will is".
I challenge the Prime Minister to exercise political will and ensure that all Canadian children are properly fed. It is time he stopped listening to John Crow and started listening to Canada's hungry children. What Canada needs is not zero inflation but zero child poverty.


TRANSFER PAYMENTS
Mr. Larry Schneider (Regina-Wascana):: Mr. Speaker, the government has been subjected to opposition harassment that we are off-loading. A decline in the increase in transfer payments is not off-loading.
I am deeply concerned for the taxpayers in my home province of Saskatchewan. Just last week the Saskatchewan NDP announced a 15 per cent cut in transfer payments to municipalities, a 5.5 per cent cut to hospitals, and a 4 per cent cut to education. These actions are absolutely unprecedented and unacceptable.
These actions are off-loading in spades.
The people of Saskatchewan have begun to ask if the harmonized tax system begun by the previous government was all that bad after all.


JOEY SMALLWOOD
Hon. Roger C. Simmons (Burin-St. George's):: Mr. Speaker, 43 years ago today Newfoundland and Canada became one nation. Let me note the occasion by saluting the memory of the man who was most responsible.
A bit of each of us died with Joey Smallwood last December. He embodied our stubborn will to hang on to our way of life while improving our lot. Much of Joey lives on with us. His crusade to smash the curse of isolation transformed a thousand pockets of population into a closely knit community whose culture is intact.
March 31, 1992

Many of Joey's battles are still ours to win. We are still the poor cousins of Confederation though great strides have been made, thanks to his vision.
Joey Smallwood, a great Newfoundlander by birth, a great Canadian by choice. Newfoundland, a proud partner in Canada.


MERCHANT MARINE
Mr. Doug Fee (Red Deer):: Mr. Speaker, even as a land-locked western Canadian, I was delighted that our wartime merchant seamen received such good news last week. Many red herrings were produced over the years to deny them equal footing with those who served the country in the army, navy and air force.
Merchant mariners were not subject to military discipline it was said. They were free to sail or to stay ashore. That makes the contribution of our merchant mariners all the more admirable. They did not have to, but they climbed aboard their ships and voyage after voyage faced the perils of torpedoes, shells, bombs, and gales. They had the option of staying ashore but instead they continued the vital work of sustaining the supply lines, the lines that ensured victory.
I am proud that my government is going to be bringing in legislation giving our high seas mariners their full due. As the Minister of Veterans Affairs told them last week: "Welcome aboard".


FISHERIES
Raymond John Skelly: Mr. Speaker, the Conservative government once again cut the budget allocation for west coast charter fisheries officers.
These budget cuts will destroy the management in the west coast salmon fishery. There will be no fisheries officers to supervise the commercial, sports and food fisheries. There will be no fisheries officers to make spawning fish counts, to estimate escapement.
Without these counts, it is impossible to estimate the expected salmon return. Without this information, a fishing plan cannot be developed. Without the information, fisheries management is impossible. The government must supply sufficient funding to hire enough charter fisheries officers to carry out proper fisheries management and enforcement.
The government must know you cannot save money by destroying the west coast fisheries resource.


WELLFUND AUDIO VISUAL LTD.
Mr. Stan Wilbee (Delta):: Mr. Speaker, I have the pleasure of reporting some very good news to the House today.
Last week, I attended a sod turning ceremony for the construction of a new television manufacturing plant in my riding of Delta, British Columbia. With the help of a $3 million loan from this government's Western Economic Diversification Program, Wellfund Audio Visual Ltd. of Hong Kong is establishing the $14 million dollar plant on Annacis Island.
Due to the free trade agreement, this new project will be able to produce low cost television sets to compete in the U.S. market which is now almost exclusively dominated by Asian imports. Besides creating new manufacturing technology and spin off benefits for the local electronics industry, this new plant will use components from Ontario and the U.S.
I am extremely encouraged to see this type of investment in Canada and, more important, to see the creation of up to 250 jobs for my constituents, a significant portion of which will be in research and development.
This new plant is a real winner for Delta, for Canada, and for the free trade agreement.


FISHERIES
Mrs. Coline Campbell (South West Nova):: Mr. Speaker, on March 17, 1992, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans announced the 1992 allocation of developmental species.
It is my understanding that the minister received applications from the Canadian fishing industry totalling
300,000	tonnes. As part of those applications for developmental species, applications had to contain a three-year business plan. This was beneficial to the industry as it allowed it to have stability and planning in the under-utilized species.

March 31, 1992
Oral Questions
However, when the minister approved the applications, they were not for the full amount of the unassigned quotas, and they were allotted only for a one-year basis. This means that, one, we will continue to see foreigners catching fish within our 200-mile zone and we have applications to develop all that these foreigners can catch. Two, our own companies cannot shore up their developmental plans for those under-utilized species as they are not sure if they will be given under-utilized species for more than one year.
People in Nova Scotia cannot understand why the minister has acted in such as way to the detriment of Canadian communities which are so dependent on developing new processing for these under-utilized species.


COMPOSITE MATERIALS
Mr. Jacques Vien (Laurentides):: Mr. Speaker, I recently visited the composite materials centre at the Saint-Jerome CEGEP. This centre makes state-of-the-art technological expertise available to various industries. Composite materials combine a fibre core and a covering made of polymer, inorganic material or metal.
The Saint-Jerome CEGEP Centre focuses its expertise on technology transfer and the development of new industrial products. In particular, it contributed to the channel tunnel joining France and England. In addition, the Saint-Jerome composite materials centre co-operates with various universities throughout the world.
It must be emphasized that this is a centre of innovation that is available to all businesses. I therefore invite interested entrepreneurs to use its services.


HALTON-PEEL SURVEY
Mr. Garth Turner (Halton-Peel):: Mr. Speaker, people keep writing to me with excellent advice.
For example, Bill and Joanne Stanzeleit write: "My, and my family's, future is in the hands of politicians. We think Canada is the greatest country on earth and we are afraid that it is falling apart. I have lived in Ontario,
Quebec, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, and think one step toward a brighter future would be to educate Canadians about their own country".
Eitel Hippier of Campbellville writes me: "I have lived in this country for 41 years, done my best, was well compensated and learned to live within my budget. A rich country like Canada, with good qualified leaders should do equally well. I compliment the government on a fine job."
Finally, Dr. Dean Axelson, not a constituent, from Willowdale writes:
I believe that we as Canadians have to be less socialistic and cut down on what we give for free. We must be more concerned about the needs of Canadians and less concerned about aid to other countries- We have to find ways to lower our tax burden and give employers an incentive to create jobs. Employers are losing more rights all the time.


FIREARMS CONTROL
Mr. Guy Saint-Julien (Abitibi):: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada today tabled the regulations on the control of firearms. These regulations deal in particular with the capacity of loaders, collectors of restricted firearms, firearms acquisition permits and the storage and transportation of firearms.
These regulations will help better protect the public by reducing the number of thefts and accidents caused by firearms. Interested groups that wish to comment on the regulations should let Parliament know their opinions before these regulations take effect. The dates of coming into force will be set later and advance notice will be given.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Hon. Jean Chretien (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister. First of all, I would like to say that we on this side of the House congratulate the Prime Minister on the speeches
March 31, 1992

he made last week in Quebec, where he defended Canada so vigorously. We also appreciate what was done by the Minister Responsible for Constitutional Affairs on the weekend in Alberta, where he was not afraid to stand up for his country, despite threats that he might lose his riding.
My question, however, is this: When will the Prime Minister instil the same courage in ministers who have been in his cabinet for seven years? The responsibilities of a minister in the Canadian government include defending Canada in Quebec and making Quebecers understand that the future of the French fact in North America depends on a Canadian solution.


Right Hon. Brian Mulroney (Prime Minister):: I want to thank the Leader of the Opposition for his comments. It must be disappointing for those who are trying to destroy Canada to realize that despite the attacks, insults and fabrications, it is clear from the polls that if you ask Quebecers whether they want a separate and independent Quebec or a renewed Canada, every time they will opt for Canada and a renewed Canada. I think this is a very important point.
As for Mr. Parizeau's option, which offers independence- but wait, I want to keep the Canadian dollar, I want to keep my Canadian citizenship, I want to continue to enjoy the benefits of a Canadian economic union, I want to keep the Queen and the flag- it just goes to show that even Mr. Parizeau, deep down, wants to remain a Canadian.
As far as we are concerned, I have no hesitation at all in sending a federalist message throughout Quebec and across Canada, and I am supported in my efforts by the members of my team and by others on the other side as well, and more recently by the Minister of State for Agriculture who made two extraordinary speeches in the Quebec City area, in favour of Canada, and there were many other ministers. They cannot all make the speeches on the same day, but I can assure you they all share my enthusiasm for Canada.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, I would like to inform the Prime Minister, in case he did not know, that yesterday on television, the Minister of National Defence said once again that he did not want to defend the Beaudoin-Dobbie report, which was produced by this House and which, according to the Prime Minister, is the best offer Quebec has had in 127
Oral Questions
years. Furthermore, his Quebec lieutenant, the Minister of National Health and Welfare, said he would not go and defend Canada unless he had something better than a pocket knife, even if according to what the Prime Minister said just a moment ago, the Canadian option is still the best option open to Quebecers.
When will the Prime Minister finally ask these two ministers, who took an oath to defend the interests of Canada, to do their job or else go home?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. member is not being quite fair to the ministers and certainly not to the Minister of National Health and Welfare. Yesterday, the newspaper Le Soleil reported that "Benoit Bouchard said quite frankly that Quebec's separation would have certain consequences and entail certains costs for Quebecers. When someone says there will be a price to pay, when federalists say that, it's blackmail; but if someone says it will be all moonlight and roses, everybody looks incredulous".
I believe that in their own way, the ministers from Quebec and the Quebec caucus are truly and deeply committed to Canada. There are ministers, and there are quite a few, who would prefer to be able to defend a specific plan. That is why we have been trying for some time, on behalf of the government and the Parliament of Canada, to put together a constitutional program we would all be proud to defend in Quebec around referendum time.
I will tell you what I told Jean-Frangois Bertrand. When Mr. Bertrand told me that sovereignty was a clear option, I answered: Sure, provided you can keep your Canadian citizenship, the Canadian dollar, Canadian currency and the benefits of the Canadian economic union. He said: All right, but what do you have to offer? I told him: Mr. Bertrand, you already have it. Canada already exists. It already is something quite extraordinary. Canada is one of the great civilized countries, one of the modern, dynamic and prosperous countries on this planet. As for me, first and foremost, I am pround to be a Canadian, I am proud to live like a Canadian and a Quebecer, and until the day I die, I intend to be able to say to the world: I am proud to be a Canadian and I am proud to be a Quebecer. Both go together.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.

March 31, 1992
Oral Questions


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, I agree with the Prime Minister. I have done it for a long time in my life. I intend to keep doing it.
The gap between those who proclaim and those who talk about sovereignty-they never use the word independence and separation-is narrowing. When will he do what a Prime Minister should do, tell his ministers from Quebec, the Minister of National Defence and the Minister of National Health and Welfare to do what is required of ministers of the Crown, to go to Quebec and tell them what the Prime Minister just said to this House and not chicken out in front of these two ministers who are afraid to take their responsibilities.


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, perhaps my hon. friend should be a little more discriminating in the people he seeks to reject. I do not have it with me, but I can remember that just about Christmas time last year, the Minister of National Health and Welfare on the The Journal during a profile of him made a statement which was as moving and as poignant in favour of Canada that anyone would ever want to hear. My hon. friend should support and applaud that.
Let us just take a second. On two occasions the Minister of National Health and Welfare stood as a federal candidate in elections on behalf of a federal party seeking to improve Canada. In 1980 the Minister of National Health and Welfare was one of those who voted on the other side. What he is learning and what he is in the process of appreciating is the magnificence of a larger vision, of a greater Canada.
If we just say to those who voted in 1980 on the other side: "Be gone. We don't want to have anything to do with you and we are going to establish your degree of patriotism", I would suggest to my hon. friend that what we should be doing is reaching out as we have been.
I can tell my hon. friend that the statements that the Minister of National Health and Welfare has been making have been most supportive of Canada. He remains a strong believer in a powerful Quebec within a strong and united Canada. I believe we should encourage all of the Quebecers and all Canadians to support what we believe is in the best interest of all Quebecers
and Canadians, namely that which has brought us prosperity and unity and strength for 125 years-Canada.


Hon. Andre Ouellet (Papineau-Saint-Michel):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister. It follows up the questions that the Leader of the Opposition just asked about this uncertainty which seems to prevail among some of his ministers from Quebec.
I would like to ask the Prime Minister whether cabinet has taken a clear and definite position on the constitutional offers that will be made.
On reading this morning's newspapers, it seems that two Quebec ministers still do not know what the Canadian government intends to propose to solve the constitutional crisis and in particular to give Quebec what the government of that province has been demanding for quite some time.
Can the Prime Minister tell us today whether the government has made progress in that regard or is it still completely in a fog and does not know what to offer Quebecers to solve the constitutional crisis?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, my friend knows very well that we inherited a complicated situation. We inherited a situation where Quebec did not endorse the Canadian Constitution in 1981-82. We also inherited an amending formula that requires the presence and approval of the premiers.
It is not only the position of the Canadian government or Parliament that counts, but now the provincial premiers as well. In the past, they were not always inclined to support openly Quebec's traditional or historic demands. Some of them are less "hot" on Quebec's position. I think that at least one of them belongs to my friend's party; perhaps he could talk to him about it at an appropriate time.
As far as the ministers are concerned, there is no uncertainty about the fundamental commitment to a united Canada and a strong, modem, dynamic Quebec within a renewed federation, and all ministers without exception support the positions that I set forth as Prime Minister of Canada and which I defended in favour of Canada.
March 31, 1992

Oral Questions


André Ouellet: I have a supplementary question, Mr. Speaker.
Can the Prime Minister confirm for us that the Beaudoin-Dobbie report is now the basis of the discussions that his government is having with the provinces?
Obviously, the Canadian government must know now, at practically the eleventh hour, I would say, where it is going and must show conviction in order to convince the premiers on a constitutional proposal. The surprising thing today-and that is why the Leader of the Opposition asked those questions-is that some ministers in the Conservative government still seem to be uncertain about a proposal that would be acceptable to Quebecers. Obviously, the Government of Canada must know now at least where it is going. If some provincial premiers do not know what must be done, at least the Government of Canada must know where it is going and tiy to convince these premiers.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, my friend is raising quite a different issue.
The proposal in question must come from an agreement between the Canadian government and the provinces. If it were only the Canadian government's position, we would know right away what position to put forward. But the Minister Responsible for Constitutional Affairs must deal with the reality imposed on us by the 1982 Constitution, that is, the provinces and now the native leaders as well. That is not easy. It is one of the results. The 1981-82 strait-jacket is there. We must deal with this reality and that is what the minister is doing.
I can tell my hon. friend this. If at some point we cannot obtain the desired agreement, if, for example, it were impossible to convince the premiers of the validity of a parliamentaiy report or the urgency to act, we will know what to do. I will not hesitate to come before the House to announce all that to my hon. friend.


THE ECONOMY
Hon. Audrey McLaughlin (Yukon):: Mr. Speaker, certainly those of us on this side of the House, the New Democratic Party, will agree that the Constitution and the unity of the country is a very key issue.
I would like to suggest to the Prime Minister there is also an ingredient of unity which is very important and that is the faith that Canadians have in themselves and whether we have faith in this country.
As I travel around the country, I see Canadians saying that they feel insecure. The high unemployment, the results of the high interest rates, the results of the high dollar are creating that insecurity in the Canadian people and this is a factor in unity.
I want to say to the Prime Minister that what Canadians see is this country either being sold off or given away piece by piece. Last week it was oil and gas resources opened up to foreign investment. Then it was the proposed Mexican trade deal. We are perhaps looking at selling off our water resources. Today we see a possible sale of Canadian Airlines to American Airlines.
I know the Prime Minister is concerned about the unity of this country. I want to ask him when is he going to come forward with policies and show he has faith in the Canadian people, in the Canadian economy and work in the interests of Canadian labour, Canadian business and Canadian consumers?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, little wonder that ordinary Canadians are confused and perplexed when the leader of the NDP persists in making abusive statements like the one that she just made.
Every question is prefaced with these kinds of criticisms, some real, most imagined, not a single solid word of confidence in Canada in the process, in everybody from all political parties who are working so hard to keep Canada together. My hon. friend should recognize that there are great difficulties that we are confronted with. It is not easy.

Oral Questions
I was in Quebec this weekend, as the Leader of the Opposition pointed out. I want to tell my hon. friend it is tough going and we need all the help that we can get. All of those who believe in Canada, who believe in federalism, including my hon. friend, would be welcome in Quebec fighting the fight on behalf of Canada. She is held in high regard and I know that she would be welcome as a voice of reason in federalism.
What is important is that my hon. friend begin accentuating some of the positives of Canada instead of always wallowing in the negatives.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: Mr. Speaker, surely we have a responsibility and this government has a responsibility to the unemployed of this country. Surely the Prime Minister will acknowledge that our nation's economy is built on our natural resources, on our transportation links, on our communication, not just north and south but east and west. Surely the Prime Minister will agree that people, to feel good about a country, have to feel that we have the spirit and the faith in each other to make sure that we can build the economy.
It is the Prime Minister's government that has opened up our oil and gas resources to foreign ownership. It is the Prime Minister's government that is selling off parts of Canada. What is the Prime Minister prepared to say to Canadians that this government has faith in them and will work for business?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, it is pretty hard to deal with my hon. friend's question which is traditional NDP griping. My hon. friend would perhaps be interested in pointing out that there was today the announcement of a modest growth in the economy, in the real GDP, small, but for the first time in some months.
Manufacturing output rose almost 1 per cent in January following three months of decline. Export oriented industries grew nine-tenths of a per cent in January. Forestry output and automotive and resource-based manufacturing showed the greatest strength. Retail trade advanced four-tenths of one percent.
There are difficulties in this economy as there are difficulties in France, the United Kingdom, the United States, Japan and around the world. We are all living in a
recession. If I could wipe away everybody's troubles and problems tomorrow, I would be happy to do it. I cannot do it. All I can do is continue to work as hard as I can to try to create an environment wherein jobs and new prosperity can be created.
I would not want her to make a habit of it but my hon. friend could contribute to that and to the cause of national unity by from time to time underlining some of the positive things about Canada and the growth that is now taking place in the economy.


CANADIAN AIRLINES
Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: Mr. Speaker, all that Canadians are asking is that this government not continue to create problems.
I want to ask a specific question because the Prime Minister has spoken generally. There are a number of Canadians who are concerned, particularly many of us who live in less populated areas served by airlines. People in areas such as Whitehorse, Saint John, Brandon, or Trois Rivieres are concerned as they see the possibility of Canadian Airlines being taken over to a large degree by American Airlines, that this will lead to the high profit areas going to those American airlines and the low profit ones left which is not in the Canadian interest.
Is the Prime Minister prepared to assure Canadians that the Canadian interest, transportation within Canada and those communities I have mentioned, will be well served?


Hon. Jean Corbeil (Minister of TVansport):: Mr. Speaker, first I would like to say to the leader of the NDP that what we are faced with at the present time is an announcement by Canadian Airlines that it is entering into negotiations with American Airlines to try and forge an economic strategic alliance. No deal is there.
The NTA act is there to make sure that the Canadian legislation that was adopted years ago to the effect that 25 per cent foreign ownership must be respected and effective control by Canadians be respected.
If there is a deal at the end of the day it will go through that process.
March 31, 1992


FISHERIES
Mr. Brian Tobin (Humber-St. Barbe-Baie Verte):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister. Forty-three years ago today the people of Newfoundland and Labrador of their own free will became Canadians. They became citizens of what remains, despite the difficulties and disappointments of the day, still the most privileged nation on the face of the earth.
By that act of union, Newfoundlanders brought to Canada a clear and compelling case for what is now recognized as the 200-mile economic zone.
My question to the Prime Minister is the following. In light of the efforts by Newfoundland fishermen today to make Canada's case off the the 200-mile limit, how long must the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, indeed how long must all Canadians wait for this government to move to unilaterally extend custodial jurisdiction of the nose and tail of the Grand Banks and to stop the international slaughter of north Atlantic cod stocks?


Hon. Barbara McDougall (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member well knows, the government has been going all out in its efforts to try and ensure that this resource is saved, not only for Canadian fishermen who are most important to us, but also to present to the Europeans that the destruction of the fishery is not in their interests either.
The best way to do this is through a multilateral effort and co-operation through working in Europe, through NAFO, through UNCED where we will be making a major presentation in June and the Prime Minister will be attending personally to help highlight this issue; through building support internationally for our view of the jurisdiction on the high seas and the preservation of this resource.
I was encouraged last week by my meetings with the Germans who are going to help us in dealing with some of the other Europeans.
As I have said before in this House, this is the way that is going to resolve it on behalf of the fishermen of Newfoundland and the fishing industry. We will leave no stone unturned until we get this done.


Brian Vincent Tobin: On a supplementary, Mr. Speaker, the member for St. John's West, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, did a fly-past today over the nose and tail of the Grand Banks.
Oral Questions
I want to tell the Prime Minister that the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, indeed the people of Canada, do not want a fly-past by the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. They want him to pitch down and to declare on behalf of all Canadians our custodial jurisdiction over the nose and tail of the Grand Banks.
I want to ask the Prime Minister: Why is the Government of Canada encouraging, because that is what is happening, Canadian fishermen to symbolically declare ownership of the nose and tail of the Grand Banks when this government is not prepared legally to declare our custodial jurisdiction over that same area and to halt now, not next year or in future years, the slaughter of those important cod stocks, an important contributor to the food basket of the world?


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, I certainly agree with the hon. member that this is indeed part of the food basket of the world. That is why we need multilateral action in order to preserve it.
The actions that the government has been taking are not only appropriate but they are effective. The fact that the Newfoundland fishermen have decided as well to create their own symbols is exactly another tactic that is useful as long as it is done within the jurisdictional ambit which they are honouring as they do their sail out to the 200-mile limit today.
I cannot think of any better way than to have the government work at the diplomatic, political and official levels and have the fishermen demonstrate their own interests and the industry demonstrate its interest in this. That is a co-ordinated Canadian effort and at the end of the day that is what is going to resolve this issue.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Ms. Sheila Copps (Hamilton East):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Secretary of State for External Affairs and has to do with the Canadian hostage being held in Lebanon. On five occasions in the last six months, the minister has refused to admit that Henriette Haddad had been kidnapped in Lebanon. All other governments do their best to free their hostages. The Canadian government is the only one that refuses to acknowledge that one of its citizens has been kidnapped, and it refuses to

March 31, 1992
Oral Questions
take measures for her release. Why has the minister refused, on five occasions, to acknowledge that a Canadian, Elenriette Eladdad, is being held hostage in Lebanon?


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, it is not true to say that I refused to acknowledge Mrs. Haddad's problem. I am very sympathetic to the families, but this situation is not like that of hostages from other countries.

Mrs. Haddad disappeared in 1985 at a time when Lebanon was in great crisis. There was no stable environment in which to try to find her. No group has claimed credit, which is unusual. There are 17,000 people who have disappeared in Lebanon. We have left no avenue untrod in trying to find Mrs. Haddad or to find evidence of what has happened.
We have taken every single thing that we have been told and followed it right to the end of the road. Unfortunately, most of those roads have turned out to be dead ends.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, the minister's statement in this House today is absolutely outrageous. When Terry Waite was detained no proof existed, nobody claimed him.
In fact, we know today out of press reports from Beirut that the United Nations has recognized Mrs. Henriette Haddad as a hostage. The Middle East Watch has recognized that she is a hostage. The Hostage Action Worldwide in London, England has recognized that she is a hostage.
There is only one government that has not recognized her status and that is the Government of Canada. For that, the minister owes the Canadian people an apology. I would like to ask the minister if she would render that today.


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member well knows the circumstances surrounding Mr. Waite's disappearance, which was not even a disappearance. He was abducted in full view as were some of the other hostages that were taken.
The important point the hon. member is missing, which happens fairly frequently, is that the disappearance of Mrs. Haddad is a personal tragedy for the family. There is no question about that. Her disappearance should be followed up whether or not she is a hostage. That is not relevant to trying to find her. What is essential is that we follow up every single lead we have.
If the hon. member actually has a real one, perhaps she would like to tell us.


FIREARMS CONTROL
Mr. Ian Waddell (Port Moody-Coquitlam):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Justice who today tabled part of the regulations on firearms control. We did not get any information on the orders listing the prohibited weapons. We still do not know when this list will be published and when these regulations will take effect.

Is the minister aware that while she and her department fret over the list and regulations, Canadians are receiving catalogues like this one from the International Firearms company which offer for sale as non-restricted guns with 30 and 75 round magazines paramilitary weapons like those used in violent attacks by the Marc Lepines of this world against women, against other Canadians.

Can the minister tell us when these regulations will come into effect and when the list of prohibited weapons will be completed?


A. Kim Campbell: Mr. Speaker, it is strange for the hon. member to say that we did not finish our work because I said this morning in a press conference that I hope to be able to publish the list of prohibited firearms in June. We are now consulting the provincial attorneys general to determine what criteria to apply in prohibiting firearms. My advisory committee on firearms has given me a list of characteristics and a point system to
March 31, 1992

determine which firearms should be prohibited. Once our consultation is complete I hope, as I said this morning, that we can publish the list of prohibited firearms in June.
The important thing is that the regulations have to be tabled in the House. Members of the House of Commons have 30 days to study them, but the other regulations prohibiting firearms are not subject to this 30-day period. So, in June, I will be able to publish the orders that will come into effect immediately.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Mr. Speaker, surely the minister must be aware that she has to be faster because these paramilitary weapons are flowing into this country, pending the government bringing in these Orders in Council.
I want to ask the minister a supplementary question. Is the minister aware of the January 1992 issue of Canadian Handgun which suggests to the members of the Ontario Handgun Association that they should pick off members of Parliament who support gun control by stacking their nomination meetings.
If I might quote, they claim that they picked off the previous member for Vancouver Centre and they say: "It is time to send some more shivers down their backs". They say further: "For those of you who wish to support the Reform Party you can belong to as many political parties as you wish. This means you can still support the Reform Party while you are causing havoc in another".
What does the minister think of those tactics? In view of those tactics and in view of the paramilitary weapons flowing into this country, why is she delaying bringing down these regulations and these Orders in Council which Canadians demand?


A. Kim Campbell: Mr. Speaker, long before this House voted on the legislation to enhance our gun control legislation, I put in place a consultative committee in the spring of 1990 to advise me and the government on criteria for prohibiting weapons. Those regulations and Orders in Council will be ready in June and we will act.
I can tell this hon. member that no one on this side of the House will subvert the well-being of Canadians, will abdicate their duty, because of the kinds of threats he is
Oral Questions
reading from that particular magazine. The proof is in the pudding in the support that members on this side of the House and in fact members on all sides of the House have given to that legislation.
We are not afraid of controversy. We are not afraid of tough decisions. We will defend the public interest of Canada. People can write whatever they want.


Mr. Russell MacLellan (Cape Breton-The Sydneys):: Mr. Speaker, likewise my question is for the Minister of Justice.
In bringing down her regulations today, the minister stated in her press release that the regulations would take effect at a time to be determined.
The minister has been working on these regulations and on this question for two years. As she can appreciate, Canadians want stronger gun control immediately.
When will these regulations come into effect? When can Canadians get the stronger gun control that they demand?


A. Kim Campbell: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the hon. members question. I will be publishing a list of implementation dates.
As the hon. member will understand, some of the regulations require some co-operation with the provinces in the putting into place of administrative schemes and the training of firearms officers.
I can tell the hon. member simply from memory that the last implementation date will be the date for the implementation of the training provisions. That requires us to complete negotiations with the provinces about what the kind of curriculum will be, et cetera, and to train as many as 4,000 instructors across the country. That will be the last implementation date. That will be July 1993.
All the other provisions will be implemented sooner than that. I will be very happy to make public our proposed dates within the next couple of weeks. What I have done, in discussing this with my officials and with my staff, is to press to have the implementation date as soon as possible. What we are trying to do is simply reconcile that sense of urgency with the ability of ourselves and the provincial authorities to deliver on those promises.

March 31, 1992
Oral Questions


Russell Gregoire MacLellan: Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the minister for being forthcoming on that request. I hope the list will be coming forward as soon as possible.
I would like to ask her about one of those areas, that is mandatory training for firearms users. As the minister knows, Canadians, both those in favour of stricter gun control and those who use guns themselves, wanted mandatory training for firearms users not only as a means of informing and helping those who are going to use firearms but of screening out those who would be inappropriate for a firearms acquisition certificate.
When does the minister feel that we can have this mandatory training program in place? She obviously has been meeting with the provinces. When can we expect to have that training program in place? It is very important and an integral part of gun control.


A. Kim Campbell: Mr. Speaker, as I said, the implementation date of the mandatory training should be July 1, 1993.
The first mandate that I gave to the Canadian Advisory Council on Firearms was to bring forward a blueprint for implementing the training provisions which in fact have been in the Criminal Code since 1978 and never put into force. It developed a curriculum which I have circulated to the provincial attorneys general.
Just as provincial governments have the responsibility for administering the Criminal Code in terms of the trial process, they also have the responsibility of implementing the firearms regulations, supported financially by the Government of Canada. The provinces have taken this under advisement. We are working to implement it as soon as possible.
As I say, that is the last of the provisions that will be implemented. I want to say to the hon. member that of the regulations tabled today there are regulations that are part of that package. When those regulations come into force there will be no legal impediment to carrying out that commitment in the statute by all members of the House who supported Bill C-17.
As I say, I think that by July 1, 1993, just over a year from now, we should have the system up and running-


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Ottawa South.


TRANSPORTATION SAFETY
Mr. John Manley (Ottawa South):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transport.
Ever since the report on the Dryden air crash came out last week, the Minister of Transport has been giving Canadians the same vague assurances about safety in the skies as his predecessors did.
We now know from government documents that officials in the federal aviation administration in the U.S. told this government in 1985 and I quote:
As you deregulate economically, it is vital that it be made abundantly clear to industry that safety regulation is going to be beefed up.
Why did the government fail to act on this clear advice? Why did it ignore the threat to safety that was posed by airline deregulation?


Jean Corbeil: Mr. Speaker, I do not know what the hon. member is trying to lead the Canadian public into believing.
I can assure him that in its interim report the Royal Commission on National Passenger Transportation referred to the amendments that had been made to the Aeronautics Act and said: "The federal government has introduced in 1985 sweeping changes to the Aeronautics Act designed to give Canadian aviation its most progressive safety legislation in more than 60 years and to implement the major recommendations of the inquiry into aviation safety headed by Mr. Justice Charles Dubin".


John Paul Manley: Mr. Speaker, we are trying to get this government to answer the very strong findings in the report by Mr. Justice Moshansky issued last week. So far there has not been a single response to the findings of the judge.
In a memorandum delivered to the Minister of Transport in December 1986 the minister's office was advised:
Because of the number of inspection personnel available, and limited financial resources, Transport Canada is seldom able to completely achieve the desired target.
March 31, 1992

Why were successive Ministers of Transport telling Canadians that the skies were safe when they knew within their own office that there were problems in the department and that it was unable to ensure safety?


Jean Corbeil: Mr. Speaker, I think I answered that question a few minutes ago by demonstrating that all Ministers of Transport who have occupied this portfolio since the advent of this government have always been preoccupied by one major concern: the safety of all modes of transportation in Canada.
I would like to point out to the hon. member that after three years of investigation of the Dryden accident, on the day after he tabled his report Mr. Justice Moshansky reiterated in several interviews in the press, on the radio and on TV that the Canadian sky and aviation safety system is one of the best in the world.


FIREARM CONTROL
Mrs. Pierrette Venne (Saint-Hubert):: Mr. Speaker, the firearm regulations have been tabled this morning. It is too bad that people are treated differently whether they live in the city or in a rural area.
My question is for the Minister of Justice. Why make an exception in the regulations regarding the mandatory safety lock-up for people who live in the country on the pretext that they may need their weapon to protect themselves from predators or other animals?


A. Kim Campbell: Mr. Speaker, the provisions under which people who live in rural areas are allowed to store their firearms without locking them up are only temporary. The regulations state clearly that this does not allow people living in rural areas to keep their firearms permanently without locking them up. It is only meant to allow them to use their firearms if need be and in a safe way.


TRANS-CANADA HIGHWAY
Guy St-Julien: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transport. I understand that the Quebec government is neglecting highway 117, the Trans-Canada Highway, in Abitibi-Temiscamingue. However, further to the First Ministers Conference on the Economy, held on March 24 and 25, it had been agreed to give priority to proposals regarding the national highway system.
Oral Questions
Will the minister confirm today that highway 117 from Louvincourt, Val-d'Or, Malartic, Riviere-Heva, Cadillac and Rouyn-Noranda all the way down to the Quebec-Ontario border will be seriously considered with a view to rebuilding it completely to ensure road safety and make commuting easier in the Abitibi-Temiscamingue, a remote area.


Jean Corbeil: Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague will certainly be glad to know that for the past three years the Ministers of Transport of every province and the federal Minister of Transport have been looking at the issue of a national highway system. A final study on this issue has recently been presented to us and we will meet shortly. My hon. colleague the Minister of Finance has announced that we will examine the matter very carefully, keeping in mind that Canada already gives several hundred million dollars to some provinces for the upgrading of the highway system.


AVIATION SAFETY
Mr. Stan Keyes (Hamilton West):: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Transport stated in this House last Thursday that the total number of inspectors increased from 456 in 1985 to 569 in 1991. According to the Deputy Prime Minister, when he was Minister of Transport back in 1985, the actual number of inspectors was not 456, but somewhere over 600.
I want to ask the Minister of Transport who is telling the truth.


Jean Corbeil: I am, Mr. Speaker.


Stan Kazmierczak Keyes: Then we can assume that the Deputy Prime Minister was not telling the truth back in 1985.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Mr. Speaker:: Perhaps the hon. member would like to pose his question in such a way that we do not get into these difficulties.


Stan Kazmierczak Keyes: Mr. Speaker, the minister also failed to mention that the total number of accidents increased from 1985 to 1991, that accidents involving commercial aircraft increased between 1984 and 1991 and that the near misses involving Canadian registered aircraft increased by roughly 400 per cent between 1985 and 1989.

March 31, 1992
Supply
Why is the Minister of Transport manipulating the figures and withholding other crucial statistics?


Mr. Speaker:: That is an allegation and is just not appropriate.


SMALL BUSINESS
Bill Attewell: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of State for Small Businesses and Tourism.
I recently met with Mr. Alvin Starr who is a partner in a small business in Markham that specializes in software development for the medical and defence industries. He is having great difficulty trying to do business with the Government of Canada.
As the minister knows, the United States have a set-aside program whereby a specific percentage of business is set aside specifically for small business. Is the minister of state for small business thinking seriously about such a program, which is so effective in the U.S.?


Hon. Tom Hockin (Minister of State (Small Businesses and Tourism)):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. friend for his thoughtful question. We do not have a small business set-aside program and, in fact, I would not be in favour of it as it presently stands. In the United States it develops more into a ceiling than a floor.
Sixty-one per cent of all procurements through DSS go to small business-over 85,000 of them-plus the large contractors are subcontracting all the time to smaller businesses.
We also have an open bidding system. We have the Electronic Procurement Opportunities Board. The Procurement Review Board is opening up procurement to small business, and effective tomorrow we will have a new policy on Canadian content to help small businesses, but it will not be the same as the small business set-aside program in the U.S.


Mr. Speaker:: I want to say to the hon. member for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca that I apologize for a mix-up. Perhaps the hon. member would like to put one question.


Mr. David Barrett (Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca):: Mr. Speaker, with some difficulty I will incorporate my question and my supplementary into one question and I wall give my own answer if the minister cannot answer.
Yesterday the government produced a pamphlet entitled Negotiations for a North American Free Trade Agreement. On the bottom part of the pamphlet it says: "But how can we compete with lower Mexican wage rates?" and then it goes on to say: "Wages often represent only a relatively small percentage of the total cost of production".
I would ask the minister of trade this question. Does he have any specific studies, sector by sector, on the manufacturing production in this country that would prove that wages are not a factor? For example, the only study known on auto parts manufacturing shows-


Some hon. members:: Order, order.


David Barrett: Mr. Speaker, perhaps I will put my question tomorrow.


Mr. Speaker:: Perhaps that would be the best thing.


PRESENCE IN GALLERY
Mr. Speaker:: I wish to draw to the members' attention the presence in the gallery of the Hon. John Penner, Minister of Energy and Mines from the Province of Saskatchewan.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Ms. Clancy (p. 9052).
March 31, 1992
[Stage Direction]
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Scott Jon Thorkelson: Mr. Speaker, when we rose at one o'clock, I was speaking about the panel on violence against women, how important its work was, how it would add to the research and how we could use that research.
One gets a sense of how much there is still to learn and how difficult an issue this is when one realizes that a recent survey by the Canadian Labour Congress shows that nearly 50 per cent of Canadians believe that women are responsible for their own sexual harassment because of their dress or behaviour. This is outrageous. We have much to overcome in Canadian society.
Why people believe these things and how they act upon them is still imperfectly understood. We know in a general sense that the victimization of women is linked to the relative inequality in society, that there is a strong relationship with patterns of behaviour based on power and rooted in our early socialization.
We also know that many factors often cited to explain violence, such as economic hardship, alcohol and drug abuse, and sexual stereotyping do not in themselves account for why violence occurs in the first place.
Until we understand the causes and how to treat them, the effectiveness of our actions to deter, prevent and end violence against women will be hampered. The work of the panel will move us forward on the path toward better understanding of the causes of this social evil. Let there be no mistake about it, the work of the panel is not a substitute for continuing action to end violence against women.
When the panel makes its recommendations there will be a call to further action by the federal government. But the federal government is not waiting for the panel's report to take a broad range of actions directed at prevention and protection of women, as well as treating the effects of violence against women.
I will only mention a few of the continuing federal initiatives which respond to the determination of women to end violence against women.
The 1991 Family Violence Initiative builds on previous efforts and doubles the resources committed specifically to domestic violence and violence against women. The Minister Responsible for the Status of Women has announced plans to co-ordinate a prevention-oriented
public education campaign aimed at changing attitudes which give rise to and condone violence against women.
The minister is working hard to involve provinces, the territories, the labour movement, the business community and others in this campaign.
The Minister of Justice has begun what amounts to the beginning of a revolution in the attitudes of our justice system toward this issue. Legislative initiatives in this field include tougher laws to keep sexual and other violence offenders off the streets longer and more stringent gun control laws. The regulations were tabled earlier today, and legislation that makes it clear that no means no and prevents women from being abused and unnecessarily victimized once again by an insensitive court process.
This government has shown its commitment to women and its determination to help them achieve the full equality they seek in its approach to this issue of violence against women.
I would like to touch, for a minute, on the insensitivity of the court process. In Edmonton I, and other members of Parliament, have been working with the victims of Larry Takahashi. Six women came forward to protest the fact that he was given day passes, where he was released from prison in Vancouver to go out on these day passes to play golf.
One of them, in a hearing before the justice committee in Edmonton, said that two years after the police had confiscated sheets, pillow cases and a nightgown as evidence from her home, a policeman showed up at the door unannounced, rang the doorbell and handed over the sheets with huge holes cut out of them and said to her: "Here is the evidence back. Thank you very much.". That was grossly insensitive and is something we must combat. We must sensitize our policemen, our judges and the court system to the issues and to the emotions which have been affected by terrible violence toward women.
The government has embarked on a long-term course of action which it is determined to see through to its conclusion. That goal will not be reached as long as any violence against women exists. As the Prime Minister put it in August last year: "One Canadian woman suffering violence at home or elsewhere is one too many."

March 31, 1992
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There is much we can do. The panel is well on its way to accomplishing its goals. I support their efforts and I think the House supports their efforts. We would like to do more and we hope for some fruitful recommendations.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Mr. Speaker, at the beginning of his speech the hon. member spoke about the government's commitment to women. He went on at some length, saying how much the government had done, how enthusiastic it had been in its work in supporting women in spite of the manifest cutbacks to which my colleagues who have spoken in this debate have referred.
The view he has taken is that everything is coming up roses in this area, which he started out by saying at the beginning of his speech, and I admit he changed his tune as he came closer to reality a little later on. Does he not agree that perhaps describing things in that way does not help the situation?
What needs to be acknowledged is the fact that despite the efforts the government has made, and it has obviously made some progress in this area and I do not deny it, the cutbacks are seriously undermining that progress. They are damaging the reputation and the progress of the government in dealing with these issues and really he ought to be objecting to the cutbacks that the government has put forward in the budget.


Scott Jon Thorkelson: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member has failed to realize that in my speech I dealt with one issue and that was the violence against women. In that area, we have increased resources. We have a $136 million initiative.
In 1986 the government launched a $23 million child sexual abuse initiative. In 1988, it followed that with a broader $40 million family violence initiative and this, in turn, was expanded in February 1991 to a $136 million initiative on violence against women.
We have taken legislative action in Bill C-36 to extend the amount of time a convicted person must serve, from one-third to one-half of their sentence for those offenders in the violent and dangerous offenders category.
We have embarked on the panel on violence against women. These are concrete initiatives. We fund women's
groups, community groups and many others. We have increased resources on violence against women.
Certainly we can do much more in areas. The recent budget increased the tax deduction for child care and so on. We are well on our way to helping women. I agree that there is much to be done, but in many areas of our society we will never be finished. We must work as hard as we can with what resources we have and add more resources when we can. We will be well on our way to accomplishing some of the goals we have stated.


Raymond John Skelly: Mr. Speaker, on the matter before us today, equality of women, I would just like to ask the previous speaker if part of the government's equality of women initiatives includes initiatives from the Minister of Labour and the Minister Responsible for the Status of Women.
In Powell River, British Columbia, there are 22 women who have been driven out of their jobs by the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. The bank suddenly decided it no longer wanted to negotiate with them to renew the contract and basically said: "We are large enough and wealthy enough that we do not have to listen to you. You can stay out on the street over Christmas and you can stay out for a year or two years. If we choose, we will simply close this branch and set an example for our other small number of unionized branches".
There needs to be some initiatives in terms of the equality of women taken by this government. A good start would be anti-strike-breaking legislation and antiscab legislation that protects women who are in a tremendous position of inequality when it comes to 22 people going after a chartered bank.
It is also affirmative action on the part of the Minister of Labour when women find themselves in a tremendous situation of inequality, where the office of the minister takes positive affirmative action and attempts to get both parties back to the bargaining table and to reach a settlement. In the search for equality for men and women, in many cases particularly women, the best guarantee for equality is a job and the best guarantee of equality through a job is through a unionized job.
I am asking the hon. member if he believes that the Minister of Labour and the government could be involved with and play a useful role in bringing these people back to the table as well as all women who find
March 31, 1992

themselves in this unequal situation by putting some anti-strike-breaking and anti-scab legislation in place.


Scott Jon Thorkelson: Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his question on that issue in Powell River. I would note he has brought that up in the House before with the Minister Responsible for the Status of Women in Question Period. She answered at that time that it was a contractual dispute. It was essentially a labour-management dispute. I am sure that her department has carefully looked at that. I would not be surprised if there had not been consultations between her department and the Department of Labour.
I join with the member in deploring the action of the management of that institution. I only hope that the dispute is solved so that these women can return to their jobs, have some opportunity and are able to live their lives with dignity.
On the question of affirmative action, I would hope that we as a government continue in our efforts in that respect. We have done quite a bit in the past and I am sure there is more we can do in the future.


Mr. Jim KarpofF (Surrey North):: Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Saskatoon- Clark's Crossing.
I noticed that the previous member spoke with a great deal of praise for the government's actions on violence against women. This country has become increasingly concerned over the plight of women with respect to violence against them over the last number of years. This motion is very appropriate. When we take a detailed look at the government's action in this area, we see that last year the government announced with much fanfare a $137 million program to deal with violence against women. But when we looked at it closely, we found out it was actually going to spend something like $15 million last year and $20 million this year for a total of $35 million spread over two years. The balance of the program spending was going to take place somewhere in the future, when everyone in this country knows very well that the Conservatives will never be the government in that period of time.
At the same time the government announced changes to the Canada Assistance Plan. It limited the payments
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to the provinces of Alberta, Ontario and British Columbia. What amounts of money were involved in that? Was it $15 million or $20 million? No, it was not.
In the first year the province of Ontario lost $415 million. In the second year, $1.2 billion. In the first year the province of British Columbia lost $200 million. In the second year it lost $900 million. The total losses to those two provinces for two years was $2.7 billion.
On the one hand we have the government announcing a $35 million program with much fanfare to fight violence against women. At the same time we have the federal government taking $2.7 billion away from two provinces.
We have to take a look at the programs funded under the Canada Assistance Plan dealing with violence against women. First, the Canada Assistance Plan is used to fund transition houses or safe homes. That program provides women with first-line protection when they have to leave their homes because of violence. We have the government giving $35 million on the one hand and taking back $2.7 billion, affecting transition houses.
It provides support programs in the form of income assistance for women who are forced because of violence in the family to flee their husbands or partners and take their children with them. What is the government doing? It is offering a nice PR program of $35 million but it is taking away $2.7 billion, affecting basic income assistance programs that support women who had to leave families in which violence has taken place.
Programs of counselling for women who have been traumatized and immobilized because of violence against them assisted these women in recovering their dignity, regaining their self-assurance and getting them back into the labour market. Here we have again the government announcing with much fanfare its glitzy $35 million and cutting $2.7 billion from the very kinds of programs that could assist women.
It cuts out programs for sexual abuse, not only sexual abuse for youngsters but also counselling services for adult survivors of sexual abuse. We have this situation where the government gives a little and takes away 90 times more in programs that directly affect women in violent situations.
It cut out child abuse programs.

March 31, 1992
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The government says it only affects three provinces, but 50 per cent of the children in Canada live there. It reduced programs that involved protection services to children as part of a family structure by $2.7 billion over two years in order to make some PR announcement of a little money spread over a number of years.
Probably the most ludicrous program is the Canada Assistance Plan. It is used to fund child care for those on low incomes or fixed incomes or those working but not earning enough to afford to pay for child care.
The government talks a lot about how it is going to help women in a variety of ways. It is going to have this nice program and look at the causes of violence against women and how it can provide solutions. At the same time it has cut back dramatically on the availability of services such as child care, child protection, sexual abuse programs, counselling for trauma caused by violence, income support programs and transition houses or safe homes, which would assist women in violent situations.
This motion is very much in order because it clearly points out that the government has not only failed to protect, but has failed to promote the fundamental rights of Canadian women. The biggest right a woman should have in this country is a right to personal safety; to not fear for her own personal well-being either within her own family or on the streets.
We also should take a look at some of the other budgetary measures this government introduced that directly impact on the ability of women to protect themselves and their families. There are many, but two are particularly troublesome to me.
One is the cancelling of the Court Challenges Program. Under this program we were going fund people who were disadvantaged, disabled, from minority groups, aboriginals or women, in order to ensure they could go to court to protect their rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This government has said it is going to cancel that program. It is simply going to make their rights as they exist in law meaningless because they will have no capability of going to court to pursue them. That is the impact on women.
There is another major cut within the co-operative housing program. Co-op housing has not only been a valuable and economical way to provide affordable housing for families, it has also been a way of providing supportive communities, especially to women who have
had to flee from family violence or violence of another kind. When they are just getting their lives back together, they need a variety of support services and experiences that can help them regain their equilibrium. Co-op housing has provided an amalgamation of these services. It has provided them with affordable housing so they can afford to live with some dignity. It has also provided them with an environment of supportive people where they are able to develop their self-esteem, get themselves back into the labour market and start making a contribution to the total community as well as to themselves.
I guess I have grown accustomed to this government playing the game of PR with a number of vital issues, but I am deeply troubled when the government takes a PR approach to such fundamental things as the rights of women to safety and protection from violence.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I regret the hon. member's time has expired. There are four minutes left in his questions or comments. The hon. member from North Island-Powell River on a question or comment.


Raymond John Skelly: Mr. Speaker, we are talking about the equality of women and the government's record on this issue. I would like to raise the record of Canada Post as it relates to the equality of women for the consideration of the hon. member.
Canada Post is one of the most regressive and repressive employers in Canada and follows that in partnership with the government. I would point to its privatization of post offices and postal services and termination of employees.
In most cases it is eliminating women who have union jobs that run $13 plus an hour, benefits, and the protection of a union contract. When the privatization of services and postal outlets goes ahead, those women are hired on by the private outlet at minimum wage with no contract, no benefits and no protection.
I wonder how the government justifies its position that it is concerned about the equality of women when it destroys the opportunity of many women to earn a dignified wage and enjoy the protection of a union contract. It places them in jobs with no contract, no protection and no benefits, at $4 to $5 an hour.
March 31, 1992

I wonder if there is a short comment from my colleague on that matter.


James Capsey (Jim) Karpoff: Mr. Speaker, the question is very appropriate to those of us in Surrey where we have experienced what happens when there is privatization of post offices.
We had a Shoppers Drug Mart that had a postal service in it. Some of the women had worked there for up to 11 years. They were earning $9 an hour. It was not much, but was better than $5 an hour. A new owner took over and disregarded these women who had worked there for up to 11 years. He said they would have to take an across the board cut in wages. Their hours would be controlled so that long-term people would only get part-time work, and friends of the owner would be brought in to work the other hours.
These women organized and went on strike. To teach these women a lesson and make sure other postal outlets did not organize, the drug store company left them out on strike for nine years. It finally closed the entire branch of the drug store in order to ensure that women did not gain the fundamental right of free collective bargaining within the postal service.
That is going on repeatedly across this country.
I would agree with my hon. colleague. If we are really going to protect the rights of women, we have to protect their fundamental right to free collective bargaining and adequate wages.


Chris Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, it is not hard to stand in this House to support its resolution condemning the government for its failure to protect and promote fundamental rights of Canadian women, especially as reflected in the 1992 budget.
If this government intended to enable women in this country to have the rights and protection they are entitled to, and be able to pursue opportunities of employment they are entitled to, it would develop a plan which would ensure this would happen.
That plan would ensure there was an adequate child care system across this country so that women who are raising their children would have the opportunity to put
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them in accessible, quality child care over which they would have some control, so they could then explore opportunities in the work place.
In 1988 in this House, the Prime Minister recognized the importance of child care in this regard. He said that one of the most important factors contributing to the persistent and persisting inequality of women in this country is the lack of affordable, flexible, quality child care.
He said later on that same day in August 1988 that by creating an additional 200,000 quality child care spaces, many more mothers will have the opportunity to participate in the labour force. Yet what does this government do in this budget? Does it even make the pretence of saying it is still interested in child care? Does it even begin the process of implementing the national child care strategy in Canada as promised in 1984, so women can take their rightful and full place in the work place?
In this budget, the government finally said what most of us have known for a long time. It has no intention of introducing a national, quality, accessible, affordable child care program. Indeed, the Minister of National Health and Welfare responsible for this program acknowledged in this House: "I have the privilege to be the killer of child care". He is not the builder of child care.
We have a long-term commitment on the part of this government from 1984 to introduce a child care program which everyone, including the government from time to time, recognizes is critical to the enhancement of the rights of women in Canada.
The final death knell from this government regarding child care has received the sort of criticism you would expect from across this country. One child care worker in the city of Vancouver said: "This announcement does not surprise me at all. It frustrates me to no end that the Tories just do not understand what is really happening to children and families in this country."
A single mother with a 4-year old child from Winnipeg said: "I guess it really does not care. If it was concerned about children, it would be doing something to help us."
The director of the Manitoba Child Care Association said: "Now we know exactly where it stands. It chooses not to support working women."

March 31, 1992
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The final death blow to child care is a clear illustration this government does not protect and promote the fundamental rights of Canadian women. The Tory regime has indicated, by not going ahead with child care and putting the last nails in the coffin of child care, it has no interest in protecting and promoting the fundamental rights of women in spite of its long-term rhetoric.
On the matter of pay equity, one would have thought that any government, party or person interested in promoting and protecting the fundamental rights of women would ensure they would be paid the same for their work as men across this country. One would have thought the government would make strenuous efforts to ensure that within its own area of responsibility and power, the Public Service, it would clearly ensure that pay equity for women was a priority, if that government was concerned about protecting and promoting the fundamental rights of Canadian women.
In spite of much rhetoric on the government side, it has indicated in this budget that it refuses to recognize its commitment to pay equity for women in the Public Service. For years and years, women have been underpaid for their work in relation to men, but the government seems to think this is acceptable. It even prepared to introduce legislation, if necessary, to ignore a human rights tribunal decision on this issue if it is not in their favour, if it does not allow them to continue this dreadful, inequitable treatment of women.
No government that was committed to protect and promote the fundamental rights of Canadian women would back off from pay equity for women in the Public Service. It would move forward strenuously to ensure that women are fairly paid. Not this government. This government is prepared to pass legislation to ensure that a human rights tribunal which may decide on the basis of the facts and the evidence that this government is remiss is overruled. No government that was committed to protecting and promoting women's interests would do that.
The last matter I would like to raise with regard to promoting and protecting women's rights and women's interests is with regard to the Court Challenges Program and the budget's implications here.
The government has in this budget decided that the Court Challenges Program would end, without consultation, without previous discussion in this House or with the groups affected. It decided that the Court Challenges Program would end. This Court Challenges Program, as we probably all know, enabled women and disadvantaged groups to take cases to court under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, to make sure that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in fact did implement equality as it affected women and disadvantaged groups.
This government has decided to scrap this program, to scrap a program which would enable Canada's women a mechanism to ensure that they are indeed treated equally under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Surely any government that cared about equality, any government that cared about the fundamental rights of Canadian women, would ensure that there was a mechanism to implement the equality provisions in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and ensure that there was support for those groups which cannot find the resources to pursue their interests. Surely the government would ensure that there were resources available to them to put some meat on the bones of the charter, to make sure that the charter did in fact stand up for Canadian women.
The fact that the government has cancelled the Court Challenges Program is another clear indication of its lack of commitment to promoting and protecting the fundamental rights of Canadian women.
Instead of slashing and burning, instead of wrecking programs that are already in place, instead of ignoring previous commitments, if this government was really concerned with protecting and promoting the rights of women it would not have scrapped the national child care program. It would have made sure that a meaningful, effective national child care program would have been implemented. As the Prime Minister has said: "Without an adequate, accessible national child care program, thousands of Canadian women will be denied the opportunity to participate in the work place".
If this government was concerned at all about protecting and promoting the fundamental rights of Canadian women it would not turn its back on pay equity in the Public Service. It would strenuously push for it. If this government was really concerned about women's inter-
March 31, 1992

ests it would not have cancelled the Court Challenges Program.


BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Hon. Harvie Andre (Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons):: I do
apologize but I would just like to designate tomorrow, Wednesday April 1, 1992, as an allotted day.


ALLOTTED DAY, S. O. 81-WOMEN'S RIGHTS
[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Ms. Clancy (p. 9052).
Rey D. Pagtakhan: Mr. Speaker, I was delighted to hear the debate by the hon. member. As usual, he has been very strong on many issues concerning women, as has been the tradition of the Liberal caucus.
I would like to make a very brief comment. Insofar as the pay equity program is concerned, we have to remind Canadians that they should listen and look and watch and hold this government accountable.
The government must be made to realize that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees equality for today and not for tomorrow. A real test of the commitment on the part of the government is for the government to develop innovative programs. During these days of fiscal restraint, one approach would be to look at reallocation of resources to ensure that pay equity happens today.
I would like a brief comment from the member if he agrees with that approach.


Chris Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, of course, I agree. It is a question of allocation of resources, of.choices, and it is critical that the government recognizes its obligations under pay equity provisions and makes sure that women are paid fairly within the Public Service.


Raymond John Skelly: Mr. Speaker, I, too, would like to pose a question to the hon. member. It goes in the way of comment. Every responsi-
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ble politician in Canada must not just support the idea of equality for women, but must work actively to achieve it.
On Thursday, March 12, 1992, on television in Gibsons, B.C., the leader of the Liberal Party of B.C. said that he believed in pay equity for women, but not now. "We cannot afford pay equity for women".
It is unacceptable for the leader of the Liberal Party of B.C. or any other responsible politician to say that our society cannot provide pay equity. What Mr. Wilson is saying is that my three daughters and every other woman in Canada are not entitled to equality with men because it cannot be afforded. Mr. Wilson has said that women must remain in the job ghetto so men can continue to enjoy privilege and advantage, that women must remain in the job ghettos because we cannot afford to provide women with equal opportunity. Why? Because they are women.


Mrs. Diane Marleau (Sudbury):: Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to stand today and support the motion of my colleague: That this House condemn the government for its failure to protect and promote the fundamental rights of Canadian women, especially as reflected in the 1992 budget.
I would like to preface my remarks by saying that I do very much understand the predicament of women in Canada. I, myself, was raised, along with my two brothers, by a single mother at a time when women were paid a lot less for doing exactly the same job.
I am pleased to say that in many areas they are at least paid substantially the same money now, but pay equity certainly has not come into full force.

I rise today to denounce the harmful consequences of the recent Conservative budget for Canadian women.
During the years of Conservative government, more and more women and children have swelled the ranks of the poor. The connection between parental poverty and child poverty is beyond doubt, and there is no denying that women are over-represented among the poorest segments of society.
Although poverty in any form is unacceptable, the alarming number of single-parent families headed by women who do not have enough to live on is intolerable.

March 31, 1992
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Before he presented his first budget, the Minister of Finance told Canadians to expect a realistic budget.

The finance minister had said before the last budget to expect a realistic budget. The reality is that in this country 2.3 million people receive some kind of social safety help; approximately 1.5 million have no jobs; 3.8 million people, among which we have over 1 million children, do not have the basic necessities, and more than 60 per cent of single mothers, divorced or separated, are poor.
This budget will not help this problem at all. It has not helped to bring up the quality of life for women. In fact, this budget has many measures which will hurt women and children.

Millions of Canadian women are penalized in many areas.
The Conservative government has given up its promise to implement a national child care plan. Yes, Mr. Speaker, you heard right, this Conservative government has not kept' its promise made eight years ago and has thus eliminated a way for women and children to escape poverty.
It is misleading for the government to have Canadians believe that they had to choose between child care services and programs for children at risk. Why does the government set poor and abused children against those who need safe affordable day care?
Canadians know that the government reduced funding for family allowances by over $3.5 billion since 1986. Its reform measure, the child benefit, will not help fight poverty. This benefit will not be good for single mothers on welfare. The child benefit is not indexed to inflation, so its real value will go down.
The Conservative budget also eliminates the Court Challenges Program, which was set up in 1985 and gave women, minorities and disadvantaged groups financial assistance needed to defend their cases in court, as provided in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Without the funds provided under this program, the rights in
the charter will remain meaningless principles for disadvantaged groups.
Another blow dealt by this government to women is the calling into question of the spouse's allowance. The purpose of the Spouse's Allowance Program is to help disadvantaged older people under 65 until they are eligible for old age security benefits and the guaranteed income supplement. The government would seriously reconsider the Spouse's Allowance Program if the court extended it to divorced and single people. If the Mulro-ney government follows through, it will affect the most vulnerable, the poorest people aged 60 to 64, most of whom are women.
Another example of this government's irresponsibility is the downgrading of pay equity. The government announced that it would abolish the Pay Research Bureau, which collects and provides information that helps determine salaries, benefits and working conditions in the public service. It also announced a reduction in back pay for public servants.
In fact, the government does not intend to give any more back pay for the period before November 1, 1990 and will take the necessary action in Parliament to carry out this decision. For some 80,000 public servants, this is a rejection of the principle of pay equity.
Mr. Speaker, not only has this government abandoned its promise for a national child care plan, eliminated the Court Challenges Program, called into question the spouse's allowance and downgraded pay equity, but it has gone so far as to cut funds for social housing. Many single, separated or divorced mothers urgently need social housing. The Mulroney government announced that growth in spending on social housing would be limited to 3 per cent until 1997.

In 1990 this government limited its moneys toward the construction of social housing to $91 million. In 1992-93 it is reducing this amount to $70 million and it will be down to $45 million in 1996. When you speak of social housing, again in large majority it is women and children who are affected.
The Mulroney government has also cut co-op housing and this cut will greatly affect single parents, the handicapped and some of the less affluent Canadians who are
March 31, 1992

able to live in these co-op housing units with some degree of comfort.

In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, this government should simply admit that it has failed in its budget policies, which continue to create more and more obstacles for the advancement of women in Canada. Let me tell you that I share this feeling of disappointment that Canadians have about a government that is so insensitive and immoral towards the least fortunate.


Mr. Ronald J. Duhamel (St. Boniface):: Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to be able to stand in this House today to talk on this important opposition motion, which in a sense can be translated as follows: to examine the negative impact of the 1992 budget on women in Canadian society.
I am particularly proud of my party for having brought forward such an important motion on opposition day, one of significant substance and of great importance to Canadians in general. When I sat down to prepare some notes for reference during this particular address, I was reminded of a response that I prepared recently to a letter that had been written to me asking whether I would consider one of the major issues affecting women in Canadian society today. I want to quote from part of that letter. It reads as follows:
The major issue must be the recognition that women in Canada, particularly poor women of all ages, are not treated fairly. They are being discriminated against. They do not get support, financial or otherwise, which they need in order to have the same opportunities that men have.
That to me is the fundamental issue that we need to discuss a great deal. It seems to me that this year's budget is but one example of such mistreatment and discrimination.

Since 1984, as the hon. member pointed out, an increasing number of women and children have joined the ranks of the economically disadvantaged. It is a fact that when poverty strikes parents, it strikes their children as well, and it is also a fact that a disproportionate number of women are among the most economically disadvantaged in our society. I think everyone will agree that an alarming number of single-parent families headed by women lack the basic necessities, which to me
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is entirely unacceptable and in fact intolerable in a society like ours.
I may remind Canadians that 5 million people in this country live at or below the poverty line. One million of these people are children. More than 1.5 million are unemployed and more than 2 million receive social assistance. The situation is very serious indeed. If we look at mothers who are either divorced, separated or single, we realize that 60 per cent are living in poverty. What kind of future do they have for themselves and their children?
I think everyone will acknowledge that the 1992 budget will do nothing to alleviate poverty in this country or to improve the lives of women. In fact, the budget contains a number of measures that will hurt women and children.
I would like to quote the president of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women, who said that although it was not a direct hit like the 1991 budget, it would hit women much harder on a broader scale.
I would like to mention a number of areas affected by this budget. I remind Canadians that the Conservatives refused to keep their promise to implement a national child care plan. The Conservative Government also scrapped the Court Challenges Program, a decision that affects language minorities, the disabled and, of course, women.
I may also remind Canadians that the decision to review the spouse's allowance is a disgrace.
I also want to mention that wage parity has deteriorated, while the government's rejection of pay equity is completely and totally unacceptable.
Finally, cutbacks in social housing will further undermine the position of the poor. As I said earlier, many of Canada's poor are women.

For fear of being seen as partisan as I analyse this budget, I want to quote some people who have looked at it. The first quote is by Yvonne Peters, head litigation director for the Canadian Disability Rights Council, who responded to the axing of the Court Challenges Program and said:
I am outraged. It is getting women who are at the bottom of the
ladder.

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Another woman, Michelle Salardeau-Ramsay, deputy chief commissioner of the Canadian Human Rights Commission, in talking about Ottawa's decision not to provide retroactive pay equity to its lowest paid public servants, said:
It is the most deceptive and cruel thing coming from government that we have seen in a long time. It is a tremendous blow to the hopes of low income people.
Quoting from the same article, I want to remind my colleagues and fellow Canadians that "when governments tighten their belts it is the poorest and most vulnerable members of society who feel the pinch".
Finally another quote from the same article:
The war on the deficit has become the cover for rolling back many of the advances women, children, racial minorities, the disabled, the poor and other targets of discrimination have made over the last 20 years and particularly since the passage of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982.
It is most unfortunate that this is happening. It is perhaps another way of trying to counteract the advances made by the charter. I believe that it in fact is exactly that.
I will go on to quote from another article an important commentary that reads as follows:
Equality and justice are falling out of fashion.
That is what that particular writer had to say. It goes on to say:
No society which has oppression functions well. Why would government choose a course which will see it having to put more and more money into violent means of control such as police and prisons instead of putting it toward addressing basic inherent injustices?
That is one of the view of the budget. I want to make sure I enter into the record this particular quotation because I think it is fundamental to Canadians and their sense of justice. It talks about equality and states:
Equality does not mean treating everybody equally. Equality means compensating for differences so that disadvantaged people can attain true equality. Equality for one means greater equality for all.
I could talk, and I suspect I should have about the child tax credit. People have seen it. It is something that is well packaged. It will not help those who are poorest. In fact it will not help those who are at the bottom of the socio-economic scale.
I could have talked about the cuts to social housing. This will not only be reduced substantially, but co-operative housing programs will be eliminated. I am alarmed as well that other Conservative governments such as the Filmon government in Winnipeg is cutting legal aid to those who need it most.
I have not even addressed issues such as- [Translation]
-in the media today where we read headlines like "How to guarantee women's safety" and "Aboriginal women struggle to obtain concessions". Why should they have to struggle to obtain concessions?
I want to say a few words about education.

I know a poor single mom who is at home and wants to upgrade but would have to sell her home in order to do that. She has nowhere to go and she is in fact condemned to a life of poverty.
I know of another single mom working who has two children. The children became ill recently, one at a time. They did not organize it that way. She had a great deal of difficulty getting assistance so that she could go to work. There are very few programs to support her and many others like her.
Thrning to child care payments, you and I know, Mr. Speaker, as do millions of other Canadians, that there is roughly $1 billion estimated owed to parents, most of whom are women. Are courts sensitive to mothers when they have to go and attempt to get what is fair, what is just, what they want for their children? No, not too often; in fact not often enough. We know as well that payments are low and payments are not always paid on time. Not only is the mother sacrificed, but the children are being sacrificed.
I could have addressed the whole question of pensions for women. We all know that it is totally inadequate.
I am coming to the end of my remarks. I have two more points to make with respect to rampant violence and abuse that I will make very quickly. I could have talked about sexual, physical and emotional abuse. There are few supports.
March 31, 1992

We need more counselling facilities for victims of abuse, but I want to congratulate organizations such as Women's Post-Treatment Centre of Winnipeg and Plu-rielles for providing this kind of support.
Finally, Mr. Speaker, you and I both know that women earn much less than men. This is totally unacceptable. They are often denied opportunities because they are women. They occupy many low paying jobs with no benefits, no future.

Mr. Speaker, we need a new initiative as well as a change of attitude. We must really make a commitment to helping women in our society.


Mr. Greg Thompson (Carleton-Charlotte):: Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to take part in this very important debate today. The motion before us is a non-votable motion, but I think it is worth mentioning here so the people back home know exactly what we are debating. The motion reads:
That this House condemn the government for its failure to protect
and promote the fundamental rights of Canadian women, especially
as reflected in the 1992 budget.
That gives us a pretty broad area in which to talk about this government's position with regard to women and our responsibilities as a government.
Where I want to pick that up is in a publication that is going out in my own riding in the next couple of days. I call this publication A Citizen's Guide to the Federal Budget. We introduced a budget in this House a month or so ago. I have taken the budget and broken it down into what I call A Citizen's Guide to the Budget so that people back home will have a sense of what this government is doing for people, particularly families and women.
That document will be arriving in households shortly, probably within the next couple of days. I have used a couple of examples. I think it is important to mention that because these examples were drawn from what might be a reflection of my riding, typical families in my riding or any member's riding, for that matter.
I wanted to indicate clearly in this publication that what the government was doing in regard to the child tax benefit was a net gain for 99 per cent of the families out there, particularly in my riding. The income of a family would have to exceed $70,000 before this program of
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ours became a negative, before it put it in a negative position with regard to support for the family.
My argument is that very few people in my riding make $70,000 a year. The ones who do and to whom I have spoken have no problem with the new system we have brought in: a child tax benefit which will be less cumbersome for government to control and administer. At the end of the day families in my riding and ridings all across this country will be better off.
I want to point out one example that think is an important one. Today we have heard members from both sides of this House talk about single mothers and the difficulties they have raising families today as a single parent but more particularly as a single mother. In the pamphlet I am sending to my constituents I compare the benefits of Patricia, a fictional person, who is a single working mother with two children and an income of approximately $19,000 a year.
The bottom line as I step through the numbers is a net gain of $615 for that family of three: a mother and two children.
I think the important thing to remember is that these new benefits are non-taxable. When the tax implications of the old system versus the new one are considered, there is no comparison. Therefore that $615 gain could be substantially higher at the end of the tax year.
Again taking a look at the traditional family, the mother and father both working and two children, the combined income is approximately $40,000 per year. At the end of the year after everything is considered, the new system versus the old complex system, as I call it, their net gain would be $163. It is important that the Canadian people understand that.
I do not think the figures as presented in this House always reflect the realities of the budget. The reality of this budget is that we recognized the importance of families and working mothers and have responded to it very favourably.
The other thing I might mention that is important for Canadian people to understand is that for the first time we will be taxing family situations the same. In other words, there will not be an imbalance in the way that we tax a traditional married couple in relation to a common law couple.

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Prior to the 1992 budget there was an imbalance. Canadian people were telling us that we did not recognize the importance of the family unit. That was recognized in this budget. It was a very important initiative and one I was happy to support.
There is an area I want to get into in relation to this government that 20 minutes certainly will not cover. It is in relation to women's equality. All budget considerations aside, I want to mention some of the initiatives we have taken.
We realize and it is being realized in some quarters for the first time that there is a lack of concern on the part of all governments in this country, particularly as may be reflected in today's motion, to respond to these women's issues, the equality of women and the basic right to security of the person.
I want to talk about the violence and fear that deprive women in Canada of their ability to achieve equality. When we talk about violence against women we are talking about that violence manifesting itself in horrific ways, everything from physical and sexual assault to psychological and mental abuse. This creates an atmosphere which is almost indescribable in words as to what it does to the family unit and particularly to women.
Let us go through some of the statistics with regard to violence to women in our society. The numbers tell us more than anything else. Statistically we are told that at least one in every ten women is battered by her husband or male partner. We are told that an average of 100 women a year are murdered by their male partners in this country.


Mary Catherine Clancy: That is low.


Gregory Francis Thompson: The member for Halifax is telling me that is low. I do not disagree with her. I am sure that it is very, very low. I am sure those are only the officially reported statistics.
But whether it is 100, 200, 300 or even if it was 50, it would be too many. In the discussions before the Canadian Panel on Violence against Women that is criss-crossing this country, I cannot quote exactly but one person mentioned that if we were speaking of 100 soldiers killed in the line of duty or in battle, there would be an outrage, an investigation or an inquiry as to what happened.
Somehow, this passively goes on in our society. One hundred women are murdered by their male partners, and that figure we all acknowledge is probably on the low side. There were 27,000 sexual assaults reported by the police in 1990. One of the most startling facts is that this figure has actually doubled since 1984.
It says that almost one in two women with disabilities had been sexually abused as a child, that one in four had been sexually assaulted as an adult. It tells us that 80 per cent of aboriginal women surveyed in Ontario have experienced violence. That is 80 per cent. Female victims of elder abuse outnumber male victims two to one.
The figures tell it all. It is horrific. They tell us that innocent victims suffer but it is very important to remember that the toll they pay does not end when the physical abuse stops. When the physical abuse stops, they continue to pay in countless incidents of alcohol and drug abuse, delinquency, prostitution, mental health problems, violent crime and suicide.
The figures tell us that 80 per cent of women in prison under federal jurisdiction today have had a history of physical or sexual abuse.
Putting an end to this violence is certainly one of the most pressing challenges in this country today because the problem has to be recognized before we do something about it.
These old attitudes and stereotypes have to be changed. What we are finding in this country today is that our old traditional abuse combined with a societal tolerance for violence has allowed this type of thing to continue. And continue it has.
One of the things that this government has focused on is the economic equality that has perpetuated itself in this country for years. What it does not do is allow women the freedom to leave abusive situations when they should. Most of us in our own constituencies have all kinds of evidence of that, where women tolerate an abusive situation because there is no other recourse.
One of the things I want to point out is that we are recognizing that very real problem.
One of the things I am very proud of in my home town of St. Stephen was the recognition of that problem many years ago. In fact 10 years ago we set up Fundy Transition House, which is still in existence. It was set up back in the early 1980s in recognition of that very problem where
March 31, 1992

many women cannot leave that abusive situation. They do not have the financial resources to do so.
Fundy Transition House was founded 10 years ago to deal with that very real problem. I want to go through some of the numbers. We must remember that Fundy Transition House is dealing with a community of give or take 20,000 people when all the citizens of Charlotte county are considered.
Since its founding, 1,600 people have gone through its doors. The transition house very much provides a shelter, a clean and safe environment for women and children.
The clients who come in are from all age groups. There are 16-year old girls who have left their homes because of sexual abuse, single mothers with young babies, and women who need emergency housing.
I want to pay tribute to a couple of the individuals that were really the forerunners. I wish I could remember all the names. I know one of them was a man. He is still involved with that organization, Fundy Transition House. The amazing thing is he was one of the first men to recognize that problem 10 years ago. I can honestly ask that question in this House as to how many of us had recognized that problem 10 years ago. There would not be too many of us who could answer that we had.
His name is A1 Corbett. He is still involved with Fundy Transition House. The woman who now is the chairman of the transition house, Jackie Matthews, brought to my attention a few weeks ago that he is still on the board.
Like many other members of Parliament in their own ridings, I have visited the transition house in St. Stephen to take a look at how it operates and just to take a look at the physical structure itself. I was very impressed. It is doing a very good job.
We have the same thing happening in the northern part of my riding. This is a part of the response by our government to that problem. It is a program that is administered by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. It funds a program called Project Haven. What it has done over the last number of years is set up 450 shelters for battered women across this country and 94 of these shelters have been for aboriginal women on reserves.
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Those programs are working very well. They are carried out largely by volunteers in their own communities. The haven that we opened last year in Woodstock is a glowing example of how successful that program has been.
There are many more programs. Again they have touched just about every comer of this country. The Department of Indian and Northern Affairs has its own special programs, along with Health and Welfare Canada in its medical services branch. The Department of the Solicitor General has developed over 70 programs from coast to coast to deal with this problem. The Department of Justice is playing a very key role in addressing violence against women in amendments to the Criminal Code and the Canada Evidence Act.
We have done a great deal in recognizing the problem and in dealing with the problem, but have we done enough? I would say that we probably have not done enough. Can we do more? Absolutely, we can do more.
One of the important things that we are doing right now at this time is recognizing that the problem is there. We have set up our task force as I have mentioned to criss-cross this country to get the kind of evidence and public awareness generated in this country to do more in the future.
The stories that come out of these hearings that we have been holding coast to coast are just incredible. It is just so hard to believe that these types of things happen to women in a civilized society, Canada being one of the most civilized of all societies. These things are happening and they are being exposed, sometimes for the first time.
It is recognition of a problem that is long overdue. It is going to allow the government to respond in ways that it has not been able to in the past.
I look forward to a continuation of this debate. I look forward also to questions and responses from the other side of the House.


Chris Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, it is a little surprising that some of the things the member identifies would be surprising to him. They are things that are well-known across this country and are certainly well-known to women, both the experience of poverty and the experience of abuse. Governments have not taken these matters seriously.

March 31, 1992
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While it is good that he raised these issues, it is a little disconcerting that he would be surprised by them.
I would like to ask him a couple of questions. He talked about circulating to his constituents some indications of the budget and what that budget does. I wonder what he is saying to his constituents who earn less than $3,750 and who will not get an extra cent out of the government's child benefits program. Did he indicate to them that that is acceptable, that the poorest of the poor will not get one extra cent out of this program?
Did he indicate to his constituents that health and welfare officials admitted that children and families whose income is derived from social assistance, welfare or unemployment insurance will be no better off under this new system than they were under the old system? The families in the worst financial situations will receive nothing in these changes.
The member will have voted along with me in favour of a resolution put forward by my former leader which called upon the House to eliminate child poverty by the year 2000. Does he think that these measures will have any impact at all on eliminating child poverty by the year 2000? In fact, is there anything here which is heading us in the right direction?
May I ask just one last question? Does the member not realize that the extra violence women are facing, children are facing and families are facing, the extra insecurity that families are living under, is the result of the strapped financial situations?
As we all know, more Canadian children live in poverty than at the beginning of this government's term. Does the member not understand that part of the reason for having to address the concerns of violence, more halfway houses and so on, is because of the poverty that this government has created over its last eight years?


Gregory Francis Thompson: Mr. Speaker, it is a wide-ranging question and observation on the part of the member. I will attempt to do justice to the question.
The best thing that we can do as a country is to develop a strong and healthy economy. That is what will pull people up. We can have a wide range of programs but the
thing that will do it is a strong and vibrant economy. That is the difficulty I have at this particular point in the history of this country. We have 1.5 million unemployed in this country. The figure has not yet exceeded the last recession that we went through in 1981-82 but we cannot take too much comfort from that, can we.
The fact is we have too much unemployment and it has a huge social cost attached to it. There is a relationship between violence in the home and the hardship a particular family is facing on a day to day basis in terms of unemployment and lack of opportunity and the inability of a family to pay its bills or meet its obligations. Those are huge social costs at the end of the day.
Again I go back to the budget. The budget is not the be-all or the end-all of our problems. It is a pretty good start. It recognizes for the first time the family unit. It recognizes children as it has not in the past. That is only one component in the budget. Members have to remember that all federal programs have matching or other support programs within the provinces which help those families on the lower income scales.
I do not pretend that our budget did it all or will do it all, or will it ever do it all, but I think it is a good start. In conjunction with existing provincial programs I think they are working better now than they ever did in the past because we need them now.
Again, reflecting on that huge unemployment number out there, we hope it gets better, and we hope that the Canadian economy will grow as they predict it will. Every major think tank in Canada and internationally, including the IMF, predicts that Canada's economy will grow faster than any other economy in the western world this year. We hope they are correct in that, not for partisan political reasons but because that is the best we can hope for the citizens of Canada, a strong and healthy economy.


Mrs. Marlene Catterall (Ottawa West):: Mr. Speaker, the member spoke so glowingly and with such feeling about violence against women that I expected him to end his speech by announcing that his government had decided to put some money in the budget for it. He did
March 31, 1992

not talk about any new provisions to deal with the problem and I suspect it is because there are none.
In fact, if the member's government had not so dramatically cut funding to women's organizations that advocate and bring to public attention these issues a couple of years ago, and had not continued to cut funding to those organizations, he might not be so surprised by what he is now hearing. It has been well known to women's organizations but unfortunately they have been robbed of the means to convey that information to public policymakers like the hon. member.
Since the debate today is on the budget and on women,
I have a question I want to ask.
Can he and his government tell me and tell Canadian women how much of the spending in this budget goes to benefit women-and I don't mean child care and I don't mean pay equity-but over all, in all the hundreds of millions and billions of dollars this budget spends? How many of those dollars benefit women and how many benefit men?


Gregory Francis Thompson: Mr. Speaker, I want to step through some statistics. We are always hesitant to use too many statistics when we are speaking because it gets confusing for the average viewer who is trying to sort this out whether we are doing enough or not doing enough. But I want to go through a couple of statistics, if I may.
It goes back to 1986 when the government launched a $23 million child sexual abuse initiative, followed up in 1988 by a broader $40 million family violence initiative. This time last year we expanded that to a $136 million initiative.
I do not want to play at the percentages, but when you are moving from $23 million to $136 million, that is somewhere close to a 700 per cent increase. I think it is important that we get that on the record.
The other thing that I want to get on the record is that the Department of Secretary of State has funded close to 400 individual projects for women as well as community projects. They have helped support non-profit organizations and sponsored many other initiatives for women.
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Those all have a dollar figure attached to them, and as I said, I am not going to step through all of those. But I think we have committed as much as reasonably possible, given the times.
I wish that the Canadian economy was growing the way it should be and that we did not have a mountain of debt over us. Perhaps if we did not, we could resolve this because a lot of these problems will take dollars to resolve them, no question about it. I do not think anyone would argue that. I just wish that our economy was so healthy that we could put the financial resources into those problem areas that I would like to see put into them. Given the capability of our economy and the Canadian people, I think we will find a very healthy and prosperous economy 12 months from now. We will continue to upgrade our programs and to put the kind of resources into them that we all want to see.


Ms. Beth Phinney (Hamilton Mountain):: Mr. Speaker, my colleagues and I in the Liberal Party, as you have heard today, are extremely concerned about the government's budget and its failure to promote and protect the rights of Canadian women.
We know that women are particularly vulnerable to the draconian economic policies of this government. We know that most women have much lower incomes than men. We know that women make up a very large segment of the people living in poverty in this country. We know, for example, that more than 60 per cent of single mothers in Canada live in poverty. That is a shocking and shameful statistic. That kind of figure is a real embarrassment for a country which prides itself on its compassion and commitment to equality.
Knowing the situation, what kind of support did this government offer to Canadian women in its February budget? It offered absolutely nothing to help unemployed women get back in the work force. It abandoned its commitment to day care. It reneged on its commitment to pay equity for federal public servants. It cancelled the Court Challenges Program. It abandoned its commitment to the universal family allowance.
This budget has confirmed what many women have long suspected, that this government's commitment to equality for women is nothing more than empty symbol-

March 31, 1992
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ism and meaningless rhetoric. Actions speak louder than words and it is on the government's actions that it will be judged by the women of Canada.
I want to concentrate my comments on one of these measures that I find particularly disturbing, the cancellation of the Court Challenges Program. The cancellation of this program is an outrage that shows a callous disregard for the rights of Canadian women. It was a unique human rights program that helped give disadvantaged Canadians access to their constitutional rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The program has helped fund court cases for groups wanting to test the equality rights section of the charter. This is important because it establishes legal precedents that help prevent discrimination. The program has made the crucial difference between access to charter rights and no access. The program has benefited all Canadians and particularly disadvantaged groups in societies such as women. Groups, such as the Women's Legal and Education Action Fund, have used the programs to bring a number of important women's rights cases to the courts.
For example, on the very same day that the program was cancelled, the Supreme Court of Canada came down with the first high court decision in the world that linked hard core pornography with violence against women and decided that this should be a factor to consider in Canada's obscenity law.
The Women's Legal and Education Action Fund intervention in this case was funded by the Court Challenges Program. This intervention was crucial to the court's recognition of the harmful effects of pornography on women. In many cases, groups like this could not afford on their own the legal costs of initiating a court challenge. The total cost of this program is about $2 million a year or about seven cents per Canadian.
According to the Canadian Bar Association, the program ensures that equality rights are clearly defined in the Constitution and enforced for all Canadians. Constitutional rights which are neither defined nor enforced are hollow and of little value. The bar association said it was a sad irony that the program was terminated the day before the release of the special joint committee on a renewed Canada which addressed the issues of inclusiveness and constitutional equality rights.
I believe that the cancellation of this program is a very negative signal to be sending out at this time in our
country's history. Just as we are approaching the conclusion of important and very difficult national discussions on our constitutional rights, the government is showing that its commitment to those rights is questionable.
Women's groups were already uneasy and concerned that they did not have an adequate voice in the process of constitutional reform. They are even more concerned now.
Even the distinguished former Supreme Court Justice Bertha Wilson has called for the program's reinstatement. She has written to the Minister of Justice to express her dismay and distress over the cancellation of the program. I want to quote from her letter:
I fully appreciate, of course, that all governments are currently in a period of financial restraint but I must say that I have difficulty with a policy that places the burden of that restraint on those who can least afford it.
The government has suggested this move was made because the program has served its purpose. Enough jurisprudence has been established. Legal experts have contradicted that claim. Many significant cases have yet to be heard and many of these will not be heard without funding from the Court Challenges Program.
The Canadian Bar Association, a retired Supreme Court justice, the Canadian Human Rights Commission, and countless other human rights groups across this country seem to disagree. I am not aware of any credible legal expert who does support the government's position.
Only two years ago, the Standing Committee on Human Rights and the Status of Disabled Persons agreed unanimously that this program should be renewed. In a response tabled by the Minister of Multicul-turalism the government said:
There are still significant areas of language and equality rights which require clarification.
The government agreed to renew the program for a five-year period. What has happened since that time to change the government's position on this program?
The Minister of Justice has suggested that the government itself could fulfil the function of the program by supporting litigation on human rights cases. I have asked the government how exactly this would work, but I have received no response. It is anyone's guess. It would clearly be a conflict of interest for the justice department to challenge and defend the law at the same time. That is
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one of the main reasons why this program was established as an autonomous agency.
The Standing Committee on Human Rights and the Status of Disabled Persons, of which I am a member, has called the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Multiculturalism and Citizenship to appear as witnesses before our committee to answer questions concerning the cancellation of the Court Challenges Program.
The ministers have replied that they are unavailable. We have invited them to appear at any time at their convenience. They have sent their deputy ministers instead. I believe this shows a lack of respect for this parliamentary committee. I certainly can understand why they are reluctant to answer questions on this issue, because they would have to defend the indefensible. No doubt they are aware that our committee strongly supports this program, even Conservative Party members of the committee.
The Minister of Justice, who has a reputation as a supporter of women's rights, must find her position extremely uncomfortable. But as ministers of the Crown, it is their responsibility to explain and defend this decision of the government.
Members of my party have been asking ourselves the question: Why? Why has the government taken this callous step against the human rights for women and other disadvantaged groups? What is the real reason that this program has been cancelled? Let me say that no one believes it is really because of deficit reduction, or because there is enough jurisprudence. No one is buying these explanations.
I find it an extremely disturbing coincidence that the leader of the Reform Party had called for elimination of this program. It was very apparent to everyone in this House that the government's budget was carefully designed to win back Conservative supporters lost to the Reform Party.
It certainly gives an indication of the Reform Party's lack of commitment to human rights. But even more disturbing it raises the question: Who is in charge here?
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Who is running this government? Is it the Prime Minister or is it Preston Manning?
More and more it seems like it does not really make much difference. The two parties are not all that different anyway, the main difference being that the Reform Party is a more extreme version of Mulroneyism.
I referred earlier to the economic disparities between men and women in this country. When we see the shocking figures we realize that we have a long way to go before true equality for women is achieved. True equality includes economic equality. It means equality in everyday life, equality in practice, not just in theory.
We see very clearly the need for initiatives like the Court Challenges Program.
We constantly hear this government boasting about its record on women's issues. That is not good enough. Actions speak louder than words.
We in the Liberal Party condemn this government for its budget and its shocking lack of commitment for equality for women in Canada.


Mr. Joe Fontana (London East):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to stand in this House today in support of the opposition motion of my colleague, the member for Halifax, which reads:
That this House condemn the government for its failure to protect
and promote the fundamental rights of Canadian women, especially
as reflected in the 1992 budget.
Before I deal with that issue specifically, let me just say something with respect to the budget. As we all know, really the budget was a do-nothing budget. It was a one-day wonder that neither captured the attention of the Canadian public nor met the needs of the Canadian public.
In fact 1.5 million Canadians are still unemployed, most of whom are women. It did absolutely nothing for the people on social assistance, most of whom are women. It did absolutely nothing for small businesses which are finding themselves in very difficult circumstances and which are also headed by women. The budget in actual fact did very little to solve the economic ills of this country.

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I want to focus my comments in the time that I have this evening on discussing how the budget and its attention to housing will have and has a profound effect on women.
The impact of the federal budget on women is not a direct blow aimed specifically at this segment of the population. It is an insidious one that affects numerous programs that many Canadian women depend on.
Federal budget cuts to housing programs are a perfect example of this. Many Canadians who depend on federal transfer payments to the provinces for social housing programs are single parent families, the vast majority of whom are headed by women.
These cuts also affect single seniors, many of whom are women struggling for self-sufficiency and independence as they age.
In the last budget this government cut spending for social housing. These cuts will result in more than a 51 per cent reduction in the development of new units in the next three years.
Currently only 6 per cent of Canadians receive assistance through social housing budgets. But there are still 15 per cent of Canadians, over one million people, in need of adequate and affordable shelter.
These cuts will mean that fewer Canadians will receive assistance through the Rent Supplement Program or the Non-Profit Housing Program. Fewer natives will receive assistance through the Urban Native Program or Rural and Native Housing Program. All these programs help women throughout Canada.
Women who live in the have not provinces are even more dependent on federal transfer payments because provincial inputs were minuscule to begin with and they decline as federal inputs decline.
A study conducted by CMHC in the 1980s concluded that there have been few improvements in finding affordable housing for single parent families led by women. The study said:
Low economic status, discrimination in the job market and the responsibilities of child rearing as primarily female problems continue to affect affordable, adequate housing for these Canadian families.
Single parent families headed by women continue to face discrimination when it comes to finding affordable shelter. This problem is compounded by the drop in income this group is continually subject to.
According to the most recent Statistics Canada figures, families in which a woman is the sole parent experienced a drop in average income down to $22,000 a year. Six out of ten single parent families headed by women live in poverty, up from a year ago when five out of ten lived in poverty.
These statistics are a testament to the needs of these women and their children. These are the Canadians on waiting lists for non-profit housing, for rent supplement programs or for co-operative housing units which this government killed in the 1992 budget. Co-op housing is not a viable option for women and others because this program has been gutted by this government.
CMHC has estimated that the recent budget cuts will translate into 7,650 fewer new units of social housing in Canada this year alone. These budget cuts will mean that the vast majority of these single parent families will continue to live in poverty.
There was one CMHC housing program which had 60 per cent of all of its projects with targeting to single parent families. The Co-Operative Housing Program offered stability of tenure and guaranteed affordability. It provided tenants with the opportunity to live in a community of mixed incomes. It did not offer public . housing which is essentially ghetto housing.
The Co-Operative Housing Program does not just provide shelter to these women. It provides strong community support. It is a cost efficient program with numerous benefits. It was eliminated in this government's recent budget, as I mentioned before.
Canada's first Co-Operative Housing Program was introduced in 1973 under a Liberal government. In 1986 this government was so impressed with the success of the program that it promised to produce 5,000 units of co-op housing a year, but this goal was never achieved. Instead, under this government the number of co-op units constructed has declined and funding for the program has been in jeopardy for the last two years.
March 31, 1992

Funding for the 1992 program was no different. After extensive lobbying by housing groups and Liberal MPs, the Minister of Public Works announced on December 15, 1991 that funding for the co-op housing program would be renewed with a budget of $6.1 million.
As recently as February 19, less than a week before the budget was introduced in the House of Commons, the same minister confirmed in writing that the co-op housing budget was secure. Based on his assurances, co-op groups across the country proceeded with the development of co-operative housing proposals. In an attempt to justify this broken promise the government is claiming that the co-op housing program is not targeted to those in need of affordable housing.
On March 11, 1992 the Minister of Finance criticized the co-op housing program during Question Period when he said:
How is it that it is well targeted when 50 per cent of those who occupy these units are not in effect qualified under the provisions of social housing?
The minister is revealing his ignorance of the co-op housing program. He is correct when he states that 50 per cent of those who occupy co-op housing units are not qualified for social housing. What he failed to acknowledge is that this same 50 per cent of occupants really pays market rent for their co-ops. These units are not subsidized by the government. It is the other 50 per cent that is targeted by the funding.
This statement by the Minister of Finance also contradicts his own colleague, the minister responsible for housing who said in his December press release that the co-op program was targeted. Again I quote:
The revised program will make more effective use of scarce tax dollars, ensuring federal subsidies are fully directed toward a mix of low and moderate income families.
These statements show that the government praised the co-op housing program a few months ago, and now the Minister of Finance is making excuses for eliminating a successful and cost effective program.
It appears that this government is willing to alter its conclusions of a program in order to justify its decisions.
In his March 11 comments the Minister of Finance also stated that the government had done enough to stimulate housing through its introduction to the use of RRSPs for down payments on homes and by allowing 5 per cent down payments for first-time home buyers.
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While I applaud the government for introducing these two programs that I personally promoted for a year, along with my party, I note that these programs help those Canadians who have the savings to purchase a home.
Canadians who cannot afford to purchase homes have access to secure tenure if they live in a co-op housing unit. This program meets the needs of a different segment of Canadians: those who want to live in secure accommodations but cannot buy their own homes.
The $6.1 million savings that the government will obtain by cutting the co-op housing program may appear to be well worth while, but the consequences of the cuts is the elimination of 4,000 construction jobs and manufacturing jobs in 1992. In these tough economic times, adding to welfare and unemployment expenditures will do nothing to reduce the deficit.
The termination of the co-op housing program is really an abdication by this government of its responsibilities to provide adequate and affordable shelter to Canadians in a healthy community environment. The program is cost efficient and offers affordable housing and mixed income communities to low income earners, seniors, single parents, natives and the disabled, most of whom are women. Many of these groups would be unable to find adequate shelter in the private marketplace.
There are 164,000 Canadians who are on a waiting list for co-op housing units. The private market is not serving all these Canadians. This government must keep its promise to housing groups and provide $6.1 million for new co-op housing commitments to help those women and children.
Shelter is one of the basic needs of all humans and the private sector has failed a large group of poor Canadians.
Social housing and co-operative housing were developed to meet the special needs of various groups: single parent mothers and their children, elderly women living alone, native women and disabled women. All are looking to break the cycle of poverty.
Stability of tenure and adequate shelter are necessary to meet these goals. This is why the co-op housing program and social housing program are essential to many Canadians, particularly women and children. The recent budget cuts to these programs will seriously

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curtail the development of much needed housing for those Canadians most in need.
That is why we condemn the actions of this government for its lack of support in the budget for housing programs to especially help women and their children.


Rey D. Pagtakhan: Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague from London East.
As you may know, Mr. Speaker, he was in the forefront when the national Liberal task force on housing worked on this issue about two years ago.
I remember this member saying that social housing ought to be the cornerstone of Canada's social policy. I agree. He indicated the tremendous benefits that this program would offer Canadians, particularly women and the poor. In fact, without affordable housing, we are condemning a family to poverty.
With such a good program as co-op housing, I would like to ask the member why he thinks this government deliberately killed this program. Is it because it was a Liberal legacy or just that this government does not care about women and children?


Joseph Frank (Joe) Fontana: Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for that question and those kind remarks.
I think it is a bit of both. The co-op housing program was a very successful program, as acknowledged by this government because it has been committed to this program for the last five years. While it never delivered the number of units that it promised, the fact remains that there is a wealth of support from the government members for the co-op housing program.
There is no doubt that a number of government backbenchers tried to portray co-op housing as a program that was not well targeted, that it in fact allowed people with higher incomes to live in co-op housing and take advantage of certain subsidies. The fact remains that co-op housing is not only a form of social housing, it is a kind of community living.
To be able to say that the poor, especially women and children, should be relegated to public housing projects where 100 per cent of the people are targeted and receiving subsidies is to not deal with the facts that a mixed income community with positive social reinforcements would be beneficial to women and to their children.
I still believe that the minister of state for housing is very supportive of co-op housing. We believe and hope that women and men, of course, those who believe in co-op housing, will in fact pressure this government to restore the funding.
Co-op housing has existed in the world for a great many decades. In fact, it is a form of housing tenure, and it is something of which we should not lose sight. The whole concept and philosophy of co-operative living is something that we should encourage and not reject by cutting the budget.
My colleague spoke about our task force. We have put forward our support for the co-op housing program. We urge the government to restore the funding. I believe it is committed to helping people who require housing. It seems to have this convoluted perception, unfortunately, that it has no responsibility, that the private marketplace and the provincial governments should perhaps look after social housing.
That is the tragedy of this government's action with respect to the budget cuts on housing.


Garth Turner: Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak on this motion today.
I think it is useful at this point, after a few hours of talking about it, that we just read the motion again.
That is:
That this House condemns the government for its failure to protect
and promote the fundamental rights of Canadian women, especially
as reflected in the 1992 budget.
I certainly commend the hon. member for Halifax for putting forward a motion which I am sure in her view is a correct and constructive one. She has spoken at length and with passion and sincerity about the rights of women in Canadian society. I would say that the spirit behind this motion is probably a laudable one.
The hon. member has heard me praise her I am sure and will remember that as well. The spirit behind the motion I think is a very laudable one and the member is to be congratulated. To further the cause of women in Canadian society is of course what we ought to be doing and devoting a lot of time and attention to.
March 31, 1992

Unfortunately, the hon. member has done two things wrong in her motion. First, I think she has picked the wrong government and second, I think she has picked the wrong target, namely the 1992 budget.
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Also, a message has been received from the Senate informing this House that it has passed, without amendment, Bill C-32, an act to amend the Canada Assistance Plan.
I would like to speak for a couple of minutes about some of the elements of the budget, some of the things that it was trying to accomplish and some of the ways that the budget is trying to address some of the concerns that prompted the hon. member in all her sincerity and good intentions to put forward a motion which unfortunately misses the mark.
To start with, it is important to remember that this budget cuts taxes, in fact $1.2 billion will be the reduction in 1992. Cutting taxes helps reduce or remove partially some of the burden that is placed on Canadian families and that is going to have the net benefit of putting more money into household budgets and helping. A tax cut is better than a tax increase. We have had years of tax increases for many reasonable reasons.
Mr. Speaker wishes me to conclude? I just started, sir. Will I have an opportunity to complete my remarks later?


Mr. Speaker:: I wish to say to the hon. member that I apologize for interrupting the hon. member. We have had a message from the Senate and we are obligated to deal with that. The hon. member will I hope be able to continue with his remarks afterward. Again I do apologize.


MESSAGE FROM THE SENATE
Mr. Speaker:: I have the honour to inform the House that a message has been received from the Senate informing this House that the Senate has passed the following bills: Bill C-65, an act for granting to Her Majesty certain sums of money for the administration of the Government of Canada for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1992 and Bill C-66, an act for granting to Her Majesty certain sums of money for the Public Service of Canada for the financial year ending 31st March 1993.
* *
*



THE ROYAL ASSENT

["It being six o'clock p.m. it is my duty to inform the House that pursuant to Standing Order 81(17) proceedings on the motion have expired.\nMarch 31, 1992", "Pursuant to Standing Order 37, the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's Order Paper."]
Mr. Speaker:: I have the honour to inform the House that a communication has been received which is as follows:
Rideau Hall, Ottawa
March 31, 1992


Mr. Speaker:: 1 have the honour to inform you that the Hon. Beverley McLachlin, Puisne Judge of the Supreme Court of Canada, in her capacity as Deputy Governor General, will proceed to the Senate chamber today, the 31st day of March, 1992 at 5 p.m. for the purpose of giving Royal Assent to certain Bills.
Yours sincerely,
Judith A. LaRocque Secretary to the Governor General.
A message was delivered by the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod as follows:
Mr. Speaker, the Honourable Deputy to the Governor General desires the immediate attendance of this honourable House in the chamber of the honourable the Senate.
Accordingly, Mr. Speaker with the House went up to the Senate chamber.
And being returned:


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I have the honour to inform the House that when the House went up to the Senate chamber the Deputy Governor General was pleased to give, in Her Majesty's name, the Royal Assent to the following bills:
Bill C-64, an act to amend the Northwest Territories Act-Chapter No. 6.
Bill C-32, an act to amend the Canada Assistance Plan-Chapter No. 9.
Bill C-65, an act for granting to Her Majesty certain sums of money for the public service of Canada for the financial year ending 31st March, 1992-Chapter No. 7.
Bill C-66, an act for granting to Her Majesty certain sums of money for the public service of Canada for the financial year ending 31st March, 1993-Chapter No. 8.

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[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Ms. Clancy (p. 9052).
Garth Turner: Mr. Speaker, addressing the motion of the hon. member for Halifax that this House condemn the government for its failure to protect and promote the fundamental rights of Canadian women, particularly as expressed in the 1992 budget, I would like to continue my remarks.
I had just mentioned the personal tax cut of $1.2 billion which comes into effect next year as being a significant benefit to a lot of Canadian households and therefore to a number of Canadian women.
The second point I would like to stress in terms of this budget is the child benefit plan. I know a number of members opposite have railed at this particular change, particularly because they feel that it may spell the end to universality of social programs.
Some of us do not think that is such a bad thing. The reason is that in a world of limited governmental resources, it is important that we try to target those resources to the people who need them and this child tax benefit plan change is an attempt to do that.
It is important for Canadian women and Canadian families not to lose sight of the fact that this will provide benefits for children up to 18 years of age. It is guaranteed to come every month and it is tax-free. It makes a lot of sense. We will be sending up to $144 per child to families in the form almost of a guaranteed monthly income.
We are getting off this crazy path that we were on before where we blanketed society with universal cheques and then we took the time to tax it all back, but only from certain individuals.
It makes more sense to identify those people in our society who need these resources than to target those resources to those people and not hassle them by trying to tax it back. It makes a lot of sense.
Let us not forget as well that in this particular budget, tax breaks are being increased for child care. An extra $1,000 a year in terms of a child care expense deduction is being given to Canadian families. So combined with the child benefit plan and combined with the cut in the
number of taxes or the amount of taxation that that particular family pays, that is a pretty powerful threepronged attack on some of the problems that are faced by a number of Canadian families these days.
Beyond that of course the budget brought in the home buyers plan. The ability now of a married couple to utilize up to $40,000 in terms of RRSPs for a down payment is a significant benefit to a lot of people who are trying to get into the housing market. It certainly helps affordability and for first-time home buyers this is a very important incentive for them to get out into the marketplace.
Combined with other things that are very important here, the 5 per cent down payment change which the government recently made allows that 95 per cent of the property can be mortgaged. Again, that helps first-time buyers. It helps young struggling families get into the real estate market, get into a house. It helps them to start building equity for the future, looking after stabilizing their housing costs and providing a stable environment in which to raise children. It just makes a lot of sense to help young couples get into housing.
The third element of that is today's mortgage rates. They made a little blip up there a week and a half ago but they are back down now essentially to levels about the lowest they have been in 20 years.
When those three things are considered together, using RRSP funds, 5 per cent down payment and low mortgage rates today, I think we are doing a lot to try and increase the affordability of housing for these young families.
The first thrust of the budget was to try to put more money into the hands of Canadian families, particularly those who need it. The second thrust of the budget was to help those families get into the real estate market, help them get into a house so they can build equity for the future.
The budget, of course, went beyond that in terms of measures to address concerns of families and middle class Canadians. For example, we have more tax fairness being brought into the system right now.
It used to be the case that common law couples had significant tax advantages over traditional married couples. A lot of us thought that was wrong. The budget ends those tax advantages that were enjoyed by common law couples and we applaud that.
March 31, 1992

As an aside, there are those of us who would like the government to go further. It is still the situation in this country now that if there are two families, family A and family B and both have an income of let us say $50,000 and family A has one income earner and family B has two income earners, the way the tax system is structured now family B with the same amount of income and with two wage earners instead of one is taxed less heavily than family A. A number of us think that is wrong. We would like to see the government change that at some point down the road.
Other measures in the budget that Canadian women would applaud is a $2.2 billion reduction in the defence budget. I have certainly heard a lot of Canadian women say they would rather see the government's limited precious resources spent on improving the social climate, the social environment for Canadian families rather than maintaining troops in Europe.
The government's decision to now bring those troops back and to cut defence spending is one that is going to be applauded by a lot of Canadian women.
In fact, government spending over all is going to be significantly cut, a $7 billion reduction over the next five years. Why is that important to Canadian women? It is important because we are maintaining our ability to fund our own social programs. That is the most important thing. If the government over-spends it puts at risk its ability to fund those things we really believe in and I know the hon. member for Halifax believes in and why she put this motion forward.
Reducing the size and influence of government is most important. The budget addresses this one head on. Forty-six boards, agencies and commissions of the federal government are going to be axed or merged together in what is a real common sense move.
All government departments are going to have their budgets cut de facto by 3 per cent across the board. They are just going to have to do better. They are going to have to be more efficient; they are going to have to deliver their services will less redundancy.
Grants and subsidies are being cut in this budget by another $370 million. Even the Prime Minister and members of cabinet are taking a cut in pay in this budget.
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Therefore, the size and influence of government itself is coming down.
As well, the budget attempts to help the economy, to help small business to create jobs. The tax rate for manufacturers and processors is being cut by 1 per cent from 23 to 22 per cent and then further by another 1 per cent next year. Equipment write-off can be accelerated by 5 per cent.
Why does that matter to Canadian women? Because small businesses create jobs and a lot of those jobs go to Canadian women. It is important to Canadian women to have a sound economy and a strong, vibrant small business sector.
Back to the motion. The hon. member for Halifax says she wants to promote, protect and expand fundamental rights for women. Let me just run through how some of the things in the budget address those fundamental rights of women.
The budget attempts to stabilize the economy to ensure that we have secure funding for social programs. That is a fundamental right for a social safely net which we are promoting in this budget for Canadian women.
The budget attempts to help create jobs and helps small businesses through a tax cut. That helps Canadian women by enhancing their fundamental right to secure employment, to jobs. Canadian women want to work. They want jobs just as Canadian men do and the budget helps them in that regard.
The budget reduces people's tax burdens. That increases and enhances the fundamental rights of women to have secure income, to have a reasonable amount of their own wages in their own pockets to spend for their families, for their children.
This budget helps people purchase houses. That is important. Women, the same as men, want secure accommodation. They want access to the housing market and they want to build equity for the future.
This budget targets public resources to effective child care. That enhances women's fundamental rights to assistance for those people who need it. That is very important.

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This budget reduces the size of government. That is important to Canadian women. Canadian women want their rights not to be overburdened by enhanced bureaucracy. The government does that.
These are the fundamental rights for women. The right to secure social programs guaranteed by the budget's austerity; by the budget's responsibility; by the budget's adherence to ethical financial principles. It just enhances our ability to fund our social programs.
This budget enhances women's right to work. The budget enhances women's right to fair taxation. The budget enhances women's right to decent accommodation, to access to the housing market. The budget enhances women's right to assistance for those who need it. The budget also enhances the right of all of us, men and women equally, not to be overburdened by government.
The budget realizes that social problems cannot be solved by throwing money at them, especially money that we do not have, that has to be borrowed and then has to be repaid through higher taxes in the future.
It is not in women's best interests to have high tax and high spending. Canadian women are no different from Canadian men in that regard. We all want taxes to be lower to have more money in our own pockets and more money for our families.
Let me conclude by saying this final point. I am sure there are a number of Canadian women who have been watching this debate and who have found it offensive.
Members of the opposition would have us believe through their speeches that all Canadian women are poor, disadvantaged, or victims of society. They would have us believe that women are not entrepreneurial, that they do not share an interest in the economy, that they need to be propped-up, supported, helped and assisted, and that they have extra government money and programs devoted to them.
Not all women are clients of food banks or trapped in cycles of poverty. A lot of women are successful. They run their families in a very reasonable way. They hold responsible jobs in private and public sectors. There are many women who would be insulted by being lumped in with visible minorities and disabled. There are a lot of women who want this House to know that they are
proud, self-sufficient Canadians who are contributors to society and who support the budget of 1992.


Chris Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, if I could just ask the member who just spoke to substantiate his contention that this is a good budget for women, that in fact it will help women in the work place and help women in their ability to access adequate housing and so on.
Would he indicate how women could possibly be assisted in the work place by the resolution in this budget of putting the last nail in the coffin of the national child care system in Canada? How does that help women in the work place particularly after the comments of the Prime Minister in 1988 and many other times about how important and critical child care is for women to be able to access the employment market.
I presume on the basis of the comments he just made that he disagrees with the Prime Minister's contention about the importance of child care in the work place.
How could finally deciding not to have a national child care system help women in the work place? How could the decision to ignore a Human Rights Tribunal decision, should it rule against the government on pay equity in the civil service, help women in the work place?
On those two matters, how could the budget help women in the work place? It seems to be a very contorted view of this. Certainly from the comments of women on this side of the House and women from outside groups, it would seem to be hard to sustain.
With regard to the government's final decision to renege on its promise to increase co-operative housing to 5,000 units a year, how will ending the Co-operative Housing Program help women in the housing market?


Garth Turner: Mr. Speaker, I think the budget attempts to address some fundamentals in society, rather than throwing money at some social problems as a temporary solution.
The budget tries to find more permanent and viable solutions to some of our social problems. In terms of child care, the government has decided not to proceed with financing child care. The simplest and most effective answer to how that will benefit Canadian women is that in order to implement the child care program, it was estimated that the Government of Canada would have had to find roughly $3 billion a year to finance it.
March 31, 1992

We would have found that money either by raising taxes or diverting spending in some other areas. We are certainly open to suggestions as to where $3 billion additional can be found for that. Certainly I think raising taxes is an unacceptable solution to most Canadians.
It would appear the money would most likely be found by deficit financing, as the opposition members would encourage. Deficit financing means we borrow the money. Right now we are borrowing money to pay the interest on money we already borrowed. It is a ridiculous situation. Canada cannot continue in that way, therefore I think deficit financing is not the answer.
How does this decision help Canadian women? It helps Canadian women the same way it helps Canadian men and the same way it helps Canadian children. It will stabilize the economy, help to get our fiscal house in order, and make sure future generations do not have to pay in excess of what they should for the delivery of that day's services, the way today's taxpayers are paying a lot more than they should.
The government has an operating surplus this year of $12 billion. We take in $12 billion more in taxes than we spend, but the interest on the debt is $43 billion this year. That is a legacy from the past. It is a $43 billion monster.
It wipes out the $12 billion surplus and puts us back in the hole. If we were to continue in this way, taxpayers in the future would be even more burdened. Canadian women and children in the future would have even fewer resources available from any future government of any political stripe to help them. That is the answer to the member's question.
You have to be responsible, or else the social programs are going to collapse. You know that. The hon. member across the way is very devoted to social programs, and that is fine. I salute him for that. I have no problem with that whatsoever. But if we allow our ability to fund those programs to be shattered by financial or fiscal irresponsibility, who wins? It is not a political issue any more. It is just common sense.
I do not think politicizing the fact that we have high debt interest payments is going to help Canadian women and children at all. Let us face the facts and cut through the rhetoric here. If you go bankrupt, you cannot fund
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your social programs, and if you cannot fund your social programs it is the people at the bottom of society who get smacked. They are the ones the hon. member in the New Democratic Party is trying to look out for. It makes no sense.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: There are still a couple of minutes for questions and comments. The hon. member for Winnipeg North.


Rey D. Pagtakhan: Mr. Speaker, the member just indicated it is common sense. Well it is common sense to look at the cause of the problem and not treat the symptoms of the problem as in medicine.
Abuses of children and women are symptoms of the problem. One of the major causes is the lack of an affordable, universally accessible child care program in the country. We must address the basic cause of the problem and not the symptoms.
I am glad to hear the member admit that the deficit of the day has been the legacy of the past. I think he knows the years from 1984 to now are past. He has admitted that, and I am glad.


Garth Turner: Mr. Speaker, every nickel of the increase in the debt of Canada since 1984 can be accounted for by interest on the debt that existed before. It is called the magic of compound interest. Anyone who wants to put $100 in his RSP today and have only common interest accrue on it and look at the amount that is there in seven years will see that it has doubled.
It is the magic of compound interest and the member should look into some simple mathematical tables on it. I know he is a doctor so maybe he has not had time but it would really enhance his education.


Marlene Catterall: Mr. Speaker, it is of special interest to me to follow the member for Halton-Peel. I want to pick up on his comment that because the problem is poverty, it is not going to be solved by throwing money at it.
I can only quote a woman I have known and admired for many years who has lived with poverty, raised her children with it, and has said frequently: "When the

March 31, 1992
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problem is poverty I can't think of anything better to throw at it than money".
The member spoke about women's right to social programs. We have to address in this country why we look at social programs as a woman's right. The fact is that we look at social programs as a right of women and children because it is women and children who are poor in our society. It starts from the time they are young and continues until they are old. Two-thirds of the elderly poor in this country are women. The vast majority of the working poor in this country are women. The vast majority of single parent women are poor.
We are here to talk about the budget. The budget more than any other document or bill or piece of business that comes before this House is a statement of a country's and a government's priorities.
It is a statement of its commitment to the equitable distribution of the resources that we pool as a society, to the benefit of all Canadians.
I want to address how this budget stacks up when it comes to a fair and equitable share of public spending in this country for women.
My colleague from Halifax has put forward a motion that condemns the government for its disregard for the fundamental rights of Canadian women, especially as expressed in this budget.
This debate has several dimensions and I am going to start first with those aspects of the budget that go directly to the issue of human rights. This budget is bad news for human rights, and bad news for human rights is bad news for women.
This budget, more than anything I have seen come before this House, is a direct attack on the very commitment of Canadians to human rights through their government and all the institutions that protect those human rights.
It has been 15 years since the first Human Rights Act was passed, 10 years since the Charter of Rights and Freedoms was passed and 5 years since the Employment Equity Act was passed, yet women and other groups in our society still do not enjoy full equality. This budget is a concerted attack on their efforts to ever enjoy full equality.
Under the Canadian Human Rights Act, the role of the Human Rights Commission is to make sure that government policies and programs conform with equality and human rights. If that commission rules that 70,000 women working for the Public Service of Canada are entitled to pay equity, this government will not pay it. This government will ignore the Human Rights Commission. Not only that, but this government will use Parliament to pass a new law so it does not have to respect the human rights of women.
The lack of pay equity is one of the main contributors to the poverty of women.
Second, the government has said it is not going to listen to what the Supreme Court of Canada says when it comes to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Right now the government primarily discriminates against women based on whether they are married or single in terms of their entitlement to a spousal allowance between the ages of 60 and 64. That case is now before the courts.
The government has said, even though the Supreme Court may find that this legislation discriminates on the basis of marital status, it is not going to implement a decision of the Supreme Court. It is going to change the laws so it does not have to pay attention to the Supreme Court on people's equality rights. That same decision no doubt will be applied if the government wishes to choose to ignore the Supreme Court, if it rules in favour of divorced and separated spouses, in the case of arguing for equal entitlement to pensions from the pensioners to whom they were married for most of the time the pension asset was being built up by that pensioner.
The third thing the government has said is that it is cancelling the Court Challenges Program.
As I said, it is a decade since we have had a Charter of Rights and Freedoms in this country, and yet most of the cases that have come to courts have served to work against equality for women and other disadvantaged groups. The only way women and others protected by the charter have been able to put forward their rights under the charter through the courts is through the Court Challenges Program. As my friends on the other side acknowledge, in our society women are poorer than men. They do not have the money to go to court and defend their rights.
March 31, 1992

There are a number of issues that affect women directly. The government has pretended that the child benefit is a benefit to women. I want to point out that page 99 of the government's budget document says quite clearly that the child benefit will save $750 million this year, and $3 billion next year. In other words, from now on the government is not adding to child benefits but is taking $3 billion out of child benefits.
Is it benefiting those who most need it? I do not think so. I have looked at the figures. A family making $40,000 will get $44 more out of this program. A family making $50,000 will get $120 more out of this program. Those earning $60,000 will lose $380, while those earning over $100,000 will lose only $237. Does this child benefit program benefit those who most need it? The figures say otherwise.
The cancellation of the National Child Care Program has been referred to sufficiently. I always hate to talk of this as a program that relates particularly to women because, as far as I know, every child bom in the world has two parents, one male and one female. Nonetheless, child care is a major factor in whether women can or cannot participate in the economy and can or cannot benefit from employment.
The member who last spoke said that the government is doing things for housing. The cost of housing is the greatest contributor to poverty. Yet this government has completely cancelled the co-operative housing program which allowed a lot of families, including women and their children, a lot of seniors including a majority of women, to participate in creating their own housing communities and to know that when they moved in they did not have to worry at the age of 70 or 75 about not having a place to live.
I meet with seniors from my riding in the co-op housing development that they built. They are worried that this government's restrictions on the cost of social housing will mean that they at their age will not be able to feel secure in their own homes and will not perhaps in a few years be able to afford to continue living in the homes that they built.
What has been done to social programs is obviously not the only issue that affects women. Not all women are poor, that is true. They are disproportionately poor in a very wealthy society and that is something we should all be ashamed of. The fact is because women are dispropor-
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tionately poor, children are poor. We know the results of that: increased accident rates, increased illness rates, increased death, increased suicides, four times the rate of dropping out of school. Those are the results of poverty that our society cannot afford if we truly believe that our human resources are our most important resources and that developing the full potential of those human resources is the major commitment of any civilized society.
I want to go beyond those token things that people tend to refer to when they talk about the impact on women. I want to get into, for the remaining time I have, what is the real impact of this budget. How do we take the $160 billion plus that the government will be spending this year and how can we look at how much of that money goes to benefit the female half of our population and how much goes to benefit the male half of our population. In other words, what is the gender equity in this budget? That is not a question that governments have ever asked themselves.
I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, the results when I was involved in a similar analysis of a municipal budget in the recreation area. The vast majority of dollars spent in recreation went to benefit boys and men, not girls and women. I suspect if we did a gender equity analysis of this budget, we would find that the vast majority of spending goes not for the benefit of women and their children or women at all.
I want to just pick up a few examples. I want to talk about the fact that program spending is going up by 4.7 per cent in the Government of Canada. Yet wage controls have said that women working for the Government of Canada, and they are our lowest paid workers by a large majority, do not get an increase this year. We can afford nearly a 5 per cent increase in spending when inflation is projected at less than 3 per cent, in fact barely over 2 per cent, but we cannot afford to pay women who are earning poverty level wages to work for the Government of Canada.
We look at downsizing that has happened in government. I want to refer to the report on the Dryden air crash that came out just this past week. Repeatedly in that report we hear about highly paid technical and professional people in Transport Canada responsible for the safety of the travelling public spending increasing amounts of time doing their own clerical, secretarial and receptionist type of work.

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The reason for that is very simple. The reason is that when it comes to downsizing, the people who go first are the support services. Guess who are primarily the support services in the Government of Canada, by over 80 per cent? It is women and women earning small salaries.
We get rid of women who provide the support services and we pay three times as much to highly qualified professionals to do that person's clerical and support work. Does that make any sense in terms of efficiency and economy and productivity in government? Of course not.
We look at the RCMP. When the RCMP downsizes, it gets rid of the clerks and receptionists at its small stations. Then it has highly paid, highly trained RCMP officers doing their own typing. Does that make any sense? Of course not, but it is easier to get rid of women, is it not? That is what downsizing, what government policy has meant to women.
There is going to be further cutting of resources, further bringing in of technology. Suddenly when the typewriter is gone, the woman is gone. When the computer and the programming comes in, the man comes in.
These are the kinds of things we have got to look at when we see whether we have got a budget that is equally fair to men and women in Canadian society.
We look at increases in the Canada Pension Plan or the unemployment insurance premiums. Who pays those primarily? Because there is an income cap on those premiums, that increase is borne primarily by women because it is mostly women who are under the $32,000 or $34,000 limit on those programs. Above those limits, the premiums do not go up. You can be earning $100,000 and your premiums are still the same as somebody earning $30,000.
RRSPs. You can invest $20,000 of your RRSP in buying your first home. When you are buying a first home, and you have got $20,000 in an RRSP, I ask the House, what are you, male or female? A large proportion of the time it is going to be a male who who can benefit from that program.
We reduce the surtax by 1 per cent. Who benefits most? Those highest income earners benefit most. One per cent means more on $100,000 income than it does on a $15,000 income. Who earns primarily the $15,000 income? Women. Who earns primarily the $100,000
income? Men. This budget benefits men to a much greater extent than women.
We lift the ceiling on small business loans, up $100,000 to $200,000. Mostly men starting small businesses borrow in that range. Women starting small businesses borrow much smaller amounts.
The increase on the ability to provide venture capital loans has increased in a range that is going to benefit men starting businesses far more than women starting businesses.
The tax incentives to research and development I suggest is worth a good gender equity analysis. The reduction in the manufacturing processing tax, who is that going to benefit? Who do cuts in corporate taxes benefit mostly? Not women.
We have a prosperity agenda. We have trade expositions. We have task forces that are 90 per cent men, according to the news releases I have seen coming from the ministers' offices. Those expeditions all over the world are going to continue and they are going to continue to be well-funded. It is not women who are going to benefit from that funding.
We have a regulatoiy review that is going to cost a lot of money. I ask you: Who is regulation designed to protect? Generally, regulation is designed to protect the weakest and the most vulnerable. That is true if it is a regulation that has been requested by business. Most regulations have been requested by business in the 125 years since Confederation, not by consumers and not by the general public, but by business to protect business. In any case, regulation generally protects those who can least protect themselves, and more often that is going to be women than men.
I think that kind of analysis of every dollar we spend is a commitment that any government has got to make to women. Who benefits from the $165 billion we spend annually in this country? Who contributes most? Who benefits most? The lower income taxpayer contributes the large volume of tax money; the higher income tax earner gains most from public spending. If we truly want to address equity for women, the poverty of women and children, that is where we have got to start.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: It being six o'clock p.m. it is my duty to inform the House that pursuant to Standing Order 81(17) proceedings on the motion have expired.
March 31, 1992

Pursuant to Standing Order 37, the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's Order Paper.



PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS


Mr. John Reimer (Kitchener) moved: that Bill C-324, an act to amend the Criminal Code (firearms), be read the second time and referred to Legislative Committee H.
He said: Mr. Speaker, the purpose of my bill is to send a powerful message of deterrence to anyone who is thinking about taking a gun along to commit a crime. This bill would toughen section 85 of the Criminal Code in that the minimum mandatory sentences would be increased from one year to five years for a first offence and raised from three years to eight years for any subsequent offences. The sentence imposed under section 85 would be served consecutively to the main offence, which means that it would be added on after serving the first offence.
Second, there would be no eligibility for parole during the five years.
Third, this bill would also specifically prevent the mandatory sentence from having any impact on the sentence imposed for the other offence.
Fourth, this bill also requires the written consent of the provincial Attorney General before any section 85 charge could be withdrawn or plea-bargained away.
I had the privilege of chairing the special committee on the subject matter of Bill C-80 on firearms. I am pleased to say that all but a few of the recommendations out of the 33 were adopted in a much improved bill on firearms, Bill C-17, which is now the law of Canada.
I am particularly pleased that both the Criminal Code and the regulations on the illegitimate use of firearms, which the Minister of Justice tabled this morning, have within them some tough new measures targeting the
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criminal use of firearms. There is now a 10-year maximum sentence for the possession of prohibited weapons. That also applies to possession of a firearm while under a prohibition order. Third, it applies to importing, buying or selling of prohibited weapons.
Additionally, stronger prohibition orders were implemented, meaning that the courts are now required to consider prohibition and the seizure of a firearm in all bail or release proceedings involving offences where the use or threat of violence occurs.
Finally, the duration of court prohibition orders has been increased from five to 10 years for a first conviction, and from 10 years to life for repeat offenders.
I am confident that had those measures been in place a few years ago that some Canadians would be alive today and not the tragic victims of the criminal use of firearms.
Two committees, the one I chaired and subsequently the legislative committee on Bill C-17, heard some specific comments regarding the subject matter of the bill I am proposing today. I would like to read some of them into the record.
Mr. Ronald Gladish, the first vice-president of the Canadian Wildlife Federation asked:
Where are the minimum three to five year penalties for the use of firearms during the commission of an offence, as recommended by the Special Committee on Bill C-80?
This bill addresses that omission.
The Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters said:
The provision for mandatory additional jail terms for the use of a firearm in the commission of a crime, must be fully enacted and enforced as mandatory.
In response to a question about a five-year minimum sentence, Mr. Dare of the Service Rifle Association answered, and I quote:
What we are saying is that five-year mandatory would soon get the message across that a firearm is not acceptable if you carry it concealed, illegally or if it is stolen.
Mr. Beauchesne the Technical Adviser for Law and Amendments Committee of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police said, and I quote:
All police officers and Canadians are asking that zero tolerance be given toward those who commit crimes with firearms.
Ms. Wendy Cukier of the Coalition for Gun Control remarked:

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Private Members' Business
We support the police and their call for tougher sentencing on
firearm related crimes.
This bill then is an attempt to respond to those urgent calls for action, and there were many more that I have not quoted. In fact, the one item on which all groups agreed, whether for or against the legitimate use of firearms, was a call for stricter and tougher laws and sentencing of criminals who use firearms.
The Special Committee on Firearms recommended the following and I quote: "With respect to section 85 of the Criminal Code, the minimum mandatory sentences therein be increased to three years". Unfortunately, this recommendation was not accepted and that is why I have brought it forward as a Private Members' Bill and in so doing, change the recommended three year mandatory minimum to five years. I do so because I believe three years to be too short for such a serious offence.
Further, I heard that the former Right Hon. John Diefenbaker tried but failed to change the Criminal Code back in 1971 to do exactly what my bill does, that is to provide for a five year minimum. I agreed with him at that time and I decided that if I ever got the opportunity, I would argue for a five year minimum for the criminal use of a firearm.
Here I am today with that opportunity. I truly hope that members of this House will seriously listen to my arguments for this bill.
Further, we all know how our system of sentencing and parole works. Under the Parole and Penitentiary Acts a 12 year sentence can become an eight year sentence by crediting the convicted criminal with 15 days for every 30 days served, thereby reducing the 12 years by one third to eight years. Then that eight years can become four years because the convicted criminal is eligible for parole at the one third point of the 12 year sentence, i.e., the fourth year. In fact, the four years can become two years for day parole purposes because the convicted criminal is eligible and can apply after one sixth of his sentence, i.e., two years, for educational or job related reasons.
Therefore, an armed bank robber who threatened people with death by his gun and received a 12 year sentence can be on day parole after two years and back on the streets after a mere four years of that 12 year sentence.
Under the present law we would have to put a criminal away for 15 years to ensure that he spends at least five years behind bars.
That is what annoys people and that encourages cynicism toward our legal system and courts. A 15 year sentence sounds severe but it becomes five years in practice. As one witness before our committee in expressing outrage complained, and I quote:
There's the young robber out in three years, when the young woman he shot is confined for life in a wheelchair; an innocent victim to a terrible crime.
That is not proportional justice to fit the crime. The present law beginning at a one year minimum is not enough. Three years is not enough. Fifteen years under our present Parole and Penitentiary Acts can become simply five years. That again encourages cynicism and accusations that our laws favour the criminal and not the innocent victim. Therefore, as one means to correct that problem this bill would bring in a five-year mandatory minimum with no parole for that five year period.
Many police chiefs support this bill, including Chief Bill McCormack of the Metropolitan Toronto Police, Chief Constable Bill Marshall of Vancouver, and Chief Vince MacDonald of Halifax. Chief Harold Basse of the Waterloo Regional Police, who is also president of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, wrote the following: "I am pleased to inform you that the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police fully supports the proposals in your bill".
He also wrote:
The introduction of this bill is a very welcome change in attitude toward protecting the public rather than continuing with the trend of only being concerned with the rights of the offender. The increased minimum mandatory sentences should provide a deterrent to the use of a firearm while committing a crime.
He went on to say:
It is also very appropriate that in this proposal it was deemed necessary to include a control over withdrawing or "plea bargaining" away these charges.
Police Chief Borbridge of Calgary said:
I am encouraged by the serious view which is being demonstrated in putting forward this bill. Crimes of a violent nature have increased significantly across this country and it is timely that tougher and more realistic penalties are being considered to be imposed on persons found guilty of such crimes. The proposed penalties not only reflect the severity of the offence but also are reflective of the the communities concerns. The non-eligibility for parole reinforces the seriousness of these crimes.
March 31, 1992

James M. Kingston, chief executive officer of the Canadian Police Association stated:
Please be advised that the Canadian Police Association strongly endorses the intent of your private members' bill. We trust you will secure the necessary support to pass it into law.
I have been advised that I must amend the bill regarding the question of parole. Therefore, if adopted, I would amend the bill to allow parole for any sentence beyond the new minimum mandatory of five years.
I have also been advised that if this amendment is not made this bill might infringe section 12 of the charter of rights which states that everyone has the right not to be subjected to any cruel and unusual treatment or punishment.
Some even argue that the bill, as amended as I have suggested, might still be contrary to section 12 of the charter. However, I think the bill is justified under section 1 of the charter.
As former Chief Justice Brian Dickson said in The Queen v. Oakes:
The rights and freedoms guaranteed by the charter are not, however, absolute. It may become necessary to limit rights and freedoms in circumstances where their exercise would be inimical to the realization of collective goals of fundamental importance. For this reason section 1 provides criteria of justification for limits on the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the charter.
Some people say that the charter forbids any mandatory minimum sentences in the light of the Supreme Court's 1987 decision striking down the mandatory minimum sentence of seven years for the importation of narcotics. To the contrary, Mr. Justice Lamer, in writing for the majority, said the following:
A minimum mandatory term of imprisonment is obviously not in and of itself cruel and unusual. The legislature may, in my view, provide for a compulsory term of imprisonment upon conviction for certain offences without infringing the rights protected by section 12 of the charter. For example, a long term of penal servitude for he or she who has imported large amounts of heroin for the purpose of trafficking would certainly not contravene section 12 of the charter. Quite the contrary.
Here we have two justices of the court who clearly say that we can have minimum mandatories. There is nothing wrong with that as long as it fits the crime. I would suggest this does.
My bill proposes a mandatory minimum sentence to deal with a problem that has as much, if not more, potential to cause serious physical harm and/or death
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than importing drugs. That is the criminal use of firearms. I have nothing against tough sentences against drugs. In fact I would like to see them even stronger. I think the sentencing against the criminal use of firearms needs to be strengthened, and that is the purpose of my bill.
Therefore we should not argue that mandatory mini-mums are ipso facto contrary to the charter. My argument, and it would appear two Supreme Court justices might agree, is that the punishment must fit the crime.
Mr. W. R. Crampton of metropolitan Toronto has provided me with some truly alarming statistics of four different offences committed with a firearm within metropolitan Toronto. Let me give these four sets of statistics.
Murder committed with a firearm from 1989 to 1991, for those three years, increased by 557 per cent. Armed robberies of small businesses with a firearm for the same three years increased by 234 per cent. Bank robberies where a firearm was clearly visible increased by 313 per cent from 1989 to 1991. Assault with a firearm increased 537 per cent from 1980 to 1989, over that 10-year period. Further, robberies with a firearm in my own region of Waterloo in the province of Ontario have increased 420 per cent from 1987 to 1991, over a four-year period.
Every one of these is 300, 400 or 500 per cent. And what are we doing? We are sitting on this offence of one year only. I challenge those who are going to get up later, argue against this bill and talk it out to answer those statistics, to give us their clear reasons. I challenged them to answer what the chief justice of the court has said, to answer what Justice Lamer has said, to give me good reasons and not just a speech of 10 minutes worth of words, and to start saying something real that will speak to those facts.
Let us remember also what we are talking about in this bill. We are talking about about a conscious, deliberate decision to take a gun along in the commission of a crime. It includes a second deliberate decision: to load that gun. That gun does not load itself. That gun does not put itself in the man's pocket. He puts it there. That gun does not come out of his pocket and into his hand when he is committing another offence. He takes it out. Let us remember that when we consider the content of this bill.

March 31, 1992
Private Members' Business
The reasons for taking the gun are also very clear. They are either to threaten or shoot with the intent of serious injury or death, or to shoot at a police officer while fleeing the scene of that crime.
Yes, a five-year minimum with no parole is a severe penalty. There is no question. But so is the penalty of being sentenced by a criminal to life in a wheelchair or the greater consequence of death as the innocent victim of a shooting by a criminal in a hold-up.
A few years ago a constituent of mine told me of the tragic killing of his father in a bank hold-up. His retired father was standing in a line when two armed men came in. They robbed the bank and while fleeing opened fire and killed his father. A loaded gun taken along for criminal purposes is a serious crime that can have serious consequences and must receive the commensurate serious penalties. We must not forget why we are here and what our responsibilities include.
The Law Reform Commission of Canada in 1989 reminded us:
The criminal law is our nation's fundamental statement of public policy. It is the instrument by which the community draws a line between the tolerable and the intolerable. Ultimately, the criminal law is a mirror of what we are; it reflects our commitment, or lack of commitment, to human dignity.
The law does not exist for the sole or primary purpose of punishing illicit acts. It exists, as an expression, in a broad sense, of the kind of people we are. It does not merely regulate our behaviour; it articulates and symbolizes our values and beliefs.
In conclusion, I have given statistics which are truly alarming. I have given quotations from what we heard as a committee on Bill C-80 and Bill C-17. They were unanimous in their call for tougher sentencing of criminals when there is misuse or criminal use of a firearm. I have spoken of the chiefs of police across Canada, all of whom endorse this bill. I have spoken of the membership of the police association which also endorses this bill. I have said that it does not offend the charter, and I have quoted two justices of the court to prove that.
Therefore I ask that members consider this bill very carefully. I ask that members give unanimous consent
today to allow this bill to go to the next stage, that is a legislative committee.


Russell Gregoire MacLellan: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be able to speak today on Bill C-24.
As the hon. member for Kitchener has stated, he was not only a member of the special committee on gun control but he was the chairman. I would say without any hesitation that he did an excellent job in that capacity, which was not the easiest at all times to handle. It was a very contentious subject. There was a wide difference of opinion, not only among the witnesses who came before the committee but among the members of the committee themselves. However I think in hindsight we created a report which was quite helpful.
By way of coincidence today, the Minister of Justice has tabled the first set of regulations under Bill C-17 which, as the hon. member from Kitchener said, was modelled largely on the report of the special committee. I want to commend him for his thoughtful presentation with respect to this bill. I know the concern the hon. member has with regard to lawlessness and increased crime in our communities. Certainly many of us, if not most of us, in this House have similar concerns.
There is an alarming increase in the rate of crime in Canada, particularly in our urban areas. This cannot be allowed to continue. It cannot be allowed to go on unchecked. We have to deal with it. We have to look at the situation in our country and state categorically whether or not we are going to do something about this, or are we going to continue to turn away from it? I do not think there is any question. The public is not going to let us turn away from it.
The member of Parliament wants all Canadians to be more cognizant of the increasing rate of crime in our country. In that regard he has presented a veiy thoughtful bill.
I have problems with some aspects of the bill. As the member stated in the special committee, it was recommended that the minimum for a first offence in the commission of a crime with the use of a firearm be increased from one year to three years and that for a
March 31, 1992

second offence it be increased from three years to five years.
That developed a fair amount of debate and discussion in our committee. For the member to recommend a first offence going from three years, as recommended by the special committee, to five years and from five years on the second offence, as also recommended by the committee, to eight years is extreme and perhaps a little too far the other way. I will state my reasons for thinking that.
First I want to mention, as he has pointed out, that with parole there is a great facility and a great capacity to have sentences reduced. That is a factor, unequivocally.
Flowever, there are other aspects we have to take into consideration, that if we do not have parole then we do not have the ability to reform and rehabilitate. We do not have the carrot to hold in front of a convicted person under this offence to offer some incentive to be rehabilitated.
A lot of people will say that these people cannot be rehabilitated, they are incorrigibles, they are a blight on society. That is not true. Not all people who are convicted of a crime are incorrigible by any stretch of the imagination. Not only that, regardless of what sentence these people are given, what minimum and what maximum and what they ultimately serve, these people are going to be back in society.
It is very important to note that we are going to be dealing with these people in society. We want these people to have learned from the experience. Not all of them will. You cannot have everybody come out of an institution, after having served a penalty, to be perfect and not commit another crime. That is just not the way it is going to happen and it is not the way the system works. What we try to do is have it as successful as we possibly can. We want to increase the odds against these people being repeat offenders.
It is important that we look at this in perspective. One of the institutions that holds our country together is our judicial system. We as Canadians have placed a lot of faith in our judicial system; in our judges and their capacity to make the right decision based on the needs and the dictates of society. We have to give these judges latitude and assume that they know what they are doing.
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If we start creating too many of these minimum offences of really extensive periods of time without parole then we are tying the hands of judges to dispense justice. In other words, we are not allowing them to do their job. I think that would be a mistake because there are incidences where five years would be far too long even for somebody committing a crime with the use of a firearm and that is a serious crime. But if you had a father whose family was going hungry and needed food and the father used a firearm, be it loaded or unloaded, to get food from a convenience store, would you say that warranted five years in prison?
If a father, on hearing that his child had been struck by what was alleged to be a drunken driver and that the child was fatally injured or perhaps seriously injured and could have permanent damage, in a rage of grief took a firearm and shot at the house or in the vicinity of the house of the alleged impaired driver, would that be a situation where the person who committed the offence should be sentenced to a five year term?
These are situations that bear and deserve a lot of consideration. I do not think we can, as members of Parliament, as concerned Canadian citizens, tie the hands of our judiciary, as the hon. member for Kitchener is suggesting.
The member for Kitchener also suggests that there not be any parole during the minimum period. For instance, if someone committed a first offence with the use of a firearm and was sentenced to eight years, because of the five year minimum that person would not be eligible for parole for five years. There would be no incentive for that person.
Do not forget it is the Canadian public that is paying the expenses of that person while he or she is incarcerated. If we are not getting some benefit from that incarceration in the hope that that person will be rehabilitated to a certain extent then it does not matter what maximum we are suggesting. There is not going to be a benefit and the cost is going to be there without the inherent benefit.
The hon. member also suggested that there not be any plea bargaining without the approval of the Attorney General. The crown prosecutors are the agents of the Attorney General. The question is how much can you lay on the Attorney General who is quite busy. What is the situation? Are you going to have a backlog? Are you going to have lengthy delays while the Attorney General

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waits or you are waiting for the Attorney General to make his or her decision?
We also have plea bargaining as a tool of the criminal justice system. I agree that it is used too frequently. But is plea bargaining the culprit or is it a symptom of another greater problem, that we do not have enough judges and justices in our court system, that our court system is backed up. Should we then look at the fact that we need more judges?
We should also look at the idea of community service. Perhaps that would relieve some of the congestion in our judicial system.
While I appreciate what the hon. member is trying to do, I have some problems with the way he is doing it and what he is suggesting. The extreme nature of some of his suggestions would be counterproductive. While I applaud him for his concern, I cannot support this suggested legislation.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak on this bill as the NDP justice critic and also as someone with a background in criminal law.
My first job as a young lawyer was assistant city prosecutor for the city of Vancouver. In that job, I dealt with people who were charged with these sorts of offences and prosecuted cases where people went to jail for these offences. I might say that those who went to jail should have gone to jail for those offences.
After I served as Crown attorney in the city of Vancouver, I spent some time as a defence lawyer. I defended people who were charged with these offences. People say, how can you do that? In our system people are entitled to a fair trial and they are entitled to a fair defence.
The hon. member for Kitchener quoted a past member of this House who originally brought forward the idea of a five-year minimum penalty for an offence with guns, the Right Hon. John Diefenbaker. He too was a defence counsel. He could see both sides and knew that you could defend someone for these offences, but you
also had to prosecute them for these offences and that they were serious offences.
I want to say right out to the member for Kitchener that I agree with zero tolerance for those who commit a crime with firearms. They should go to jail. They should go to jail quickly and they should serve their time in jail. We do need stricter and tougher laws for criminals that use firearms. I want to say that right out. It needs to be said.
Having said that, I know the hon. member chaired the committee on Bill C-80, the first gun control bill. It then became Bill C-17. As my hon. friend and colleague for Cape Breton-The Sydneys, the Liberal justice critic said, the hon. member for Kitchener did an outstanding job in chairing that committee. I do not have any hesitation in saying that. Politically, we do not agree on many things although there is some agreement here. I want to say right out he did a good job with that committee. I am tempted to say I wish the Beaudoin-Dobbie committee had been more like our other committee on Bill C-17.
He will forgive me and allow me to quote myself from the committee report because he did allow members, unlike Beaudoin-Dobbie, to sign the report but also to put in an addendum, to flag important issues. I want to quote myself on page 68 from my addendum under Criminal Misuse of Firearms:
The special committee proposes much stiffer penalties for criminal misuse of firearms. For example, it is recommended that a minimum term for the use of a gun in the commission of an offence be tripled.
That was one year to three years. The member's bill proposes five years.
I agree with this recommendation. However, I believe the special committee mistakenly sees longer sentences as a trade off for weakening the controls on firearms of Bill C-80. The focus on jail terms for criminals is an easy one for politicians.
Perhaps I was being a little bit harsh, but I did say "an easy one for politicians".
In some way, it is an extension of the oft-heard phrase "guns don't kill people; people kill people". We need strong controls on firearms and tough penalties for those who misuse them. People with guns kill people.
What I was saying there and I say now is a bit of a warning. Do not think by passing a tougher law on criminal misuse of firearms that the problem of gun control is solved.
March 31, 1992

The regulations that came in today in the House of Commons really basically deal with the non-criminal use of guns which we have to deal with and I will come back to that in a moment.
I think someone said 1,400 people a year die through accidents and suicides and so on. These are not criminals, so we cannot use it as a trade off. We cannot say, as many people said in the gun control debate: "Don't have strong gun control. Just focus on criminals who use guns". I say we have to do both. I want to make that very clear.
The bill that the hon. member for Kitchener introduces does four things as I understand it.
The first one is that it would toughen up section 85 of the Criminal Code so a minimum mandatory sentence would be increased from one year to three years for a first offence.
Second, there would be no eligibility for parole.
Let me just backtrack on the first one because I want to say I am prepared to see this bill go to committee. We could seriously consider it as a piece of legislation. The increase from one year to five, I think the committee has to look perhaps at three. The hon. member from Cape Breton-The Sydneys said that. That is a matter we can debate in committee.
I accept the principle in the bill that it should be increased from the one year. As the hon. member knows, I have changed my mind. I have been listening, as I should and of course as I do all the time, to my constituents from Port Moody-Coquitlam and I am very disturbed that the ordinary person is getting disturbed, upset and scared about the increase in violent crime in Canada. To me, that is not good.
It is not good that we have the increase in violent crime. It is important that people are concerned. I say this to my constituents who may be reading this or who may be watching this that I am listening to what they are saying. That is why I am supporting the hon. member today.
Second, he says that there should be no eligibility for parole. Well, I wonder about that. I have a question mark there. We do that; it is not a precedent. We do it on
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murder, do we not? No eligibility for a certain number of years.
I would not want to hurt the parole system. I would want to hear more about that from the hon. member in committee. I know he said he has offered some amendments to his bill. I want to see those amendments and look at it closely and I flag that as a concern I do have.
Third, he says the bill also specifically prevents the mandatory sentence from having an impact on the sentence imposed for another offence. I think that is a good idea and I support that.
Fourth, he says the bill also requires the consent of the provincial attorney general before any section 85 charge, that is a charge of having a weapon while committing an offence, before that could be withdrawn or plea-bargained away. I want to tell the hon. member that in my court when I was Crown attorney, no one plea-bargained away a case of having a gun. I used to say to my clients when I was defence counsel: "You are charged with a gun offence. You are looking at a jail term".
The hon. member has told me that things have changed in the courts. I am surprised. It was always my experience that if you had a gun in an offence situation you got mandatory time for that. You were convicted.
I can accept that. It leaves a situation where there might be an extraordinary circumstance. I have given an example of an aboriginal person in a northern settlement. It is easy to be charged with robbery when someone with a gun has been drinking. With hunters or trappers the gun is there all the time and it would be easy to get into a situation where there would be some unique case that would be out of line. I think the hon. member captures that in his bill. I am glad he put that in.
Let me summarize by saying that I believe there should be zero tolerance. I believe that we should have tough laws with respect to the commission of an offence. I also believe that we should have good and effective gun control on other issues and that is the non-criminal element of the crime.
I do not believe that semi-automatic assault weapons, converted weapons, should be flowing into this country as they are now. This government is not acting fast enough to bring in effective regulations to stop that.

March 31, 1992
Private Members' Business
Having said all that, I would like to conclude that we do need a new look at our justice system. As a part of that we have to look at gun control and tougher penalties for crimes with guns.
We have to look at a change in the juvenile system. I am getting that from my constituents. We have to work at crime prevention. Finally, we have to look at real rehabilitation of offenders so that they do not just get out of jail and then commit another offence. That is the challenge.
This bill is worth considering. It is part of the challenge. I am prepared to sit down now and let the bill go to committee.


Hon. David MacDonald (Rosedale):: Mr. Speaker, I will not speak for very long, although it is almost dangerous to make that statement in this Chamber at the outset of one's remarks.
Like the other members who have spoken, I certainly appreciate the interest, the concern and the intense activity the member for Kitchener has given to this matter, not just in the bill but in the chairing of the committee and in concerning himself with something that certainly concerns many, if not most Canadians.
I represent one of the areas in Canada which can be the most readily affected by the use of guns in the commission of a crime, downtown Toronto. My constituents are well aware of the dangers.
During the course of the last year or two the Minister of Justice introduced first Bill C-80 and then Bill C-17,1 believe it was. This was extremely important.
I did hear from some specialized groups in the community who were concerned about the restrictions that might apply to those who were recreational or competitive users of guns. I would certainly say that the vast majority of people in my constituency were concerned that we would do everything we possibly could to avoid the increase of guns in the commission of crimes.
I welcome the' interest not just of the member for Kitchener but the others who have spoken. However, I want to speak directly to the proposal in front of us. It is a proposal that raises some very serious questions. It raises two, in particular, that I want to deal with directly.
It raises the question of the ability of the courts to distinguish between the kinds of crimes that are being committed. In the debate over the course of the last few minutes we have seen the variety of situations that can occur in real life. We heard an eloquent plea from the member for Kitchener in terms of the importance of having these minimum sentences of five and eight years. We heard an eloquent alternative opinion from the member for Cape Breton-The Sydneys when he described the situations in which the courts would virtually have their hands tied in dealing with an individual who, in the heat of the moment or by accident or in some situation with extenuating circumstances, could have his or her life virtually totally destroyed and not only that individual's but those who might depend on that individual. Not to have any ability for the courts to deal with the variety of those situations seems to me to reduce both our respect for and our capacity to use the courts in a way that makes the criminal justice system serve the interests of all Canadians.
I would have some real difficulty in accepting that. When we are increasingly wanting to see the courts exercise responsibility in our society, and certainly that has been the trend over a great number of years now, to put these kinds of inhibitions into the situation would perhaps do significant damage to our courts. I have not been convinced yet of the wisdom of that.
My more important concern touches on something which I do know a fair bit about. Many years ago, before I became a member of this Chamber, I worked as a prison chaplain in several institutions. I worked with a number of people who had been incarcerated for a variety of criminal offences, but the one thing that I was able to learn over a period of several years was that it was absolutely important, along with the incarceration of the individual who had committed an offence, that there was sufficient flexibility beyond the original sentencing period for there to be a recognition that this individual ultimately will be released back into society.
By the establishment of some kind of arbitrary sentencing requirement, in this case for the first offence, one of five years; for the second offence, eight years, I think we would be in danger of creating within our penal system a situation which would do, I believe quite frankly, significant damage.
March 31, 1992

I have heard nothing convincing in what has been said today either by the member for Kitchener or others in what is magic about imposing an absolute requirement for a five year sentence in the commission of a first crime or eight years on the second, that the day after those five years or that eight year period is completed, that individual is going to be safe to be released back into society.
If I took the member for Kitchener's proposition to its ultimate conclusion, I would say you would put on such a sentence that they might never come back into society. I do not think he is arguing that.
I do not know what is important about five and eight years. What I do know is that it would absolutely prevent, in a number of instances, the assured rehabilitation and the safe release back into society of these individuals.
I have to tell the member for Kitchener that recidivism is still a considerable problem within our institutions. This does not address that issue. Until that is addressed I for one could not support this kind of a proposition.
The third and final thing I want to say is this. The issue, in my mind, is dealing with the thing that we all agree on is not what you do after the offence has been committed, it is how you prevent the offence in the first place. All that has been said about the availability of guns, the acceptability of guns, the way in which guns can flow across the border into this country, those are important issues and the circumstances under which guns are made available, particularly to young people.
I will come here and work with anyone who can do more than that, but I must say that I have been
Private Members' Business
impressed by the Minister of Justice, by the present legislation, by the work that my colleagues have done on this, and I would like to see to what extent we have been able to help the situation along and then let us come back and discuss it.
At this point in time to just arbitrarily impose these restrictions, I have to say, with great respect for my colleague from Kitchener, I simply could not at this point, as an isolated thing, support it. I think there will be real dangers and extensive damage done as a result.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: There being no further members rising on debate, the time provided for the consideration of Private Members' Business has now expired.
A point of order, the hon. member for Kitchener.


John Henry Reimer: Yes, on a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I realize there is still some time left in the hour. I wonder if I might seek unanimous consent of the House to permit this bill to go on to committee?


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


Some hon. members:: No.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Pursuant to Standing Order 96(1), the order is dropped from the Order Paper.
It now being 6.50 p.m., this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at two o'clock p.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 6.50 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Wednesday, April 1,1992